Understanding the Impact of Purity Culture on Addiction

Purity culture arose, as we know it today, as an attempt to respond to the sexual revolutions of the 20s and 60s and following. Different forms of purity culture have existed within most of the church’s long history, but today’s version began with the sexual revolution. Stated simply, sexual “revolutions” sought freedom from what society told them were acceptable sexual behaviors. Following the introduction of birth control in 1950, women were no longer sexually constrained by natural means. Although the threat of unwanted pregnancies was not obviously eliminated, it was significantly reduced. For the first time, many women felt the “freedom” to be regularly sexual and outside the context of committed relationships. Simultaneously, the female body became increasingly sexualized and objectified, even if the naked body is not inherently sexual.

Although the church’s reactions to the sexual revolution through purity culture were well-intentioned, it only doubled down on shame and clamped down hard on promiscuity with oppressive tactics. I call these tactics well-intentioned because they sought the end result of healthy and happy individuals, knowing that a disciplined sexual life will bring greater sexual fulfillment and overall happiness. We were not mistaken in this regard. However, these shame-based oppressive tactics have reasonably backfired. Moreover, they are unbiblical, though they have been championed as such and placed on a pedestal as the only way to view the topic. I have encountered more than a few people who struggle with this teaching. I feel compassion for their fear because a balanced approach to healthy sexuality requires much more than a steely protective hedge around the biblical law. Enabling true freedom requires vulnerable and empathetic pastoral care that trusts God to do the work and lets go of our own overdeveloped sense of responsibility for others’ answers to the call to live rightly. How did we get here?. Isaiah 64:6 says: “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags….”

The rebellious sexual response of a society that is now given to emotional reactivity and a low differentiation of self has brought us to the point of now calling true rebellion the desire to live in a straight home with children. The upside-down nature of our culture was given an open gateway by the purity culture’s draconian regulations and unloving response to unholy sexualities in all their forms. Furthermore, we unwittingly began to call the pure and holy nude body obscene. By doing so, we sexualized the body and objectified body parts as dirty and worthy only of covering. In this way, we agreed with the p*rnographers, and instead of offering a pure and undefiled means of sex education and body acceptance, it opened the door to the p*rnographers truly obscene objectification, who happily did so without restraint. One of the principal means for our children to learn about their bodies and sex was p*rnography in all its increasingly dark and destructive forms.

Although society has recently pulled away from the Church as a means of moral anchoring, the Western society of the 1950s and 60s was still heavily swayed by Christian moral teachings. Thus, US culture and law followed the Church’s prudish regulations, and the marriage between p*rnography and prudishness was consummated. David Hatton calls this marriage “p*rno-prudishness,” an aptly graphic term for the destructive nature of the issue. The continuing “sexual revolution” then exponentially grew when the church’s prudish silence offered no other teaching for holy sexuality other than a holier-than-thou contempt for the human body while creating a cult that placed virginity as the ultimate idol and marriage as the savior. While sex before marriage is a very bad idea, honoring God’s margins for holy sex is essential for long-term sexual satisfaction. Salvation from sexual desire and unholy sexuality does not magically materialize on the wedding day. Sadly, the Western church has vilified those who have lost their virginity and placed the act of sex on a mantle higher than a holy heart. Consequently, shame grew, and sexual promiscuity (as long as part A was not inserted into part B) flourished.

Therefore, p*rnography addiction became rampant, and compulsory behaviors grew, and sexual violence naturally increased as they became an easy and suitable short-term assuage to the emotional and attachment traumas of youth. The furtherance of prudery will not solve this problem. Freedom from the chains of these personal and societal problems begins by correctly addressing the traumas and emotional needs that led to sexual addiction in the first place.

Second, the addict must forgo the inclination to treat the body with prudish, shame-inducing contempt and accept a de-sexualized view of the body. That is a body that is viewed as a whole, by the Creator’s design, and not as individual parts, either for our consumption, or shame, or indignation. When the addict is able to see the person over their parts, their doublemindedness is integrated, and they can sincerely praise God for the beauty of His creation without grasping for it him/herself lustfully. This effectively breaks their cycle of shame by killing it entirely. Why should we be ashamed of the incredible and wholesome work of God? Why be ashamed to admire and appreciate what God has done without lusting after its parts and using them for our sexual gratification?

