The Price of Purity: When Virginity Became Our Moral Currency

When I was about sixteen, I was given a birthday gift, a pewter cross necklace. And on the top portion of the cross spun a tiny gold wedding band imprinted with the tiniest little words “True Love Wait”. There was a little card tucked into the box that talked about my body as a “temple” and my future as a “gift.” I slid that purity necklace around my neck with trembling fingers and bowed my head as my Mom snapped photos.
We called it a commitment to Christ.
But what it really was, I see now, was an initiation into transaction.

Evangelical girls of my generation were told we held something valuable - something fragile and rare - and if we protected it long enough, someday, the right man would come along to cash it in. We were taught that virginity was the highest currency a girl could possess. It could buy you love. It could buy you approval. It could even buy you salvation.

But like all currencies, it came with inflation and collapse.