"Boys Can't Stop"

Racoon. Image source.

[content note: purity culture is rape culture]

Okay so I want to talk about this 2021 post from Sheila Wray Gregoire, Fixed It For You! We Fix a Survey Question So It Doesn't Enable Date Rape. Gregoire's post is addressing the idea that girls have to be the "gatekeepers" of sex, because boys can't control themselves. This is obviously a harmful idea, and I definitely was taught this and I totally bought into it, back then. I'm glad to see Gregoire's post addressing this.

Specifically, this post is about a survey question described in the book "For Young Women Only," by Shaunti Feldhahn and Lisa Rice. (A book which promotes purity ideology.) Gregoire criticizes this question and the way that Feldhahn/Rice interpret the results in their book. Gregoire says this gives boys an excuse if they rape someone.

Here's the image that shows the survey question, from the book "For Young Women Only":

Image text:

Survey says:

Whether or not you are currently involved with a girlfriend, if you were to be in a make-out situation with a willing partner who does not signal a desire to stop, how do you feel about your ability to stop the sexual progression?

Why would I want to stop the sexual progression? 30%

Almost no ability. When the door is opened, it's just too tough to stop the fun. 18%

Some ability, but it would require a massive effort, and I might go further than intended. 34%

I find it easy to stop the sexual progression. 18%

Okay, so... first of all... uh... as an asexual I would like to know, what "sexual progression"?

I did not understand what this question meant when I first read it- though if I was seeing this back when I believed in purity ideology, I would have just nodded along like "oh yes, one thing leads to another, and then you have sex" because that's what everyone said- even though it didn't make any sense to me at all.

From reading the rest of Gregoire's blog post, I *think* this is what it means: So, when people are making out (this means spending a lot of time kissing), the natural next step is to do something kinda sexual like maybe feeling their partner's sexual parts with clothes still on (???), and then the next natural step after that is something like taking clothes off (?????) and so on, and at some point the next natural step is to have sex.

This is extremely confusing to me, because to me, kissing and sex are completely different things. Like, yes in some ways they are related- for example, the only person I want to make out with is my husband, and also the only person I want to have sex with is my husband. But the idea that making out naturally (???) leads to sex is just completely weird to me.

Especially if I was making out with someone I had never had sex with before. Like, sex is just a whole completely different thing, obviously requiring a whole conversation and soul-searching about what I want- it is very much *NOT* a natural step after kissing, what on earth.

Anyway, so, apparently, as far as I can tell, that's what Feldhahn and Rice's survey question was asking about. They asked boys, suppose you are making out with a girl. How much ability do you have to stop the series of steps that goes from there to sex?

I'm like ?????

OKAY BUT ANYWAY. Let's see what Gregoire has to say about it. (Note that apparently she accepts the idea that there is a "sexual progression" from making out to sex and everyone understands what it is. As an asexual, I squint suspiciously at that.)

Feldhahn & Rice combine the answers like this: 82% say they have little ability/responsibility to stop.

THEY CONCLUDE: “WITH A GUY, IF YOU WANT TO BE ABLE TO STOP IT, IT’S BEST TO NOT EVEN START.”

They use words like, “a sizeable minority feel no responsibility to stop.” “Be careful.” “Be cautious.” “Watch out.”

They say, “boys needed the girls’ help” to stop.

What is this telling girls? You are responsible for stopping in a make out situation, because he can’t/won’t. If you go too far, then, it’s your fault, because you know he can’t stop.

Yes. I am glad to see Gregoire calling this out, because it is really harmful ideology. 

And, yeah, back then I literally believed "boys can't stop." (I also believed that girls would similarly reach a certain point where our desires overtake us and we can't stop ourselves from having sex- and I feared this would happen to me- but boys reach that point much much sooner than girls.)

