The Purity Myth

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By Jessica Valenti

Publisher Description

From the bestselling author of Sex Object, a searing investigation into American culture's obsession with virginity, and the argument for creating a future where women and girls are valued for more than sexuality

The United States is obsessed with virginity--from the media to schools to government agencies. In The Purity Myth, Jessica Valenti argues that the country's intense focus on chastity is damaging to young women. Through in-depth cultural and social analysis, Valenti reveals that powerful messaging on both extremes--ranging from abstinence-only curriculum to "Girls Gone Wild" infomercials--place a young woman's worth entirely on her sexuality. Morals are therefore linked purely to sexual behavior, rather than values like honesty, kindness, and altruism. Valenti sheds light on the value--and hypocrisy--around the notion that girls remain virgins until they're married by putting into context the historical question of purity, modern abstinence-only education, pornography, and public punishments for those who dare to have sex. The Purity Myth presents a revolutionary argument that girls and women are overly valued for their sexuality, as well as solutions for a future without a damaging emphasis on virginity.

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350 Reviews

4.0

Korraeheh

Created 21 days ago

“DNFed, redundant, annoying prose and traces of liberal feminism.”

Brittany Cope

Created 3 months ago

Abuse Bigotry Domestic violence Explicit sexual content Homophobia Misogyny Religious intolerance Sexual assault Transphobia Violence

Caitlin S

Created 3 months ago

“I thought it was very informative and there was a lot of truth in it. I knocked off a star because while I think it's important read it does read a BIT dry and there wasn't really anything new, then again it is also 15 years old at this point. I was also slightly disappointed because even though it was touched on here and there how faith leaders contribute to the purity myth, it didn't go too much into it because IMO faith leaders are the MAIN reason this myth still exists and they are the ones keeping the toxic movement going.”

kaleouellette

Created 3 months ago

“Overall this book was good, it was well written, there wasn't really any new information for me personally but she brought up a lot of issues and connected a lot of dots so that's good. I did find that it got repetitive towards the end but that happens. However, I had some issues. What I thought this book did well: discussing the virgin/whore dichotomy, connecting ideas of purity to larger consequences in schools (abstinence-only education), media (reporting on rape and violence that blamed women for their assault, the creation of 'good' vs 'bad' victims and the subsequent coverage, fear-mongering statistics and blatantly false information being pushed by the movement), and law (judges pushing these same purity=morality, therefore impurity=immorality ideas, anti-feminist legislation focused on controlling women's bodies), and arguing that women are competent moral actors in their own lives and that they are capable of, and should be trusted to, make their own decisions. What I thought this book didn't do well: (I'm not sure if this is because I'm reading this in 2021, a decade after it was published and the culture has changed - but honestly I really don't think that the culture has changed that much), but most of my critiques are around hypersexualization and hook up culture, which I see as the opposite side of the same coin to purity culture. Purity culture, as Valenti establishes, positions women as passive vessels that need to be controlled and set on the right path, and positions sexuality as something that men have the authority over. Hook up culture does something similar - women are encouraged to engage in no-strings-attached sex, to be 'sexually adventurous' and kinky, and to be totally okay with having sex without an emotional connection. This still positions women's sexuality as being for the benefit of men (let's be honest, it's men that benefit from women being increasingly sexual available and down for anything, and now they don't even have to worry about creating an emotional connection), but it's wrapped up in this 'you go, girl' empowered, 'own your sexuality' feminist language. I think that Valenti was too quick to discredit some of the ideas brought forward by conservative women simply because they were conservatives - ideas around porn damaging relationships, as casual sex having potential emotional and physical consequences for women, and critiquing the objectification and sexualization of young girls in media and marketing. From reading some of the excerpts it does look like a lot of fear-mongering and shaming of girls and women for having sex, which I obviously don't agree with, but second wave feminists were anti-pornography for a reason and there are a ton of feminists speaking up against hookup culture and the increasingly sexualized expectations that teenage girls are expected to follow. I think that the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction as a result of purity culture and I think we need to be careful and positioning hookup culture as a good thing just because women are 'allowed' to have sex, because these women are still facing the same double standards and discrediting. Obviously we shouldn't come at it from a conservative viewpoint that sex is bad, but we also shouldn't be shaming girls on tik tok for being 'vanilla' or being 'prudes' because they don't want their boyfriends to choke them or they don't want to do anal or they're not into kink. Valenti talks a lot about what women's 'natural' sexuality looks like, and that it's not passive or repressed, and I think that's absolutely correct! I just also don't think that teenage girls and young women have a 'natural' sexuality that mirrors pornography, which is what we're seeing now. Her little quip about there being middle ground between purity culture and 'rabid anti-porn Dworkinizing' really missed the mark and acts to discredit historical and current feminists who are speaking out about pornography and sexualization and how that's harming women. Positioning them as somehow conservative does nothing for feminism as a cause, or for women navigating these cultures. Purity culture sees women as private property, while hookup culture (mostly pushed by the Left) sees women as public property. On both sides, it is still men who benefit and women who are relegated to objects.”

Hollie Marsh

Created 4 months ago

About Jessica Valenti

Jessica Valenti is the author of multiple books on feminism, politics and culture, and editor of the anthology Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape.

Jessica is also the founder of Feministing.com, which Columbia Journalism Review called "head and shoulders above almost any writing on women's issues in mainstream media."

Her writing has appeared in publications like the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Nation, and Ms. magazine. She is currently a columnist at the Guardian US. Jessica lives in Brooklyn with her husband and daughter.