Developing a measure of purity culture: sexual messages in evangelical Christian culture

Abstract

Worthington et al. (2002) proposed a model of sexual identity development in which sexual identity development is influenced by social and cultural factors. One important cultural factor that has not been previously studied is the concept of “purity culture,” which is an important piece of the evangelical Christian subculture. The purpose of the present study was to define the construct of purity culture and develop a measure of purity culture that can be used to further study experiences of sexuality in evangelical Christianity. A survey of popular sources referencing purity culture determined that purity culture contains the following messages: the sexual double standard, women as sexual gatekeepers, men as unable to control their sexual desire, extreme modesty, virginity as a gift, benevolent sexism, and an “all or nothing” mentality as it relates to sexual activity. These messages of the purity culture, while upholding Christian teachings on abstinence, are distinct from traditional Christian teaching. Specifically, purity culture places even greater restrictions upon sexual behavior, and in legalistic ways focuses on external standards to the exclusion of internal motivations. The measure of purity culture, called the Purity Culture Beliefs Scale (PCBS) was developed following the best practice recommendations proposed by Wright et al. (2017). The PCBS, along with nine other measures to establish initial convergent and discriminant validity, were administered to 218 undergraduate students from a private evangelical liberal arts university. A principal components analysis was conducted and revealed three components of the PCBS. The components were named “Shame and Guilt,” “Gender Roles,” and “Idealization.” Additionally, adequate internal consistency, convergent validity, and discriminant validity were initially established for the PCBS. Future research should be conducted in order to further validate the PCBS and its subscales. This research helps to establish an initial theory of purity culture that may be used in future research on sexual identity development in evangelical Christian culture.