I remember the first time I read on a feminist blog that "consent can be withdrawn at any time." (ie, if you consent to sex, but then later you change your mind and withdraw consent, your partner absolutely can and must stop, otherwise it's sexual assault.) And "just because you consent to one thing doesn't mean you consent to everything." (ie, if you consent to making out, and your partner forces/coerces you to also have sex, that's sexual assault and it's not your fault.) I was just COMPLETELY SHOCKED. Just completely, utterly shocked. I had never heard anything like that before- in fact, I had heard the exact opposite. I believed that once you start doing sexual stuff, boys lose the ability to control themselves- they really can't stop. I was just totally, completely shocked when I came across that feminist blog that said men are better than that, and it is totally reasonable to hold men to that standard. It was so unbelievable to me. I really believed "boys can't stop", just like Feldhahn and Rice say in their book.

Also, I want to stop here and mention: Asexual men exist! Purity proponents like Feldhahn and Rice say they don't, but they do!

Continuing on with Gregoire's blog post:

THE REAL ISSUE HERE IS THAT THEY ASKED BOYS ABOUT A CONSENSUAL SITUATION, AND THEN APPLIED THE DATA TO NON-CONSENSUAL ONES. THAT IS NOT A VALID USE OF THE DATA.
...
They surveyed 400 predominantly non-Christian boys, and said: (a) in a consensual situation where she wants to keep going; (b) what ability do you have to stop?

The problem is that (a) and (b) do not logically go together. What does his ability to stop have to do with her wanting to keep going?

Okay, wow, yes. They asked boys about a consensual situation, and then applied the data to non-consensual situations. I'm really glad Gregoire is pointing this out, because in my experience with purity ideology, there's no awareness of consent at all. Like, people wouldn't even notice that a consensual situation is different from a non-consensual situation.

Also, interesting that Gregoire points out these are "predominantly non-Christian boys." She's making the point that it's likely these boys don't believe it's a sin to have sex outside of marriage, and so it's likely that they'll see nothing wrong with having "sexual progression" if their partner is consenting. Therefore, it's weird that Feldhahn/Rice are using this to scare girls whose situation is totally different- for example, "pure" girls who have made it clear to their boyfriends that they are NOT interested in having sex.

Because purity culture is so oblivious to the concept of consent, there's this idea that non-Christian boys will totally coerce their girlfriends into having sex. If they don't believe it's a sin, then they have nothing to stop them, right? I remember Libby Anne wrote a really good blog post about this- Sex and Respect. Libby Anne talks about how completely confused she was when she started dating Sean, who was not a Christian and didn't believe sex was a sin, but also didn't pressure her into anything, simply because she told him she was not willing to do that. Honestly, yes, I understand how mind-blowing that is. He treated her like her unwillingness to have sex was a good enough reason on its own. He didn't care about the bible or sin or purity or whatever. He truly cared about respecting what she wanted or didn't want, and she said she did not want to have sex. And that is a good enough reason to stand on its own.

From a purity-culture perspective, that's wild and unbelievable.

Anyway, going back to Gregoire's blog post: She says that in order to get good data, we need to ask questions about 3 separate things: the respondents' own personal boundaries about sex, how they would behave in consensual situations, and how they would behave in nonconsensual situations. Here is how Gregoire would write these questions for boys:

Regardless of any past sexual experiences, which of the following statements best describes you currently:

• I am saving sex for marriage
• I do not feel I will be ready to have sex until I’m older
• I am not sure if I am ready to have sex now or not
• I feel ready to have sex now
• I am actively having sex/I am actively pursuing a sexual partner

If you were in a make-out situation with a willing partner who does not signal a desire to stop, how likely are you to want to stop that sexual progression before it leads to sex?

• Very likely – we would not have sex
• Likely
• Somewhat likely
• Somewhat unlikely
• Unlikely
• Very unlikely – we would have sex

...

If you were in a make-out situation and your partner signalled she would like to stop, how likely are you to stop that sexual progression?

• Very likely
• Somewhat likely
• Somewhat unlikely
• Very unlikely

You may notice that the first question is not ace-friendly! It assumes that respondents definitely want to have sex eventually, and the question is whether it will be now, some time in the future, or only when they're married.

Also, yeah, like I said, look at how this "sexual progression" thing is talked about in this question. Like the idea that making out leads to sex... like it just assumes that everyone knows that's how it works.

