I was in high school when Joshua Harris’s book I Kissed Dating Goodbye captured the attention of the evangelical world. It kicked off a movement and inspired countless other books on dating and sexual purity. I read many of these, internalizing messages about my responsibility as a female to keep men from lusting, the value of my virginity, and how sexual sin could destroy my future marriage. I often finished one of these books more ashamed of my sexuality than when I had started it. Marriage and sex were placed on a pedestal, and they quickly became an idol: something I thought would one day complete me.

With my first serious relationship, I tried to follow all I’d been told in the books. We were friends first. We dated for years before getting engaged, ...

Adapted from Talking Back to Purity Culture  by Rachel Joy Welcher. Copyright (c) 2020 by Rachel Joy Welcher. Published by InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL. www.ivpress.com

Rachel Joy Welcher (MLit, University of St. Andrews) is a columnist and editor at Fathom magazine. She is the author of two books of poetry: Blue Tarp and Two Funerals, Then Easter. Her writing has appeared in Fathom Magazine, The Gospel Coalition, Mere Orthodoxy, Relevant, and The Englewood Review of Books. She lives in Glenwood, Iowa, with her husband, Evan.