November 22, 2023 • 44 mins
Do you know the extent to which purity culture and abstinence-only education can infiltrate your life? We've got a promise for you: by the end of this episode, you'll have a deeper understanding of this complex and controversial topic. We're joined by special guests Jeremiah Gibson and Julia Pastema, hosts of the podcast and educational platform, Sexvangelicals. Together, we dissect and discuss the defining features of purity culture, strict gender norms, and the harmful impacts these ideologies have on relationships and sexuality.
On our journey into purity culture, we also highlight its paradoxical effects. From the double bind faced by men taught to control their impulses while being encouraged to pursue sexual relationships, to the heightened risks and lack of sexual communication, we confront the harsh realities of this belief system. We reference the insightful book "Real Sex" by Lauren Winner, posing provocative questions about the so-called "slippery slope" of sexual activity.
Wrapping up our discussion, we delve into the personal experiences of Jeremiah and Julia. They share their transformative journey from music ministry and therapy to becoming sex therapists, and how their beliefs in evangelical Christianity were challenged. They reveal a new understanding of consent, and we extend our support to those affected by purity culture. Join us as we emphasize the importance of comprehensive, inclusive education around relationships and sexuality. Listen in as we shed light on the broader impacts of purity culture, and how we as a society can move forward.
Follow us on social @sexeddebunked or send us a message at sexeddebunked@gmail.com
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hi, this is Sex.
Ed Debunked across-generational podcast
hosted by mother-daughter duo,christine and Shannon Curley.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Every episode we tackle a new myth about sex,
sexuality and pleasure, and useresearch and expert insights to
debunk stereotypes andmisinformation from the bedroom
and beyond.
In 2022,.
We won the American Associationof Sexuality Educators,
counselors and Therapists Awardfor Best Podcast and also
managed to not totally freak outour family and friends along
the way.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
We believe in healthy sex-positive, pleasure-focused
sex education backed by realresearch and real experience.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Follow us on Instagram, facebook or Twitter
at Sex Ed Debunked or email usat SexEdDeBunked at gmailcom to
share your sex miseducationtales and the myths you'd like
to hear us debunk.
Thanks for listening.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Hi, this is Sex.
Ed Debunked across-generational podcast about
sexual health, sex positivityand what it really means to
leave room for Jesus.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
So on today's episode , we're talking about purity
culture and to facilitate thisconversation, we're bringing two
special guests to the podcastJeremiah Gibson and Julia
Pastema, hosts of the podcastand educational platform.
They're going to say it for me,that's me and Jala Calls.
There you go.
I'm much better that way.
Jeremiah and Julia, welcome toSex Ed Debunked.
(01:16):
Thank you, I'm excited for thisGood to be on the show.
Thanks for having us.
Speaker 5 (01:19):
Yes, happy to have you here.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
But tell us how you got here, tell us a little bit
about this platform and thepodcast that you run, and a
little bit about yourselves.
Speaker 5 (01:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:31):
I'll let Jeremiah tell you about how we met, and
then I'll tell you a little bitabout the podcast.
Speaker 5 (01:36):
So Julia and I are both certified sex therapists
and licensed psychotherapists inMassachusetts, and so we
actually met through work.
We actually, funnily enough,had the same supervisor who
connected us for another projectthat I'm working on, and over
time we began to talk andrealize that we had a lot in
(01:57):
common.
We're both sex therapists whoescaped evangelical Christianity
in our own ways.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
Congratulations, thank you, thank you.
It is worth the congratulations, no.
Speaker 5 (02:09):
So we, as we talked more, we were talking about both
the similar ways and thedifferent ways that evangelical
movements impacted us, and alsothe ways that impacted the
relationships that we hadhistorically present, things
like that.
So as we began to move into adating relationship, we also
realized that, hey, we couldcollaborate professionally on
(02:32):
this as well, and the first bitof that was through the podcast,
sex Evangelicals.
And as Sex Evangelicals hasgrown, we have also talked about
other opportunities to worktogether through some writing
projects, through someco-therapy processes that we're
excited to launch in the nextyear or two.
So that's the introduction toour story, and you want to talk
(02:56):
a little bit more about SexEvangelicals.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
Absolutely so.
The tagline for SexEvangelicals is the sex
education the church didn't wantyou to have.
The didn't want is intentional.
Folks have asked us about that.
This isn't the sex educationthe church missed.
This isn't the sex educationthe church forgot.
This is the sex education thatwas intentionally left behind
(03:22):
from our lives.
Now, over the past 10-ish years, there has been a lot of good
research and resources aroundwhat we would call
deconstruction in general, whichwould be the process of folks
unlearning harmful religiousmessages and shifting their
(03:43):
worldview.
More recently, there has beensome good resources available
for sexuality post or duringdeconstruction.
However, very few resourcesexist for how to navigate
multiple different relationshipsin this process.
So reclaiming sexuality afteradverse religious experiences is
(04:06):
hard enough, as it is, just asan individual, and then when you
consider family relationships,friendships, partners, spouses,
multiple partners, dating, thatis just hard as hell really, and
so our niche is to consider howcan we reclaim sexuality while
in the context of relationshipsfollowing the negative sex
(04:30):
messaging and relationalmessaging from religious
structures?
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Right.
So you're actually looking atall forms of relationships, not
just dating and loverelationships, but that would
include friendships and,classically, with your family
and things like that.
So I think we need to take astep back and really define for
our listeners exactly what wemean when we say purity culture.
Speaker 5 (04:54):
Yeah.
So I printed up a definitionfrom Linda Kay Klein.
Linda's a friend.
She wrote pure inside theevangelical movement that shamed
a generation of young women andhow I broke free.
She writes the term purityculture is generally associated
with the white Americanevangelical Christian purity
movement and the corollarypurity industry launched in the
(05:17):
early nineties.
However, evangelicals don't havea monopoly on the ethics that
undergird purity culture.
The specifics vary by religionand culture, but gender and
sexual control, upon whichpurity culture stands, is global
, cross religious and crosscultural.
In purity culture, genderexpectations are based on a
strict, stereotype based binary.
(05:38):
Women are expected to be strong, masculine leaders of the
household, church and, to alesser extent, society.
Women are expected to supportthem, to be pretty feminine,
sweet, supportive wives andmothers, and so there is a.
There are macro systems thathave developed around that,
(06:00):
julie.
You'll talk about that a littlebit more in a minute, but at
the root of that is the practice, the implementation of these
very strict, very rigid gendernorms and the expected
relationships heterosexualrelationships, monogamous
relationships that are expectedas a result of that.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
And Linda Klein, in the definition that Jeremiah
described, talks about thegendered norms more generally
speaking.
Later, if it's helpful, we cantalk a bit more about how that
impacts specifically sexuality,because I think there are
specific factors to consider interms of the double binds that
men experience, the double bindsthat women experience, and,
(06:43):
sadly, any folks who are not acis person are completely erased
from those types of structures.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
First question is you said the 1990s, I mean, is that
the definition of the termpurity culture?
I'm sure the idea of thisculture has existed a long time
before the 1990s and when it wasgiven a term.
Speaker 5 (07:03):
Yeah, so what Linda's referring to is products that
were developed, that startedbeing developed in the 80s and
90s, from purity rings, purityballs, different relics that
represented those, and then alsomulti-million, multi-billion
dollars at this stage,publishing houses from Focus on
(07:25):
the Family, thomas Nelson,zondervan, who have published
thousands of books, relationshipbooks, sexuality books all of
which are, most of whichrepackage and repurpose these
rigid gender stereotypes intothe practice of complementary in
relationships and thelimitations, obviously, that
(07:50):
come as a result of that.
Speaker 4 (07:52):
And I would add, not just complementary in
relationships, but hierarchicalrelationships.
Speaker 5 (07:56):
That's right, that's right.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
So they were capitalizing on a culture that
was already there, but nowthey've packaged it.
So that means you can buy andthere's the all, like you said,
all the rings and things likethat.
But it doesn't mean that theidea of these gender roles and
rigid stereotypes didn't existbefore.
That's right.
Speaker 5 (08:15):
So, but there's a capitalistic flair that starts
to happen in the 90s, and thenalso in 1996, you have the
Clinton administration passingTitle V abstinence only until
marriage follow, actually inresponse to hundreds of
thousands of purity pledgesbeing planted on Capitol Hill a
year earlier, and that becomes afoundation for nationally
(08:39):
funded education policies thatpromote abstinence only
education, for instance,abstinence to sexuality before
marriage is the expectedstandard.
Mutually faithful, anogamousrelationship in the context of
marriage is the expectedstandard.
And federal grants, federalmoney, is given then to
(08:59):
everything from localmunicipalities to larger state
governments, and recipients ofthose funds are required then to
teach those in a variety ofsettings.
This isn't just a privateschool, this isn't just a
parochial, this isn't justlimited to evangelical
Christianity.