So much more can be said about purity culture and its abuse of men and women caught up in its grip, but I do not have room for it here without taking us too far off context. Nevertheless, a proper understanding is necessary before continuing. Furthermore, many authors have articulated the issues far better than I have, and I invite you to collect some of the books and articles found in the bibliography for yourself.

Suffice it to say that women are not responsible for men’s behavior because of what they wear or do not wear. Nor do they need to carry anxiety over men’s behaviors unless there is a legitimate direct threat against them. Purity does not mean that she cannot be nude. In fact, an argument can be made that the nude body is purer and more modest than wearing skimpy clothing, since the colorful pieces of cloth draw attention to the parts that p*rn abuses and prudery objectifies by claiming them as unclean. For the unclean mind, the cloth gives those parts attention, and fantasy imagines what lies underneath. It is guaranteed to be what the p*rn addict desires most. However, the nude body leaves nothing to the imagination, and for the recovering p*rn addict, it disables the initial fantasy and washes the undue attention to the part, making it common and eventually boring. Nudity is not exhibitionism, nor does it inherently invite voyeurism. Although some may practice both destructive behaviors, they are separate and distinct from a pure heart.

Purity is defined and created by God, not by what we wear or do not wear. My actions are accountable to God. If I use my body to entice others, then that is impure. If I am simply myself and nude in front of others and they behave in an impure fashion by gratifying themselves, then their behaviors are impure and it is their responsibility, not mine. Contrary to popular prudish opinion, my freedom to be seen and to see without objectification makes me clean and erases the effects of past lies told by a scared and wounded society too eager to control rather than surrender to God.

True Christian purity is not prude. It does not objectify the body by claiming that what God created in his image is now obscene! It is the glory of the Almighty One! What an offense it is to call the holy obscene and dirty. That is not our place, and it is an affront to God. An error for which we must repent. A pure heart before God enables Christians to see the body as pure and a reflection of their Divine Creator. Anyone who denies this purity to justify his or her lusts (whether to our bodies or to the power to control itself) will remain chained to the law. They will not know or understand freedom. True freedom is a threat to law-obsessed Christians because they see within it a danger to their own good morals. Frankly, the hypocrisy tastes wholly bitter.

Gnostic and Evolutionary Dualism

Gnosticism is a grasping for a secret knowledge. The accusation is that God wants to hide this knowledge from us. It started as a lie from the Christian’s spiritual enemy, Satan, in the Garden of Eden, and it is a lie that still guides our thoughts and behaviors today.

In 1948, Alfred Kinsey submitted a report that rocked the core of US culture.[1] Though it was seen as a must-read and titillating to its readers as something new and “scientific,” its content created waves of fear and dysmorphia that still ripple today. One of the foundational principles guiding this study is evolution. As such, he believed that humans are not different from animals. This writing is not about evolution, and I am not interested in debating it here. There is much that has been written about the topic, and reasonable people will conclude that the theory of evolution has many flaws, including the idea that people are just another animal. Nevertheless, anyone with their eyes halfway open can see that there is a fundamental difference in how God created us. If we believe in the foundational supposition that we are, in fact, created in His image, then the differences are truly astronomical.

Although Kinsey conducted highly questionable research and made claims without evidence, his work had a profound impact on society, including a new restraint among males to avoid affection and closeness for one another. The irony of Kinsey’s work is that, although he claimed homophobia prevented males from sexual release, true homophobia increased after his report. Males who were normally affectionate with one another pulled away for fear of being labeled a homosexual for it. Some evidence for this is seen in catalogs of photos dating back to before the report’s release. A non-sexual physical intimacy once shared by decent men was all but erased following the report. Innocent photos of men embracing, skinny-dipping, and even holding hands in a non-sexual manner were the norm. With the report, a newfound homophobia took root and the photos changed. Men stood aloof from each other, afraid of being sexualized for having close friendships. This gave rise to distant and machismo attitudes that disdain men for perceived weaknesses rather than striving to lift them up and inspire them. Fearing that their sexuality would be openly questioned, many men refused to accept bids for connection from anyone. This, in part, led to great loneliness and sexual confusion among men. The loss is palpable.[2]