(And Gregoire seems to think everyone is straight! How odd!)

Rebecca Lindenbach is Gregoire's co-blogger, and she chimes in here:

Note from Rebecca: You may have read “For Young Women Only” and not gotten the impression that Feldhahn and Rice were talking about non-consensual situations. We don’t think that they meant to talk to girls in date rape situations, but the problem is that they fail to emphasize that these are consensual situations. They fail to mention that these are situations where she wants it as much as he does. Instead, they tell girls to “watch out” and to be afraid of boys who have little ability and feel little responsibility to stop. If a girl were to be date raped, her boyfriend could easily use Shaunti’s own words to prove to her that it was, in fact, her fault without having to look too hard at all. The caveat in the book about rape means nothing when Feldhahn has written an entire chapter grooming girls for rapists and abusers to take advantage of them in the name of “it’s just too tough to stop the fun.”

Very good point! If a girl is raped, Feldhahn's exact words here say that it's the girl's fault for consenting to making out. She should have known that boys can't stop.

And continuing on, Gregoire says this:

Note that in the original question, Feldhahn asked about the boy’s ability to stop. What does that word imply in context? To imply that a boy may not have an ability to stop the sexual progression implies that some boys can’t help but rape (even in a consensual situation, one should still have an “ability” to stop). But she asked this in the same question she’s measuring boys’ desire to stop. In doing so, she conflates desire and ability to stop sex but then talks about them throughout the chapter as if they are one and the same.

This is very important. As I see it, there are 2 separate aspects of this: First, there's the question of whether people are overtaken with desire and lose their self-control and can't stop themselves from having sex. The answer to that is, if one person withdraws consent, then the other person does have the ability to stop, and should be held to that standard. And second, there's the safety issue. We need to warn girls that even though boys can stop, and should be held to that standard, there are boys out there who are rapists and you need to be aware of that danger. (If you meet a boy like that, don't date him! There exist boys who are not rapists- date them instead.)

These are 2 completely separate issues, but in purity teaching (such as what we see in Feldhahn/Rice's book) they are conflated. Purity culture teaches that boys really don't have the ability to stop themselves from having sex, if a girl has done something that arouses the boy. And therefore if a girl gets raped it's not really rape, it's just what happens when you're alone with a boy, you should have known that, and it's your own fault for kissing him. All boys are like that, they said.

But in reality: Boys can stop, but some of them don't because they choose to be rapists, and that's never the victim's fault, but as a practical matter you should be aware of the safety concerns associated with this. I have never EVER heard purity proponents discuss this as a safety issue; instead it's what you deserve if you commit the sin of kissing a boy/ being alone with a boy you're attracted to/ wearing clothes that you think the boy will like/ etc.

And about the first aspect, the question of whether one's desires can make it more difficult to put a stop to the, uh, "sexual progression." So... yes... okay I have no idea about having a desire for sex, but I can give an example from my own experience with cuddling. So, when I was dating my first boyfriend, let's call him BF1, there were times we were sitting on the couch together, late at night, in the common area of the dorm after everyone else had already gone back to their rooms. Sitting there, cuddling. Like, enjoying hugging each other. And we would say things like "oh I should really go back to my room, it's late, I have class tomorrow", or I would think things like, "I shouldn't spend so much time doing physical things like this with him- it's taking away my purity." But we would continue to sit there and cuddle for a while. It was very hard to leave and go to our separate dorm buildings for the night.

So, I am guessing that the idea that it's "hard" to "stop the sexual progression" is kind of like that. It feels so good and you want it, but also part of you doesn't want it, for reasons that feel kind of faraway and unimportant at that moment, and you just want to ignore those things and keep going. I feel like I can kinda understand that.

But if it's someone, right there, saying "no", or your partner laying there sort of unresponsive and you can't tell if they're enjoying it or not, uh, that's a much more serious thing than some vague guilty sense that you're not acting according to some moral decision you once made. That should be a major red flag, and pull you out of the "wow this feels so good" haze.

