no bikinis at the beach: memories from purity culture
"Two-piece swimsuits must be covered by a shirt."
one.
Our summer Bible study homework is to write a list of physical boundaries for when we have boyfriends someday. I think holding hands is okay, but beyond that I’m not sure. Second base is probably off-limits, but no boy would want to reach mine anyway. There’s nothing sexy about mosquito bites.
two.
Seventh grade is when I start attending youth group retreats. Whenever one of these retreats involves swimming, every list of guidelines given to the students includes some version of these sentences: Girls may not wear bikinis to the beach. Two-piece swimsuits must be covered by a shirt. It’s 2006, long before the era of one-pieces becoming trendy again, so my mom and I spend agonizing hours combing through department store racks until we finally give up on finding a bargain and go to a sports store. The black-and-hot-pink number is brand name and costs more than I think any swimsuit should, and it clings like a suction cup to my bean pole body. But it meets church camp requirements, so I wear it at the beach alongside shirtless seventh and eighth grade boys.
three.
Once, my eighth grade science teacher stops in the middle of a lecture to pull my best friend outside the room and scold her about the amount of cleavage she’s showing. We can all hear her yelling through the door. When they come back inside, my friend cries for the rest of class.
four.
I lie in bed and read an article in Brio magazine about how a girl’s purity is like a beautiful white gift box. Every time you give it away to someone who isn’t your future husband, it’s like tearing that box open and trampling on its contents. Eventually you show up to your wedding night with dirty, crumpled up cardboard. Your husband still loves you, but you’ve ruined his gift.
five.
During a stormy ride home from Six Flags, my friend declares that she has decided to wait to kiss her boyfriend until they get engaged, just like our Bible study leader did. I watch rain droplets race down the car window and wonder if it’s wrong to say that I don’t want to wait that long. After all, I’m pretty sure my parents kissed in high school.
six.
In ninth grade, my friend’s mom hosts a monthly dinner and Bible study at her house. We read the book Pure by Rebecca St. James. I come away from it with a list of ways I can save myself for my future husband, and a really good recipe for cheeseburger soup.
seven.
One night while my mom and I are in Barnes & Noble, she picks up a popular book called I Kissed Dating Goodbye. I haven’t read it, but I know enough to tell her to put it back or else I won’t be allowed to have a boyfriend until I’m at least eighteen. Years later, I find her dusty copy buried in a box of books in our attic.
eight.
Sophomore year of high school, our youth group does a whole unit about sex. The girls watch a video series about boundaries and modesty. We discuss pressing issues like “How far is too far?” and “Is it okay to wear spaghetti straps?” The guys go into a separate room to talk about porn and masturbation.
nine.
Shortly after our fifteenth birthdays, a friend who has different beliefs about sex than I do proudly tells me she just lost her virginity. I hang up the phone, go upstairs to my room, and start to cry.
ten.
Sometime during my early college days, I dog-sit for a friend and stumble upon a copy of a book about Christian dating in her room. When I get to the chapter about boundaries, it says that Christian brothers and sisters probably shouldn’t do anything physical that they wouldn’t do with their biological brothers and sisters. It also says, in chapters called “Porn for Guys” and “Porn for Girls,” that while guys struggle with actual pornography like photos and videos, girls struggle with “emotional pornography” like romantic books and movies that set their expectations too high.
There’s a line somewhere in the chapter for girls that says yes, some girls do struggle with actual pornography, but it’s a small percentage and not worth talking about.
A large part of of healing from sexual shame required unlearning the “rules” of purity culture that I’d been taught starting around the time I was ten years old. For a very long time, I saw no reason to question these teachings.
Of course it made sense for girls to shoulder the burden of helping Christian brothers not to stumble by covering up our shoulders.
Of course it made sense that doing anything beyond holding hands with a man you were dating could damage yourself for your future husband.
Of course it made sense that girls need to be the ones to say no when things get too hot and heavy, because guys don’t have the self-control to stop things in the heat of the moment. God just made them different that way.
Of course it made sense that girls and women don’t struggle with pornography and masturbation the same way guys do, and the fact that I was a girl who did just meant there was something deeply wrong with me and I could never tell a single soul about it.
Right?
While I certainly have a bone to pick with purity culture, the remnants of which still occasionally show up in Christian teachings and make my skin crawl, I haven’t abandoned the concept of purity altogether. It’s just that there’s a stark difference in the beliefs I hold now — as a reconstructing follower of Jesus in her adulthood — than the beliefs I held then, as an impressionable youth group girl eager to please any form of authority around her.
That difference is the fact that I know and understand the heart of God better now than I ever did then. I know that this God puts boundaries in place not as a strict, overbearing father figure sitting on a dimly lit porch with a shotgun, waiting for his wayward daughter to come home after dark.
He puts boundaries in place because of His boundless, unfathomable, everlasting love for this daughter. He puts them in place because He knows that His way of living is the best way for her heart, her soul, and her body.
And He also knows this daughter’s heart better than anyone else in the world. He knows that when she runs to those things He’s called her away from, she’s usually doing it for a reason only He and her know. Maybe it’s shame, maybe it’s anxiety, maybe it’s a nagging memory of feeling unloved as a little girl. She may not even know the reason herself.
So even if that beloved child of His strays from those guidelines, He’s still waiting on that porch: shotgun-less and with His arms open, waiting to wrap her in a hug, whisper His forgiveness into her burning ears, and trace His loving finger over her tear-stained cheeks.
He’s waiting to remind her that He’s already made her pure.
Thank you for this, Kaiti. Your stories echo so much of what I was taught as well, and I think I'm still unpacking it all! I love the image you've painted at the end of God, still on the porch, without a shotgun... It's so encouraging to read of someone else deconstructing the toxicity of purity culture teachings without throwing out the idea of purity—from a good place—altogether.
Having struggled with pornography and masturbation myself, I used to be terrified of sex and intimacy and loving affection. Thank God, I healed from that and my marriage is sexually healthy. I am glad, glad, to hear from you and how far you’ve gotten in your heart and mind with purity and what it really does mean. I recently wrote about my experiences with being addicted to pornography, if you want to read it.