It's in the Code Ep 122: “Guarding Virtue: Female Sexuality”
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This episode continues our deep dive into understanding sex and sexuality within conservative, high control American Christianity. This week we look at women’s sexuality. Within this world, how is women’s sexuality understood? What are its unique features? How does it differ from, and complement, men’s sexuality? And what are the unique burdens and dangers that these understandings place on women? Listen to find out what Dan has to say about these topics and more in this week’s episode.
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We now know that Donald Trump is headed back to the White House.
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My name is Dan Miller, Professor of Religion and Social Thought at Landmark College.
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Please reach out, Daniel Miller Swag, DanielMillerSWAJ at gmail.com.
I don't have as much time to respond as I wish that I had, and not all of you hear from me as quickly as I would like, but I do value those comments and insights and feedback so much.
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And this series, kind of the series within the series that we're in right now, has come from you.
It has come from feedback and comments that you gave.
And so diving into that, we're in sort of a series.
I've been calling it, you know, we've got to talk about the sex stuff.
We're talking about high-control, conservative American religion.
We've got to talk about the sex stuff.
Last week, we introduced this and talked about male sexuality.
This week, we're going to take a look at female sexuality.
And just as a reminder that within the framework of conservative, high-control Christianity in America, it is completely cis-normative.
That is, it presupposes fundamentally that there are two fixed genders, male and female, and that's it.
It is also heteronormative, meaning that men are sexually attracted to women, women are sexually attracted to men, and so forth.
So, I'm presupposing that framework in a lot of my discussion, which means I will use terms like male sexuality, female sexuality, men's sexuality, women's sexuality.
I don't think those are terms that make sense, and we'll talk about that as we get further along.
We will look at some queer issues and things like that.
But I want to put that out there so that people hear that, again, to keep in front of you, that that's not my terminology, that's not my framework, but it is the framework within the cultural practices we're trying to decode in this series.
Also, just fair warning, if you've got people in your life who might be hearing this and you're not ready for them to maybe learn some things about sexuality or to have frank discussions about those, this is probably not the episode for them.
Maybe not the episode you want while you're in the car line waiting for drop-off at school or whatever.
Fair warning.
Diving in here, as I say, we talked about male sexuality last week.
We're going to talk about female sexuality this week.
And it's worth reminding ourselves that high-control Christianity is structured around what is called gender complementarity.
That is the view that the distinctive sexualities of men and women, which are fundamentally different, are also complementary.
They complement one another.
They fit together.
And part of what that means is if we're going to understand one, we have to understand the other.
So last episode, as I say, I introduced male sexuality, and I did this around sort of what I think were three key elements or defining features of male sexuality.
And I said that male sexuality is overwhelming, it is insatiable, and it is predatory.
And I suggested that within a Christian framework, what it means to redeem this sexuality is to rein it in and redirect it.
Not going to rehash all of that.
Why do I bring that up?
I bring it up because it brings us right to the issue of female sexuality.
Because women's sexuality in this framework is the flip side.
It is the complement of male sexuality.
And as we'll see, the articulation of this gets pretty convoluted and, in my view, is really, really problematic within high-control religion.
Okay?
So let's talk about...
Sort of quote-unquote natural women's sexuality or women's natural sexuality within this framework.
If natural male sexuality, male sexuality sort of in the wild, as it were, is threatening and violent, female sexuality is intended to counterbalance this.
When I say it's intended to, I mean it is created by God to counterbalance this.
God is the one who makes humans.
God is the one who makes sexuality.
God is the one who made male sexuality to be what it is, which means that female sexuality is intended to counterbalance male sexuality.
So if sexual virtue is something that has to be achieved for men by denying or redirecting their natural sexuality, and I discussed this last episode, that what it means to be quote-unquote virtuous sexually if you're a man is to deny or, again, to rein in elements of your natural sexuality, that virtue is That is a denial of men's natural sexuality.
Virtue is the nature of female sexuality.
That is, by way of contrast with men's sexuality, women's sexuality is by nature virtuous.
What do I mean by that?
What I mean is that women are not naturally driven by the same lustful predatory desires as men.
And if you want to understand this, all you have to think about are some common gender and sexual stereotypes that you are probably familiar with.
