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INTRO

History

Purity Culture in the United States

While rhetoric about sexual purity and chastity existed throughout the late 19th and 20th centuries, the term “purity culture” often refers to the rise in government-funded abstinence-only education, purity balls, and chastity clubs in the United States in the 1990s and into the 21st century. Purity movements emerged in largely evangelical Christian contexts in the 1990s, though also existing within broader American contexts through pro-abstinence legislation and chastity clubs at elite universities. Purity culture calls for sexual chastity and abstinence before marriage. Operating with traditional gender roles, purity culture often posits modesty in dress as a way to avoid arousing sexual urges in men and defines marriage as strictly between a man and a woman.

HIV/AIDS

While HIV/AIDS has a longer history globally, the first cases were reported in the U.S. in 1981. As of 2018, about 700,000 people in the United States had died from HIV/AIDS since 1981. Purity culture movements emerged in the 1990s in the context of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, framing sexual purity until marriage as the solution to the epidemic and other sexually transmitted diseases.

Bush Administration

Prior to the Bush Administration, the Welfare Reform Act of 1996 introduced government-funded abstinence-only sexual education programs in public schools, with $50 million set aside each year for abstinence education. During George W. Bush’s presidency (2001-2009), Congress and the Bush administration continued to build upon the Welfare Reform Act, heavily funding abstinence-only education programs in public middle schools and high schools. Abstinence-only education in schools rose from 2 percent to 23 percent between 1988 and 1999. In 2003, funding for abstinence-only education reached $120 million.

During Bush’s presidency, various government websites altered their information about sexual health. In 2002, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) removed information about condom use from its website in connection to Bush Administration regulations.

In 1993, Bush spoke at a True Love Waits rally, stating that “abstinence is 100 percent certain to not only make sure that children avoid pregnancy, but it’s 100 percent certain to make sure that children avoid disease.” However, amidst this outlook, which also viewed chastity as the solution to HIV/AIDS, promoting abstinence or signing a virginity pledge did not result in a decrease in sexually transmitted diseases, as teenagers who took virginity pledges were much less likely to use condoms when they did have their first sexual experience, according to a 2005 study.

Rise of Sexual Purity Organizations

Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, various groups, largely evangelical Christian organizations, formed promoting chastity and abstinence. In 1993, Southern Baptist youth minister Richard Ross founded True Love Waits, a Christian sex-education program promoting premarital sexual abstinence. Focused on presenting the topic of chastity to audiences of teenagers, True Love Waits organized virginity pledges among youth as well as other events and rallies that sold Bible-study materials related to sexual purity.

Chastity Clubs for Adolescents

Girls in elementary through high school formed the majority of members of chastity clubs. They began to grow in the early 1990s, alongside a rise in increased funding for abstinence-only sex education, as well as an evangelical Christian backlash to what they understood to be a hyper-sexualized culture, as well as high rates of teen pregnancy and President Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky. Evangelical Christians formed chastity clubs to push back against this culture which they believed taught young people to have sex. These clubs continued to grow with the election of President George W. Bush who funded abstinence-only education, defunded comprehensive sex education, and promoted misinformation about sexual health. These girls were recruited on the grounds of religion and obedience. During this time, millions of teenagers pledged premarital sexual abstinence, largely because of the belief that premarital sex was a sin.

Chastity Clubs at Universities

Chastity clubs began to form at universities in the South in the early 1990s. They then emerged at elite universities in the Northeast in the early 2000s. Chastity clubs continued to spread among elite universities with the support of groups such as the Love & Fidelity Network, which began in 2007 and worked to establish organizations promoting chastity at college campuses. Chastity clubs for college students were unlike those for adolescents, as the students had more autonomy than young adults. The students formed them in response to what they believed was a hyper-sexualized culture of universities and the rise of a hook-up culture.

