Purity Culture & Christianity

Sex is a topic that many of us are uncomfortable talking about. It is viewed by some as taboo, confusing, and shameful. And for others, it can be a very painful subject. Unfortunately, this carries through into the Church, where we don’t spend nearly enough time talking about sex.

God designed sexual intimacy to be enjoyed between a husband and wife in the context of marriage. He created sex and is not ashamed of it. It is meant to be mutually fulfilling, and a special bond that is shared with your spouse. But when this gift is perverted and misused, it can cause terrible damage.

ngaged couples tend to be excited for sex. Especially for many Christians, the countdown is not for the wedding day—it’s for the wedding night. But why is it, then, that eager anticipation so often flips to begrudging obligation?

I tinkered with lots of clever and pithy titles for this blog, but in the end, I decided to go with the basic rule of advertising – “It does exactly what it says on the tin”. It’s obvious, but it’s clear. The reason for that is that this is something we don’t talk about much except in high profile cases. When it comes to sexual coercion in marriage, it’s something we don’t really talk about it at all. I wanted the title to be clear so people could engage with it straight away. Because sexual coercion is real, it happens in marriage all the time and it’s horrifically damaging. Which means we have work to do.

So we started with cutting big chunks (which is often easier than cutting a sentence here or there.) And one chapter that we removed was sex as transaction. Our obligation sex message originally had three chapters: Sex as transactional; sex as obligation; sex as coercion. They’re all on the spectrum of the same message–you need to give your husband sex when he wants it.