Aside from the lost bids for connection, men also began covering themselves in situations where they may not have done so before the report, especially when an erection occurred. Although erections are most-often non-sexual, every erection was deemed sexual after Kinsey’s perversions were published. This explicit use of evolutionary dualism separates the person from the body. If we are no more than animalistic creatures evolved to propagate, then morality is suspect, and every natural bodily function is interpreted through the lens of pure sexual gratification and the physiological urge to reproduce. We are all made for far more than this. Is it any wonder that a society given to such lies is so mired in sexual deviance and addictions?

This is something I need to communicate here. Our culture has become so obsessed with sexual intimacy that nearly all intimacy is interpreted through that lens. The fact that Jesus loved deeply and that people, both men and women, loved him deeply does not mean that they were sexual with him. Yet, he was fully human and a sexual being by nature. He did not ignore this, but he remained sexually holy while maintaining fantastically intimate relationships. He is the best and most beautiful model of holy relationships that carried non-sexual physical intimacy, emotional intimacy, and spiritual intimacy.

However, evolutionary dualism extends far beyond how we perceive our bodies or interact with others. As this dualism grew in the hearts and minds of our population, our bodies became less and less important. Emotional and physical intimacy began to grow apart, and the personhood (that is, a proper and holistic view of a person’s body, mind, and emotions) of an individual was lost. The more someone disassociated their bodies from who they are as a person to have a quick and easy “hook-up,” the more fragmented and dissatisfied they became. To disassociate their bodies sexually from who they are as whole persons, they must dissociate their emotional and spiritual selves from the physical act of sex, thereby creating traumas that must be contended with later in life or else inflicted upon a future intimate partner. The confusion from these traumas was met with an intensity still mired in the foundation of evolutionary dualism. Therefore, people were encouraged to separate even more as a solution to their unhappiness. It should not be surprising that this did not work. Loneliness and hurt grew. Although people would privately admit to longing for genuine intimate attachments, they were raised in a society that learned to disdain them. Shame, trauma, and abuse continued.

By creating an artificial line between their personal mental, spiritual, and emotional relationships and their physical selves - as our culture taught them to do–they cruelly sabotaged their hope for attaining such freedom. Intervention is needed to help them see beyond themselves to integrate the artificially separated parts of themselves. Consider the profound nature of the following quote from Pearson’s work, Love Thy Body:

“The key to understanding the secular ethic is that it is based on a materialist view of nature. It tells us that our bodies are products of purposeless, amoral Darwinian forces, and therefore they are morally neutral. The implication is that what we do with our bodies has no moral significance. The self is free to use the body any way it chooses, without moral consequences… This bleak, one-dimensional view of sexuality assumes that sex is just a physical urge – that there is no deeper, more wholistic yearning to connect with another person… Some may think sexual hedonism gives sex too much importance, but in reality, it gives sex too little importance. It treats the body as nothing more than a physical organism driven by physical urges. It treats sex as a strictly physical act isolated from the rich inner life of the whole person. Thus, it deprives sex of its depth by detaching it from its meaning as self-giving between a man and a woman committed to building an entire life together.”[3]

We learned previously that sex is far more than one dimensional. We observed many spiritual consequences of treating it as such. Here, we see some of the physiological consequences of submitting ourselves to a sexually hedonistic view of the body, one that is in alignment with Gnostic and Darwinian dualism. However, when we live a life that is fully integrated–body, mind, and spirit–sexual activity is given the attention it deserves and is not merely a satisfying of a physical appetite.

