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Purity Culture and Evangelical Masculinity: Race, Religion, and Nation -…

- - - - Based on Pikel's definition, it is clear that women are the specific targets of purity culture in terms of designating the 'worth' of women based on sex. The "complex set of beliefs" implicates men as well--every person in evangelical spaces has a part to play in purity culture. However, women are held accountable to values of purity/impurity in ways that men are less likely to encounter.
      - Virginity and femininity represent evangelical ideals of women as innately submissive to men. Both of these trait categories exist in relation to men/masculinity--meaning that men inherently control the worth of individual women in purity culture.
      - On her website, Linda Kay Klein also gives a helpful description of the delineations of expectations with purity culture. She says "Sexual expectations vary by gender. Everyone is expected to maintain absolute sexlessness before marriage (that means no sexual thoughts, feelings, or actions). And upon marriage, they are expected to flip their sexuality on like a light switch. However, men are taught their minds are evil, whereas women are taught their bodies are evil. That is to say, men’s thoughts and actions are said to be either pure or impure, while women themselves are said to be either pure or impure" (Klein, website).
      - For men in purity culture, the rhetoric is that any sexual thoughts, desires, or urges (let alone actions) are signs of sexual addiction and impurity. To break the rules around sexual purity is seen more as a cry for help, a mistake that can be rectified, or a moment of weakness--and these excuses are used when men enact nonconsensual sexual behaviors as well.
- - - - The 'China doll': This is the category that describes 'pure' Asian women in evangelical purity culture. This descriptor objectifies, infantilizes, and racializes Asian women who are seen as following the rules of evangelical purity. It puts Asian women in a position in which they are seen as needing protection from men in guarding their doll-like purity and femininity. Hong describes the condescending attitudes and paternalism that came with being categorized as such in her experience
      - Hong's experiences lines up with Klein's argument about the experience of white women vs WOC in purity culture. Hong indicates that her categorization as 'pure' was precarious: "I was encouraged to give 'side hugs,' because full-frontal hugs were very tempting to men, especially those who enjoyed meeting Asian women. I realized that I was sometimes perceived as an exotic temptress rather than a China doll" (Hong, 2021). For Asian women in purity culture, a hug is enough to demarcate one's position as pure or impure.
      - The 'exotic temptress': This is the category that describes an apparently impure or promiscuous woman of color in purity culture. The idea of exoticism points to the racial aspect of this category--women of color are seen as an exotic 'Other,' once again a very dehumanizing description. The idea of women as objects of temptation is pervasive in purity culture, and this is very much a way of putting the blame for men having sexual thoughts or desires (seen as immoral) onto women of color.
- - - - In Kobes Du Mez' article Jesus and John Wayne, the author brings up the idea of "'Biblical Hatred,' a form of militant masculinity faithfulness" which entails literally spreading hate against marginalized groups in the name of Christianity. This concept describes the purpose that evangelical masculinity serves--allowing white evangelical men to access societal privileges and avoid societal barriers and discrimination by acting in God's purported image of toxic masculinity.
      - Onishi also gives an example of what this evangelical masculinity looks like on a daily basis in a marriage between a man and a woman, when he witnessed a religious leader scream at his wife when she tried to do a nice thing for him. "...we’d been around the church long enough to see men yelling at their wives in public like this ... Bill had morphed his face from misogynistic rage to prayerful delight ... During my seven years in evangelical ministry I had learned that there was no disconnect between public wife-shaming and a man’s spiritual leadership. They went hand in hand" (Onishi, 2021). This relationship between husband and wife in which there is public abusive behavior is characteristic of evangelical masculinity. The abusive behavior and the religious dedication of evangelical masculinity seem contradictory, but are interwoven.
- - - - Something I thought about was the role of men of color and Black men in hyper-masculine evangelical spaces. According to Daniel Comacho, evangelical men of color and Black evangelical men reside also somewhere in the intersections of this system of oppression. While BIPOC men are targeted with racism by evangelicalism and white evangelicals, they can also contribute to evangelical masculinity by partaking in toxic masculine behaviors and culture, by enforcing purity culture on women and each other, and through other forms of misogyny, queerphobia, etc.