Purity Culture and The Consequences of Abstinence-Only Sex Education in a Post-Roe Society

Hello and welcome to my podcast. Today I’ll be discussing purity culture in America and the rise of abstinence-only sex education. What values does purity culture uphold in American society? What are the consequences of abstinence-only education in a post-roe society? Make sure to stick around to find out. 

 First of all, what exactly is purity culture? Although an emphasis on purity had been a component of Christian culture and writing for a while, purity culture, as a youth movement, followed the rise of evangelical Christianity in the 1990s with Christian groups encouraging teenagers to abstain from sexual intercourse before marriage. A 1993 pamphlet from the Protestant organization “Focus on the Family” titled “How to Help Your Kids Say “No” to Sex” tells parents to teach their children about abstinence instead of how to practice safe sex because “apart from moral considerations… abstinence is the only true comprehensive sex education” While there is nothing inherently wrong with all of this, the values and biases upheld by purity culture is where things start to get a bit more complicated. 

A Sage Journal article, “Decolonizing Purity Culture: Gendered Racism and White Idealization in Evangelical Christianity” describes purity culture as quote “normalizing the oppression of women’s bodies, restricting sexual agency, is replete with narratives of shame, and perpetuates rape culture” end quote. Emphasis is placed on women’s bodies being the center of men’s uncontrollable sexual desires– pressuring women to take measures such as dressing modestly to make sure men can manage their sexuality, blaming falling on the woman when men fail to control their desires.  However, not all women experience purity culture in the same way. The most notable group within the purity movement in the 90s was the Southern Baptist Convention with its creation of the True Love Waits campaign launched in 1993. This same group, otherwise known as the Southern Baptist denomination, heavily advocated for segregation and the enslavement of African Americans throughout American history. Taking this framework into consideration, women of color face a unique struggle within purity culture. 

As a country, America was built on the foundation of exploiting the bodies of women of color. Colonialists used sexual violence as a means of control over Indigenous women in the 15th century and the bodies of enslaved women were viewed as quote “continually sexually available to white men” throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. But the sexualization of women of color is not just an event of the past, even today women of color continue to be stereotyped as hypersexual and disproportionately face a higher risk of sexual harm than their white counterparts. I mean if you were to pause this podcast and google “pure woman” or “faithful woman” the first results you’d see would be images of white women staring back at you from your screen– they have been the ones framed as being the epitome of purity– not women of color. 

Now that you know a little bit more about purity culture, it’s time to talk about something super fun– purity culture’s influence on sex education in America! Yay! Ok so maybe not like “yay” as in “Yay kids aren’t getting comprehensive sex education” but more like “Yay now we’ve gotten to the second half of the podcast!” I’m not going to spend too much time on an in-depth history of abstinence education in the U.S., but rather on the growing challenges of mandating it in a Post-Roe country. But if you want to learn more about the history of abstinence education, Sex Ed for Social Change¹ and the National Coalition Against Censorship² both have detailed timelines on their websites which I’ll include in my footnotes. 

In 1981 the Reagan administration enacted the Adolescent Family Life Act, the first federal abstinence-only program. The Adolescent Family Life Act was actually challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union in a 1988 lawsuit, Bowen v Kendrick on the basis that the program did not adhere to principles of separating church and state. Circling back to that pamphlet I mentioned earlier– “How to Help Your Kids Say No to Sex” actually mentions this lawsuit, stating that while yes abstinence is a principle taught in the Bible  it doesn’t violate the separation of church  and state because “ schools already teach that it is wrong to steal, cheat, lie, rape and murder, all of which comes straight out of the Bible.” This lawsuit was ultimately reversed by the Supreme Court. 

Flash forward 13 years to 2024, and only 21 states require that information on contraception is provided while 37 states require that the importance of abstinence is emphasized in their sex ed curriculum. These states include Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, and Florida. What I find interesting, is that when comparing a map of states that stress abstinence-only education, states restricting abortion, and states with the highest teen birth rates, they look pretty much identical. Let’s look at one of the abstinence-only states I mentioned, Mississippi. According to the CDC, Mississippi has the highest rate of teen pregnancies and is labeled by Planned Parenthood as being “most restrictive” when it comes to abortion policies. So what does this tell us? Abstinence is not effective sex education. It doesn’t successfully prevent sex before marriage and only withholds information from teenagers so when they do choose to have sex– they don’t have comprehensive knowledge on their contraceptive options and how to prevent an unplanned pregnancy. On top of this, if a teenager does end up pregnant, the strict abortion bans in their state will strip them of their choice to terminate their pregnancy, leading to higher birth rates for teenagers. A pattern that will only continue as conservative leadership strengthens post election. 

While purity culture as a youth movement emerged in the 1990s, its roots can be found, deeply ingrained, in American history. Purity culture continues to shape societal norms and policies, normalizing of the oppression of women’s bodies, upholding systems of white supremacy, and keeping rape culture alive and thriving in our society. Exploring the impact of purity culture on sex education reveals a concerning emphasis on abstinence-only education; an approach that has been proven to be ineffective and detrimental to youth– especially in a post-Roe America. In challenging the dominance of purity culture, we must advocate for inclusive and censorship-free approaches to sex education, now more than ever so that we can ensure the health and safety of American youth, empowering them with accurate information and bodily autonomy. Only through these efforts can we begin to dismantle the harmful legacies of purity and ensure a future where all youth can make informed choices about their lives and reproductive health. Thanks for listening. 

Pamphlet: How to Help Your Kids Say “No” to Sex. Pro-Life Alliance records, Smith College    Archives, CA-MS-00309, Smith College Special Collections, Northampton, Massachusetts. Accessed November 19. 

Natarajan, M., Wilkins-Yel, K. G., Sista, A., Anantharaman, A., & Seils, N. (2022). Decolonizing Purity Culture: Gendered Racism and White Idealization in Evangelical Christianity. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 46(3), 316-336. https://doi.org/10.1177/03616843221091116

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 2022. “Teen Birth Rate by State.” National Center for Health Statistics. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/teen-births/teenbirths.htm.

McCammon, Sarah. 2017. “Abstinence Programs Don’t Stop Teen Pregnancies Or STDs : Shots – Health News.” NPR. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/08/23/545289168/abstinence-education-is-ineffective-and-unethical-report-argues.

National Coalition Against Censorship. 2023. “Timeline of Abstinence-Only Education in U.S. Classrooms.” ncac.org. https://ncac.org/resource/timeline-of-abstinence-only-education-in-u-s-classrooms.

Planned Parenthood. 2024. “Sex Education Laws and State Attacks.” Planned Parenthood Action Fund. https://www.plannedparenthoodaction.org/issues/sex-education/sex-education-laws-and-state-attacks.

Planned Parenthood. 2024. “Where is Abortion Illegal? | Abortion Limits by State.” Planned Parenthood Action Fund. https://www.plannedparenthoodaction.org/abortion-access-tool/US.

SIECUS. 2019. “A History of Abstinence-Only Funding in the U.S.” Sex Ed For Social Change. https://siecus.org/resource/a-history-of-abstinence-only-federal-funding/#:~:text=Beginning%20in%201981%20under%20the,to%20achieve%20their%20stated%20goals.

SIECUS. 2023. “Detailed Insights on U.S. Sex Education Policies.” SIECUS State Profiles. https://siecus.org/siecus-state-profiles/.

UC Berkeley. 2016. “Religion and Sex: The Politics of Abstinence-Only Sex Education.” Berkeley Political Review. https://bpr.studentorg.berkeley.edu/2016/05/14/religion-and-sex-the-politics-of-abstinence-only-sex-education/