This is the fourth essay in Perverse, a series about the good and holy things we’ve bent into something that no longer reflects God. If you’re finding it later, you can read them in any order.
Before I ever learned my body was a gift, I learned it was a temptation to be managed.
I grew up in a very conservative evangelical environment. Church on Sundays, and the private Christian school during the week. Which meant the messages didn’t just come from the pulpit. They followed me into the classroom. Many of those lessons were based in scripture. But as an adult, I’ve come to realize others were formed by personal bias and unhealthy theology.
One of the most damaging centered around sex and purity. I can’t remember a single time when they were talked about in a healthy way. In an attempt to “protect” us from sin and temptation, girls were taught that our changing bodies led to lust and we caused our “brothers to stumble.” There was A LOT of conversation around modesty and temptation, with the responsibility falling squarely on female shoulders. But I don’t remember the boys ever being taught about self control.
I still remember a high school assembly with a special speaker who came to warn us about the “dangers” of dating. If your fingers touch someone else’s, he said, it could lead to holding hands. Which leads to kissing. Which leads to sex. Which is sin. So if you wanted to stay on God’s good side, the math was simple: zero contact, zero sin.
In the 1990s this teaching wasn’t unusual. It was Purity Culture, a movement within the evangelical church focused on teen and young adult morality. The message was clear: Female bodies were a temptation. Sex was dirty. And purity was idolized…until your wedding day, when somehow a switch flipped, and what had been sinful was suddenly holy. Only now there was an added layer. While still a temptation to other men, s wife’s body now belonged to her husband and her greatest purpose was to have children and please him.
Purity and marriage were the goal which created a pressure to marry young. College freshmen jokingly (but not really) talked about getting a “ring by spring.” The phrase still circulates among Christian young adults today, residue of culture that is still exists in some spaces. Some of my classmates were engaged and married shortly after high school. But, instead of a boyfriend, I graduated with a genuine fear that I’d never get married. At 22, after earning my degree, I finally walked down the aisle, one of the last of my high school class to get married.
The thing about a theology built on shame: it doesn’t stay in the school assembly, church camp circle, or church pew. It clings to you like a film you can’t wash away.
I remember my first sexual experience, the guilt-ridden sobbing afterward, the feeling of being filthy, and the shame of being unworthy of God’s forgiveness. It took a long time to understand that wasn’t how God saw me at all.
I’ve been married for more than two decades now. And if I’m honest, a healthy relationship with intimacy is still a struggle for me.
And I know I’m not alone.
Many of us still carry something—lies, shame, wrong theology—that we were handed as teenagers and told was God.
When purity gets lost
Purity is good. God calls us to it. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God“ (Matthew 5:8). Paul reminds us that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit and tells us to “honor God with your bodies“ (1 Corinthians 6:19–20).
But as I look back at the church I grew up in and purity culture, I can’t help but ask: Did we teach purity, or did we teach fear?
Somewhere along the way, purity stopped being about a heart that sees God and became a list of things to avoid. We measured holiness by distance. We looked for spiritual loopholes. And when we couldn’t find them, many rushed down an aisle to a commitment we we’re ready for with a person we didn’t truly love.
Marriage was the prize. Purity was the price. A wedding was the reward. And singleness was a condition to be fixed, rather than a life choice to be respected.
I’m not saying purity doesn’t matter. It does. Waiting matters. Honoring God with our bodies matters. But how we teach and communicate purity matters too.
Shame was never God’s tool for making us holy.
It’s the enemy’s tool to keep us in bondage.
When purity is built on fear, it’s not holiness. It’s just shame and control with a Bible verse attached.
And honestly? That isn’t new.
The woman we blamed
For years, I heard the story of David and Bathsheba taught with her as a temptress. The woman who bathed where a king could see her. A cautionary tale for girls about modesty.
But read 2 Samuel 11 again. “In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war…but David remained in Jerusalem,” (2 Samuel 11:1). David stayed home. David shouldn’t even be here. He should be on the battlefield. Instead, he’s on his roof watching Bathsheba. He’s the one who asks who she is, and sends messengers to get her (2 Samuel 11:2–4).
