Joseph Most Chaste

One of the arguments evangelicals have against Mary's perpetual virginity is that they don't believe that Joseph was or could have been chaste. I remember hearing a sermon in the Assembly of God Church where the pastor said that there's no way Joseph could have endured a marriage to a beautiful young woman like Mary and not have sex with her.

That there is exactly the problem in the mindset of the evangelical church, and, in my opinion, a huge contribution to the oppression of women and the vast problems with sexuality within the evangelical church.

The leaders of the evangelical church are typically married men. They also have just as high a rate of pornography use as secular men. They also typically have terrible theology surrounding marriage and sexuality that has led to increasing compromisation of the marriage bed, marital rape, purity culture, and misogyny. Women are taught from a very young age to be the gatekeepers of relationships pre-marriage because "men can't help themselves." Therefore, Mary couldn't have remained a virgin because men can't help themselves. Joseph wouldn't have wanted or agreed to a celibate marriage because men can't help themselves.

What evangelicals completely ignore is that Mary and Joseph knew the greater thing. They were first-hand in the intimacy we have with Christ, the vision of Heaven (where we aren't given in marriage). I have heard evangelical men say they don't want to go to heaven if there's no sex. The evangelical world has made sex an idol so much so that it is beyond their comprehension to even fathom that Joseph was chaste and Mary pure.

Life was greater for them. They had purpose far beyond basic human reproduction. They had intimacy greater than sexual union. They had Jesus.

This is why so many evangelicals struggle sexually. This is why they turn blind eyes to sex before marriage. This is why wives are refusing sex in many evangelical marriages. This is why husbands are hooked on pornography and/or masturbation at alarming rates within the evangelical church. This is why some denominations allow for marital rape and brutally shame women for perceived immodesty in public and modesty in private. They refuse to believe that Joseph not only had self-control and chastity, but that He agreed to it and lovingly served within it. Willingly!

He is a model for husbands and fathers the world over. In a culture and even church culture that only teaches that men have sex drives that need satiating and refuses to teach men how to be chaste and have proper self control, you will find disregard for Mary and Joseph, and disregard for women in general.

We do a great dishonor to Joseph, Mary, and even Jesus to place our sex-sick cultural standards on the most holy people ever on earth.