I am going to say something very uncomfortable. Read before…

Purity culture encourages pedophilia.

Some of the standards of purity culture are innocence (pretty much ignorance about sex), submission (for women), virginity as the ultimate standard, and “modesty” (for women that is wearing clothes that don’t reveal their adult curves)*
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Purity culture makes the desirable standard a child. It makes child likeness desirable in regards to sexuality. It makes virginity, and innocence, and submission; what the male brain should want most in a partner. And your brain doesn’t rewire just because you get married.
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This doesn’t mean every man raised in purity culture is a pedophile, that’s not what I am saying. What I am saying is that purity culture wires the brain of men to desire child likeness, which encourages pedophilia. After all desire and objectification happen in our brain.

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Now if you are a pedophile who wants to act on those desires, purity culture does a lot of the grooming for you. Purity culture discourages comprehensive sex education leaving children without the ability to know what’s appropriate and what’s not.

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It shames people for any sexual thoughts or behaviors, which makes children who may be vulnerable not want to tell their caregivers or anybody else if something happens to them.

Its emphasis on virginity makes abused children prefer to lie to not be seen as less than.

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It teaches children not to “trust their own heart,” and to trust authority figures, which makes any pedophile’s voice more important than their own intuition.

It puts responsibility on women to protect men; causing abused girls to blame themselves for abuse.

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If as a society we really are concerned about vulnerable children, then we need to toss purity culture, advocate for comprehensive sex-education, stop pushing narratives of what desirable women/men should look/behave like, normalize sexuality as a part of the human experience,
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teach consent to children, talk about sex as a coping mechanism vs. a healthy experience, give children agency over their own bodies (which means allowing them to say ‘no’ to things you may thing they want), dismantle the absurd notion that virginity and worth are connected.

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*I didn’t mention this as part of purity culture because it isn’t precisely, but isn’t it curious that women are expected to shave their body including their vulva? That women aren’t allowed to look like we’ve aged, that relationships where men are older is what’s normal?

**Women inside of fundamentalist Christianity are also expected to depend financially on men, to be home while men are out in the world, to not get formal education... they are expected to be grown children. Assertive, educated women are “problematic,” “not attractive.”