Episode #66: Banned Books: Non Toxic Masculinity, with Zach Wagner, part 1 of 2
Healing from Purity Culture involves conversations of how Evangelical communities have created undue amounts of anxiety and pressure for men as well as women.
We talk with Zachary Wagner, author of the new book Non-Toxic Masculinity, about the importance of deconstructing simplistic, reductive practices of manhood and reimagining new ways that men can conceptualize themselves and create meaningful relationships.
Zach talks with us about:
Why Does the Book Matter Now (6:00): Zach kicks us off, “We need to grapple with the crisis of masculinity broadly. Post industrial revolution, sexual revolution, technological revolution--these types of things have made for some unique challenges for male identity and the concepts around masculinity in the western world in general. Everybody should be thinking critically about and thinking about what it means for themselves."
Generations of Toxic Masculinity (10:00): Jeremiah says: “Every generation has its own organization, structures, cultural narratives, iterations, that reinforce these ideas. We're all millennials. And one of the most significant cultural institutions that have really fueled and played into unhelpful ideas of masculinity as this idea of purity culture. You write: Purity culture refers to the theological assumptions, discipleship materials, events, and rhetorical strategies used to promote traditional Christian sexual ethics in response to the sexual revolution.”
The Power of the Purity Movement (14:30): Zach discusses: “Conservative Christians saw that kind of broader cultural movement and the fallout from it and wanted to recommend something different to the young people within their communities. This was an appeal to a traditional quote unquote sexual ethic. I think there was something new and unique about the purity movement.”
The Non-Banned Books (19:50): Zach talks about the books he read within the Church walls: “Every Man's Battle, and books by Elizabeth Elliot, Passion and Purity, Quest for Love. These types of things view romantic affection for another person as potentially ranking above your love for the Lord. That's one of those strange double binds where Christian marriage is so highlighted as the picture of God's love for his people or the church.”
Effects of Christian Literature (21:00): Julia highlights: “Then looking back, I read these books or I talk to my clients, and I know from myself that there's a deep well of shame and anxiety and all kinds of distress caused by these materials.”
Purity Culture and Sex (24:00): Zach shares: “Our intimate life never clicked in the ways that these messages that we had received in purity culture would have led us to believe: If you don't have this baggage or sexual history or, quote unquote, all these ways of talking about it, you'll be able to engage with your partner in a shame free, enjoyable, easy, free flowing, fulfilling way.”
Violence as a Result of Purity Culture (26:50): Zach discusses the mass spa shooting: “I saw the connections between the most kind of extreme form of violence that you could imagine. Given explanation because of compulsive sexual behavior and a temptation towards sexual sin, that's when some of these things started to click together in a really clear way for me.”
Sexism Taught Through Literature (27:00): Jeremiah notes: “Most straight men don't begin to realize the harmful impacts of purity culture until they're in relationships with women and until they see the ways that women have been significantly impacted, by the shaming messages, the misogyny that comes out of the literature that we're talking about.”
Purity Camp (32:00): Zach reflects on his time at purity camp: “As it relates to men, the main message was just this kind of inevitability of this hyper-erotic, hyper-sexual way of viewing the world.”
More Reflections on Christian Camp (34:00): Julia says: “Christian camp in general, but particularly these purity camps, I see as this most awful pairing of misandry and misogyny in which men are these sexual monsters and that women are a walking set of breasts or their bodies in general, rather than full humans, and so neither the men or the women, or girls and boys, actually, in these scenarios, get to be fully human, because they are reduced to being sexual monsters or sexual objects.”
Reducing Each Other's Humanity (41:00): Zach discusses, “I think purity culture has a tendency to reduce men and women to their sexuality as the sum total of their humanity.The woman as a seductress is a way of reducing female humanity to her sexuality. Then if there's a woman who is not sexually interested in a man or he doesn't find sexually attractive or by some standard she is not sexually attractive, her value as a person becomes radically diminished."
Healing (46:00): Zach shares: "It was a very healing thing, where I just had to slowly learn not to hate my sexuality and hate my sexual desire. And view it through the resources of Christian theology, as a creative good, as a beautiful thing, and not something that God is frustrated about. Wouldn't it be better if that wasn't a part of who Zach is?”