You may have grown up with them.
You will certainly have heard them.
I don't think that these will be foreign to anybody.
If they are foreign to you, then congratulations.
But it's just about, for example, the stereotype that sex and sexuality for women are about feelings and emotion, that physical arousal or sexual desire are sort of secondary for women and that women are more emotional and men are more physical and so forth.
Those stereotypes, those generalizations, and I grew up hearing these not just in church.
But just as a part of broad cultural norms about sexuality, that is this notion.
That is this notion that you have this fundamental distinction between men and women.
And what that means is to say that women and their sexuality are about emotion and feelings and protection and things like this, it means that in their natural state, Women are driven not by sexual desire or sexual needs or physical urges.
Women are driven by their need for love and protection and emotional connection.
And it means that women's sexuality is naturally situated within a context of love and care and relationship.
So we translate that into the terms of high-control religion.
It means that women's sexuality is virtuous by nature.
Excuse me.
Women, by their nature, are sexually virtuous, whereas men are sexually predatory and violent and so forth.
Does that mean that women have it all figured out, that that's the end of the story?
No.
It's a Christian story, and that means that within this Christian story, women's sexuality, just like men's sexuality, it is fallen and in need of redemption.
But here's the key.
The expression of sexual fallenness, what it means to fall or to stumble sexually for women, is fundamentally different than it is for men.
Within the context, again, of the high-control religion, what we might call sexual sin is of a fundamentally different sort for men and women.
For men, again, sexual fallenness is to give into their nature, to give into their urges, okay?
But this is the opposite, and we've got to hold on to this idea because this is the key idea.
For women, sexual fallenness, sexual sin, is giving away their sexual virtue.
It is departing from their natural state of being virtuous and wrapping their sexuality within emotion and situating it within relationship and so forth, which of course takes the form of marriage and monogamy and lifelong commitments and so forth.
Sexual sin for women is engaging in sexual activity outside of those kinds of relationships.
So what does that mean?
It means that when women fall or stumble sexually, when they commit what the Bible would call sexual immorality, it means that they act against their sexual nature.
So men in their fallen state act according to their sexual nature, but women, when they sin and fall, act against their sexual nature.
And I think that that's really important because what this means is that when you get into the Christian context, say that a woman grows up in church or she becomes a Christian and so she's living her redeemed sexuality.
Redeemed female sexuality preserves what is most natural for the woman.
So redeemed sexuality for a woman is sexuality that is expressed within the confines of a committed, emotionally supported framework.
A heterosexual marriage that is for life and is monogamous and so forth.
When women express their sexuality in any ways other than this, when they express their sexuality outside of a lifelong monogamous committed marriage to a man, they are violating their essential nature.
They are going against the nature that God has given them.
And that's significant, and there are a lot of consequences to this.
Here's the first one.
It means that when women commit quote-unquote sexual sins or sexual immorality, the consequences are higher for them.
The consequences are worse for them than they are for men.
People who study or are just familiar with high-control American religion and things like purity culture have known for a long time, and I know many of you grew up in that.
I grew up in that.
You know this from the inside.
You know this and can feel this.
That the consequences for so-called sexual sin are always worse for women than they are for men.
While men and women may both be called to be sexually pure, women bear a clear double standard.
They have a higher burden when it comes to sexual sin.
And I think the reason is this understanding of their different natural female sexuality.
Because again, when men sin sexually, it's bad.
Christian will say, hey, don't get me wrong.
It's bad.
They shouldn't do that.
But when they do, they are doing what comes naturally to them.
They are giving into their nature.
And this is where you get, as I said last episode, the kind of forgiving logic that says, well, you know, they shouldn't have done that.
But, you know, he's a guy and guys have urges and he gave into those.
And what do you expect?
That's going to happen from time to time.
But when women sin sexually, they are going against their nature.
They are violating their nature.
They are going against what comes most naturally to them.
And so there's a sense that it's like a double failing.
On the one hand, they have failed to live up to God's standard, to reserve sexuality for marriage and commitment and relationship and all that sort of stuff.
But they have also acted against their own nature.
They are not acting naturally.
They are acting unnaturally.
They are doing something unnatural.
