Sexvangelicals

The culture that brought us Girls Gone Wild, ashleymadison.com, and The Ethical Slut, according to one sociologist, helped make religion obsolete.

According to Christian Smith in Why Religion Went Obsolete: The Demise of Traditional Faith in America, the United States in the early 21st century has experienced a dramatic decline in religiosity. A number of sociocultural factors account for what another academic calls “the great dechurching”: a loss in confidence in societal institutions, including organized religion (exacerbated by innumerable scandals); a hyperindividualism that loosens social bonds; a reaction against the religious fanaticism unleashed on 9/11; the influence of the New Atheism. But sex also played a role.

American culture experienced a “third sexual revolution” starting in the late 1990s, marked by what Smith calls the “three D’s: diversification, democratization, and ‘de-shaming’ of previously objectionable sexual behaviors.” Most notable was the increasing acceptance of nonmonogamy, as manifested in explorations of polyamory (and more crudely in the enjoyment of “fuck buddies”). This sexual revolution was enabled by the digital revolution, which made pornography easily accessible, facilitated the arrangement of sexual encounters through websites and apps, and exposed people to “alternative” sexual subcultures and practices. The “sex-positivity” movement embraced by third-wave feminism provided a theoretical framework in which a young female college student could market herself as a “sugar baby” and still style herself as a progressive. BDSM kink went mainstream. Smith quotes the typical views of Millennials who grew up in this milieu:

• “I don’t think hooking up, porn, sex in the media is bad.”
• “Traditional views [on sex] are unrealistic.”
• “Sex is great. Almost everybody fucks.”

Religious cultures that espoused traditional views were in trouble, especially “purity culture.” “Evangelical purity campaigns like ‘True Love Waits’ looked preposterous in comparison,” Smith archly writes. They also had the unintended result of producing a good number of “exvangelicals.” For them “the religion of their youth was a source of manipulation, shame, repression, sexual double standards, obsession with virginity, negative views of bodies….Purity culture being so interwoven with the Christianity that they knew meant for them that rejecting the former often required abandoning the latter as well.” Non-evangelicals were also put off by this sexual puritanism.

As one prominent evangelical commentator put it, “people leave the church because they want to gratify the flesh with abandon” and “pursue the sexual hedonism” traditional religion condemns. Exvangelical memoirs have populated the shelves of bookstores in recent years, and their complaints about purity culture do read like thinly veiled justifications for fleshly gratification. (An online article is entitled “An Exvangelical Guide to Having a Threesome.”) Some are merely revealing behavior that evangelical culture seeks to conceal. Christianity Today a few years ago featured this headline: “More Evangelical Women Have Had Sex With Women Than You Might Think.” The accompanying article noted, “Seventeen percent of evangelical women between the ages of 15 and 44 have had sex with another woman, according to data gathered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.” Others apostatize to learn the ways of the secular flesh.

“Christine” was in a young adults group I facilitated a few years ago. Sweet and cheerful, she was a social worker. (I confess to being smitten with her girlish voice, curly hair, and heart-shaped derrière.) She was new to a liturgical tradition, and her evangelical roots were evident. (When I referred to a reading in the lectionary, she didn’t understand my reference.) I distinctly recall her expression of horror at the thought that a potential boyfriend could have watched porn.

I hadn’t thought of Christine in quite a while, but I was surprised when I discovered that she contributed to a blog extolling “secular sex.” One entry reviewed the merits of various butt plugs.

She had joined the ranks of the sexvangelicals.