Innocence, Purity, and Virginity- How they are three different things and why it matters.

There's a major misconception out there.

I can't tell you how many times I've been called "innocent".

I'm not innocent.

"You're so good and pure."

Not so much all the time.

Yes, I am a virgin; but "virginity" is NOT "purity" nor is "virginity" necessarily "innocence", actually "purity" has NOTHING to do with your "virginity" or "innocence" (bear with me uber conservative Christians! I'll make my point).

The three words ARE NOT synonyms, but they are often wrongly used as such.

Pay close attention, because this is a big deal.  Not much scripture in this one, just some good dictionary definitions.



Innocence

If you ask the Merriam-Webster Dictionary what innocence is it will first give you three basic meanings:

1) The state of being not guilty of a crime or other wrong act

2) Lack of experience with the world and with the bad things that happen in life

3) Lack of knowledge about something.

Obviously the first refers mostly to legal matters, but the second two meanings are applicable to our topic. Lack of experience, lack of knowledge.

This is the problem.  When people refer to me or other virgins/those-pursuing-purity as "innocent" they don't usually mean it as a positive thing. We are pure because we don't know any better.  We haven't been exposed.  I can't tell you how many times I've been called "naive".  Because I'm not having sex, people assume I haven't been exposed to sexual knowledge or experience.  They automatically assume I am sheltered and naive.  This is wrong.  Other than this being an aggravation for me, the problem  is that when people think "innocence" is synonymous with "purity" they think that "purity" is no longer achievable once "innocence" is lost.

Most kids start losing their innocence around age 10.  That is statistically when a child sees porn online for the first time, usually by accident.  To learn more about the shocking "early education" kids are getting now-a-days, check out this article from the United Kingdom's Daily Mail.

So, as far as knowledge is concerned, I would say its rare to still be "innocent" by junior high.  How about experiences?  According to the CDC, by 9th grade about a third of all children have had sex. That means a third of all children have lost their innocence and their virginity by the time they are fourteen or fifteen years old.  This statistic rises by leaps and bounds until over 60% of children have had sex by their senior year of high school.  These are children. 
*You can see these statistics in the CDC's 2011 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance here. 

To continue with the Merriam-Webster definition of innocence, after the three common meanings, a more comprehensive/"full" definition is given.  The first part of the definition is as follows:

Innocence is the freedom from guilt or sin through being unacquainted with evil.

I love that definition.  It is perfect.

Innocence IS a lack of knowledge and experience, and its a beautiful thing.  Should I have been exposed to porn at nine years old because my brother was careless with his porno mags? No.  Innocence needs to be protected in children as a "freedom" that they deserve, until they have the appropriate education ("the talk" with a responsible and loving parent, the Bible, etc) and self control. Only with an appropriate education and self control can someone strive for purity.  Again, innocence is a beautiful thing and should be valued and protected in children, but it isn't purity.




Purity

The two common meanings that Merriam-Webster gives us are:

1) Lack of dirty or harmful substances

2) Lack of guilt or evil thoughts

These are ok definitions but they aren't great- very basic.  The comprehensive/ "full" definition that is provided after these common meanings isn't much better:

Purity is the quality or state of being pure.

No kidding, Sherlock.

Lets go over the basic concept.  Water in a mountain stream, is it pure? Uh, no.  Better hope a beaver doesn't live in that stream if you're going to drink it; that's a great way to get massive diarrhea from the giardia in beaver poo.  E-coli, cholera, dysentery, typhoid... there are lots of nasty things in "natural" water.  So what do they do before it ends up in a bottle on the shelf at the supermarket?  They purify it. They filter out contaminants, or heat it up to kill the bacteria, or add purifying agents like chlorine.  Whether you drink town water or have your own well and a filtration system in your basement or have a filter hooked up to your faucet or buy bottled water; the water you drink had to be purified.

This is what purity is, purity is a process of removing sexual sin from your life.

You don't start off with purity.  You start off with innocence and, as we already discussed, thats usually stripped away before adulthood.  So you aren't innocent, you have plenty of sexual knowledge and/or experience, does that mean your purity is shot? No.  You just need to purified.  Purity is how you value/view sex NOT how much you know or how much you've experienced. Purity is valuing/viewing sex as God calls us to and striving to live out that ideology.

Another important point about innocence vs. purity.  Your innocence can be taken away.  You can be exposed to sexual materials like Playboy magazine. You can be groped when you didn't want to be, sexually assaulted, or even raped.  Your innocence and even your virginity can truly be "taken" from you, but NOBODY can take away your purity.  You give it away.  You are 100% responsible for that yourself.  When you laugh at a dirty joke, watch porn, willing engage in sexual activity outside of marriage; you give your purity away.  Purity is on you, but there is hope in that.  No matter what your past- whether others didn't value you as they should and you've been abused or you didn't value yourself and you caved to peer pressure and your own sinful desires- no matter what your past, you can choose to strive for purity at any time.

More on striving for purity in another blog.

So whats left?



Virginity

Virginity, plain and simple, is the state of not having experienced sexual intercourse.  Historically speaking (as in Biblical times), a virgin would have NO sexual experience with another person.  However, today, people who engage in oral sex, manual stimulation, and etc but NOT actual penetration still consider themselves "technically" virgins.  This is the problem when people focus on virginity instead of purity.  Someone who is engaging in all other types of sexual activity (besides penetration) has no purity even if they are "technically" a virgin.  They are doing it wrong.  God cares about your PURITY, your technical virginity? Not so much.  God would sooner praise the former porn star who encountered Christ, repented of all her sin, and ceased all extramarital sexual activity than He would praise the "virgin" who was addicted to porn and having oral sex.

See, the differences between virginity and purity and innocence is important.

I didn't even realize HOW important these differences were until I was having lunch at Worcester State University with my friend, Jared (name changed for anonymity), and he started asking me if I ever gave/received oral sex while playing video games (apparently this is a thing).  I stared at him blankly for about 10 seconds and then exclaimed, "Jared, why are you asking me this? You know I'm a virgin."  He looked confused and said, "Yeah I know, but I figured that saving your virginity was something you did out of a moral obligation to your religion.  I figured you would have done everything else.  You know...gotten as close to 'the line' as possible."

Purity, people, purity.

Jeezem crow.

So many more blogs needed...




Dictionary references:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/innocence

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/purity

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/virginity