And Bathsheba? She was taking a bath. The text even says she was purifying herself, doing exactly what God’s law asked of her (2 Samuel 11:4). She wasn’t flaunting anything. She wasn’t tempting anyone. But when a king sends for you, you don’t get to say no. She had no say in coming to David or in what followed.
David took great lengths to cover up what he’d done. And when the prophet Nathan confronts David, he says nothing about Bathsheba’s modesty because God doesn’t blame her. Nathan put the full responsibility on David.
Yet for generations, pastors have made Bathsheba the lesson in morality.
It’s the same message purity culture taught: His eyes, but her fault.
But what did Jesus say?
Centuries later, the religious leaders tried to trap Jesus. They drag a woman into the temple courts and stand her in front of everyone. “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery“ (John 8:4).
Caught in the act. Which makes me want to ask: where’s the man?
Jesus doesn’t answer right away. He bends down and writes in the dirt. You can almost feel the tension. I’ve always wondered what He wrote. Some think it was a message to the woman. Others speculate that He was listing the sins of the Pharisees holding the stones. Then He stands up and says, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her“ (John 8:7). One by one, they drop their stones and walk away.
Jesus stands between her and the stones before He says a word about her choices. And when He does speak, there’s no lecture or shame. “Then neither do I condemn you. Go now and leave your life of sin“ (John 8:11).
Protection and dignity first. Then the invitation.
That’s how Jesus handled purity. He didn’t pretend sin didn’t matter. He just refused to use shame as the weapon. And He put responsibility where it belonged. Lust, He said, lives in the heart of the one doing the looking (Matthew 5:28). Not in the hemline of the one being looked at.
The song we skipped
If you grew up like I did, Song of Songs (Song of Solomon) was either taught as an allegory or skipped altogether. Which is wild when you think about it. God gave us an entire book about desire in the Bible, but we’re too uncomfortable to study it.
When you do read the poem, you’ll find the woman in it isn’t silent. She speaks more than the man does. She longs, she pursues, she delights. “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine“ (Song of Songs 6:3). That’s mutual belonging, not ownership or control.
Even the call to wait sounds different than what I was taught: “Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires“ (Song of Songs 2:7). That’s not fear. That’s wisdom. Love is powerful, so honor its timing.
Paul says it too. The wife’s body belongs to her husband, yes, but in the same breath, “the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife“ (1 Corinthians 7:4). Both. Equally.
This is what God intended all along. Intimacy as a good gift, wrapped in covenant, shared between equals, meant for delight. Not something to fear until a ring makes it permissible, and then something to perform and control.
Still unlearning
But we’re human. Our brains and bodies don’t flip a switch at the altar. When something has been called shameful and sinful for years, it doesn’t suddenly feel holy just because it’s allowed.
So I’m still unlearning. It’s getting easier, but some days the old voice is louder than the true one. On those days, I come back to Jesus kneeling in the dirt, standing between a woman and the stones, and I let Him stand between me and the shame I was handed.
If you’re still carrying it too, hear this: shame was never His voice. God sees you. And He’s not holding a stone.
Next week, we’ll look at another good thing we’ve bent out of shape: service. What happens when serving God quietly becomes a way to prove our worth?
Sit With This
What were you taught about your body, about sex, or about being a woman or a man that you later realized wasn’t actually from God? Where do you still hear that old voice?
Have you ever carried blame or shame for something that was never yours to carry? What would it look like to set it down?
Picture Jesus standing between the woman and the stones. Picture Him writing in the dirt to you. What shame might He be inviting you to stop carrying?
Keep Reading
This is the fourth essay in Perverse, a series asking how we’ve taken good and holy things and turned them into something that no longer reflects God. Next week: Perverse Service. Until then, here are a few more to sit with:
Perverse Loyalty: The third essay in the series, on what happens when our loyalty starts keeping score. You can also start at the beginning with Perverse Perseverance and Perverse Surrender.
The Lessons I Shouldn’t Have to Teach My Daughter: If we taught our sons self-control, we wouldn’t have to teach our daughters self-defense.
Extending Grace to Who You Were: Our hindsight should bring clarity, not condemnation.
Hi! I’m Torrie. Thanks for stopping by.
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