This impacts the entire nationfor at least two generations of
(09:21):
people Gen Xers and millennials.
Speaker 4 (09:24):
And I am only just starting to understand this
world, but there is now a newmovement called Purity Culture
2.0.
Speaker 5 (09:33):
2.0, right.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
More perpetuated by the Gen Z generation and
influencer style versus thestructures that Jeremiah just
described.
And the really tricky part isthat the Purity Culture 2.0 has
a guise of being moreprogressive, more liberal, but
(09:56):
it's really just a repackagingof the same messages.
For example, oh how terriblethat all you women were compared
to chewed up pieces of gumpassed around to your classmates
.
That's so terrible.
And then the messaging thatthey describe following that is
really the same, just with lessviolent types of imagery.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
Yeah, well, I think we tend to think.
You know, Gen Z is veryprogressive and TikTok is a
progressive platform, and that'strue, but there it is still a
platform to continue to pushoutdated messaging.
In any way, to your point, youcan kind of rebrand the same
thing, Right?
Speaker 4 (10:40):
so maybe it's more insidious, less violent imagery,
but trickier to discern asharmful or similar to previous
Purity Culture, I suppose 1.0.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Yeah, is 1.0 still active?
And the reason I'm asking isI'm actually planning next week
on showing this 60 minutesegment on Purity Balls to my
class and I wonder if they'restill doing them.
It used to have, like these bigconventions in Colorado and the
dads would be the dates andit's like yeah, yeah, the rules
(11:17):
of the father-daughterrelationship is really bizarre
in those.
Speaker 5 (11:20):
To answer your question, yes, I actually
haven't done much research onwhat's currently happening in
evangelical movements andPentecostal movements.
You have, I have, go for it.
Speaker 4 (11:37):
No, no no, keep going .
No, no, finish what you weresaying.
Speaker 5 (11:40):
Oh no, that's it.
Speaker 4 (11:43):
That was your intro.
Speaker 5 (11:43):
That was your intro.
Speaker 4 (11:44):
Well and I'll give the scope of my understanding
because it is somewhat limited.
But because this is our nichepopulation and because I love
podcasts, I actually stay prettyup to date on the dominant
messages around sexuality withinwhat we would call emphish
(12:05):
communities, and by emphish wemean evangelical Mormon and
Pentecostal.
I don't know the statistics ofhow often purity balls are
occurring.
I can find that out and let youknow.
But, for example, there is agroup called Authentic Intimacy
(12:26):
and I'm not sure if you can seeit.
It may or may not still beassociated with focus on the
family, but it is very, veryinfluential in evangelical
circles and while they I believeif I am being charitable are
trying to do some good workaround course correcting, the
(12:49):
outcome is a bit similar to thepurity culture 2.0.
So messages around abstinence,monogamy, heterosexuality are
still pretty dominant.
But it would be veryinteresting to look at the
extent to which the puritypledges, purity balls and other
big time events are stilloccurring.
(13:11):
I've had some clients talk tome about it, but I don't know
how that would hold up to likenumbers nationally.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
Yeah, that's interesting.
It's funny.
I follow a couple of socialmedia accounts that are
satirical having to do withabstinence, but sometimes I
worry that it's too clever andI'm like you know, are people
understanding that this issatire or is this like a modest
proposal and they're thinking wereally should eat the kids?
You know, because if you'reassuming a certain audience, I
(13:44):
think and it's similar to whatyou were saying about TikTok but
if you're assuming a certainaudience, you can kind of lose
the educational arc along theway and accidentally continue to
push the wrong messaging.
Speaker 4 (13:54):
Sure Right.
Well similar to SNL during the2016 elections.
The SNL clips were, like yousaid, almost too clever because
they were just a repackaging ofwhat was actually happening, so
it was more horrifying thanfunny Right.
It was a little too close toreality, right.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
Well, it's like the onion, right Like the onion they
kind of ran material, becauseeverything was just happening
for real Right, true story.
So the one thing that you knowwe've talked about is this
virginity, and I think peoplecan conflate the terms of like
virginity and abstinence onlywith purity culture.
(14:32):
But there's more to it thansimply like don't have sex,
right?
So can you talk a little bitmore about, I guess, the far
reaching influence of purityculture beyond simply abstinence
?
Speaker 4 (14:43):
Yeah.
So abstinence only education,as all four of us know, has some
pretty damning consequences.
That being said, the way that Iwould differentiate is that
purity culture is a broadersystem that perpetuates a
culture of anxiety in whichfolks, including adolescents and
(15:06):
small children, are defined bytheir purity.
We can talk about what puritymeans later.
In many contexts, that's farmore than having sex.
Right, right.
So defined by purity, definedby modesty, and then defined by
how well these folks fall withinthose rigid norms.
(15:27):
And I can give an example frommy own life.
So the pervasiveness of purityculture meant that for me I tell
this example a lot my friendsand I had conversations about
whether or not spaghetti strapswere sinful, and these were real
conversations at nine years old.
And I remember telling Jeremiahrecently that I had one friend,
(15:49):
one friend who was anon-believer I'm saying air
quotes because that us them.
Language is also prettyproblematic and I asked my mom
if it was okay if I wentswimming with her because she
had a two piece bathing suit.
And so purity culture reallyinfiltrates every single part of
(16:10):
how you view yourself as aspecific gender and then as you
interact with other folks.
And we can talk about how thisimpacts men as well, because
purity culture fucks with morethan women.
I'm giving examples from my ownlife.
I was very anxious, even as aprepubescent child, around men
(16:32):
because I learned that men weredangerous.
Were these sexual monsters?
So purity culture, more thanabstinence, only education,
defines the way that you exist,with a high degree of shame and
a high degree of anxiety.
Speaker 5 (16:47):
And it reduces you to sexuality.
Speaker 4 (16:49):
Or your genitalia.
Or your genitalia Really Right.
Speaker 5 (16:53):
Because if you're nine or 10 and worried about
spaghetti straps like, theimplications of that is that
there are people that aresexualizing you as a nine or a
10 year old.
Speaker 4 (17:07):
And that sometimes happens.
Speaker 5 (17:09):
Sometimes happens Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
Yeah, I mean, it's interesting how many times in
media, when you look at, like amovie where they're at a
Catholic school and they'rewearing their skirts and they
roll up the skirts, and theyroll up the skirts, they're the
bad kids, right, because they're.
And why is that?
You know you should be able toroll up your skirt without fear
of judgment, but you do see it,I think and that's just a basic
example but the ones that rollup their skirt, the ones that
(17:32):
take their cardigan off andthey're wearing the spaghetti
straps, it's like that's the badone.
Speaker 4 (17:37):
Right, right, so that demonizes the body as well.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Right, I was curious, does it go the other way?
Where?
Like, like, if a young, becauseit's a cultural thing if you
were to wear your spaghettistraps, would the young boys
around you think that you werelike, that you were impure and
that you were unworthy oftalking to because you were, you
know, somehow tainted and youknow how?
(18:00):
Dare you wear spaghetti strapsand show your skin?
I mean, it seems like theculture is so embedded for both
genders and all genders really.
Speaker 5 (18:10):
I think that's one outcome.
I also think the other outcomeis that Julia, building on what
you're talking about in terms ofmen, are socialized to be
sexual monsters, would be thatmen would or boys, boy peers
would see that as.
Oh, this is someone Iabsolutely need to talk to,
because this is someone that Ican fairly easily quote unquote
(18:33):
move into a sexual relationshipwith.
Speaker 4 (18:35):
Right.
Speaker 5 (18:36):
And that actually sets up the parameters of rape
culture, yeah, which are, whichin quite a few ways intersect
with purity culture.
Speaker 4 (18:46):
Right, and something that I often talk about on our
podcast is that the double bindfor men is that they are told
and taught that they are sexualaggressors and that they have
the right to sexuality and thatthis is how God made them.
So they've got to lean into thatwhich Jeremiah was describing
(19:08):
our rape culture.
If you lean into that, then yousee women as vessels that are
purely for your own pleasure.
At the same time, men alsoreceive the messages that this
part of their God given natureis also something they have to
fight.
So it's a real mind fuckbecause they get these two very
(19:28):
different messages around whatit means to be a man, and they
have to simultaneously be thesexual aggressors which have all
kinds of violent implications,and they've got to do everything
in their power to be sure thatthey reign that in Right,
control those impulses and I'msure the culture is not
(19:50):
encouraging of self-pleasure andmasturbation, because that's
exactly antithetical to beingstrong and in control and going
after the pure woman right.
Speaker 5 (20:01):
Well and also control those impulses has a
paradoxical impact to them,because the way that eroticism
works so eroticism being able tocreate a type of sexual energy
is through being attracted tosomeone and also having a set of
obstacles to overcome.
So purity culture also putsespecially people who are not
(20:27):
married, who are interested inexploring sexuality, puts those
folks in double binds as well.
