What Bridgerton Reveals About Purity Culture
When 19th century England feels a lot like Millennial youth group culture
Dearest gentle readers,
With the release of season 3 in full, it is now time for me to write the article that I have been mulling over since 2021:
The similarities between Bridgerton and Purity Culture.
Read on!
5 Myths of Purity Culture
When I first watched the Netflix TV show Bridgerton, which takes place in England during the Regency era (1813-1827), it wasn’t hard to make connections between nineteenth-century London and twenty-first-century purity culture.
Through three seasons (plus Queen Charlotte’s spin off), all five purity culture myths are prevalent.
If you are new to my work or need a refresher, here are my 5 Purity Culture Myths, which I unpack in my forthcoming book, Recovering from Purity Culture:
The Spiritual Barometer Myth: Your worth, identity, and spiritual maturity, especially for women, is your virginity.
The Fairy-Tale Myth: If you remain pure, God will bless you with a loving spouse and marriage.
The Flipped Switch Myth: Your sex life will be instantly pleasurable and satisfying if you wait until marriage.
The Gatekeepers Myth: Men are more sexual and can’t control themselves, therefore it is up to women to enforce boundaries before marriage and meet their husband’s sexual needs after marriage.
The Damaged Goods Myth: If you have premarital sex, you are broken and damaged.
The similarities between modern-day purity culture and 19th century courtship in London are too numerous to detail. But let’s look at each of these myths and examples from the show. (In the comments, tell me the ones I’ve missed!)
The Spiritual Barometer Myth
While the show doesn’t reference religion or a spiritual reason for virginity, it nonetheless emphasizes “a woman’s virtue” as her value and worth.
In all three seasons, a woman’s virginity is referred to as “her virtue”. A man who “compromises” that virtue by being alone with her or having any physical contact, is required to marry her (or duel to his death, as we see between Anthony and Simon in Season 1). This virtue is directly linked to the woman’s desirability and acceptability as a marriage partner.
It’s as if the condition of the woman’s hymen1 is a measure of her value as a marriage partner.
And purity culture said the same thing. Our worth, purpose, and identity were directly tied to our purity, defined as virginity.
The Fairy-Tale Myth
What dreams? Ladies do not have dreams, they have husbands. And if you are lucky and if you fulfill your role, sometimes what you wish for may come true through him.
—Lady Featherington, Season 3
A lady’s life began once she got married. Her purpose would be fulfilled by being a wife and mother. She is to be a helpmate to her husband’s dreams and callings. (Is this a fictional TV show or a complementarian church sermon?)
While members of “the ton” didn’t always make a “love match” leading to a fairy-tale marriage, marriage was still the end goal. Marriage was idolized. And as this quote demonstrates, a lady’s dreams stopped at marriage and motherhood. She was to serve her husband’s dreams and goals. Sounds a lot like modern-day complementarianism, no?2
The Flipped Switch Myth
As soon as you get married, you flip a switch that takes sex from “off limits” to “go for it!”, from sinful to holy. So says the Flipped Switch Myth.
This myth features so prominently throughout Bridgerton that I wrote about it in the Flipped Switch Myth chapter of my forthcoming book, Recovering from Purity Culture. The women’s complete lack of sexual education and knowledge prior to marriage nonetheless affords them a rapturous, ecstatic wedding night, thanks to their more experienced husbands.
From my book:
Despite lacking a basic understanding of sex and procreation and having been prohibited from being alone or having any physical contact prior to marriage, the women on the show had no trouble “flipping a switch” to have euphoric sex.
And yes, purity culture promised us the same thing.
“This may hurt a little, but only for a moment”, says Simon (Season 1) to his virgin bride, Daphne. Colin (Season 3) adds “but only the first time” to his innocent partner, Penelope.
I bet many purity culture survivors watched this and scoffed. A little? The first time? Considering the strong link between purity culture teachings and vaginismus3, a sexual disorder that can make intercourse extremely painful or even impossible, this is far from the truth.
In Bridgerton, every sexual encounter ends (quickly) in orgasm for both partners, often from intercourse alone, almost always simultaneously. The reality?
