 Today I'm going to be debunking seven lies that the purity culture tries to propagate. Chances are you may have been taught these lies and maybe even still believe them. So stay tuned. What's up guys? My name is Isaac David and this is The Daily Disciple where I hope you follow Jesus daily. Today's video is brought to you by my patrons on Patreon. It's because of your guys support that I'm able to continue to do this. You keep my ministry going and growing so thank you. If you're not familiar with purity culture, be thankful number one. But if you grew up in an evangelical church or maybe you were homeschooled or maybe you were just a, you know, Christian kid growing up in the early 2000s, most likely you've encountered purity culture material. You know, the motivation of purity culture didn't come from a bad place, I don't think in large part. People saw the promiscuity that was going on and they wanted some sort of biblical response. So they started creating a lot of material about how to stay sexually pure. Books like I Kiss, Dating, Goodbye, really convinced people and encouraged them that sexual purity is an important aspect of their Christian walk. I don't disagree with that at all. Unfortunately, there have been some progressive Christians that have seen purity culture as an opportunity to deny that we should have any sexual purity at all or strive for that. Like God has anything to say about sexuality at all. That's not my stance at all because I do believe that God has some clear things to say about sexuality. My critique is that purity culture has gone about it in a very wrong way, that has harmed a lot of people and has demonstrated some real lies that we as Bible-believing Christians, people that want to honor God with their sexuality, we need to confront these lies head on. Now on to the lies. Virginity is your most precious gift. I've heard this so many times, especially directed at women. And I think it's from a good intention. Like they want women to value their virginity, value their sexuality, not just give it away to anybody so they emphasize, hey, it's your most precious gift. Unfortunately, in emphasizing so much about virginity specifically, they actually end up shaming not only sexual assault survivors, but also people that have had sex outside of marriage before they became a Christian. They walk into church expecting to encounter the redemption that comes through Christ, but in turn, they're actually told this most valuable part of you. It can never be recovered and you are less of a person. You are less valuable. And often it's emphasized less valuable to men, which is a very toxic thing to be perpetuating to women. But it's also like you are less valuable because you've lost this thing. It doesn't emphasize the redemption of our sexuality that is found in Christ. Like I believe when we are made new, all aspects of us are made new in Christ. That means our sexuality as well. So all that passion and baggage, that is all put at the foot of the cross. I think about what I want my younger sisters to be taught. And it's not that I want them to be taught, oh, virginity is your most precious gift. And if you screw that up, you are a piece of garbage. No, it's like God created you in his image. He loves you. You are worth so much to him. I think that's where the emphasis needs to be. And in putting the emphasis there, I think we're going to help a lot of people that have either been victims of sexual assault or have made mistakes in their life and gone down paths. They didn't want to go down or they regret going down. I think it'll help those people heal both guys and girls. Second line, men's lust is a woman's fault. You know, I said I grew up in purity culture. Well, my parents did a really good job at really guarding me and protecting me. And I think a lot of my siblings, too, from these kind of harmful lies that the purity culture was trying to say and teach teens and kids. But unfortunately, it's made its way into a lot of books, sermons, teachings. And it's really not great. And it's not biblical. When we think of Jesus, right? Like I think back to Jesus saying, if you look at a woman to lust after her, you've already committed adultery with her in your heart. It talks a lot about you, right? It's like if you look at a woman and you commit adultery in your heart, I think that's where the emphasis needs to be. Too often, I feel like, and I'm saying this as a guy, we're given an escape from what we should be taking responsibility for. It's a lot easier to say, and I'm going to talk about modesty in a little bit, but it's a lot easier to say, oh, it's this girl's fault because, you know, she's not doing what I think she should be doing or she's being provocative or whatever. It's a lot easier to shift that blame than to take a look at our own heart and say, wait, I don't have to look at women as sexual objects. I can actually see them as image bears. I don't have to lust after them. That's not something I have to do. If I actually look at my own heart and ask God, hey, God, change my heart, you know, make me new, that's my desire. That ought to be our desire is guys not shifting the blame. Like, you know, this lie of purity culture that tries to get us to say, oh, it's woman's fault. No, it's like, okay, I'm going to take responsibility for this. And I want to, God, I want you to transform me into the self-controlled, dignified man that you can make me through your power and presence. That's who I want to be. And I think that's the message we need to be teaching guys. Number three is that modesty is only for women, basically, right? Like, you know, maybe you throw in there a little bit. Oh, it's for guys too. But we're talking about women here. Purity culture was huge in this, is talking about modesty. I've talked about modesty before. And I've talked about the kind of twisted nature that a lot of these conversations around purity take place. They blame women. They say, okay, you need to dress a certain way, specified way. You only got to wear dresses. You only got to wear skirts, whatever. Because at this point, we're totally focused on guys, right? What do guys think? Are guys going to stumble? But I think a lot of what, unfortunately, these conversations didn't address is that a guy can lust after a girl no