I really wonder how consent fits into this purity-culture narrative of a couple who was working so hard to be "pure" and not have sex, but then one night they "stumbled" and somehow ended up having sex and ruining their purity. (I also talked about this question in this post about the book "Boundaries in Dating.") 

One possibility is that Partner A doesn't really know what's going on or how to respond to it, doesn't feel like they have time to even stop and think about what they want, and Partner B keeps going and having sex with them- this is sexual assault. Partner B is raping Partner A. But books like "For Young Women Only" present this as just the normal way that it goes when you start kissing a boy- they don't say it's rape, they say this is how we can expect boys to behave, therefore girls must not even start any "sexual progression" at all. So Gregoire is saying that "For Young Women Only" is WRONG about this, and sending very harmful messages.

But what if it actually is consensual? What would that look like? I imagine it's like, both partners have said that they want to be "pure", but in that moment, keeping their "purity" feels unimportant, because of their attraction and desire, and so they make the decision to go ahead and have sex anyway. But, I imagine they usually don't say so explicitly. It's consensual in the sense that they are both choosing to do it, but, they don't actually say so out loud, and they don't ask each other for consent. They can't; that would be a sin. If you actually say out loud that you are choosing to have sex, that's a much more serious sin than "oh we got carried away and it just happened somehow." Yeah, in purity ideology, it's impossible to have a healthy understanding of consent. And my concern here is, how do you really know that your partner is consenting, if you didn't explicitly ask them? Sure, if you've had sex with them before and you can understand their nonverbal consent, that's fine, but I'm talking about a situation where 2 "pure" "virgins" "stumbled" and it "just happened."

And if you know the other person doesn't want to do it on some level... how does consent work in that case? Like you know the next day they're going to feel guilty for "losing their purity", but right now they are explicitly telling you that they consent. Do you have an obligation to say "no, I don't think you really want this" and put a stop to it? Or is that even worse, because you shouldn't act like you know what someone "really wants" better than they know themself?

Another comment from Gregoire's co-blogger, Rebecca Lindenbach:

Rebecca here for a minute: frankly, it’s bizarre to ask boys who want to have sex (as many non-Christian boys do) if they would have an “ability” to stop consensual sex! Can you imagine if this question were asked of married, Christian men? I’m pretty sure that more than 90% would answer, “Why would I want to stop?” Does that mean that over 90% of Christian married men are marital rapists? Of course not. They’d most likely be answering based on the “want” in the question, not the “able.” Of course we feel out of control during really good sex, but we know that we’re able to stop (I mean, if you were having sex and a raccoon jumped through your window onto the bed, you could stop is all I’m saying.)

YES! OH MY GOODNESS. Yes, absolutely, it is bizarre that they asked boys who presumably want to have sex whether they would be able to "stop" actions that were leading to sex. Wouldn't the respondents be confused, like "why would I want to stop?" (Which is the first option that Feldhahn/Rice offer as an answer to their survey question- but honestly it reads to me like the message that Feldhahn/Rice are trying to tell girls is "wow, look how SCARY boys are, they don't even WANT to stop, OH NO.")

It totally blows my mind that Lindenbach makes a comparison with married Christian men being asked if they would be able to stop "sexual progression" with their wives. She makes such a good point! But I have never EVER heard any comparison like that- in conservative Christian ideology, being married is a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT SITUATION than being unmarried. There is no comparison between a married couple and unmarried couple having sex. The unmarried couple is sinning! Oh, the horror!

And also this bit- "I mean, if you were having sex and a raccoon jumped through your window onto the bed, you could stop is all I’m saying." This little aside is MORE HELPFUL than any purity book I've ever read. Oh my goodness.

Because, in purity land, I got the impression that when you're having sex, it's like you're in a weird parallel universe where everything is different. Where you're just floating along on your feelings of attraction and love for your partner. Where everything just feels so good. A bizarre parallel universe where you have a desire to play around with each other's genitals. (??? Makes no sense on the face of it, so obviously sex must take place in a weird altered reality where that seems like a desirable thing to do.) And it feels so romantic, like you're "becoming one" with your partner, like you're "giving yourself", like you're expressing your love in the most deep and intimate way.