“It is demoralizing to young people to suggest that the only protection they need is instruction in how to have safe sex. It infantilizes them by denying them any moral agency in a context where they desperately need to be empowered to act as moral agents – in matters that affect their physical, psychological, and spiritual health.”[4]

Hatton provides further information concerning the infantilization of youth with a story of a group of topless women in Mali. When they heard that American men sexualized breasts, they thought it was hysterical and rolled with laughter, saying that grown men behaved like babies! Indeed! Who has the proper response to breasts here, the Malian women or the American public? The answer should be clear. Yet our churches, along with society, teach us that breasts are sexual objects to be religiously avoided or lewdly exploited. Finding a balanced middle ground is, sadly, very difficult. The only place in Scripture that speaks of breasts in a sexual manner is the Song of Solomon. Of course, that was within a committed relationship and in the context of a couple enjoying each other’s bodies in their entirety and not for casual sex. Most Western churches have had a very hard time seeing past their own fear. Both American positions harm men and women by objectifying breasts instead of honoring the person behind them and the purpose for which they were created, an otherwise wholesome and beautiful act of nurturing love. Our young people must be taught moral agency, not defeatist or gnostic objectification.[5]

Yet this is exactly what Freud, for all of his wisdom, taught us as well.[6] His perversions were written into psychological dogma and taught to generations of those entrusted with leading people to wholeness. Unfortunately, we have not accomplished this task. In the extreme body/mind dichotomy that we carry around with us today, which treats the body as worthless with no real nature of its own, there are no constraints on gender identity. Pearcey tells us that, “The goal is complete freedom to declare oneself a man or a woman or both or neither. The sovereign self will not tolerate having its options limited by anything it did not choose – not even its own body.”[7]

There you have it: a major objective of the enemy of God is to get us to believe that we ourselves are God, that we must grasp knowledge for ourselves so that we may do as we want without moral inhibitions. However, a holistic and healthy approach to the body has infinitely more value. Humans do not need freedom from the body to discover their true selves. If we are to be truly free in body, mind, and spirit, we must live in harmony with it.

Those with a better understanding of spiritual resilience know and understand that God created our bodies naked and called them very good. It was the serpent who told Adam and Eve that they were naked and convinced them to be ashamed of their bodies. God’s query [Who told you, that you are naked?] might be meaningfully interpreted as ‘Did that liar distort the attitude I gave you about the goodness of your bare skin?’ Satan’s widespread success is sorely evident in the body objectification, body-image dysfunctions, sexual exploitation, and gender confusion flourishing in the modern world.”[8]

As we will soon discover in this section, a fear of nudity could be reasonably included on that list. True freedom from the law and shame is the wholesale acceptance of the image of God upon us, evidenced by our willingness to see and be seen without perversion, shame, or fear. Consider the following quote from the podcast entitled: Created Naked by R.M. Olson: “The driving force behind a desire to be (non-sexually) nude with others is authenticity. It is an intentional letting go of who I think I am supposed to be or others’ expectations of me and embracing who God made me to be. Being naked with others is vulnerable, and it is much more difficult to hide. It develops my self-awareness and allows me to practice intuitive empathy with others. Being naked with others cultivates the courage to be imperfect, exercising the compassion that comes from knowing that we are all made from strength and struggle and from knowing that God made us all to be enough. Being naked is one way to invite grace, joy, and gratitude into my life.”[9] The depth of this quote becomes clear when we remember the truths outlined in the previous section concerning vulnerability and relational soothing. There is not much more vulnerable than a willful breaking from the cycle by reaching out to others while dressed only in the suit God gave us. It exposes us in ways that do not exist anywhere else and leaves us with no place to hide. Vulnerability, empathy, and intentional relational soothing are all magnified when practicing nudity while appreciating the glory of God’s creation around us and the people who exist behind mere skin.

Nude does not inherently equal lustful and dirty. As we are beginning to see, the Church’s purity culture overreaction combined with the evolutionary concepts founded in Gnostic duality worked together to cause the growth of p*rn and the exponential growth of shame. P*rnography and prudishness work together to help create pathways for addiction and keep us there.

Scriptural Authority for Nudity

Contrary to popular Western belief, the Scriptures are not against nudity. Far from it! Many passages in the Scriptures talk about nudity. Many of these are not even acknowledged. We tend to gloss over them because they do not fit into our cultural norms and overdeveloped sense of prudery. Yet they exist. Many others are taken out of context to justify the prohibition of nudity.[10] In the end, not a single passage pertaining to nudity forbids it, but do not take my word for it, look them up and complete a comprehensive study for yourself! In fact, most remind us of our humanity, that we are made in the Image of God, and that he still believes we are made “very good.”[11] I hope it is obvious that it was normal to wear clothing in most contexts, but it was also normal to go about naked in other contexts, each without shame. Why are we only able to see the first while ignoring the second? Both are Scriptural. There is insufficient space in this article to address every passage. Nevertheless, I will discuss some of the most overlooked aspects.