I'm being told not to do thisand by being told not to do this
, like that actually encouragesme to figure out okay, how am I
gonna sneak around this?
How am I gonna skirt kind ofthe authorities and figure out
how to get what I want?
And then, when I do that one,there's a higher likelihood of
(20:51):
risky sexual behavior, includinga lack of contraceptions, a
lack of sexual communication,not in consent, gone consent
exactly the consensual practicesand also opens people up to the
experience of shame and deeprooted anxieties.
Speaker 4 (21:10):
Yeah, I joke that like nothing is sexier than a 20
, then two 20 year olds at aChristian college who are trying
to maintain purity culture.
Like that sexual tension youcould cut with.
You don't even need a knife,it's just so joking, not joking
(21:30):
Like it's way harder than porn,right?
Because that boundary and thatbarrier is so so, so high.
And then when folks get married, often very young, they have no
skills or resources to actuallydevelop sexual tension, which
is important, sexual eroticism,because they no longer have that
(21:51):
barrier which was keeping therelationship sexy.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Right so.
I have a quick question.
When we're talking abstinenceonly and the barrier, I assume
impurity culture that includesany going anywhere near the
genitalia like anything sexy atall, not just intercourse.
That's like stay away fromanything down there.
Quote unquote.
Speaker 5 (22:12):
There is a book written, I think 2008, called
Real Sex by Lauren Winner, andReal Sex is essentially an
exploration of what she callsthe slippery slope and this idea
of how far is too far, and Iread this book when I was dating
and kind of used that to kindof figure out, okay, like, how
(22:35):
are we gonna navigate the sexualtension that, julia, that
you're talking?
Speaker 1 (22:38):
about Looking for loopholes, Jeremiah.
Looking for loopholes yeah.
Speaker 5 (22:42):
A few absolutely, but that's essentially like what
the purpose of the book is andit's painted as this like I
don't know theological treatiseabout sexuality and like God's
vision, and maybe it's a littlebit more progressive than what
evangelicals are talking about,but at the end of the day,
that's what it was.
Speaker 4 (23:00):
Yeah, I would say to answer your question.
There's two main categories offolks.
There are the folks whereactually everything is on limits
as long as that penis doesn'tgo into the vagina, because that
is what sex means.
And then the other folks, likemyself, who grew up in what I
would call like the puritycontest, in which you wanted to
(23:24):
avoid even touching, even beinga couple inches away, like
Jeremiah and I sitting kind ofwith our shoulders not really
touching, but a little bittouching.
That was bad, and so it'sinteresting to talk with folks
that most couples that I talkwith in this fall into the, you
know, as long as we didn't do X,y or Z, which is pretty harmful
(23:47):
for other reasons, or it was,you know, in my church, the
women who didn't kiss until theygot to the altar.
They were the best women, andso then that also pits women
against each other.
Who's the purest of the women?
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Wow, that's just.
I just want to digest thatfirst, yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
Well, so I mean we kind of alluded to it and we
talked about it a little bitearlier.
But so what does it mean to bepure?
And it sounds like there aremultiple definitions.
But like, what does it mean tobe pure in the context of purity
culture?
Speaker 4 (24:17):
Oh, that's a great question.
Yeah, I think it probably wouldbe a different answer for men
than women.
For women, I would say that itis maintaining an asexual type
of identity, even though that'snot the language that would be
(24:38):
used, until you get married andthen your sexuality really
belongs to your male spouse andthey are the leaders and the
dominant ones.
It also would mean being modest.
It would also mean being quiet,being too mirror.
You can't be too funny, youcan't be too loud, you can't
(24:59):
take on a leadership kind ofrole, can't have a podcast,
right, right, and becoming a sextherapist was really something.
That, and then our podcast tosome degree has almost wrecked
my relationship with certainfamily members.
Speaker 5 (25:19):
And then to answer the second part of that question
, I would say that for men, menaren't really striving for
purity.
Purity culture, as we'retalking about from the context
of abstinence, only the moralconsequences, the eschatological
consequences, are really onlyfor women.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
Let's take a step back.
How'd you escape?
Talk to us a little bit aboutyour respective journeys,
because, of course, thisconversation is deeply embedded
in your life.
It is how you are raised, it isinfluencing you, but you got
out, so tell us a little bitabout you, I got kicked out.
That's one way to do it yeah.
Speaker 5 (25:57):
So my first career is in music ministry and I did
that in my 20s at a fairlysizable church in Texas and then
started to become a therapist.
My license is in marriage andfamily therapy, and marriage and
family therapy is rooted in theidea of systems theory.
So systems theory is this ideathat, in summary, everything is
(26:21):
interconnected and the work thatwe do is figuring out what
those interconnections are andhow those then impact
relationships.
That process in and of itselfhelped, was the beginning
process of me, like chippingaway some of the beliefs of
evangelical Christianity, and somoved to Boston in my late 20s,
(26:42):
early 30s, and then ended updoing music ministry at a very
small church.
While that's going on andpracticing being a therapist, I
stumbled into sex therapy prettyaccidentally.
I wanted to be a couplestherapist.
That was kind of how Iconceptualized myself, what I
studied to be.
(27:02):
My boss said hey, I am startinga sex therapy program.
I know you want to be a couplestherapist.
I think you should specialize,have a specialty to go along
with your couples therapy.
Come be a part of this program,I'll subsidize it.
I'm like okay, sweet, okay,fine, whatever.
And so I get into this programand the first class that we take
(27:24):
is about sexual healthprinciples, which we actually
talk about on our podcast in theseries the sex education we
wish we had, and the first ofthe sexual health principles is
consent, and at the root ofconsent is the idea that consent
is a conversation between twopeople, and I thought about my
(27:44):
own relationship at that timelike, oh fuck, this has not been
like.
Our sexual relationship has beenjust this assumptive kind of
thing where we rely on nonverbalcommunication and the
performance agenda roles tocreate something that's going,
and I began to spiral and belike I can't do this anymore,
(28:09):
like I care too much about my ex, and so the next couple of
years were a process of tryingto rewrite the ways that sexual
relationship worked, and I wasmoving much quicker in this than
my partner and my ex was, andso there were a lot of negative
(28:32):
consequences that came as aresult of that.
In conjunction with that, therewere people at my church that
she and I actually were both onstaff at.
There were people at my churchthat were uncomfortable with the
fact that I was a sex therapistand I talked about it, and so
what essentially happened Ilater found out was essentially
a coup where the churchleadership made up, utilized
(28:57):
some conflict, made it muchbigger than it was and ended up
firing me.
And I was later told, jeremiah,you should know that you were
fired because of your views onsexuality.
So I tried to play it both ways.
I tried to both be a sexualperson, sex therapist, while
also limiting that a little bit,because I was in a marriage
that didn't allow that sexualityto flourish and I was in a
(29:17):
church community that didn'tallow that marriage to flourish.
And so for me, the ultimateending was I got kicked out.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
And I imagine that that's probably the beginning of
getting kicked out of themarriage too because of that
Uh-huh.
Speaker 5 (29:30):
Yep, yeah, we were separated five months later.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
Oh, wow, yeah, but I can see hear what you're saying,
though, is that she didn't feellike she could even understand
consent culture either, becausein the culture she was always
supposed to consent, she didn'thave that kind of free will at
all but couldn't really move asfast as you, as you said, right,
like you would think you knowwe're obviously, you know very,
(29:58):
you know, progressive, liberalfeminist You'd be think like, oh
, somebody's giving me theopportunity to reclaim my sexual
power and exert consent.
That sounds like a great idea,and the fact that your ex
couldn't embrace that reallyspeaks to how deeply embedded
the culture is, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
That's a great point.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:17):
Julia, what about you ?
And what's your?
What's your?
Speaker 4 (30:18):
tale.
Well, like many Christian folks, I lost my fundamentalism at my
Christian college, so myundergraduate degree is in
social work.
No, I went to a Christiancollege, so Christian colleges
by and large, particularly interms of administration, are
quite conservative.
That being said, student bodydoesn't always match that, and I
(30:40):
was in this liberal bubble andvery quickly, within a couple
weeks of starting college, Irealized oh shit, what I learned
about the world was bullshit.
Now the process aroundsexuality was a little bit more
complicated.
(31:01):
So, although I left myfundamentalism, I really latched
onto a progressive Christianidentity, and something that
became really important to mewas the rights of queer folks
within religious spaces, and soI had this idea that, oh, I go
to these open and affirmingchurches and I'm a social worker
(31:25):
, so I I've done my work andI've healed from purity culture.
I still followed the rulesbecause those messages run real
deep.
So I got married when I was 22.
And very quickly becamedisillusioned about sexuality
Something, and not justsexuality, but my entire world
(31:49):
view.
Another interesting part ofpurity culture is honeymoon sex,
and the bill of goods that Iand anybody else in purity
culture learned was that if youfollow these rules, when you get
married.