matter what she's wearing, right? And I'm not saying that girls shouldn't seek to be dignified in the way they dress. But I'm saying that their attention should not be on other guys and saying, oh, what does he want me to wear? What does Craig think is cool? Or how do I not make Jimmy lust because I got to wear this certain thing? It's like, no, how would God actually want me to dress? And that's how guys should be too, right? How does God want me to dress? So often, we're so focused on the other sex, the other gender. And we're like, oh, man, what do they need? What do they need? And we need to actually refocus ourselves on God. And that's the whole point with modesty, right? It's like, okay, it's not about the other person. It's about how would God want me to dress as an image bear and not drawing attention to myself, being modest and humble. That's really the idea, right? Being humble in the way we dress. And the sad truth is because this conversation around modesty has been so toxic and man-focused, a lot of women will just basically deny the need for modesty at all. Or any, like, because they're just like, well, that's associated with purity culture and that's messed up and all that. And it's like, yes, I get it. But now there's all this baggage connected to modesty, where as a guy, I don't think you should dress for me. I don't think you should dress with me in mind. No, I think you should dress with how God wants you to dress. But honestly, when you do that, when you have God in mind, when you're focused on him, that benefits everyone around you, including guys, right? And so I'm thankful for that. I'm thankful when somebody pursues God in their life and it just makes it easier to follow him. But that's not where your attention should be. Your attention should be on God. And so it's just sad to see the baggage that has been associated with the conversation. I'm hoping then the couple years, like as time goes on, a lot of that will dissipate as purity culture becomes further and further in the past and we can begin to have another conversation about what does biblical modesty look like? Because that's an important conversation to have. Line number four is that men are incapable of setting good sexual boundaries and women, it's their job, to be the gatekeepers. As I was processing this lie and a couple of the ones to come, I was reading this book called The Great Sex Rescue. It had some great counterpoints to a lot of the lies that purity culture propagates and was definitely an aid to me in making this video. So not only does this lie paint a very terrible picture of men, like we are just basically sexual animals who cannot control ourselves, we cannot control our sexual urges, and it is completely up to young women, because this is who it's targeted at, to fend guys off. And I mean, like, there are a lot of guys out there, I know them, right? Who respect women, who treat them with courtesy, who value them as people and as image bears, and who do set boundaries. And so when you paint every man to a girl, when you talk to a girl and you're like, every guy is going to be crazy like that, everyone's like, I get this fear-mongering tactic, because you want your daughter or girl and your youth group to be safe, and you're teaching them, so you want her to be cautious and be ready, because guys are just out there wild, right? But it really disrespects guys, it's really a disservice to guys. And it's also putting a lot of pressure on girls. I think the big thing with purity culture, man, it's putting so much pressure on girls. They got to be like, okay, virginity is their most precious gift, they got to be modest and they got to fend guys off and know how to set good boundaries because guys have just no sense or courtesy for boundaries. I just don't think that's true, number one, and I don't think it's helpful to teach girls that. I think it's helpful to teach guys and girls both how to set good boundaries. Let's have that conversation. Let's have the conversation and how to respect each other and less of this kind of like gendered, like girls are the protectors of sexuality and guys are like the predators, and there's basically this war going on. I don't think that's a biblical picture, and I just think it's an unhelpful picture. Line number five, and this one kind of blew my mind, I was reading that book, like I was talking about The Great Sex Rescue, and it talked about looking isn't lusting. This is kind of, this might be controversial for some of you, I don't know, but when it hit me, it really, something clicked in me. I think there's a lot of pressure, and there's a lot of content. I made a lot of content around lust, and like how guys need to watch out and be sexually pure and like what, you know, and that's good. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, I think that's good, right? Unfortunately, and I've experienced a little bit of this, is that kind of when you grow up in this kind of situation, for team guys especially, you're teaching them watch out for women basically, right? Watch out for women, you don't want to lost after them, right? Team guys withdraw from a lot of situations where they interact with girls, and they don't know how to talk to them, or they, because they just want to stay as far away as possible because we've kind of been fear mongering, like, oh man, you look at a woman, oh no, oh you might lost, be careful, like, and I realize, like, I understand taking sin seriously, like that's important. