Jinger Duggar Vuolo and her husband, Jeremy Vuolo, offered some critiques of the purity movement in the fifth episode of their new podcast. The couple agreed that purity culture tended to be motivated by fear, was rules-based, downplayed physical attraction, and encouraged too much parental involvement at the beginning of a relationship.
“I think a lot of girls overreacted,” said Jinger when she and Jeremy were discussing a concern of the purity movement that people were giving pieces of their hearts away to romantic partners and had barely anything left to offer their future spouses.
She said some women were “so concerned with not wanting to talk to guys because they were going to give pieces of their heart away to them…It’s really messed up and warped because that is not how it works.”
Jinger and Jeremy Vuolo: Where Purity Culture Was ‘Wrong’
Jinger Duggar Vuolo is the sixth child of Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, whose family was featured in TLC’s reality show, “19 Kids and Counting,” and later, TLC’s “Counting On.” The former show was canceled in 2015 after allegations broke that Jim Bob and Michelle’s oldest child, Josh, had molested five girls, including four of his sisters. “Counting On” was canceled in June 2021 after Josh Duggar was arrested and charged with receiving and possessing child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
In December 2021, a jury found Josh Duggar guilty on one count of receiving child pornography and one count of possessing child pornography. In May 2022, Duggar was sentenced to 12 years and seven months in prison.
In February 2023, Jinger spoke to ChurchLeaders about her new memoir, “Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear.” She explained how she came to learn about the grace of Jesus, which contrasted with how God had been presented through the teachings of Bill Gothard and his Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP). Gothard and the Duggar family were the subject of the 2023 Prime Video docuseries, “Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets,” which Jinger chose not to participate in.
Jeremy began the conversation on “The Jinger & Jeremy Podcast” by explaining what “purity culture” is. The term generally refers to an evangelical movement that took place in the 1990s and which, among other ideas, emphasized not having sex before marriage and promoted courtship over dating.
According to the late Dr. Timothy Keller, “The teaching went far beyond the Christian sex ethic to argue that you should not ‘date’ or even kiss someone unless you were sure you were going to marry them. Sexual thoughts, most physical contact, and sex outside marriage were elevated to ‘unforgivable sins.’”
Joshua Harris’s book, “I Kissed Dating Goodbye,” is one of the most well-known books from that time period. Harris has since discontinued publication of the book and is no longer a Christian.
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Both Jeremy and Jinger experienced the impact of purity culture, although they said that Jinger’s experience was “more intense” than Jeremy’s.