You are going to have thisblissful, magical experience on
(32:11):
your honeymoon, and that will bethe greatest thing that ever
happens to you.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
We promise, I mean like coming from the heavens
you're not learning any skillsbetween now and then.
Speaker 4 (32:20):
Right, right and so on you, honey, what's that Right
?
And so I was pumped for this.
I was like I'm waiting, here wego, yeah, yeah, and it's both.
It's like so many parts of mystory.
It's one of those hilarious andheartbreaking things all at the
same time and, depending on theday, I'll laugh, depending on
(32:41):
the day, I'll cry.
Today feels like a funnier kindof day, and the sexual
experience is limited that I hadprior to getting married held
all kinds of shame and fear andanxiety, so I was just excited
to get the sex that was promisedto me and I cried every single
day of my honeymoon.
And what's really important toremember for folks to survive
(33:04):
this is that this also isn'tjust sex.
I would say sex is never justsex.
But what shattered for me andwhat I didn't realize at the
time was that my entire identitycrumbled because I learned that
my worth as a human being, as awoman specifically, was around
sexuality and that when I gotmarried, I would become a sexual
(33:29):
person and a sexual goddessalthough they would have never
said that, because a goddess isnot a woman Monotheism that
doesn't go too well with it,yeah, and so it really.
It crushed me and I knew thatthis was connected to sexuality,
but I didn't understand whatwas happening relationally,
(33:52):
psychologically, physiologically.
I eventually found a great sextherapist in Boston a couple
years after getting married,which is a couple years after
some really terrible patternsaround sexuality and my
ex-husband and I who's aphenomenal human being I always
would like to say that, eventhough we are divorced, we came
to our first couples therapysession and God bless Nancy
(34:15):
McGrath forever.
She was incredibly foundationalin my life and she was asking
me, as a good therapist, aboutmessages around sexuality and
communities of origin.
And I remember saying to herwell, I grew up in this strange
cultish kind of community, but Ireally don't think it impacted
my sexuality all that much.
(34:35):
Uh-huh, and it absolutely did, athousand percent.
I did become a sex therapist andactually my therapist at the
time as I was growing, learning,evolving was actually someone
to encourage me to do that, andthat was that in and of itself
was actually a reclaiming of mysexuality to have someone who
(34:57):
had seen me through the worst ofthe devastation say and you can
do this.
That being said, somerelationships don't recover from
purity culture and myrelationship did not recover,
and as I started my sex therapytraining, I was afraid to say
(35:18):
that I didn't want to be married, and I said that for the first
time with another therapist andultimately I did get divorced,
which was a pretty devastatingexperience.
I still, as many people who aredivorced, have some grief around
that, and part of reclaimingsexuality was learning to be a
(35:44):
sexual person outside of mymarriage and outside of what I
learned, not just aboutsexuality but about
relationships.
I encourage folks to getmarried after their brain fully
develops, which is not 22.
So even with some of the sexualgrowth that my ex-husband and I
(36:06):
were able to accomplish, we wedid not survive that and that is
okay.
That's not a moral failing ofme or of him, but that's one of
the other, really negativeconsequences.
And the same folks who set meup to get married that young,
the same folks who gave me notools or resources around
sexuality or relationships, werethe same ones who shamed and
(36:28):
berated me, sometimes publicly,for the decision to get divorced
.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
Right.
What's interesting about bothof your stories is that you both
had an oh shit moment.
I'm sure you had multiple ohshit moments.
Oh yeah, for sure.
I'm sure that there was notisolated to one, but both of you
kind of had this moment whereyou were introduced to a
different perspective thatreally shook your whole world
and that of course, has impactson your relationships, which we
again talked about at thebeginning of the episode, but
(36:53):
also really points to thedestructiveness of that
abstinence.
Only culture, of course, purityculture, but virginity culture,
like if you don't understandthat there are other
possibilities out there for you,then that's super destructive
when inevitably you learn aboutthose other possibilities Right.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
Yeah, and the other thing I'm hearing is how
critical people like youtherapists like you are to
getting out of this, like welike to say, cultural swamp,
this cultural mindset and theimportance of seeking out
therapists who are adept atunderstanding what you're trying
(37:29):
to extricate yourself from.
Speaker 5 (37:31):
Right.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
Well, I think I'd like to start like talking a
little bit about that process,because obviously both you had
wonderful mentors in yourjourney, which is, I'm sure,
what inspired you to be mentorsfor other people's journeys.
So it sounds like a longjourney.
So what's the first step thatpeople have to take?
Great question, yeah.
Speaker 5 (37:53):
I think that and, again, our perspective is
working with relationships.
So I would say that the firststep is being willing to talk
about hard things.
So, julia, you and I were on apodcast a couple of weeks ago
called Flow.
The Flow podcast is a podcastabout menstruation and the
(38:18):
process of the menstrual cycle.
Menstruation and the impact allthe impacts that it has on
biology, feminism, all of that.
And when we got on this podcast, I'm like why the hell am I
talking about?
with three women about menstrualhealth, because there's enough
of that shit going on inpolitics.
I also grew up in a householdand in a culture where comments
(38:40):
about menstruation were prettyquickly devolved into sexism,
pretty quickly devolved intokind of shaming around emotional
volatility and all that, and soI was really anxious kind of
talking about that.
And, julia, I talked with you,I talked with a couple of
(39:01):
colleagues of mine, I talkedwith hosts about this, and one
of the things that they weretalking about is like all people
need to be talking about this,and that includes men, and I
realized that, oh shit, likeJulia you and I talk about,
there's another oh shit moment.
Just give me a drinking game.
(39:21):
Please don't drink it if you'redriving and listening to this,
but I had another oh shit momentbecause I realized, like Julia,
you and I talk about menstrualhealth but you initiate 100% of
those conversations and likepart of a healthy dialogue.
A healthy relationship, excuseme is both people being able to
(39:41):
initiate to some capacity,whatever the topic is.
I am like six years into myjourney as a certified sexual
health professional and likethere's a lot of this
information I didn't know andthere's a lot that I should know
and being able to help clientsbetter, being able to be a
better partner to you and to beable to ask you better questions
(40:04):
about what your menstrualexperience is like and the
sexism in political structuresand occupational structures that
you have to navigate in orderto experience menstruation and
the potential pain and otherbiological factors that come
(40:28):
with that.
So that's a really long answer.
I know you just asked about thefirst step, but I hope that in
talking about the first step,that that can lay out a longer
process.
Speaker 3 (40:40):
It's something we talk about on this show a lot
and it's like the idea that youknow you can want to change and
also acknowledge that you don'tknow everything and that you're
not going to know everything andthat as much as you wanna
dedicate yourself to baking thechange and being informed,
you're never gonna knoweverything.
And we say that about ourselvesall the time.
We're like we're doing our besthere but like we're gonna miss
this stuff.
We're gonna bring in expertswhere we can, but I think,
(41:01):
giving yourself the grace andthe space to understand that
you're not gonna know everythingas soon as you decide you want
to change your mindset, like youstill have to do, yourself the
time to develop all of theinformation that you need to
have Right.
So I guess, to wrap up, there'sa lot right, there's a lot that
we've covered today, but, interms of folks who are curious
(41:24):
about or finding their way out,what is your advice?
What is the note you'd like toleave from your personal
perspective, personal andprofessional but I think your
personal journey is one that alot of people can appreciate too
.
Speaker 5 (41:37):
I would plagiarize your answer from earlier, julia,
of Go Slow, that this is like.
Think about this like an onion.
The moving out of religiousspaces is a 20, 25 step, 30 step
process and sometimes you thinkyou're going forward, whatever
(42:01):
forward means, and then you havea really hard experience.
A lot of grief comes up.
You find yourself reverting tobehaviors that were part of the
older systems.
So change isn't a linearprocess.
So, I guess, is what I'msetting up.
So go slow, be easy on yourself, be patient with yourself and
(42:26):
those in your systems as well.
["sex?
Speaker 6 (42:32):
Vangelicals"].
Thanks again to Julia andJeremiah of Sex Vangelicals.
Speaker 3 (42:40):
You can find them at sexvangelicalscom or you can
find their podcast anywhere youstream podcasts, including this
one, sex Ed Debunked.
Thanks so much for tuning in.
We'll be back again next weekwith another study session and,
as usual, if you have anyquestions, comments or myths
you'd like to debunk, send us anemail at sexeddebunkedcom or
message us at any of the socialsat Sex Ed Debunked.
(43:02):
Have a good week.
["sex Ed Debunked"].
Speaker 1 (43:11):
Thanks for tuning in for this week's episode of Sex
Ed Debunked During the course ofour podcast.
We have limited time together,which means that, unfortunately,
many identities, groups andmovements may not be represented
each week.
