Purity Culture in America: Pledges, Rings and Their Critics

What is purity culture?

Purity culture is a youth-focused movement in conservative Christianity that treats sexual abstinence before marriage as a mark of faithfulness, and it became a mass phenomenon among American evangelicals in the 1990s. Reference works describe it as a set of teachings that go beyond the single rule of waiting for marriage: modest dress for women, traditional gender roles, discouragement of casual dating, and a link between sexual conduct and spiritual identity ^[5]. Its signature practices were public pledges, symbolic rings, and, later, ceremonies such as father–daughter purity balls ^[5].

The label "purity culture" is frequently used by observers and former participants rather than by the churches themselves. Within the churches concerned, the same ideas appeared under names such as sexual purity, abstinence, or waiting. Because the term is informal, its boundaries vary from one writer to another, and some people use it for the whole evangelical approach to sexuality while others use it only for the campaigns of the 1990s.

The underlying teaching is far older than the movement. Christian traditions have long taught that sexual relations belong within marriage, and the Bible's use of the word "fornication" is the subject of the page on what the Bible says about fornication. What was new in the 1990s was the organized youth campaign, with its mass events, merchandise and written commitments. Evangelical Christians in that period saw traditional family values as under threat amid the AIDS crisis and rising teen pregnancy, according to one encyclopedic account ^[5].

Purity culture is not the same thing as the sexual ethics of Latter-day Saints or Catholics, although these traditions also teach chastity. Encyclopedic accounts note that both Catholic and evangelical groups have used purity rings as symbols of commitment ^[5]. For the Latter-day Saint teaching, see the law of chastity.

Timeline

1. July 29, 1994Thousands of teenagers cover the National Mall in Washington, D.C., with an estimated 200,000 True Love Waits pledge cards.
2. 1996True Love Waits displays signed cards at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta.
3. 1997Joshua Harris publishes I Kissed Dating Goodbye, which promotes courtship over conventional dating.
4. 1998Randy and Lisa Wilson hold what is described as the first purity ball, in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
5. 1999Pledge cards are displayed on the Golden Gate Bridge.
6. January 2009Pediatrics publishes Rosenbaum's matched study of virginity pledgers (online December 29, 2008).
7. 2017True Love Waits stops selling pledge cards, according to NPR.
8. 2018Harris apologizes for the book's flaws and announces it will not be reprinted.

Where did True Love Waits and purity rings come from?

True Love Waits grew out of the Southern Baptist world and gave the movement its first national platform in the mid-1990s. Lifeway, the publishing arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, describes the campaign's origin in terms of a small group of students in the Nashville area who committed themselves to sexual purity and were soon joined by thousands more; it says hundreds of thousands of young people have since made such a commitment ^[1]. NPR identified the co-founders as Richard Ross and Jimmy Hester ^[3].

The best-known event took place on July 29, 1994, when thousands of teenagers gathered on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., and covered the lawn with an estimated 200,000 signed cards that had been collected over the preceding year ^[3]. Later displays of cards followed at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta in 1996 and on the Golden Gate Bridge in 1999 ^[3]. An early card began by affirming that true love waits and went on to name the people to whom the signer was making a commitment: God, the signer, family and dates ^[3].

The movement had a literature as well. Joshua Harris, a young evangelical author, published I Kissed Dating Goodbye in 1997, urging readers to avoid conventional dating in favor of courtship, group activities and parental involvement ^[6]. Rings, pledge cards and ceremonies gave teenagers something visible to wear or sign. Randy and Lisa Wilson, of a ministry in Colorado Springs, Colorado, are credited with originating the purity ball in 1998 ^[10]. Ross has said that True Love Waits did not take government funding ^[3], although federal money flowed to other abstinence programs in the same years, as explained in the article on abstinence-only education.

The campaign has changed since. NPR reported that True Love Waits stopped selling pledge cards in 2017 and that its current commitment no longer mentions abstinence or purity explicitly and speaks instead of a lifelong pursuit of personal holiness ^[3]. Lifeway's current page for the program emphasizes Bible studies for student ministry, including one led by Sean McDowell, and presents the program as offering restoration to those who have strayed ^[1].

What did research find about virginity pledges?

The best-known matched study found that pledgers had premarital sex at about the same rate as similar teens who had not pledged. Janet Rosenbaum, then at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, published "Patient Teenagers?" in the journal Pediatrics (issue of January 2009; online December 29, 2008) ^[2][4]. She used the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, drawing on 3,440 teens who were over 15 in 1995 and had never had sex or pledged, and matched 289 who reported a pledge in 1996 with 645 non-pledgers on more than 100 factors, including religiosity and attitudes toward sex and birth control ^[2][4].

Five years after the pledge, the two groups did not differ in premarital sex, in anal and oral sex, or in positive tests for chlamydia, gonorrhea or trichomoniasis ^[2]. Pledgers had about 0.1 fewer partners in the past year but did not differ in lifetime partners or in age at first sex ^[2][4]. Fewer pledgers than matched peers used birth control or condoms in the past year, and fewer used birth control at last sex ^[2]. A further finding drew attention: 82% of pledgers denied, five years later, having ever pledged ^[2].

