Evangelical Word of the Week *
* Warning: This Evangelical Word is somewhat disturbing, potentially triggering
The warning in the title is somewhat sarcastic, but also somewhat true. If you experienced anxiety, self-hatred, or fear over your sexuality, your desires and your behaviour around “sex and dating” in the evangelical church, blessings as you read this (or don’t) and may you know freedom from fearful and harmful religious control of your past.
The Evangelical Word of the Week is, ready?
“Heavy Petting”
I said it. (Or at least I wrote it). “Heavy-Petting” was a term used within the vocabulary established around the question of "How far can you go?” In previous editions of Evangelically Departed I have written about purity culture and the fixation of many churches and youth group programmes with sex and dating. If you were part of an evangelical church as a teenager and at the same time found yourself in a romantic relationship (going out with someone, dating, having a boyfriend, having a girlfriend), you likely recall the intensity with which the topic of “how far you can go” was treated. Some youth groups addressed the topic of sex and sexuality almost constantly. The term “heavy petting” was perhaps more common some decades ago, maybe in the 1970’s or 1980’s. There was holding hands, there was kissing, there was more intense kissing, there was physical touch involving particular parts of the body, maybe with clothes on, and then there was…
“heavy petting” (I never heard of “light petting” in the evangelical context, but I am assuming it was not quite as sinful.)
It might be that the purveyors of morality were determined to come up with a term that gave what was experienced, often as quite wonderful, a sense of darkness and judgment and general grossness. I have heard of examples of young couples being brought before a youth leader or pastor. and being forced to verbalise just "how far” they had gone. Perhaps the leader or pastor would ask,
“Have you kissed?”
“Do you do more than that?”
“Have you engaged in heavy petting?”
I am not sure where the term originated, but, from the religious context, I can only assume that it came from self-appointed morality police. No one would come up with a term like that to describe something that they were okay with enjoying. No person has ever said to their partner:
“How about some heavy petting?” (or, have they? Please, say that they have not.)
You might ask why such a disturbing term would be mentioned in Evangelically Departed. This is because I came across the term recently in an article about a woman, Ali Millar, who left the Jehovah’s Witnesses after 30 years in the group.
That article made me recall a note I saw in a political editorial recently. That editorial was about Trumpism and its followers. It pointed out that it has been said that “no one has ever joined a cult.” The concept here is that no one (or very few people) have articulated that they are joining a cult. What happens, instead, is that they become part of a group, religious or otherwise, that strictly controls behaviour and relationships. It is not until some time later that some of the people involved come to the realization that they are in a cult. The woman who told her story about growing up in a strict Jehovah Witness community might well concur with this.
In her case, she had no choice. She was brought into the group as a young child and decades later, her mom remains part of the group. I am looking forward to reading the memoir, called, “The Last Days.” In the article, there is an excerpt from the book. That excerpt describes an encounter that this woman had with a group of church leaders and her husband. The leaders had come to the home of the young couple due to the behaviour of the young woman. In their minds, they were there to help, but as described in the excerpt, this help involved aggressive questioning about the couple’s sexual behaviour (including with each other) before they were married. The young husband (part of the religious group as well) said that he had been feeling guilt over how far they had gone before they were married. The church leaders were apparently going to call the couple to account for such indiscretion. Of course, among the young couple’s sin was “heavy petting.” The church leaders, when hearing this, pressed further. They asked if the couple enjoyed the “sin.” They asked if they repeated it and who initiated it. The whole thing is hard to read, but as I read it I wondered how many people who grew up evangelical had similar experiences of “confessing” or being forced to confess.
A quote from author Ali Millar in the podcast above: “We were the ones who made the cake. We didn’t make the decisions.”
I recall again a Thomas Merton quote, (the pronouns used demonstrate a convention of the time when Merton wrote, male pronouns used to refer to all humanity). Merton was a Trappist monk writing in the 1960’s:
“It sometimes happens that men who preach most vehemently about evil and the punishment of evil, so that they seem to have practically nothing else on their minds except sin, are really unconscious haters of other men. They think that the world does not appreciate them, and this is their way of getting even.”
From “New Seeds of Contemplation”, chapter entitled, “The Moral Theology of the Devil”)
Thanks for tackling difficult topic that does need some refurbishment!
The Interview with Ali Millar was great…a testament to her courage in leaving an unbearable situation.
I hope that her book comes to Audible.