The field of sexuality andgender orientations, identities
and behaviors are changing andgrowing rapidly, and we remain
committed to being as inclusiveas possible.
Speaker 6 (43:32):
Please remember that all of us, including us are
learning in this area and mayoccasionally slip up.
We ask that we all continue tobe kind to one another so that
we can create a truly inclusiveand accepting environment.
As always, if you have anyquestions or comments, please
feel free to reach out to us atSex Ed Debunked on Instagram,
facebook and Twitter.
["sex Ed?
Speaker 1 (43:51):
Debunked"] Sex Ed Debunked is produced by
Trailblaze Media in Providence,Rhode Island.
Our sound producer is EzraWinters, with production
assistance from Shay Weintraub.
Hi, this is Sex.
Ed Debunked across-generational podcast
hosted by mother-daughter duo,christine and Shannon Curley.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Every episode we tackle a new myth about sex,
sexuality and pleasure, and useresearch and expert insights to
debunk stereotypes andmisinformation from the bedroom
and beyond.
In 2022,.
We won the American Associationof Sexuality Educators,
counselors and Therapists Awardfor Best Podcast and also
managed to not totally freak outour family and friends along
the way.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
We believe in healthy sex-positive, pleasure-focused
sex education backed by realresearch and real experience.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Follow us on Instagram, facebook or Twitter
at Sex Ed Debunked or email usat SexEdDeBunked at gmailcom to
share your sex miseducationtales and the myths you'd like
to hear us debunk.
Thanks for listening.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Hi, this is Sex.
Ed Debunked across-generational podcast about
sexual health, sex positivityand what it really means to
leave room for Jesus.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
So on today's episode , we're talking about purity
culture and to facilitate thisconversation, we're bringing two
special guests to the podcastJeremiah Gibson and Julia
Pastema, hosts of the podcastand educational platform.
They're going to say it for me,that's me and Jala Calls.
There you go.
I'm much better that way.
Jeremiah and Julia, welcome toSex Ed Debunked.
(01:16):
Thank you, I'm excited for thisGood to be on the show.
Thanks for having us.
Speaker 5 (01:19):
Yes, happy to have you here.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
But tell us how you got here, tell us a little bit
about this platform and thepodcast that you run, and a
little bit about yourselves.
Speaker 5 (01:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:31):
I'll let Jeremiah tell you about how we met, and
then I'll tell you a little bitabout the podcast.
Speaker 5 (01:36):
So Julia and I are both certified sex therapists
and licensed psychotherapists inMassachusetts, and so we
actually met through work.
We actually, funnily enough,had the same supervisor who
connected us for another projectthat I'm working on, and over
time we began to talk andrealize that we had a lot in
(01:57):
common.
We're both sex therapists whoescaped evangelical Christianity
in our own ways.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
Congratulations, thank you, thank you.
It is worth the congratulations, no.
Speaker 5 (02:09):
So we, as we talked more, we were talking about both
the similar ways and thedifferent ways that evangelical
movements impacted us, and alsothe ways that impacted the
relationships that we hadhistorically present, things
like that.
So as we began to move into adating relationship, we also
realized that, hey, we couldcollaborate professionally on
(02:32):
this as well, and the first bitof that was through the podcast,
sex Evangelicals.
And as Sex Evangelicals hasgrown, we have also talked about
other opportunities to worktogether through some writing
projects, through someco-therapy processes that we're
excited to launch in the nextyear or two.
So that's the introduction toour story, and you want to talk
(02:56):
a little bit more about SexEvangelicals.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
Absolutely so.
The tagline for SexEvangelicals is the sex
education the church didn't wantyou to have.
The didn't want is intentional.
Folks have asked us about that.
This isn't the sex educationthe church missed.
This isn't the sex educationthe church forgot.
This is the sex education thatwas intentionally left behind
(03:22):
from our lives.
Now, over the past 10-ish years, there has been a lot of good
research and resources aroundwhat we would call
deconstruction in general, whichwould be the process of folks
unlearning harmful religiousmessages and shifting their
(03:43):
worldview.
More recently, there has beensome good resources available
for sexuality post or duringdeconstruction.
However, very few resourcesexist for how to navigate
multiple different relationshipsin this process.
So reclaiming sexuality afteradverse religious experiences is
(04:06):
hard enough, as it is, just asan individual, and then when you
consider family relationships,friendships, partners, spouses,
multiple partners, dating, thatis just hard as hell really, and
so our niche is to consider howcan we reclaim sexuality while
in the context of relationshipsfollowing the negative sex
(04:30):
messaging and relationalmessaging from religious
structures?
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Right.
So you're actually looking atall forms of relationships, not
just dating and loverelationships, but that would
include friendships and,classically, with your family
and things like that.
So I think we need to take astep back and really define for
our listeners exactly what wemean when we say purity culture.
Speaker 5 (04:54):
Yeah.
So I printed up a definitionfrom Linda Kay Klein.
Linda's a friend.
She wrote pure inside theevangelical movement that shamed
a generation of young women andhow I broke free.
She writes the term purityculture is generally associated
with the white Americanevangelical Christian purity
movement and the corollarypurity industry launched in the
(05:17):
early nineties.
However, evangelicals don't havea monopoly on the ethics that
undergird purity culture.
The specifics vary by religionand culture, but gender and
sexual control, upon whichpurity culture stands, is global
, cross religious and crosscultural.
In purity culture, genderexpectations are based on a
strict, stereotype based binary.
(05:38):
Women are expected to be strong, masculine leaders of the
household, church and, to alesser extent, society.
Women are expected to supportthem, to be pretty feminine,
sweet, supportive wives andmothers, and so there is a.
There are macro systems thathave developed around that,
(06:00):
julie.
You'll talk about that a littlebit more in a minute, but at
the root of that is the practice, the implementation of these
very strict, very rigid gendernorms and the expected
relationships heterosexualrelationships, monogamous
relationships that are expectedas a result of that.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
And Linda Klein, in the definition that Jeremiah
described, talks about thegendered norms more generally
speaking.
Later, if it's helpful, we cantalk a bit more about how that
impacts specifically sexuality,because I think there are
specific factors to consider interms of the double binds that
men experience, the double bindsthat women experience, and,
(06:43):
sadly, any folks who are not acis person are completely erased
from those types of structures.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
First question is you said the 1990s, I mean, is that
the definition of the termpurity culture?
I'm sure the idea of thisculture has existed a long time
before the 1990s and when it wasgiven a term.
Speaker 5 (07:03):
Yeah, so what Linda's referring to is products that
were developed, that startedbeing developed in the 80s and
90s, from purity rings, purityballs, different relics that
represented those, and then alsomulti-million, multi-billion
dollars at this stage,publishing houses from Focus on
(07:25):
the Family, thomas Nelson,zondervan, who have published
thousands of books, relationshipbooks, sexuality books all of
which are, most of whichrepackage and repurpose these
rigid gender stereotypes intothe practice of complementary in
relationships and thelimitations, obviously, that
(07:50):
come as a result of that.
Speaker 4 (07:52):
And I would add, not just complementary in
relationships, but hierarchicalrelationships.
Speaker 5 (07:56):
That's right, that's right.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
So they were capitalizing on a culture that
was already there, but nowthey've packaged it.
So that means you can buy andthere's the all, like you said,
all the rings and things likethat.
But it doesn't mean that theidea of these gender roles and
rigid stereotypes didn't existbefore.
That's right.
Speaker 5 (08:15):
So, but there's a capitalistic flair that starts
to happen in the 90s, and thenalso in 1996, you have the
Clinton administration passingTitle V abstinence only until
marriage follow, actually inresponse to hundreds of
thousands of purity pledgesbeing planted on Capitol Hill a
year earlier, and that becomes afoundation for nationally
(08:39):
funded education policies thatpromote abstinence only
education, for instance,abstinence to sexuality before
marriage is the expectedstandard.
Mutually faithful, anogamousrelationship in the context of
marriage is the expectedstandard.
And federal grants, federalmoney, is given then to
(08:59):
everything from localmunicipalities to larger state
governments, and recipients ofthose funds are required then to
teach those in a variety ofsettings.
This isn't just a privateschool, this isn't just a
parochial, this isn't justlimited to evangelical
Christianity.
This impacts the entire nationfor at least two generations of
(09:21):
people Gen Xers and millennials.
Speaker 4 (09:24):
And I am only just starting to understand this
world, but there is now a newmovement called Purity Culture
2.0.
Speaker 5 (09:33):
2.0, right.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
More perpetuated by the Gen Z generation and
influencer style versus thestructures that Jeremiah just
described.
And the really tricky part isthat the Purity Culture 2.0 has
a guise of being moreprogressive, more liberal, but
(09:56):
it's really just a repackagingof the same messages.
For example, oh how terriblethat all you women were compared
to chewed up pieces of gumpassed around to your classmates
.
That's so terrible.