From my book:
For women, having an orgasm from intercourse is the exception rather than the norm. Only about 10 to 30 percent of women can orgasm from intercourse alone—and even then, it usually takes some clitoral stimulation too4…
It is generally rare for both spouses to orgasm at the same time during sex. Because women typically need clitoral stimulation and men need penile stimulation, many couples find that simultaneous orgasm eludes them.
Don’t let the Flipped Switch Myth of purity culture, or Bridgerton, make you feel disillusioned and disappointed when the reality of sex doesn’t live up to the (false) promises.
The Gatekeepers Myth
This myth is all about inequality, and both Bridgerton and purity culture are full of double standards. In Bridgerton, none of the men have to worry about their “virtue;” this is entirely a female concern. The men visit brothels and have multiple sex partners, yet a woman who is observed alone with a man runs the risk of her reputation being ruined and her potential for marriage extinguished.
Purity culture also implied that virginity was too high of an expectation for males. It was women’s responsibility to put the brakes on and monitor boundaries before marriage, then to be sexually available for their husbands’ “sexual needs” after marriage. This myth sets couples up for inequality even after their wedding night.
The Damaged Goods Myth
Poor Miss Marina Thompson in Season 1 epitomizes the Damaged Goods Myth. Because she is pregnant and unmarried, Marina is considered an outcast that no one wants to be associated with, much less marry. Her prospects are dim and her future hangs in the balance unless she can find a man and trick him into marriage.
The Damaged Goods Myth creates destructive shame. In purity culture, the shame of loss of virginity, represented by numerous object lessons involving wilting roses, torn paper, and cups of water with spit in them, is the ultimate disgrace, especially for women. And in Bridgerton, the shame of unwed pregnancy or even just being found alone with a man is solely on the woman to bear.
Lessons Revealed
This quote from Daphne Bridgerton to her bother Anthony in Season 1 encapsulates many of the myths of purity culture:
You have no idea what it is to be a woman, what it might feel like to have one’s entire life reduced to a single moment. This is all I have been raised for. This is all I am, I have no other value. If I am unable to find a husband, I shall be worthless.
In some ways, I felt the same way in purity culture when I was single. I had no value. I was worthless without a husband. My identity and purpose were in my virginity. And it was all on me to maintain my purity.
Purity culture sold us a bargain God never intended, one rooted in the prosperity gospel and bathed in patriarchy to subdue and control women’s sexuality. We might expect this from 19th century England, but we must denounce it in the 21st century Church. Since patriarchy underlies this and other toxic Christian cultures, we must dismantle the systems of subjugation and oppression that have led to these damaging myths.
From my book:
The problem is we cannot simultaneously heal from purity culture and promote patriarchy. We cannot support a culture that subordinates women to men. We cannot subscribe to a belief system that puts men in charge of women’s sexuality, yet blames and holds women responsible for men’s sexual sin. …
If we want to fully dismantle the myths of purity culture and rebuild healthy faith and sexuality, we have to pluck out the roots of patriarchy in ourselves and in our systems.
Did I miss any purity culture myths in Bridgerton? What other similarities do you see? Or, did I nail it?
Latest Posts:
The Both/And of Identity: When you don't fully belong in either group.
Walking the Middle Path: Finding both/and in a faith and culture of black and white.
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The hymen is not a reliable indicator of virginity, as it can become worn down through a variety of activities besides intercourse. And the condition of the hymen certainly should not be taken as a measure of a woman’s purity, spirituality, or value as a marriage partner.
This made me think of Kate Bowler’s The Preacher’s Wife, whose premise is that Christian celebrity women carve out unofficial positions of power for themselves through their husband’s ministries.
Sheila Wray Gregoire and her colleagues found Evangelical women have a 2.5 times greater rate of vaginismus than the general population of women. See The Great Sex Rescue.
Emily Nagoski, Come as You Are: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2015).
Yes! Thank you for sharing. The double standard of men being “rakes” and women being ignorant and pure is very frustrating. They even turned one of my favorite male characters into a “rake” in season 3 because that is the standard set for men in the previous two season. Purity culture definitely dehumanizes men as well as women.
Thank you for writing this. I very much enjoyed reading it because 1) I had similar thoughts watching the show and 2) I can relate to these myths because I grew up hearing them. In the Armenian culture, these myths are prevalent and as a woman, I always questioned them. I now want to read your book! 🩵