Content warning: sexual abuse, evangelical bullshit, religious shame/trauma
Purity culture—the sexual ethic taught by most evangelical and Catholic churches that sex is only good/holy in the context of monogamous marriage between a cisgender man and cisgender woman. It’s a teaching that has led to so much sexual shame, abuse, and loss of people’s agency and embodiment. In this episode, we discuss how we experienced this teaching in church (and the culture at large--in a secular context, we would call it rape culture or slut shaming), how it impacted us, and how we deconstructed and reconstructed our sexual ethics to have a healthier, less rigid view of sex. A healthy sexual ethic should be rooted in the values of consent and care for other people—that is, you’re not harming yourself or others, and you make sure to get enthusiastic consent.
We also discuss how purity culture creates an environment where sexual abuse can flourish and survivors are shamed into silence; it’s not a bug of the system, it’s a feature. We also make fun of Matthew West’s stupid song “Modest is Hottest.”
Our social media: @reclaimingthegarden on Insta, @RtGardenPodcast on Twitter. Our personal accounts: @thatpunchabletheaternerd, @April_TheWriter (April is on Twitter and Insta). Also, our podcast account follows a bunch of awesome folks + podcasts in the exvangelical/deconstruction world and progressive Christian world, so if you’re looking for more resources, that’s a great place to start!
Resources mentioned in this episode (and maybe a few extra anti-purity culture resources that we forgot to say!)::
A whole lot of God is Grey videos on YouTube—check out Brenda Marie Davies’ new book, On Her Knees!
Beyond Shame by Matthias Roberts
#Churchtoo by Emily Joy Allison
Pure by Linda Kay Klein
Shameless by Nadia Bolz-Weber
Damaged Goods by Dianna Anderson
Bad Theology Kills by Kevin Garcia
You Are Your Own by Jamie Lee Finch
Unprotected Texts by Jennifer Wright Knust
We’re assuming you have no interest in looking up the shitty purity culture books we mentioned, but if you are curious for the sake of research, you can DM us.