What About the Men?: Purity Culture’s Construction of (Toxic) Masculinity

There is much to say about the gendered nature of purity culture scripts, but Houser closes here by asking readers to consider what it might look like to challenge the dominant happiness scripts for masculinity within purity culture. Would this, perhaps, also liberate others from the harm caused by these scripts? Would it interrupt the script given to women for being the submissive "helper"? Would it lead to more egalitarian embodiments of love, partnership, and community? These questions are conceptual starting places, and as such they are just one possible way for moving forward. Whether or not the scripts change, many can learn a lot from understanding them and offering counter narratives to the dominant ideologies. Particularly, when it comes to gender and the way masculinity is figured within purity culture scripts, they have much to unlearn and learn as they move into future work with purity culture--and this is work that must also look like love and rest and resistance as they continue to look toward healing.

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https://doi.org/10.2979/jfs.00075

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