But, let me tell you, sex very much happens in this same reality that we live in. It's an extremely practical thing. You might feel cold. You might feel annoyed at how the blanket keeps slipping off you. You ask your partner "so, what position do you want to do?" You have to learn what method of playing-around-with-genitals works well for you. Sometimes your kid wakes up in the middle of the night and you have to stop having sex.

It's just messing around with each other's genitals, that's literally all it is. If that doesn't sound like something desirable, but you assume that when you're actually in that situation and you cross into the parallel universe, it will make more sense, well let me tell you, no, it doesn't. It really just is doing stuff with each other's genitals. In this universe.

This "racoon" comment makes me think about how totally surprised I was, when I first started having sex, and I was totally in control of my actions the whole time. Nothing happened "automatically." In fact, I couldn't even figure out how the penis is supposed to go in the vagina. (Because, it turns out I had vaginismus.) I had to spend a lot of time figuring that out. Like, thinking scientifically about it. A lot of trial-and-error. It is such a SCAM that for all these years, they had me afraid that sex was going to "just happen."

ANYWAY.

Then Gregoire says:

Rape is not a matter of inability; rape is a conscious choice. To imply that boys’ crossing girls’ boundaries is a matter of “inability” as Feldhahn and Rice did rather than as a matter of sin and abuse is highly problematic, to put it lightly.

AMEN TO THIS!

Next, Gregoire and Lindenbach have a bunch of criticism of the wording of Feldhahn and Rice's survey question response options. Yes, those options were badly written. I agree. (I won't quote all of that in this blog post- if you're interested, go read it in Gregoire's post.)

And then, Gregoire points out that Feldhahn/Rice's conclusion, "For a guy even more than a girl, making out often starts a physical drive towards sex that requires a major effort to override" makes a comparison between boys and girls, but this is not a valid use of the data because Feldhahn/Rice did not ask girls the same question!!!!!

The most similar question that Feldhahn and Rice asked the girls was this:

Many people joke that boys “only think about one thing.” This question is designed to determine whether girls think about and want that one thing as much as boys do. In your experience, if a girl and her boyfriend make out from time to time, but have not made the move to a sexual relationship, do you think the girl thinks about and physically wants sex with him as much as he probably does with her? {Choose One Answer}

• [46%] Yes, I think in that situation she’s wanting to go to bed with him as much as he wants it (whether or not she actually does go to bed with him).
• [42%] No, I think it’s probably the guy that most wants the relationship to progress to actual sex. Most girls would be fine with continuing to make out, without crossing that line.
• [12%] No, I think it’s probably only the guy that wants the relationship to progress to actual sex, and she actively doesn’t want to cross that line (even if she enjoys making out).

(Note from Rebecca: I have… a lot of thoughts about this question.)

I too have a lot of thoughts about this question.

Like, my first impression reading "if a girl and her boyfriend make out from time to time, but have not made the move to a sexual relationship" is, that seems totally fine. They probably both enjoy that and don't need it to "move" to sex (here's that weird "sexual progression" idea again). But then the question assumes that the boy wants to have sex, and asks whether the girl wants it equal to how much the boy wants it, or less than how much the boy wants it. This is so bizarre! What if the boy doesn't want to "move" to sex? What if the girl wants sex more than the boy does? What if they want it but they choose not to because of their own personal boundaries? 

ALSO WHY ARE WE ASSUMING EVERYONE IS STRAIGHT?

And, uh, there's a lot more you can criticize in this question. (Like, I'm having a lot of trouble figuring out the difference between the 2nd and 3rd options.) But let's just move on instead of spending time on that.

Anyway, near the end of the post, Gregoire says this:

If a girl who had been date raped read this book, would she know that she had been assaulted? Or would she blame herself? After all, if you want to stop, it’s better not to start! Guys feel little responsibility or ability to stop. You should watch out. Be cautious. Guys need you to do the right thing.

This is rape culture. It formed the basis for a whole chapter in her book. And it was based on extremely faulty research methods.

Church, we simply must do better. Please. What are we doing to our teenage girls? And who are we expecting our boys to turn into?