And then the messaging thatthey describe following that is
really the same, just with lessviolent types of imagery.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
Yeah, well, I think we tend to think.
You know, Gen Z is veryprogressive and TikTok is a
progressive platform, and that'strue, but there it is still a
platform to continue to pushoutdated messaging.
In any way, to your point, youcan kind of rebrand the same
thing, Right?
Speaker 4 (10:40):
so maybe it's more insidious, less violent imagery,
but trickier to discern asharmful or similar to previous
Purity Culture, I suppose 1.0.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Yeah, is 1.0 still active?
And the reason I'm asking isI'm actually planning next week
on showing this 60 minutesegment on Purity Balls to my
class and I wonder if they'restill doing them.
It used to have, like these bigconventions in Colorado and the
dads would be the dates andit's like yeah, yeah, the rules
(11:17):
of the father-daughterrelationship is really bizarre
in those.
Speaker 5 (11:20):
To answer your question, yes, I actually
haven't done much research onwhat's currently happening in
evangelical movements andPentecostal movements.
You have, I have, go for it.
Speaker 4 (11:37):
No, no no, keep going .
No, no, finish what you weresaying.
Speaker 5 (11:40):
Oh no, that's it.
Speaker 4 (11:43):
That was your intro.
Speaker 5 (11:43):
That was your intro.
Speaker 4 (11:44):
Well and I'll give the scope of my understanding
because it is somewhat limited.
But because this is our nichepopulation and because I love
podcasts, I actually stay prettyup to date on the dominant
messages around sexuality withinwhat we would call emphish
(12:05):
communities, and by emphish wemean evangelical Mormon and
Pentecostal.
I don't know the statistics ofhow often purity balls are
occurring.
I can find that out and let youknow.
But, for example, there is agroup called Authentic Intimacy
(12:26):
and I'm not sure if you can seeit.
It may or may not still beassociated with focus on the
family, but it is very, veryinfluential in evangelical
circles and while they I believeif I am being charitable are
trying to do some good workaround course correcting, the
(12:49):
outcome is a bit similar to thepurity culture 2.0.
So messages around abstinence,monogamy, heterosexuality are
still pretty dominant.
But it would be veryinteresting to look at the
extent to which the puritypledges, purity balls and other
big time events are stilloccurring.
(13:11):
I've had some clients talk tome about it, but I don't know
how that would hold up to likenumbers nationally.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
Yeah, that's interesting.
It's funny.
I follow a couple of socialmedia accounts that are
satirical having to do withabstinence, but sometimes I
worry that it's too clever andI'm like you know, are people
understanding that this issatire or is this like a modest
proposal and they're thinking wereally should eat the kids?
You know, because if you'reassuming a certain audience, I
(13:44):
think and it's similar to whatyou were saying about TikTok but
if you're assuming a certainaudience, you can kind of lose
the educational arc along theway and accidentally continue to
push the wrong messaging.
Speaker 4 (13:54):
Sure Right.
Well similar to SNL during the2016 elections.
The SNL clips were, like yousaid, almost too clever because
they were just a repackaging ofwhat was actually happening, so
it was more horrifying thanfunny Right.
It was a little too close toreality, right.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
Well, it's like the onion, right Like the onion they
kind of ran material, becauseeverything was just happening
for real Right, true story.
So the one thing that you knowwe've talked about is this
virginity, and I think peoplecan conflate the terms of like
virginity and abstinence onlywith purity culture.
(14:32):
But there's more to it thansimply like don't have sex,
right?
So can you talk a little bitmore about, I guess, the far
reaching influence of purityculture beyond simply abstinence
?
Speaker 4 (14:43):
Yeah.
So abstinence only education,as all four of us know, has some
pretty damning consequences.
That being said, the way that Iwould differentiate is that
purity culture is a broadersystem that perpetuates a
culture of anxiety in whichfolks, including adolescents and
(15:06):
small children, are defined bytheir purity.
We can talk about what puritymeans later.
In many contexts, that's farmore than having sex.
Right, right.
So defined by purity, definedby modesty, and then defined by
how well these folks fall withinthose rigid norms.
(15:27):
And I can give an example frommy own life.
So the pervasiveness of purityculture meant that for me I tell
this example a lot my friendsand I had conversations about
whether or not spaghetti strapswere sinful, and these were real
conversations at nine years old.
And I remember telling Jeremiahrecently that I had one friend,
(15:49):
one friend who was anon-believer I'm saying air
quotes because that us them.
Language is also prettyproblematic and I asked my mom
if it was okay if I wentswimming with her because she
had a two piece bathing suit.
And so purity culture reallyinfiltrates every single part of
(16:10):
how you view yourself as aspecific gender and then as you
interact with other folks.
And we can talk about how thisimpacts men as well, because
purity culture fucks with morethan women.
I'm giving examples from my ownlife.
I was very anxious, even as aprepubescent child, around men
(16:32):
because I learned that men weredangerous.
Were these sexual monsters?
So purity culture, more thanabstinence, only education,
defines the way that you exist,with a high degree of shame and
a high degree of anxiety.
Speaker 5 (16:47):
And it reduces you to sexuality.
Speaker 4 (16:49):
Or your genitalia.
Or your genitalia Really Right.
Speaker 5 (16:53):
Because if you're nine or 10 and worried about
spaghetti straps like, theimplications of that is that
there are people that aresexualizing you as a nine or a
10 year old.
Speaker 4 (17:07):
And that sometimes happens.
Speaker 5 (17:09):
Sometimes happens Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
Yeah, I mean, it's interesting how many times in
media, when you look at, like amovie where they're at a
Catholic school and they'rewearing their skirts and they
roll up the skirts, and theyroll up the skirts, they're the
bad kids, right, because they're.
And why is that?
You know you should be able toroll up your skirt without fear
of judgment, but you do see it,I think and that's just a basic
example but the ones that rollup their skirt, the ones that
(17:32):
take their cardigan off andthey're wearing the spaghetti
straps, it's like that's the badone.
Speaker 4 (17:37):
Right, right, so that demonizes the body as well.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Right, I was curious, does it go the other way?
Where?
Like, like, if a young, becauseit's a cultural thing if you
were to wear your spaghettistraps, would the young boys
around you think that you werelike, that you were impure and
that you were unworthy oftalking to because you were, you
know, somehow tainted and youknow how?
(18:00):
Dare you wear spaghetti strapsand show your skin?
I mean, it seems like theculture is so embedded for both
genders and all genders really.
Speaker 5 (18:10):
I think that's one outcome.
I also think the other outcomeis that Julia, building on what
you're talking about in terms ofmen, are socialized to be
sexual monsters, would be thatmen would or boys, boy peers
would see that as.
Oh, this is someone Iabsolutely need to talk to,
because this is someone that Ican fairly easily quote unquote
(18:33):
move into a sexual relationshipwith.
Speaker 4 (18:35):
Right.
Speaker 5 (18:36):
And that actually sets up the parameters of rape
culture, yeah, which are, whichin quite a few ways intersect
with purity culture.
Speaker 4 (18:46):
Right, and something that I often talk about on our
podcast is that the double bindfor men is that they are told
and taught that they are sexualaggressors and that they have
the right to sexuality and thatthis is how God made them.
So they've got to lean into thatwhich Jeremiah was describing
(19:08):
our rape culture.
If you lean into that, then yousee women as vessels that are
purely for your own pleasure.
At the same time, men alsoreceive the messages that this
part of their God given natureis also something they have to
fight.
So it's a real mind fuckbecause they get these two very
(19:28):
different messages around whatit means to be a man, and they
have to simultaneously be thesexual aggressors which have all
kinds of violent implications,and they've got to do everything
in their power to be sure thatthey reign that in Right,
control those impulses and I'msure the culture is not
(19:50):
encouraging of self-pleasure andmasturbation, because that's
exactly antithetical to beingstrong and in control and going
after the pure woman right.
Speaker 5 (20:01):
Well and also control those impulses has a
paradoxical impact to them,because the way that eroticism
works so eroticism being able tocreate a type of sexual energy
is through being attracted tosomeone and also having a set of
obstacles to overcome.
So purity culture also putsespecially people who are not
(20:27):
married, who are interested inexploring sexuality, puts those
folks in double binds as well.
I'm being told not to do thisand by being told not to do this
, like that actually encouragesme to figure out okay, how am I
gonna sneak around this?
How am I gonna skirt kind ofthe authorities and figure out
how to get what I want?
And then, when I do that one,there's a higher likelihood of
(20:51):
risky sexual behavior, includinga lack of contraceptions, a
lack of sexual communication,not in consent, gone consent
exactly the consensual practicesand also opens people up to the
experience of shame and deeprooted anxieties.
Speaker 4 (21:10):
Yeah, I joke that like nothing is sexier than a 20
, then two 20 year olds at aChristian college who are trying
to maintain purity culture.
