Tossing
and turning, my poor roommate could not sleep.
Loud giggles and sappy talk rang from down the hall. At 1 AM frustration mustered as he knew, he
had to be up in just a few hours to go open at Starbucks. He mustered himself to action and walked down
the hall.
“Hey
man, I can hear you from my room. Can you talk quieter bro? Thanks dude.”
A little huff and roll of the eyes and my other roommate put
headphones in and continued to talk to his girlfriend, “Sorry about that baby.
What were you saying?” Things seem to
perhaps get a couple notches quieter and the roomy was able to get a little bit
of sleep.
In most
cases that would have been the end of the story, but the next evening roommate
gets a knock on his door from the one he confronted the night before:
Roomy 1:
“Hey man, can we talk?”
Roomy
2: “Sure brah, what’s up?”
R1: “So last night when I was
skyping my girlfriend, she saw you in your underwear. That could really cause her to stumble you
know. It was inappropriate and you
should have been more aware of protecting her purity. Can you be more aware in the future?”
R2: “(Um W.T.F.) Uh sure dude…”
R1: “Thanks
bro.”
I guess sometimes we deal with conflict short and sweet in
the apartment.
Though
seemingly trite, this anecdote points to a rather amusing or annoying byproduct
of people still entrenched deep in purity culture. In my best mansplaining, purity culture is
the extreme fear of lust to the point where it illogically reverses victim and objectifier,
places guilt upon innocence and freedom, compares women to chocolate cake, and
makes men into mindless sex machines. Outside
the mindset of purity culture, this scene would have simply been a matter of
noise; however, overinflated theology intervenes*
*An old professor gives the object
lesson of a balloon, when part of the balloon is pressed in too hard, the rest
of the balloon must conform to compensate.
Now to dissect the scenario:
It was
1 AM. In a young professional world, we
need our sleep especially the poor baristas who have to be up extra early to
make our coffee. Common sense and
courtesy dictates this is not the time to be shouting adolescent worthy saps to
your girlfriend.
Bringing
someone via skype into a shared space is the responsibility of the person
skyping. There should really be some
ethical discussion on digital invasion.
I am surprised youth and college pastors aren’t lining up to talk about
the dangers of such digital voyeurism…
At 1 AM
it is perfectly reasonable to walk about one’s home in skivvies. In fact, it is perfectly reasonable for
anyone to do so in their private space at any time of day.
Purity
culture has usurped the stumbling passages out of their original context. We should note things like food sacrificed to
idols *cough cough* Monsanto as true evils to worry about.
In all
reality, the girlfriend probably saw the roommates pale gingered skin and
thought to herself “As if!” before promptly dismissing the occasion.
So on
and so forth…
Purity
culture has missed the focus of the way Jesus was teaching us to follow. So I’ll contribute my voice to the elevation
of the conversation. The way we should
follow focuses on viewing every person simply as a human being. It is the reclamation of our humanity. It is recognizing that every person has been
marked with the image of God. In each
person there resides dignity and worth and beauty. The thrust of Jesus’ teaching ultimately is that
lust falls short of recognizing these qualities that should be looked for and
valued instead. The faith community
ought to be speaking to our renewal as people rather than reverting to
legalistic attempt at sin management.
There is much to be said, but this is my small audible whisper into the
conversation.
Therefore as a mansplainer, I am
against purity culture because I want to be able to run around my home in my
skivvies whenever I choose to. (But
really because I want to validate the real beauty, dignity, and worth of each
person.)
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