Criticizing the article: 'Rape-Supportive Messages in Women-Directed Christian Dating Books'

The way that the world views dating often conflicts with the way that Christians view dating, oftentimes building conflicts. As the world becomes more liberal, there have been more conflicts with Christians since Christians adhere to what the Bible says, which tends to be ‘conservative’ and traditional for other people without faith. In the Article ‘Rape-Supportive Messages in Women-Directed Christian Dating Books,’ Klement claims that the Christian dating books contain sexist messages, emphasize the purity of women, support rape culture, and perceive sexual violence. And I believe that these are not true, the implications are biased and misunderstand the main idea of Christianity and the principles that the Bible puts forth.

The article that I will be criticizing is called ‘Nobody wants to Date a Whore: Rape-Supportive Messages in Women-directed Christian Dating Books’, by Kathryn R. Klement and Brad J. Sagarin. Throughout the article, they criticize how Christian dating culture wants women to be pure. They equate purity culture with rape culture. They also claim that those books normalize sexual violence of men, and they order women to be submissive and obedient to males. Overall, they criticize how Christian dating books are sexist, with women always being submissive and men having the power.

The abstract and beginning of the article, generalizes all Christian dating books and makes the Bible sound like it is not relevant to the current trend but only biased and old. One part of the article says, ‘female purity beliefs are beliefs that place a high value on women remaining sexually inexperienced and sexually naïve until marriage’ (pg 208) For this claim, I want to ask them contrarily if not keeping women’s purity would give women an appropriate experience with sex and lead them to be not ‘naïve’. Not keeping women’s purity, would be having sex. If women start to have sex easily before marriage, then it will lead to a worse result such as unwanted pregnancy or getting sexually transmitted diseases. From a Non-Christian view, sex is an entertainment for pleasure, not a sacred act of a married couple. They rather criticize the Christians who view sex as a sacred thing, saying that belief is too old and conservative, not going along with the current ‘trend’. I believe the claim that ‘only women keeping purity is sexism’ is a sexist claim. By saying that ‘only women keeping purity is sexism’, this claim is trying to make women to have sex, and the people that benefit from women giving up will be the male who has sex with females. So technically a phrase that sounds like helping women’s rights is actually a phrase that manipulates women to give up the purity and have sex with a male, which technically benefits the male, not women. According to a Hooking up: the psychology of sex and dating, getting exposed to sexual information will lead to a faster progress in sexual relationships and having sex: ‘The study found that encouraging the postponement of sexual intercourse is important because teens who initiate first coitus before they are 16 years old engage in riskier sexual behavior and experience more adverse sexual health outcomes than those who delay the onset of sexual intercourse until age 16.’ Now, I want to ask what naïve means. Is being naïve technically bad? What is being ‘naïve' in the context of opposing the purity culture? I believe being exposed to sexual intercourse at a young age and eventually engaging with risky sexual behavior and experience, is being naive with not knowing what a proper sexual relationship is. From a non-Christian perspective, I believe that they assume if women keep their purity they would not know about sex and any other information about sex. But that is not true. You do not technically have to have sex in order to know about sex. Through accurate sex education, you can learn about sex without having premarital sex. The stereotypical mindset that women without experience in sex would be ‘naïve’, influences people without experience in sex to feel awkward and uncomfortable with issues related to sex which makes them more ‘naïve’ and to not talk or learn about sex.

In addition to discussing women’s purity, the article also discusses about rape culture in Christian dating books. In the article, they say: ‘Further, in an experimental study, they found that participants’ rape myth acceptance increased when exposed to a purity-related message.’ This is not completely true because like I mentioned above according to the Hooking up text, the early you are exposed to sexual intercourse, the higher chance of getting involved in a riskier sexual behavior and experiences, which includes unwanted sex that resulted from sexual experience. This is ironic because the article repeatedly mentions that Christian dating books promote the rape culture and purity of women, but technically not keeping the purity would lead to a higher chance of getting involved in risky sexual situations, including rape.

I agree with the fact that some Christian dating books encourage women to please men. However, like mentioned in the methods section of the article, the research only covered 8 books which I believe is not enough to assume that it covers all the Christian dating philosophy, and also it definitely does not explain the gospel and what Bible & God says, since it is a human-written book. Also, Christians adhering to the beliefs in Bible written from the past, oftentimes Christians are considered conservative, supporting the idea of ‘conservative’ in the social norm that is not in the Bible. When the article implied about women being obedient to men, it sounds like it is a sexist saying but we first have to look at the context. It is not technically a woman to a man, rather it is a wife to his husband. When we just look at the phrase that a wife has to be obedient, serve, and ‘submit everything’ to his husband, it sounds like it is sexism, that women are below men. When we look at Ephesians 5: 24-25, we see that men are also called to love in sacrificial ways: ‘now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.’ The Bible also tells husbands to love and protect the wife, and the way the Bible says about a wife submitting to husband, is not dictator-like obedience, but it is more of a submission with respect in love. To sum up, the obedience mentioned in the Bible is an advice for both men and women, to love and respect each other in a married relationship. So, it is not a sexist saying. I agree with how the Christian dating books explained about the obedience in relationships without the context of the scripture may have led to a misunderstanding that makes Christian dating book with a wrong sexist concept.

Overall, the article, ‘Nobody wants to Date a Whore: Rape-Supportive Messages in Women-directed Christian Dating Books’, by Kathryn R. Klement and Brad J. Sagarin. Criticizes Christian Dating Books to be sexist, in a way that it makes only women’s purity culture and how it promotes rape culture, requires women to be submissive to men. However, the claims that they have made were the result of misconception without looking at the context or misunderstanding what the Bible actually claims. It generalized the Christians with only a few books about ‘dating’ to make the misconception of Christian dating.

Works Cited

Holy Bible: English Standard Version. Crossway Bibles, 2001.

Klement, Kathryn R., and Brad J. Sagarin. “Nobody Wants to Date a Whore: Rape-Supportive Messages in Women-Directed Christian Dating Books.” Sexuality & Culture, vol. 21, no. 1, 2016, pp. 205–223., doi:10.1007/s12119-016-9390-x.

“What: Many Forms of Sex.” Hooking up: The Psychology of Sex and Dating, by Katherine Helm, Greenwood an Imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC, 2016, pp. 1–11.