Like that sexual tension youcould cut with.
You don't even need a knife,it's just so joking, not joking
(21:30):
Like it's way harder than porn,right?
Because that boundary and thatbarrier is so so, so high.
And then when folks get married, often very young, they have no
skills or resources to actuallydevelop sexual tension, which
is important, sexual eroticism,because they no longer have that
(21:51):
barrier which was keeping therelationship sexy.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Right so.
I have a quick question.
When we're talking abstinenceonly and the barrier, I assume
impurity culture that includesany going anywhere near the
genitalia like anything sexy atall, not just intercourse.
That's like stay away fromanything down there.
Quote unquote.
Speaker 5 (22:12):
There is a book written, I think 2008, called
Real Sex by Lauren Winner, andReal Sex is essentially an
exploration of what she callsthe slippery slope and this idea
of how far is too far, and Iread this book when I was dating
and kind of used that to kindof figure out, okay, like, how
(22:35):
are we gonna navigate the sexualtension that, julia, that
you're talking?
Speaker 1 (22:38):
about Looking for loopholes, Jeremiah.
Looking for loopholes yeah.
Speaker 5 (22:42):
A few absolutely, but that's essentially like what
the purpose of the book is andit's painted as this like I
don't know theological treatiseabout sexuality and like God's
vision, and maybe it's a littlebit more progressive than what
evangelicals are talking about,but at the end of the day,
that's what it was.
Speaker 4 (23:00):
Yeah, I would say to answer your question.
There's two main categories offolks.
There are the folks whereactually everything is on limits
as long as that penis doesn'tgo into the vagina, because that
is what sex means.
And then the other folks, likemyself, who grew up in what I
would call like the puritycontest, in which you wanted to
(23:24):
avoid even touching, even beinga couple inches away, like
Jeremiah and I sitting kind ofwith our shoulders not really
touching, but a little bittouching.
That was bad, and so it'sinteresting to talk with folks
that most couples that I talkwith in this fall into the, you
know, as long as we didn't do X,y or Z, which is pretty harmful
(23:47):
for other reasons, or it was,you know, in my church, the
women who didn't kiss until theygot to the altar.
They were the best women, andso then that also pits women
against each other.
Who's the purest of the women?
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Wow, that's just.
I just want to digest thatfirst, yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
Well, so I mean we kind of alluded to it and we
talked about it a little bitearlier.
But so what does it mean to bepure?
And it sounds like there aremultiple definitions.
But like, what does it mean tobe pure in the context of purity
culture?
Speaker 4 (24:17):
Oh, that's a great question.
Yeah, I think it probably wouldbe a different answer for men
than women.
For women, I would say that itis maintaining an asexual type
of identity, even though that'snot the language that would be
(24:38):
used, until you get married andthen your sexuality really
belongs to your male spouse andthey are the leaders and the
dominant ones.
It also would mean being modest.
It would also mean being quiet,being too mirror.
You can't be too funny, youcan't be too loud, you can't
(24:59):
take on a leadership kind ofrole, can't have a podcast,
right, right, and becoming a sextherapist was really something.
That, and then our podcast tosome degree has almost wrecked
my relationship with certainfamily members.
Speaker 5 (25:19):
And then to answer the second part of that question
, I would say that for men, menaren't really striving for
purity.
Purity culture, as we'retalking about from the context
of abstinence, only the moralconsequences, the eschatological
consequences, are really onlyfor women.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
Let's take a step back.
How'd you escape?
Talk to us a little bit aboutyour respective journeys,
because, of course, thisconversation is deeply embedded
in your life.
It is how you are raised, it isinfluencing you, but you got
out, so tell us a little bitabout you, I got kicked out.
That's one way to do it yeah.
Speaker 5 (25:57):
So my first career is in music ministry and I did
that in my 20s at a fairlysizable church in Texas and then
started to become a therapist.
My license is in marriage andfamily therapy, and marriage and
family therapy is rooted in theidea of systems theory.
So systems theory is this ideathat, in summary, everything is
(26:21):
interconnected and the work thatwe do is figuring out what
those interconnections are andhow those then impact
relationships.
That process in and of itselfhelped, was the beginning
process of me, like chippingaway some of the beliefs of
evangelical Christianity, and somoved to Boston in my late 20s,
(26:42):
early 30s, and then ended updoing music ministry at a very
small church.
While that's going on andpracticing being a therapist, I
stumbled into sex therapy prettyaccidentally.
I wanted to be a couplestherapist.
That was kind of how Iconceptualized myself, what I
studied to be.
(27:02):
My boss said hey, I am startinga sex therapy program.
I know you want to be a couplestherapist.
I think you should specialize,have a specialty to go along
with your couples therapy.
Come be a part of this program,I'll subsidize it.
I'm like okay, sweet, okay,fine, whatever.
And so I get into this programand the first class that we take
(27:24):
is about sexual healthprinciples, which we actually
talk about on our podcast in theseries the sex education we
wish we had, and the first ofthe sexual health principles is
consent, and at the root ofconsent is the idea that consent
is a conversation between twopeople, and I thought about my
(27:44):
own relationship at that timelike, oh fuck, this has not been
like.
Our sexual relationship has beenjust this assumptive kind of
thing where we rely on nonverbalcommunication and the
performance agenda roles tocreate something that's going,
and I began to spiral and belike I can't do this anymore,
(28:09):
like I care too much about my ex, and so the next couple of
years were a process of tryingto rewrite the ways that sexual
relationship worked, and I wasmoving much quicker in this than
my partner and my ex was, andso there were a lot of negative
(28:32):
consequences that came as aresult of that.
In conjunction with that, therewere people at my church that
she and I actually were both onstaff at.
There were people at my churchthat were uncomfortable with the
fact that I was a sex therapistand I talked about it, and so
what essentially happened Ilater found out was essentially
a coup where the churchleadership made up, utilized
(28:57):
some conflict, made it muchbigger than it was and ended up
firing me.
And I was later told, jeremiah,you should know that you were
fired because of your views onsexuality.
So I tried to play it both ways.
I tried to both be a sexualperson, sex therapist, while
also limiting that a little bit,because I was in a marriage
that didn't allow that sexualityto flourish and I was in a
(29:17):
church community that didn'tallow that marriage to flourish.
And so for me, the ultimateending was I got kicked out.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
And I imagine that that's probably the beginning of
getting kicked out of themarriage too because of that
Uh-huh.
Speaker 5 (29:30):
Yep, yeah, we were separated five months later.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
Oh, wow, yeah, but I can see hear what you're saying,
though, is that she didn't feellike she could even understand
consent culture either, becausein the culture she was always
supposed to consent, she didn'thave that kind of free will at
all but couldn't really move asfast as you, as you said, right,
like you would think you knowwe're obviously, you know very,
(29:58):
you know, progressive, liberalfeminist You'd be think like, oh
, somebody's giving me theopportunity to reclaim my sexual
power and exert consent.
That sounds like a great idea,and the fact that your ex
couldn't embrace that reallyspeaks to how deeply embedded
the culture is, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
That's a great point.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:17):
Julia, what about you ?
And what's your?
What's your?
Speaker 4 (30:18):
tale.
Well, like many Christian folks, I lost my fundamentalism at my
Christian college, so myundergraduate degree is in
social work.
No, I went to a Christiancollege, so Christian colleges
by and large, particularly interms of administration, are
quite conservative.
That being said, student bodydoesn't always match that, and I
(30:40):
was in this liberal bubble andvery quickly, within a couple
weeks of starting college, Irealized oh shit, what I learned
about the world was bullshit.
Now the process aroundsexuality was a little bit more
complicated.
(31:01):
So, although I left myfundamentalism, I really latched
onto a progressive Christianidentity, and something that
became really important to mewas the rights of queer folks
within religious spaces, and soI had this idea that, oh, I go
to these open and affirmingchurches and I'm a social worker
(31:25):
, so I I've done my work andI've healed from purity culture.
I still followed the rulesbecause those messages run real
deep.
So I got married when I was 22.
And very quickly becamedisillusioned about sexuality
Something, and not justsexuality, but my entire world
(31:49):
view.
Another interesting part ofpurity culture is honeymoon sex,
and the bill of goods that Iand anybody else in purity
culture learned was that if youfollow these rules, when you get
married.
You are going to have thisblissful, magical experience on
(32:11):
your honeymoon, and that will bethe greatest thing that ever
happens to you.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
We promise, I mean like coming from the heavens
you're not learning any skillsbetween now and then.
Speaker 4 (32:20):
Right, right and so on you, honey, what's that Right
?
And so I was pumped for this.
I was like I'm waiting, here wego, yeah, yeah, and it's both.
It's like so many parts of mystory.
It's one of those hilarious andheartbreaking things all at the
same time and, depending on theday, I'll laugh, depending on
(32:41):
the day, I'll cry.