And so I think that this creates the sense that it is simply a bigger transgression, a worse transgression, a more pronounced transgression when women sin sexually than it is when men do.
So I think that that's the first consequence, is that there is simply a higher cost, greater consequences for women when they sin sexually.
To say nothing of the fact, for example, that women can get pregnant and literally carry the consequences visibly and publicly and in the form of a life that is going to exist, you know, from that time forward.
There's no hiding their sexual immorality, quote unquote, sexual immorality, the way that men can hide this.
Okay?
That's the first consequence of this understanding of female sexuality.
Here's a second consequence.
Women bear the burden of complimenting men's sexuality.
What do I mean by that?
I said that redeemed male sexuality is sexuality that is reined in and redirected.
That is accomplished by women.
Women are the mechanism of redirecting and reining in male sexuality.
Because their natural sexuality is expressed in the context of love and relationships, women bear that burden of bringing men into that context.
They are the ones who ultimately bear the responsibility for helping men to rein in and redirect their sexuality.
So within the confines of marriage, a woman's sexual responsibility is to carry out the redemption of her husband's sexuality.
That's a big burden.
The redemption of his sexuality is not a task simply for him or for him with God's help.
Nope.
His wife is responsible for helping to redeem his sexuality.
She becomes the mechanism of his redemption.
What does that look like?
It means that she is to be sexually available as the outlet for his sexual desires.
And if that sounds coarse, and that sounds a little over the top, and maybe you didn't grow up in that context, that can't possibly...
It can't be that...
What?
That bald-faced of a kind of sexist conception.
It is.
I cannot tell you how many conversations I have had.
I've heard sermons about this.
I've read books about this.
I've been in seminary classes where this was taught that basically say that a part of a woman's sexual responsibility is to be available to her husband so that he has an outlet for his sexuality.
If we expect men to rein in and redirect their sexuality and focus it on one person and be monogamous and so forth, that person has the responsibility of being available for that.
The woman also becomes the means of that redirected sexual energy.
The primary, maybe not the primary, the most immediate context of that redirection is the family.
And so the woman has the responsibility of helping to redirect that sexual energy.
How?
She's the one that carries children.
She's the one who produces this family that will become a redirected outlet for all this sexual energy that men have.
That's a huge burden.
Now, a critic, I'm a critic of this, a critic who's not familiar with this will say, well, what if a woman doesn't want to do that?
And there are people within the same religious context who would be uncomfortable with the way that I'm presenting this.
And they'll say, well, what if a woman doesn't want this?
The typical response is going to be that her desires are off base.
She desires wrongly.
This is what she should want.
There's a Bible verse, Genesis 3.16, that says that a woman's desire shall be for her husband.
Folks, I have heard this preached more times than I can tell you.
A woman ought to.
She has been sort of programmed by God to desire this.
That is what gender complementarity means.
And if a woman doesn't desire that, it means that she is not fully embodying or embracing or accepting what God has designed her to be.
She fails to do or to desire what God has intended for her.
Now, it'll be obvious, I think, to everybody listening that this understanding of female sexuality is prime for abuse and coercion.
If a man strays, quote unquote, it's because his wife isn't meeting his sexual needs.
I had a seminary class where the professor taught this.
He wrote a book that we had to read in class.
And went on at length about the importance of women remaining attractive and exercising, and things like this, so that her husband would have no reason to stray.
He would have no reason to look elsewhere for sexual gratification.
If a woman isn't sexually available when the man wants, beyond very limited reasons that are outlined in New Testament passages and things, if a woman isn't sexually available when the man wants, she's selfish.
And this can obviously lead to issues of abuse, issues of coercion, issues of shame, and so forth.
All of which means that women bear the burden of men's sexuality.
That's the second consequence.
What is the third?
The third is that there is simply, within this framework, no real place for women's sexual desire and pleasure.
These discussions, articulations about male and female sexuality and gender complementarity and, you know, these things start with like church youth group and go all the way up.
There is virtually no discussion of women's sexual pleasure Or a woman's sexual desire.
If a man's sexual desire is insatiable, a woman's sexual desire becomes almost non-existent.
A woman's desire, her pleasure, it's going to come because, remember, she's driven by emotion, not sensuality, not physical desire, but emotion.
