Things I'm Reading: "I Kissed Purity Culture Goodbye"

At First Things, here.

It was hard to grow up as a teenager in the late 1990s, growing up in the American Bible Belt, without bumping up against Joshua Harris. His book I Kissed Dating Goodbye (which advocates for exactly what it says on the tin) was hugely influential, and while my sister and I were never really pushed to give up dating entirely, this whole idea that sexual and romantic purity was very much the ideal and the best way to a lasting marriage and a satisfying sex life within those bounds (which again was very much the gold standard) was so much a part of people's assumptions you almost didn't have to make it explicit by naming it.

Recently Josh Harris stopped publishing the book and apologized for the harm it had done, so a lot of evangelical-niche blogs (and conservative religious-niche generally; First Things is Catholic of course) have been talking about the purity culture the book kicked off. Favale's reaction is one of the better ones I've come across. And I think she's definitely right: any pastoral care of young Christians on sex and romance needs to start with why rather than how. (I think that's true on any number of issues and for other ages, too, though obviously my generation's willingness to question and go against institutions makes this more important with us.)

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