Today feels like a funnier kindof day, and the sexual
experience is limited that I hadprior to getting married held
all kinds of shame and fear andanxiety, so I was just excited
to get the sex that was promisedto me and I cried every single
day of my honeymoon.
And what's really important toremember for folks to survive
(33:04):
this is that this also isn'tjust sex.
I would say sex is never justsex.
But what shattered for me andwhat I didn't realize at the
time was that my entire identitycrumbled because I learned that
my worth as a human being, as awoman specifically, was around
sexuality and that when I gotmarried, I would become a sexual
(33:29):
person and a sexual goddessalthough they would have never
said that, because a goddess isnot a woman Monotheism that
doesn't go too well with it,yeah, and so it really.
It crushed me and I knew thatthis was connected to sexuality,
but I didn't understand whatwas happening relationally,
(33:52):
psychologically, physiologically.
I eventually found a great sextherapist in Boston a couple
years after getting married,which is a couple years after
some really terrible patternsaround sexuality and my
ex-husband and I who's aphenomenal human being I always
would like to say that, eventhough we are divorced, we came
to our first couples therapysession and God bless Nancy
(34:15):
McGrath forever.
She was incredibly foundationalin my life and she was asking
me, as a good therapist, aboutmessages around sexuality and
communities of origin.
And I remember saying to herwell, I grew up in this strange
cultish kind of community, but Ireally don't think it impacted
my sexuality all that much.
(34:35):
Uh-huh, and it absolutely did, athousand percent.
I did become a sex therapist andactually my therapist at the
time as I was growing, learning,evolving was actually someone
to encourage me to do that, andthat was that in and of itself
was actually a reclaiming of mysexuality to have someone who
(34:57):
had seen me through the worst ofthe devastation say and you can
do this.
That being said, somerelationships don't recover from
purity culture and myrelationship did not recover,
and as I started my sex therapytraining, I was afraid to say
(35:18):
that I didn't want to be married, and I said that for the first
time with another therapist andultimately I did get divorced,
which was a pretty devastatingexperience.
I still, as many people who aredivorced, have some grief around
that, and part of reclaimingsexuality was learning to be a
(35:44):
sexual person outside of mymarriage and outside of what I
learned, not just aboutsexuality but about
relationships.
I encourage folks to getmarried after their brain fully
develops, which is not 22.
So even with some of the sexualgrowth that my ex-husband and I
(36:06):
were able to accomplish, we wedid not survive that and that is
okay.
That's not a moral failing ofme or of him, but that's one of
the other, really negativeconsequences.
And the same folks who set meup to get married that young,
the same folks who gave me notools or resources around
sexuality or relationships, werethe same ones who shamed and
(36:28):
berated me, sometimes publicly,for the decision to get divorced
.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
Right.
What's interesting about bothof your stories is that you both
had an oh shit moment.
I'm sure you had multiple ohshit moments.
Oh yeah, for sure.
I'm sure that there was notisolated to one, but both of you
kind of had this moment whereyou were introduced to a
different perspective thatreally shook your whole world
and that of course, has impactson your relationships, which we
again talked about at thebeginning of the episode, but
(36:53):
also really points to thedestructiveness of that
abstinence.
Only culture, of course, purityculture, but virginity culture,
like if you don't understandthat there are other
possibilities out there for you,then that's super destructive
when inevitably you learn aboutthose other possibilities Right.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
Yeah, and the other thing I'm hearing is how
critical people like youtherapists like you are to
getting out of this, like welike to say, cultural swamp,
this cultural mindset and theimportance of seeking out
therapists who are adept atunderstanding what you're trying
(37:29):
to extricate yourself from.
Speaker 5 (37:31):
Right.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
Well, I think I'd like to start like talking a
little bit about that process,because obviously both you had
wonderful mentors in yourjourney, which is, I'm sure,
what inspired you to be mentorsfor other people's journeys.
So it sounds like a longjourney.
So what's the first step thatpeople have to take?
Great question, yeah.
Speaker 5 (37:53):
I think that and, again, our perspective is
working with relationships.
So I would say that the firststep is being willing to talk
about hard things.
So, julia, you and I were on apodcast a couple of weeks ago
called Flow.
The Flow podcast is a podcastabout menstruation and the
(38:18):
process of the menstrual cycle.
Menstruation and the impact allthe impacts that it has on
biology, feminism, all of that.
And when we got on this podcast, I'm like why the hell am I
talking about?
with three women about menstrualhealth, because there's enough
of that shit going on inpolitics.
I also grew up in a householdand in a culture where comments
(38:40):
about menstruation were prettyquickly devolved into sexism,
pretty quickly devolved intokind of shaming around emotional
volatility and all that, and soI was really anxious kind of
talking about that.
And, julia, I talked with you,I talked with a couple of
(39:01):
colleagues of mine, I talkedwith hosts about this, and one
of the things that they weretalking about is like all people
need to be talking about this,and that includes men, and I
realized that, oh shit, likeJulia you and I talk about,
there's another oh shit moment.
Just give me a drinking game.
(39:21):
Please don't drink it if you'redriving and listening to this,
but I had another oh shit momentbecause I realized, like Julia,
you and I talk about menstrualhealth but you initiate 100% of
those conversations and likepart of a healthy dialogue.
A healthy relationship, excuseme is both people being able to
(39:41):
initiate to some capacity,whatever the topic is.
I am like six years into myjourney as a certified sexual
health professional and likethere's a lot of this
information I didn't know andthere's a lot that I should know
and being able to help clientsbetter, being able to be a
better partner to you and to beable to ask you better questions
(40:04):
about what your menstrualexperience is like and the
sexism in political structuresand occupational structures that
you have to navigate in orderto experience menstruation and
the potential pain and otherbiological factors that come
(40:28):
with that.
So that's a really long answer.
I know you just asked about thefirst step, but I hope that in
talking about the first step,that that can lay out a longer
process.
Speaker 3 (40:40):
It's something we talk about on this show a lot
and it's like the idea that youknow you can want to change and
also acknowledge that you don'tknow everything and that you're
not going to know everything andthat as much as you wanna
dedicate yourself to baking thechange and being informed,
you're never gonna knoweverything.
And we say that about ourselvesall the time.
We're like we're doing our besthere but like we're gonna miss
this stuff.
We're gonna bring in expertswhere we can, but I think,
(41:01):
giving yourself the grace andthe space to understand that
you're not gonna know everythingas soon as you decide you want
to change your mindset, like youstill have to do, yourself the
time to develop all of theinformation that you need to
have Right.
So I guess, to wrap up, there'sa lot right, there's a lot that
we've covered today, but, interms of folks who are curious
(41:24):
about or finding their way out,what is your advice?
What is the note you'd like toleave from your personal
perspective, personal andprofessional but I think your
personal journey is one that alot of people can appreciate too
.
Speaker 5 (41:37):
I would plagiarize your answer from earlier, julia,
of Go Slow, that this is like.
Think about this like an onion.
The moving out of religiousspaces is a 20, 25 step, 30 step
process and sometimes you thinkyou're going forward, whatever
(42:01):
forward means, and then you havea really hard experience.
A lot of grief comes up.
You find yourself reverting tobehaviors that were part of the
older systems.
So change isn't a linearprocess.
So, I guess, is what I'msetting up.
So go slow, be easy on yourself, be patient with yourself and
(42:26):
those in your systems as well.
["sex?
Speaker 6 (42:32):
Vangelicals"].
Thanks again to Julia andJeremiah of Sex Vangelicals.
Speaker 3 (42:40):
You can find them at sexvangelicalscom or you can
find their podcast anywhere youstream podcasts, including this
one, sex Ed Debunked.
Thanks so much for tuning in.
We'll be back again next weekwith another study session and,
as usual, if you have anyquestions, comments or myths
you'd like to debunk, send us anemail at sexeddebunkedcom or
message us at any of the socialsat Sex Ed Debunked.
(43:02):
Have a good week.
["sex Ed Debunked"].
Speaker 1 (43:11):
Thanks for tuning in for this week's episode of Sex
Ed Debunked During the course ofour podcast.
We have limited time together,which means that, unfortunately,
many identities, groups andmovements may not be represented
each week.
The field of sexuality andgender orientations, identities
and behaviors are changing andgrowing rapidly, and we remain
committed to being as inclusiveas possible.
Speaker 6 (43:32):
Please remember that all of us, including us are
learning in this area and mayoccasionally slip up.
We ask that we all continue tobe kind to one another so that
we can create a truly inclusiveand accepting environment.
As always, if you have anyquestions or comments, please
feel free to reach out to us atSex Ed Debunked on Instagram,
facebook and Twitter.
["sex Ed?
Speaker 1 (43:51):
Debunked"] Sex Ed Debunked is produced by
Trailblaze Media in Providence,Rhode Island.
Our sound producer is EzraWinters, with production
assistance from Shay Weintraub.
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