Has the Church Helped in Teaching Sexual Purity?

even if all that was ever preached from the pulpit was purity, think about just that one hour a week compared to the very LOUD voice of society 24/7.

if you mean successfully, we can try, we can pray. who is up to such a task? i don't know anyone. :/

Thank you all for your responses and your openness in your answers. I am taking my time to read them now while keeping an eye on severe weather in our area. Never know when you have to run for shelter.

Full disclosure, I posted in the family forum, that my nephew at 18 has gotten his gf pregnant. As a family the only word I could use is devastated. My nephews have been raised in church, told of the downfalls of sex too early. He came to me a couple years ago and I felt I was straightforward as I could be without having spoken to his parents first. My nephew wasn't running with the wrong people, he wasn't getting bad grades or rebelling, no red flags that I could see. He was in JORTC, preparing for a military career and was very dedicated to that. So much so that my younger nephew also got involved. They are up with the birds doing service for their community. And in 6 months dating his gf all that changed. And I thought, we are missing the mark somewhere. So I am reading your responses now and I just would appreciate if you kept my nephew and the whole situation in prayer. I will get back to your posts asap. Have a blessed day!

Do you think men need to discuss female anatomy with other males?
How will this discussion help preserve the biblical view of marriage?

We live in an over the top sexualized society and we do not even realize it any more.
I am not sure we can expect different results from our youth when the church has had its part in promoting the great sexual revolution.

EXACTLY.....

The church is great at "do's and donts " but extremely thin on the why of any of it other than as you have stated here.

There's actually a laundry list of reasons for physical purity that have nothing to do with Hell or displeasing God or any other sort of fear mongering...but since the church isn't teaching them nobody knows them.

And they haven't taught them for a very very very long time.

Why is pornography bad?

How close to the line can a young couple get without crossing it?

Everyone has had sex: will I remain unmarried if I hold out for a 39 year old virgin?

There are answers to these questions that have the kid's best interests at heart....not condemnation and browbeating.

It's normal (in my view) to want to understand how the world works, which includes about sex. I think as females are a little more complicated than males, and as there is often more of a taboo about talking female anatomy, if there is not a Christian way for this information to be communicated, boys will turn to other means to obtain the information, which may involve pornography, but certainly will not include the clear boundaries that God puts on sex (i.e. reserved for marriage).

My point was really if even pastors are too scared to quote verses the bible speaks plainly of (e.g. Song of Solomon 4:5) this spreads to the parents and teachers in Christian schools, and they in turn don't speak plainly or clearly about sex to their children or students (really a parent's job in my opinion, but in this fallen world, Christian schools can be the next best thing). The children then seek out the information through other means, which doesn't have the same safeguards and cautions that scripture provides. I don't believe scripture prohibits learning about sex - it restricts sexual activity to within marriage. When the prohibitions are put on the wrong thing (e.g. learning about sex), natural curiosity will overcome this, but then nothing is left for where the prohibition should have been - engaging in sex outside of marriage.

Well you did not really answer my question, but skirted around it.

Do you think in biblical times men taught women about sex or women taught men about sex?

Oh. Preferably not, I would suggest. I didn't realise that was the question.

It wasn't my original question, but along the same lines.

I suspect in biblical times the women taught the women and the men taught the men and perhaps after marriage the husband and wife discussed sex.

Yeah, it seems to me that secular schooling is where most people have gotten their sex education. I'm not sure what year it started but I went through it and my hubby is 5 yrs older and he went through it. I think what I'm seeing here is that most of what we learn about our bodies and sex is taught in school and very few parents step in because they believe school covered it. So I guess that begs the next question, did your (anyone posting here) parents teach you about sex or leave it up to school education? My mother was a nurse so at the right age, she would update us on what we needed to know. She didn't feel it was up to the school to teach such personal things so I think we were quite informed for our ages.

See I fear that is not the case in many churches. I do not recall any church I attended bringing up the issue. Now in their defense, I began to travel when I was 16 and didn't attend Sunday school after that time. But I still don't believe anything much, if anything was said about it.

I do understand that people that come out of the world see those pitfalls faster than people who are churchified. My own father didn't grow up in church. My grandmother raised 5 boys on her own. But again, that was something you didn't talk about, the shame was too great and long after she became a Christian she never could forgive herself for her failings. It just seems to me that the church has its blinders on when it comes to sex, not only for our youth but how it affects marriages too.

I think, to be honest, everything goes back to bad or imperfect parenting. The child is getting the rebellion streak from somewhere. No one here mentioned the parents, but are trying to point the finger at the church or society. With good parenting, a child should be able to withstand the influences of society and see the importance of chasity. However, the parents are not getting the message through in some way. There could be many reasons, such as parents not getting along on their own, being able to communicate with their kids well, etc.

no my parents didnt teach me anything about it, they were not teachers

Mum just said dont sleep with any boys till you married and that was it.
I did ask her once about what it was like to have babies and she said was like going to the toilet. I remember asking my aunties about boys they said 'oh you have this feeling' but otherwise no as talking about that stuff with your parents/mum was too embarassing.

One of mums friends was a midwife and knew all about having babies but she never had babies herself when she was married.

At school everyone was 'going round' with each other from an early age from primary. I was a late developer so stayed quite innocent up to around age 16 (where it seems everyone was on heat) although def was aware of things before that age.

I read my sisters Dolly magazines that seemed to answer q's about it. Also womens magazines would sometimes mention it in their personal columns. I had an older sister but dont remember ever discussing anything with her about it. We had cats, and the neighbours had a female cat that they never bothered getting her spayed so she was always attracting toms. She was forever pregnant and thats mostly how I learned about sex. And cats mating is a noisy affair. Like a gangbang.

Perfect response! It seems that the church is struggling to reach their own, let alone those outside the walls. And sex is a huge issue as we see. It's not just the temptation of sex before marriage, but who you are having it with. We have young people that are buying into lies about who they are and that who they have sex with defines who they are. And the church seems lost in all of this. It's like they are white knuckling their way through the mire and muck with no real answers or help for lost youth, let alone adults. We can't seem to find deliverance, we can seem to shield our own children from the world. How can we then reach out to others?

I think another big elephant in the room regarding sexual purity is the ideal that ALL male sexuality is inherently "dirty" and "harmful to women".

Some of this comes from the idea of asceticism, which teaches that all physical needs/pleasures are bad and that one should always avoid such if he/she wants to remain spiritual. Some of it also comes from the (mis)use of Jesus' warning against adultery in the heart as a "hammer" or "club" on Christian men. I could go into a long explanation of what the word "lust" means in the context of Matthew 5, but the gist is that Matthew 5:28 has been interpreted by some to mean that anytime a man looks at a woman and feels sexually attracted to her, regardless of the circumstances and regardless of his or her marital status, that it is automatically adultery in the heart. Finding a woman sexually attractive is not inherently sinful; coveting her (if she is another man's wife or girlfriend) definitely is.

It is my belief that books such as "Every Man's Battle" are promoting asceticism and "male sexuality is dirty/sinful". I also don't care for the notion that a man shouldn't feel sexually attracted to a woman because she is "somebody's daughter". Well I would submit that the man is "somebody's son."

"Purity culture" hurts men based on how they think, and it hurts women based on how they present themselves.

$0.02