Pete Hegseth and the Pornhub–Purity Culture Coalition
What explains today’s political alliance of worldly bros and high-minded theobros? Start with the presumptive SecDef’s views on women and sex.
I FELT FAMILIAR NAUSEA watching a particular moment during Pete Hegseth’s confirmation hearing on Tuesday—and I suspect it was a feeling shared by others watching who, like me, walked away from the white evangelical churches in which they were raised. It happened when Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) raised a subject relevant to Hegseth’s character, personal stability, and potential vulnerability to blackmail: Hegseth’s repeated adultery and other sexual indiscretions—including sleeping with someone (who alleged assault) two months after his child was born to his mistress with whom he cheated on his second wife. Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) then rose to Hegseth’s defense.
Mullin, who is a member of an evangelical Pentecostal church, began by thanking the third Mrs. Hegseth, present in the hearing room, for “loving him through that mistake.” Mullin went on, “The only reason I am here and not in prison is because my wife loved me, too. . . . I’m not perfect, but I found somebody that thought I was perfect . . . but just like our Lord and Savior forgave me, my wife’s had to forgive me more than once, too.” He then gave Hegseth the opportunity to awkwardly gush about how smart, capable, and beautiful his wife is.
Mullin’s mini-sermon was a lasagna of problematic messaging—the lauding of a woman for sticking with an abusive man, more generally giving women responsibility for men’s redemption, and calling longstanding patterns of behavior a “mistake.” Oh, and there was also the obligatory reference to poor Jesus—whom Hegseth also repeatedly invoked to get out of every jam free. (I seem to remember a commandment about not taking the Lord’s name in vain.)
I want to unpack this moment because of what it reveals about one of the more mysterious alliances in our politics. This will require some brief explanation about two things: first, the belief in female subservience to male needs that pervades evangelical teachings, and second, the libertine “bro” culture, with its hypermasculine displays. You might think that the “bros” and the “theobros” would have little in common, especially considering the bros’ heavy use of pornography, verboten in evangelicalism. In fact, though, the bros’ and theobros’ eerily similar views of women and sex bind them together under the MAGA banner. And in Pete Hegseth, this misogynistic marriage from hell is embodied in one deeply flawed and unqualified person.
IN WHITE EVANGELICALISM—and I’m talking mainstream Protestant evangelicalism here, not some niche, tradwife offshoot—it is commonly implied that women are primarily meant to help men. In fact, women are often and quite literally called “helpmeets,” drawing from the creation story in Genesis, in which Eve is formed from Adam’s rib to be his companion. Women are told to respect, foster, and submit to male authority in their homes and churches, where they are banned from most leadership roles based on a literalist reading of scripture. While there is ample stated tolerance for women’s pursuit of careers, education, and other ambitions, they are strongly encouraged to make marriage and motherhood central to their lives, to sacrifice their own needs and desires for those of their husbands and families. And when they do, they are lauded as if they are almost saints, as the exchange between Hegseth and Mullin hints at. (Of course, it is a basic tenet of Christianity that men and women alike should selflessly serve others’ needs, but in this culture the expectation falls disproportionately on women.)
Sexually, too, evangelical women repeatedly hear, in so many words, that they are here to serve male needs. This is a dominant theme of “purity culture,” the rituals of which hit peak absurdity and popularity in evangelical circles in the late 1990s. Outside of marriage, women are responsible for protecting men from lust and moral harm. They are modest in appearance and behavior and diligently patrol the physical guardrails of their relationships. Within marriage, they are “smokin’ hot wives,” in the parlance of megachurch pastor Marc Driscoll, who fulfill their husbands’ sexual desires and fantasies.
According to many evangelical marriage books, wives also protect their husbands spiritually when they serve their sexual needs by helping them resist the temptation of pornography (an obsession in evangelical culture) and adultery. Women are told they should avoid saying no to their husbands’ advances, even if they are ill or in pain, because doing so will increase the likelihood that men will stray. Women’s sexual pleasure is explicitly deprioritized by some evangelical authors, one calling it “optional.” Women’s menstrual periods, menopausal complications, and postpartum recoveries, which may preclude sex, are portrayed as a difficult time—for men. And men are depicted as weak, almost animal-like creatures just doing as they are driven.