These clubs, unlike those for girls aged seven to fifteen who were seen as not yet having sexual desires, aimed to encourage sexual restraint to resist the pressures of hook-up culture and sexual exploration. They hosted events, including lectures, discussion panels, and study sessions that promoted abstinence. The clubs encouraged college students to take on a “pure” and “dignified” lifestyle. They greatly stressed the dangers of premarital sex and and portrayed marriage as the only way to accomplish a sexually healthy and happy life. Many of the chastity clubs at elite universities also spread inaccurate sexual health information and elicited feelings of fear and intimidation to dissuade students from having premarital sex.

Some examples of chastity clubs at universities include:

Princeton: The Anscombe Society

Princeton University's The Anscombe Society was the first chastity club to be founded at an Ivy League university. The club was founded in 2005 by a group of students, many of whom were Catholic and conservative, who presented the club as secular in order to get credibility from the student body. The club sought to counter the hook-up culture of the university which they believed allowed and expected students to be sexually active. The founders claimed they did not want to morally judge students, but instead, provide information about “health and safety issues” associated with premarital and casual sex, and to ultimately promote dignity. They used moral and ethical arguments to support a chaste lifestyle for college students and argue that an unchaste lifestyle leads to “personal unhappiness and social harm.”

The club still exist today, aiming to promote “dignified, respectful, and beautiful sex”; “affirming and supportive” relationships “where no one is objectified, instrumentalized, or demeaned”; and marriage between a mother with “authentic femininity” and father with “true masculinity.”

Elizabeth Anscombe

Beginning with Princeton’s The Anscombe Society, many elite university’s chastity clubs were named after Elizabeth Anscombe (1919-2001). Anscombe was a British philosopher and Roman Catholic from Cambridge University and student of Austrian philosopher Wittgenstein. In a 1977 essay "Contraception and Chastity,” she argued a philosophical defense of the Catholic papacy’s strict restrictions on sexual behavior, making her well-known among Roman Catholics. Her use of logic to denounce pre-marital sex appealed to the Princeton students who formed the club, then who were followed by other elite university students.

MIT: The Anscombe Society

MIT was the second elite university to create a chastity club and followed Princeton’s club with their own Anscombe Society in 2006. According to their website, their mission was to promote a life of chastity as “the most beautiful life for a human being” and sought to dispel the negative preconceptions about the chaste life. The club had a chastity pledge which 40 members had signed by 2007, reading, “I commit myself to make an effort to live a chaste lifestyle. A chaste lifestyle involves using the gift of my body honorably and respectfully.”

Their method to achieve their mission was largely intellectual, aiming to encourage students to reflect on their views on and beliefs about sex, sexual behavior, and marriage. They sought to promote “intellectual argument” about the relationship between men and women and sexual ethics, welcoming people with all viewpoints to their events. According to their website, in order to create an intellectual defense for chastity and promote discussions and debates about it, they provided members with scholarly articles and brought speakers on campus that discuss chastity.

Harvard: True Love Revolution (2006-2012), Harvard College Anscombe Society (2012-2019)

In 2006, Harvard’s chastity club the True Love Revolution was founded by couple Sarah Kinsella and Justin Murray in 2006. Like Princeton’s The Anscombe Society, the club did not mention God or religion in promoting abstinence in order to appeal to a wider audience. Unlike Princeton’s club, the True Love Revolution sought to promote premarital sexual abstinence through scientific rather than philosophical arguments, utilizing scholarly journals to support the importance of abstinence.

Harvard’s club spread the idea that, according to their website, “safe sex is not safe,” emphasizing how contraception can fail and that premarital sex leads to dangerous physical and mental health consequences. Much of their website and claims utilized misinformation, including claims that early sexual activity often caused a greater likelihood of marital infidelity, divorce, maternal poverty, and depression. Their website also falsely claimed that abstinence was the only way to avoid sexually transmitted infections and that condoms did not work to prevent HPV and many other STIs. They emphasized that abstinence improves relationships before marriage, as it creates trust and respect.