I gotta say, I was very surprised to see Gregoire use the term "rape culture" here. Because, as far as I can tell, Gregoire is evangelical, and believes sex outside of marriage is a sin. I don't think I've seen people in that subculture use the term "rape culture."

Yeah, this is something that confuses me about Gregoire's post taking a stand against this purity-related date rape justification. I'm pretty sure Gregoire believes you shouldn't have sex outside of marriage. And, as I see it, there's a straight line from there to "it wasn't really rape." Here's how the logic goes:

1. You shouldn't have sex before marriage
2. because your virginity belongs to your future husband, and any sexual experience you have before marriage is taking away from what's his
3. therefore if you have consensual sex before marriage, or if you are raped, both of those hurt your future husband- the difference is whether you are to blame or not
4. therefore we should carefully scrutinize the victim's actions and see if she is to blame.
5. Oh, you enjoyed the kissing? Wow that's suspicious. How could you be so reckless with something that belongs to your future husband? Really really shady to put your future husband at risk just because you enjoy kissing some other boy.
6. Therefore it was your fault. It wasn't really rape.

I'm wondering which of points 1-5 Gregoire disagrees with, since she definitely disagrees with point 6, the conclusion.

When you introduce another person (the hypothetical future husband, or, sometimes, God) who is supposedly harmed by a woman's previous sexual experiences, then it becomes a totally different thing than if it's just about the victim and her safety and her healing and her right to have her consent respected.

All right, and 1 more thing I want to say: When I was dating my first boyfriend, BF1, I totally believed boys were all like this. Boys were all heartless leeches trying to take away my purity.

As it turned out, BF1 was a decent human being who respected my consent. But I totally didn't notice, because I had completely bought into the "you can't trust boys" warnings. BF1 said he wanted to kiss me, and I said no, and then weeks later I was surprised to find that he still wanted to kiss me but hadn't mentioned it, because he didn't want to pressure me. Like, it made no sense to me. I couldn't comprehend this idea of "he didn't want to pressure me"- because in purity culture, they said that boys are always pressuring girls, that's what you should expect from boys, they are all like that. And non-Christian boys, well, you should be even more scared of them, because they don't even have these beliefs about "purity" and "sin" holding them back. (BF1 was not a Christian.)

I didn't have a category to put him in. I didn't have any concept of the existence of boys capable of caring about girls' consent. Sure, I believed that if I explicitly said "no", a boy should stop, but that he would also tirelessly try to find ways to sneak around that. To pressure me, or set up a situation where I wouldn't say "no", and then he could get what he wanted.

And then, when my parents told me I could bring him home to visit for a week, I was very concerned about that. I thought, it's not a good idea, sleeping under the same roof... what if... you know... "one thing leads to another"... And BF1 was a bit horrified, like "you think I would try something???" And I tried to explain to him, no, it's not about you or "trying" something, it's like... you know... it will just happen if we're in a situation with too much temptation.

And he said, "I can control myself." Like it was so easy, he was so confident, he didn't see it as an issue at all. He was completely sure he wasn't going to accidentally rape anybody.

Then I was even more concerned because he apparently was not aware of this big terrible danger. He didn't know that sometimes people are trying not to have sex, but it somehow happens anyway, and this is how good Christians unfortunately lose their purity.

(If you're wondering- yes, in fact, he was right, it was not an issue at all.)

Anyway... 

So, to sum up: Feldhahn and Rice's purity-culture book "For Young Women Only" tells girls that boys have little ability to stop themselves from having sex, once you start making out with them. This is completely false. In reality, consent can be withdrawn at any time, and everyone is capable of respecting their partner's consent. I'm glad to see Gregoire calling attention to this and pointing out how harmful it is.

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Related:

6 Ways Purity Culture Did NOT Teach Me About Consent 

Allow Me To Showcase Some Internet People Who Know What's What About Vaginismus 

The church taught me to be afraid of my own body and my own thoughts. Here are the receipts. 

The First Time I Heard About "Locker Room Talk" Was When the Church Taught Me About Modesty