Her pleasure will come from serving her husband.
Her pleasure will come from producing children.
Her pleasure will come from raising her family.
That's what her pleasure is.
There's no space here, oftentimes, for any discussion of distinctly sexual desire or physical pleasure.
It's virtually absent from the discussion.
If they show up at all, it's typically with the assumption that women will just sort of automatically experience sexual pleasure just because they're having sex with their husbands.
So it's a very, very male-oriented, male-focused conception of feminine sexuality.
And as many women coming out of this context can attest, and I've gotten emails about this in response to other episodes that I've done.
I have talked with folks about this, both informally, just out in the world.
I've talked with coaching clients about this.
I have read more accounts of this than I can tell you of people coming out of these contexts.
Women telling stories, for example, that they did not know that orgasms were even possible.
They didn't know that women could even have an orgasm.
They had no idea what that was or how to achieve it.
And again, if part of the purpose of sexual expression is procreation, and we're going to revisit that in a later episode too, not to put too fine a point on it, women don't need to have an orgasm to get pregnant.
Men, on the other hand, are typically not going to impregnate somebody if they don't have an orgasm.
So there just doesn't need to be space for this notion of women's sexual pleasure.
Likewise, the reduction of sex to vaginal intercourse is another topic we're going to talk about in more detail as we go along here.
That reduction of sex to vaginal intercourse means that there's often no discussion or even awareness, again, of other practices or things like clitoral stimulation or how to bring it about.
Like I said, frank discussion today, not car line stuff.
There's no discussion of any of that.
And so I have met women, I have talked with women, I have read accounts written by women who will say they had no idea that these things even existed, or if they did, there simply wasn't a notion that this was a priority in a married sexual relationship.
Women's pleasure and physical desire doesn't figure.
So I think that this is a real cost of this understanding of women's sexuality.
Tied in with this is just also the awareness that this stereotypical understanding of the relation of sexuality and emotion for women also has a cost.
It masks the reality that there is obviously no one meaning of sexuality for women.
Or that sex and emotions can relate in a lot of different and variable ways.
They don't take the same form for everybody.
And of course, the same applies for men.
There are plenty of men in the world for whom, you know, they need to have a strong emotional connection with somebody before they would be able to feel or experience or carry out sexual intimacy or sexual desire.
This doesn't map onto these two genders.
As conceived here, but within high control religion it does.
That's how it's understood.
So there can be no allowance for women's expression of sexuality outside the bonds of marriage.
We know, anybody outside of this framework knows, that sexual expression does not automatically relate on to one pattern of emotional connection And so on.
But that's a defining feature of sexuality as understood and women's sexuality as understood within high-control religion.
I've got a lot more I could say here.
We're out of time.
We're going to pick this up with other episodes.
We're going to carry these ideas forward.
Next episode, I'm going to talk about what I call the virgin fetish, the idea of specifically feminine virginity and how it plays into all of this.
In a later episode, we're going to pick up a flip side of this that not too many people are familiar with, I think, and it's what I'm going to call the sex-positive purity movement.
We're going to talk about this, okay?
For now, what I could say, kind of summing this up, is that high-control conservative Christianity often presents its vision of women's sexuality as an elevated view.
It presents itself as having a high view and placing an extreme value on women and women's sexuality, but I would argue that it devalues women's sexuality.
Apart from men, in my view, this gender complementarian model Produces no positive value to women's sexuality within this framework.
Their sexuality exists solely to complement and serve the needs of men and their sexuality.
And it brings real risks of women for it, as I've tried to highlight.
Risks of coercion, risks of abuse, to say nothing of just, you know, unfulfilling crappy sex for like your entire life.
When you boil it all down, what it means is that women are forced to be the guardians of sexual virtue.
And it is an impossible, unnecessary, unfair, and traumatizing burden, as I've tried to show briefly today, and as we will see moving forward as we get into some of these other issues.
Again, as always, thank you for listening.
Keep the ideas coming.
It's a hot topic here, so if you've got thoughts, feedback, comments, keep them coming.
DanielMillerSwag, DanielMillerSWAJ at gmail.com.
I welcome those insights.
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Don't forget, y'all.
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