If you have heard this term and felt like it might apply to your life and experiences but aren’t exactly sure how- you are not alone. Purity culture is an ideology and a movement in the evangelical christian context that promotes and enforces sexual abstinence in a heterosexual relationship prior to marriage as a way to honor God. More pervasively it is a culture that at it’s core is about enforcing and promoting rigid views of gender and sexuality. Purity culture disproportionately harms women of color and trans people but impacts everyone.