FAM, purity culture & sex: My thoughts
What did your school sex education entail? I think back to health class and there are a few distinct memories that come to mind. I remember learning that sexually transmitted infections were terrible. I remember learning about periods but not about pleasure. I remember being taught that boys had wet dreams and therefore masturbation for boys was normal. I distinctly remember being told that a baby was a human being from conception, along with pictures of fetuses lining the classroom walls.
Why do I come back so often to my experience of sex education? Learning about sexuality, purity culture, pleasure and sensuality has become part of my job as a FAM educator and I feel a bit ripped off thinking about my own high school sex education as a teen. I can think of a long list of things that were missing.
I wanted to make sense of the ways in which myself and so many of my clients were taught about sex in the early years, and create a new narrative as I teach. In my journey unpacking my early experiences with sex education as well as hearing the stories from my own clients, I came across the term purity culture.
Meet purity culture and abstinence only sex education
According to Lindsay Klein, author of Pure: Inside the Evangelical Movement that Shamed a Generation of Young Women and How I Broke Free purity culture is a set of beliefs that exist within but are not exclusive to the evangelical Christian community. These beliefs are an overt example of how western, colonial, patriarchal culture views and shames women’s sexuality. Looking at such an extreme manifestation of these beliefs sheds light on the subtle manifestations of our society’s narratives around sexuality.
According to Klein, purity culture is the notion that “everyone is expected to maintain absolute sexlessness before marriage (that means no sexual thoughts, feelings, or actions). And upon marriage, they are expected to flip their sexuality on like a light switch. However, men are taught their minds are evil, whereas women are taught their bodies are evil.” Does this sound familiar?
Another perspective that underscores the way we were taught about sex is abstinence based sex education: sex ed that promotes abstinence only until marriage. This type of sex education is promoted more strongly in certain geographical areas, including the United States. Abstinence based sex ed offers scientifically incorrect information or incomplete information. It leaves young people without the basic tools they need to navigate their sexuality, leaves them feeling ashamed about their decisions and thoughts and puts them at risk because they have ZERO information. Not to mention, by placing an emphasis on heterosexual married intercourse as the only ‘acceptable’ type of sex, it causes harm and perpetuates stigma by not meeting the needs of LGBTQ2S+ youth.
What does purity culture and abstinence- based education have to do with our experience of sex? Well, pretty much everything.
When we are not taught about sex, or when we’re only told to fear sex (it goes something like: don’t have sex, you will get an STI) it is incredibly harmful. This manifests explicitly - through the sex education we do (or don’t) receive, or implicitly through the messages we receive from our culture.
What we are taught about sex shows up in the bedroom.
We’re not given the tools or knowledge around sex. We’re not told to prioritize our pleasure as women. We’re not told that sex is good, natural or enjoyable. Purity culture beliefs go the extra mile by saying that not only is sexual desire bad, but as women with sexual desire we are inherently bad.
In the past few years I’ve been able to reclaim my sexuality and sort out which beliefs are mine and which beliefs I’ve inherited from the culture of purity and abstinence. I’ve begun to view my pleasure and sexuality as inherently good. One of the ways I’ve done this is through learning, practicing and teaching fertility awareness.
Taking a sex positive approach to teaching my FAM course, Cycle Love, has been empowering and healing for my own journey. Sex positivity to me means offering options and knowledge on how to use barrier methods safely and effectively. It means being a non-judgemental person for folks to come to with questions about sex. It means acknowledging sex can include non penetrative or what I call ‘alternative sex’ and that different types of intimacy are not part of a hierarchy. It means encouraging my clients to prioritize pleasure.
Sex positivity is an approach that affirms that sex is good, and that having sex or wanting to have sex does not make you bad.
Unlike your high school sex education, you can CHOOSE your fertility awareness education. Everything I teach as an educator fills the gaps of what you weren’t taught as a teen. Fertility awareness education can be your second sex ed, and it can be different this time around. It’s up to you. You can choose to learn about your body, you get to prioritize pleasure, and you don’t need to feel shame for being a sexual being.
FAM is your permission slip to create a new narrative around sexuality, one important step on the journey in your relationship to sex and pleasure.