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Framed By Sexuality: An Examination Of Identity-Messages In “Purity Culture” Reflections, Ashley Pikel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Purity culture is a movement many young Evangelical Christians experienced in the 1990s and early 2000s. Purity culture espouses many values including practicing abstinence until marriage, observing strict dating and/or courtship rules, and remaining physically, emotionally, and spiritually pure. In 1997 Joshua Harris authored I Kissed Dating Goodbye (IKDG) which popularized purity culture principles. Over the past twenty years, Harris reflected on his writings as well as feedback from others to determine that some of what he wrote was incorrect. In 2016, Harris requested IKDG readers to submit their experiences with the book in the form of personal stories. Through …