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but I'm saying kind of when you fear monger to guys, like they're going to accidentally lust at every turn, they withdraw from women, and actually instead of making important strides in learning how to talk to women, and be friends with them, and learn how to operate in those contexts, they withdraw. Also, it's okay, this might be controversial too, but it's okay to be attracted to somebody, right? That's not a sin to be attracted to women as guys, like I'm speaking from a guy, that's not a sin. If you're like, all of a sudden, like, that person's attractive, oh my goodness, God, like, oh, like, why did I do this? You know, like, well, it was me, like, no, that's okay, that's just how you were set up. There's a difference between saying, oh, you know, that person's attractive, and then, or lusting, right? And I'm not gonna spell it out for you, but I think you can, I think you're gonna be any, you know, okay, I think you're gonna begin to process the difference here. Might take a little bit, but it's there. And so, I just think this is a harmful lie that has taught guys that even just looking at women is lusting, and it just makes guys' lives torture chambers if they're constantly like, I can't even look at a woman because who knows, but it's like, no, dude, it's okay. I wish I could go back and tell my teen, like, 14-year-old, 15-year-old self, like, who's just paranoid about like, like, because I was like, yeah, girls, of course, but it's like, so I just gotta avoid them at every turn, like, you know, like, who knows, like, it's like chill, it's okay, like, you're gonna be okay. Lie number six is that my sexual purity will guarantee a healthy relationship. Unfortunately, this is one of the most harmful myths, lies that has been perpetuated. A lot of people that have read, you know, I Kiss Dating Goodbye have said, we thought by doing what you said in this book, or books like it, that we would get a healthy relationship. And what they found out was, you know, their husband was totalitarian and was overbearing and maybe even abusive, or the relationship was just toxic or whatever. Just the fact that we strive for sexual purity, especially in the dating phase and engagement, we're like, okay, you know, like, there's so much emphasis on that, I think that's a, you know, it's good, right? Good resources, but just because we do that doesn't mean that we are guaranteed, like, God has to give us a healthy relationship. There are a lot of other factors that can go into a toxic relationship, create a toxic relationship. And like, personally, I don't have a lot of the personal example people have been telling me these stories or whatever, but you can find a lot of them online. And it's pretty easy of just like, okay, you know, our sexual purity was in place, but what about all these other areas of the relationship that seemed to suffer? They weren't given that much attention. And so you're not guaranteed anything. We do, and this is the big, this is the big, like, I don't know, the big piece to this whole conversation is that we seek sexual purity, not because it's gonna give us the life we always wanted, or it's gonna make, you know, us have a super healthy relationship that's gonna be all fulfilling and all that. No, we seek sexual purity because that's what God has asked us to do. Why do we do what God has asked us to do? Well, because while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us, that while we were rebelling against him, he gave his life for us. Like, if you don't wanna, if you don't love that person that would do that for you, something's wrong with you. If you don't wanna serve that person that has given everything for you, like, something's up. And so, yeah, we see that. We're like, thankful. We're like, thank you, God. Now we're like, okay, God, what would you have me do? How would you have me live? And that's why we seek sexual purity. It's not because it's not this pragmatic like, oh, my life is gonna be statistically better. Like, even though people try to pull up those statistics, whatever, that's not the point. Purity culture lie number seven. It's either purity culture or sexual immorality. There's no in between. Now, we can see, okay, yeah, there's purity culture, right? In the early 2000s, it was really picking up everyone. All the evangelical Christians are really, you know, loving this content. People are cranking out great books on, you know, great books. I mean, not necessarily great books, but you know what I mean? Like, okay, they're cranking out books on dating and courtship and purity and lust and all this stuff, right? And now there's kind of the shift where everyone's like dogging on purity culture, right? It's trendy. Like, I'm making this video because I know, you know, people are interested in this topic, right? And I'm not naive to that fact, but it's really trendy to be like, purity culture is terrible. I talked about this a little bit earlier. Purity culture is terrible. And now let's just throw out the whole Bible because it's all like just bigoted or whatever. Or let's just throw out all conditions on sexuality because God's accepting of all kinds of sexual expression. Like, no, that's not the only two choices. It's not either like this kind of legalistic, pragmatic purity culture or this kind of like free, progressive, like sexual immorality, like whatever that is, right? No, it's like, there's actually a biblical middle where we can teach people how sexuality was designed, how it ought to be conducted, yes, within marriage, yes, we ought to have boundaries, yes, all of that. And now we can strive to like debunk some of the myths and the lies that have been propagated by both sides. I think there's two ditches here. And the goal, I guess, it's always the goal, right? Is to find the truth and find where Jesus would have us go. And I think this is one of the conversations that we need to have. I don't think the answer is throwing out the Bible and saying every form of sexual expression is okay. And I don't think the answer is, well, we need to be really legalistic about, oh, you know, modesty and like, you know, if you lose your virginity, man, you are not very worth that much and nobody's going to want you as a husband. Like, we get into the extremes here real quick. And I'm not concerned with being balanced. I'm concerned with being biblical. That should be always our striving. It's not about finding the middle of two sides. It's finding the biblical answer to the questions that we're seeking. I hope this is the beginning of a conversation about purity culture and where we've gone wrong a little bit and trying to reel in some of the lies. Let me know your experience in the comments down below because I know a lot of people have different experiences. If you're not subscribed already, I would encourage you to subscribe and like this video if you've enjoyed it. I'm also on TikTok and Instagram at its Isaac David and it would be awesome if you followed me over there. Thank you so much for watching and I will see you next time. God bless.