Like many Black millennial women who grew up in the church, I often heard the message of how sex should be saved for marriage. The message urged girls and young women, to hold onto their purity until they said “I do.”
As life went on, and I met people outside of my Christian bubble, I learned that sex meant different things for different people. For some, it can be a more serious step in their committed relationship, or it can be taking agency over their own body by not ignoring their desires. While I learned these things, I often wondered what it looked like for those Black Christian girls, who became Black Christian women, living in a world where our body is our own.
As Candice Benbow spells it out in her book Red Lip Theology, “Christians are absolutely obsessed with sex. We’ve made whether we have it or not our entire worlds. We act like life is over as soon as we find out someone else, mainly someone of the cisgender female persuasion is having it.”
Benbow, who both grew up in church and attended seminary, sharing this shows how prevalent of a topic sex is in the Christian church. This can aid in Black kids hearing about sex early on paired with a lack of transition from childhood to adolescence to adulthood. So, when someone faces sex as an option, there’s a lot of condemnation around the word sex and act of sex, but no real guidance and understanding of all that sex entails.
Black girls, specifically, are left to figure out many things independently, without guidance, and without having the full scope of what something is and how it affects Black women and our relationships.
“But while mothers of millennial Black girls were sending their daughters to church to escape the perils of the world, we also became victims of traps set in the holiest places. It was in church where I learned, as a child, I had the butt and breasts of a grown woman,” shared Candice Benbow as she broke down one of the first spaces where she was made aware of her body and how it looked.
Black girls often aren’t afforded the freedom to fully experience girlhood coming into adulthood in many ways, including public comments on their bodily appearance, often before even 10 years old. Does this play a part in the conversation about sex in the church often? Likely. But we also know that there are many things in Black culture today that stem from slavery and the trauma many generations are still healing.
Sex in the Black church is often addressed but never discussed in a well-rounded way. It’s painted as a sin outside of marriage and something one should avoid until they are married under the guise of purity. This often leaves space for what may and may not be deemed appropriate in Christian dating relationships.
We know sex in marriage is often praised as a good thing, but what about the world outside of marriage? What about the Black Christian women who don’t want to get married and want to have sex? The Black Christian women who don’t even desire sex? What about the Black Christian women in safe and caring relationships who feel comfortable sharing that experience with their partner? And, for those who choose to follow the path of sex after marriage, what does it look like to navigate this space in an open way?
When it comes to purity culture, specifically how it affects Black women in the Christian church, there’s a part of it that comes out of viewing Black women as more promiscuous. And we know, that’s not the truth. Through their involvement in purity culture, Black evangelicals harm Black girls and women by stating that sex before marriage ruins their future marriage. Benbow’s Red Lip Theology offers a different perspective through her experience with sex before marriage in the context of loving and caring partners. In the chapter titled Black Lace Teddies And Other Pieces I Rock Under The Anointing, the book explores the personal choice that sex is for each woman––especially the Black Christian woman.
Candice shares her experience of “losing her virginity” during her freshman year of college, detailing how it was a beautiful experience for her and how in that relationship it felt like the right next step. “I forced myself to be ashamed because, according to Christian logic, I was committing sin.”
For many Black women in the Christian church, and even after they’ve left, purity culture takes hold of how we navigate our dating and married lives. This affects how sex is viewed and approached. In a world where Black women are often viewed as promiscuous, it’s difficult to balance society’s view and what each individual woman knows to be true of themselves. Often feeling a mixed range of emotions–from shame to guilt–over decisions they’ve decided were best for them.
The fact is that more Black women, whether they grew up in the Christian church or are still a part of the Christian church, are learning what it means to navigate sexual desire. And, they are learning to do this in a way that adheres to the black-and-white teaching received growing up; which often states sex before marriage leads to Hell, and sex within marriage is the only holy act.
Sex before marriage in the context of the church or outside of it, should never be viewed as the end all be all. The choice to have sex or not have it is one of individual choice, and that choice likely will not lead you to Hell. As the church, we have to do a better job of not just educating our communities about sex, but creating space for people to feel safe who come from a variety of backgrounds and perspectives. We also have to be okay with admitting that we don’t have the answers for all and keep from projecting our biases and personal experiences onto others before we sit down to listen and learn.