The cultural acceptance of nudity over the thousands of years it took to record the Bible is not mentioned because it is taken for granted. In reality, many passages mention nudity, yet today’s ministers in Western society gloss over them. Consider James 2:15-16 and Luke 3:11. Most will focus on the act of caring for those in need (which includes clothing them), and rightly so! This is the intent of the passage. However, teachers completely overlook the fact that the person in need was naked in public, perhaps for quite some time, and the issue was not about their naked skin but about their need for elemental protection. Every time the subject of nakedness is raised as a shame in Scripture, the context refers to the shame of poverty, as illustrated above, defeat in war,[12] or the shame of sexual immorality and not the nakedness itself. Why is this not taught appropriately? Our culture unjustly forbids non-sexual nudity, and it is easier for us to fearfully ignore the Word of God and diminish His likeness upon us than to teach the fullness of truth.

Consider Exodus 22:26-27a or John 11:44, 13:4, 20:11-18, 21:7b. In Exodus, the cloak is said to be the only covering a person has, yet it is lawfully taken as a pledge. In kindness, the person taking the cloak is admonished to return it by sunset, again as elemental protection and a blanket during the night. Not a single word is given about their ostensible all-day nudity resulting from the pledge. The cloak is a valuable resource and is meant to be well guarded. Thus, we have the reason for taking it off during work or play, as is the case with the four passages in John. Jesus, Peter, and Lazarus all took off their clothes in this context, yet nothing is said about their nakedness, just their acts of worship, joy, and care. If nakedness is meant to be truly forbidden, why did Jesus and the apostles demonstrate it in the Gospels?

Isaiah 20:2-4, Micah 1:8, and I Samuel 19:23-24 provide examples of holy nudity. Prophets of God were apparently sometimes nude when preaching. This was not forbidden; in fact, it was commanded by God. Some may suggest that the command applied only to Isaiah, yet other prophets did it as well, and it was not explicitly condemned. Why not? Of course, many prophets wore clothing. It is not a command for all prophets, but perhaps God does not have the same issue with the bodies he created in His image as we do. We may need to reconsider our position and align more closely with God’s intentions for our bodies. The consequences of this magnificent illumination of truth for p*rnography addicts are extraordinary. What if the body was not solely about sex and our own personal sexual gratification? What if we taught our people something different? The result would be a dep*rnifying of the body and a routine normalcy to our naked selves. P*rnography would begin to lose its power.

The routine normalcy of nudity in Scripture made passages such as Exodus 2:5, 2 Samuel 11:2, 2 Kings 5:13-14, and the many baptisms that were also conducted nude, just a passive thought. Nudity was simply not an issue. It is not uncommon to hear arguments from today’s purity culture perspective that Bathsheba caused David to stumble by bathing on the roof.[13] Bathing on the roof was a common practice (if that is, in fact, where she was). Nathan rightly corrected King David for his sexual violence against Bathsheba and betrayal of his friend. He did not correct Bathsheba for bathing on the roof. Nudity was not the problem, and she was not responsible for King David’s behavior.

[1] Kinsey A.

[2] (

. Open Affection Between Men was Normal in the 1940s: Why Did Things Change? (History + Photographs))

[3] Pearcey, N. p.121

[4] Pearcey, N. p. 123

[5] Hatton, D. pp.47-48

[6] Freud, S.

[7] Pearcey, N. p.210

[8] Hatton, D. p.13

[9] Olson, R.M. Quote by Sean ImagoDei

[10] Genesis 3, I Timothy 4, I Corinthians 12

[11] Genesis 1:31

[12] as in 2 Chronicles 28:8-15

[13] 2 Samuel. 1

A person holding a broken chain symbolizing freedom from the constraints of purity culture.

As we continue to explore the impact of purity culture on addiction, it is crucial to foster understanding and compassion. By doing so, we can create a more supportive environment for those struggling with these issues. Together, we can work towards healing and empowerment, allowing individuals to embrace their true selves without the burden of shame.