ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the ways in which men who pledge sexual abstinence until marriage negotiate and assert masculine identities. Using interviews and focus groups with evangelical Christian men before and after they were married, the author traces the ways in which these men manage a tension between both “sacred” and “beastly” understandings of sexuality. The practices and beliefs of these men highlight their attempts to resolve the incongruity between practices of sexual purity – something usually associated with women – and normative understandings of masculinity. Analyses of the data suggest that a decision to pledge sexual abstinence until marriage is an example of hybrid masculinities in that the postmarriage transition to a more hegemonically masculine status suggests that abstinence pledges do not challenge current gendered systems of power and inequality. This is highlighted through the ways these men talk about and understand their relationships and their wives postmarriage.