Rosenbaum concluded that pledges may not change sexual behavior but may reduce the likelihood of taking precautions, and she recommended that clinicians offer birth-control information to all adolescents, especially pledgers ^[2]. An earlier analysis by sociologists Peter Bearman and Hannah Brückner, published in the American Journal of Sociology in January 2001, found that pledgers delayed first intercourse by about 18 months on average, though the effect depended on age and on how many classmates also pledged; it also found that pledgers who broke a vow were less likely to use contraception at first intercourse ^[9]. The two studies reached different conclusions about delay. One difference is method: Rosenbaum's matching compared pledgers with non-pledgers who were similar before the pledge, including in religiosity, so that the pledge itself could be isolated ^[2].

The research should be read within the wider picture of behavior. In the national survey analysis by Lawrence Finer, only about 3% of Americans had abstained from intercourse until marriage by age 44 ^[8]. See the premarital sex statistics for the full numbers.

Why has purity culture drawn criticism?

Critics argue that purity culture replaced sexual ethics with fear and shame, and that its burden fell hardest on young women. Reference accounts summarize the main objections: that it rests on sexist assumptions, for example by telling women to cover up because men cannot control their desires, and that it imposes rigid standards that can cause emotional and psychological harm to those who do not conform ^[5]. Some studies link an abstinence-focused upbringing to guilt and anxiety in adulthood, and women raised in the movement report more shame and fear around sex, according to the same account ^[5].

Purity balls drew some of the sharpest comment. Supporters said these ceremonies strengthened bonds between fathers and daughters, while critics held that they taught girls that their value lay in their virginity and that they should defer to male authority ^[5]. In a related line of criticism, Harris's own book was described by critics as an example of "benevolent sexism" and of a hierarchical father–daughter model, and some said it fostered condemnation and shame in the True Love Waits milieu ^[6].

The author himself reconsidered. In 2018 Harris said he no longer held the book's central idea that dating should be avoided, apologized for its flaws and announced that it would not be reprinted once current copies sold out ^[11]. In July 2019 he announced that he and his wife were separating and, days later, that by his own definition he was no longer a Christian ^[12].

Former participants have also written about the effects of the pledge. One woman who signed in 1996 told NPR that it left her without tools for relationships and disconnected from her body, and she wrote a book on the subject ^[3]. Others describe their own break with the movement as "deconstruction," an informal term that has no fixed definition but generally means taking apart inherited teachings and keeping some of them while discarding others. Not everyone who took part shares these views: a woman who attended the 1994 rally told NPR that she still supports waiting for marriage and that she homeschools her seven children ^[3].

Is purity culture still influential?

Its visible machinery has faded, but its ideas persist in evangelical youth ministry and in parts of public policy. A reference account says purity culture declined in popularity after the 2000s ^[5]. True Love Waits ended its card sales in 2017 ^[3].

Attitudes in the pews remain distinct. In Pew Research Center's 2019 survey, only 35% of white evangelical Protestants said it is acceptable for unmarried couples to live together even without plans to marry, compared with 76% of white non-evangelical Protestants, 74% of Catholics and about 90% of the religiously unaffiliated ^[7]. In the same survey, 78% of white evangelicals said society is better off when long-term couples eventually marry ^[7]. For group-by-group comparisons, see the article on evangelicals and sex before marriage.

The policy legacy is debated. NPR's retrospective placed the movement alongside government-funded abstinence curricula such as Sex Respect and Choosing the Best, and it cited a congressional report finding that 80% of grantee programs contained "false, misleading, or distorted information about reproductive health" ^[3]. The federal funding program that exists today, now framed as "sexual risk avoidance" education, is described in the abstinence article linked above. Whether that framework reflects the older movement or breaks with it is itself a question on which defenders and critics disagree.

Frequently asked questions

What is a purity ring?

A purity ring is a ring worn as a visible reminder of a promise to remain sexually abstinent until marriage. Encyclopedic accounts note that both evangelical and Catholic groups have used such rings. They became familiar in the 1990s alongside pledge cards and church campaigns.

Do virginity pledges work?

Not according to the best-known matched study. Published in Pediatrics in 2009, it found that pledgers had premarital sex and sexually transmitted infections at about the same rates as similar non-pledgers, and that pledgers were less likely to use birth control. An earlier analysis from 2001 found that pledgers delayed sex on average, so researchers still disagree.

Is purity culture only evangelical?

No, though the movement is centered in evangelical churches. Catholic groups have used purity rings, and Latter-day Saints teach their own law of chastity, but True Love Waits is a Southern Baptist initiative. The phrase "purity culture" usually refers to the evangelical youth movement of the 1990s.

What does deconstructing purity culture mean?

It is an informal phrase for examining, questioning and often leaving behind teachings absorbed in purity-focused churches. It has no fixed definition. Some people use it to describe a break with the movement alone, while others use it for a wider rethinking of their faith.

Who started True Love Waits?

It began among students in the Nashville area, and Richard Ross and Jimmy Hester are named as co-founders. The campaign was run through the Southern Baptist Convention's publishing arm, Lifeway. Its best-known event was a July 29, 1994 rally on the National Mall.

Is True Love Waits still active?

Yes, in a changed form. Lifeway still lists True Love Waits resources for student ministry. NPR reported that the program stopped selling pledge cards in 2017 and that its current commitment speaks of personal holiness rather than abstinence.