Sheila Wray Gregoire, a bestselling Canadian evangelical author whose work counters the damaging notions of sexuality that pervade evangelicalism, has used social science research to clearly show the harm these beliefs cause evangelical women, by enabling and excusing rampant abuse and causing sexual dysfunction, in the form of a significantly larger orgasm gap between the sexes and higher rates of sexual pain due to vaginismus compared to the general population.
Gregoire also notes how evangelicalism’s male-centric approach to sex mirrors a pornographic lens that objectifies women and values them mainly for their service to male needs. “It’s all about male entitlement and women existing for men’s use,” she told me by email. And for their moral protection. She cites one bestselling marriage book that called wives “methadone” for their husbands’ sex addictions. “So instead of lusting after and objectifying every woman, you get to lust after and objectify only one woman. It’s not about connection or intimacy, but merely using,” she told me.
In other words, while the Mike Johnsons of the world are forming anti-porn accountability pacts with their teenage sons, the misogynistic view of women held by their porn-addled brethren is mirrored in their religious culture. Studies have shown that heavy pornography use is associated with men wanting power over women, relationship dysfunction, abuse and violence against women, and unrealistic expectations for sex. These are all problems prevalent in evangelical communities, too. They use pornography at lower rates than the general male public, but they are indoctrinated in an ideology of male headship and female submission that can have a similar effect.
Certainly, many devout evangelicals are respectful of women and earnest in their commitment to chastity. But, as Gregoire’s works demonstrates, the messaging they are surrounded by does nothing to support these virtues, or to defend women from men who don’t uphold them on what amounts to the honor system.
WHICH BRINGS US BACK to Pete Hegseth, the ‘family man’ of three wives and numerous mistresses, and an alleged rapist. As recently as November, he stated that women don’t belong in combat roles in the military (a position he now says he no longer holds); one wonders where else he thinks they don’t belong.1 The hard-drinking, square-jawed, evidently virile, allegedly forceful, and self-described “warrior” has obvious appeal to the bros. But he’s also deeply religious, not just an evangelical but a full-blown Christian nationalist, complete with Crusader tattoos, comfort with war crimes, an allergy to diversity, and membership in a church founded by someone who believes marital rape does not exist.
All in all, he’s a catastrophic choice to lead an institution with a sexual assault epidemic, which Hegseth’s pastor would, one assumes, chalk up to female presence, not male turpitude. That, seemingly, is what causes all manner of male sins, just as female moral guardianship and service prevents and redeems them. Along with Jesus, of course. (Remind me, is that the Jesus who made a point of befriending and defending women in a society that devalued them? The Jesus whose radical offer of forgiveness begins with real repentance—“Go and sin no more”? The Jesus who took the lead in self-sacrifice before asking it of others?)
Within the frame of Christian nationalism, the cosmic battle between good and evil engulfing America justifies offensive means with heroic ends. It also makes peace with bad behavior on the part of the “good guys.” But most mainstream evangelicals aren’t Christian nationalists, don’t behave like Hegseth, and don’t approve of his behavior, Trump’s, or that of the bros with whom they find themselves in coalition.
Nonetheless, the narrative in which Hegseth and his allies position his personal behavior—as exhibited by Sen. Mullin—resonates on a deep level with more mainstream, upstanding evangelicals due to their heavy exposure, via evangelical teaching and literature, to a view of women that can excuse such sins when necessary.
In that context, Hegseth’s main “mistake” is being too manly and at various times in the past finding himself without an adoring, cooperative, subservient helpmeet. According to his testimony, it sounds like Hegseth has unlocked that marital level, finding what all the bros and theobros aspire to possess. To Mrs. Hegseth III, all I can say is: good luck.
Correction (January 16, 2025, 12:20 p.m. EST): As originally published this sentence described Hegseth as having said that women don’t belong in the military; it has been corrected to specify that his objection is to women serving in the military in combat roles.
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