Gendered Purity and Embodied Sexual Flourishing: Moral Agency, Development, and Prudence

Abstract

Current popular accounts of sexual morality for adolescents based simply on purity or self-determination cannot adequately anchor a Christian sexual ethic, although positions based on both notions hope to facilitate sexual health among young females. Here I critique both popular Christian purity movements and a popular feminist critique of these purity movements (based upon self-determination) and suggest the virtue of prudence as a corrective. Situated within the Catholic theological tradition, prudence (practical wisdom) acknowledges the process of human moral and sexual development and is robust enough to negotiate the concrete complexities of sexual activity and the social realities in which such activity takes place. Further, it honours an embodied sense of female sexual self-determination: females as moral agents directed towards sexual flourishing.

Keywords:

• purity
• sexuality
• females
• flourishing
• prudence
• agency
• adolescent

Notes

¹ Although a full historical account of purity and sexual morality in Christian theology is a worthy task, it exceeds the bounds of this article; I thus limit myself to popular contemporary Christian and other discourses pertaining to purity.

² Concern for purity and modesty among females in particular is not unprecedented in Christian and broader social thought; for example, the focus on purity in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, in response to modernism, e.g., the Purity Crusade in urban North America (Pivar 1973); Pope Pius XII ([1940] 1960; [1941] 1959); and his contemporary, Dietrich von Hildebrand ([1927] 1935).

³ This perception might foster the somewhat disproportionate judgement, “I kissed a girl and I liked it, and then I went to hell.” A reference to the wildly popular Katy Perry song “I Kissed a Girl” (2008) and anti-same-sex slogan from Havens Corners Church of Christ in Blacklick, Ohio, around the time the song was popular (Columbus Dispatch 2008). Sinful contamination in this instance pertains to the crossing of gendered boundaries for sexual behaviour, even for so minor a perceived transgression as a kiss. (Or perhaps it is the liking of the kiss that sends the participant to hell.)

⁴ The perception of purity as the essential, initial state of all persons has recently borne much discussion in social sciences literature (e.g., Duschinsky 2011; Egan and Hawkes 2007). Exploration of this worthy anthropological question is beyond the scope of this article.

⁵ It is interesting to note the contrasting commentaries on the maturing Joe Jonas and Miley Cyrus in The Christian Post. While Cyrus is depicted as “narcissistic” and “enslaved to sexuality” based on her music video “We Can't Stop” (O'Neil 2013), Joe Jonas is quoted from a “raw, revealing” interview, from a different publication, about his own perceptions of relationship with God and “frustration with purity rings” (Lee 2013). Based on secondary data, their profiles read quite differently.

⁶ Worth noting is the parallel celebration for males, the Brave Heart of a Warrior ceremony. “Boys become men by watching men, by standing close to men. Manhood is a ritual passed from generation to generation with precious few spoken instructions. Passing the torch of manhood is a fragile, tedious task. If the rite of passage is successfully completed, the boy-become-man is like an oak of hardwood character. His shade and influence will bless those who are fortunate enough to lean on him and rest under his canopy” (Generations of Light 2014).

⁷ One distinctive Catholic Christian perspective on purity (von Hildebrand 2004) explicitly relies upon the perceived dichotomy between male sexual drive and female sexual receptivity to posit that women are by nature the guardians of purity, because men are unable to help themselves. Although inequities of judgement against males and females who commit adultery are condemned, females are assumed to be better equipped to choose purity, by virtue of their embodied sexual nature that is so plainly meant to be hidden, veiled, and mysterious. Von Hildebrand's perspective has achieved some popularity as woven throughout Pope John Paul II's understanding of theological anthropology and human sexuality in his Theology of the Body (1997).

⁸ Along with critique of notions and enactments of purity discourses are critiques of the discourses pertaining to the sexualization of girls (e.g., Egan 2013). Exploration of this discussion extends beyond the scope of this article.

⁹ I have merely scratched the surface of the feminist, medical, public health policy, and education policy discussions pertaining to Gardasil. It remains a contentious vaccine, particularly regarding routine school vaccinations, the gendered nature of its marketing, and the proven effective diagnostic practice of Pap smearing for sexually active females.

¹⁰ Virginity is an ambiguous term, variously understood among adolescents as to remain intact following oral sex, anal sex, penile-vaginal intercourse, masturbation, and mutual masturbation. By contrast, virginity is typically understood among adults, researchers, teachers, and scholars as never having engaged in heterosexual intercourse. Of course, this definition is problematic given sexual diversity and variety in sexual behaviours (Carpenter 2001; Hans and Kimberly 2011).

¹¹ Stephen J. Pope (2011) summarizes Thomas's account of the virtues in the Summa Theologica.

¹² Thomas goes to some lengths to outline the variety of virtues and sins against virtue, which likely would have been commonly acknowledged by his contemporaries (Aquinas 1947, I–II, II).

¹³ We do well also to remember that even the most seasoned of professional golfers regularly winds up in the rough; her particular skill lies in knowing how to shoot her way out.

¹⁴ Similarly, a violation of the physical state of purity by an aggressor does not diminish the moral character of the person violated.