June 30, 2021 • 50 mins
In part two at our look at the misinformation and disinformation around virginity, Anney and Samantha discuss Western (and particularly American) Christian ideas around abstinence, purity, morality and virginity.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. What good of stuff
I never told your protection? I heart radio, and welcome
back to part two of the Myths of Virginity and Purity.
And here we're actually gonna be speaking a lot more
(00:26):
to purity and purity culture of what it looks like today.
But first, just a trigger warning. We're not really talking
in depth about anything really sexual or any of that.
We're just really talking more of analogies and present culture
and idea of absentence. But for those who have been
(00:46):
raised and maybe Southern Baptist cultures or Western Christian cultures,
this may be too much for you, and that's fine,
So just go ahead and put that here at the topics.
We're gonna dive deep into that the American idea of purity,
and sometimes I could be dramatic, especially if you've had
a falling out with religion, this might be a little
more traumatic. So f y, I right, So Annie, I
(01:08):
have to ask, and I already know this answer, but
I honestly I don't know if I know this answer.
Because you said you were pretty you grew up in
a religious town. Did you ever get involved in any
type of Christian organizations in school when you were in Delanaga,
which is a small town in Georgia. Yes, I didn't
get involved in school. Funnily enough, I once like really
(01:30):
embarrassed myself. I was in seventh grade and this popular
girl asked me in a very like in a clear
way that there's only one right answer, and she said,
are you a Christian? And I didn't know what that meant.
Even though I did go to church, I didn't know.
But I went through a period where it is really religious,
but in general I wasn't. That was like one hardcore
(01:52):
year of my life. I thought it was cool to
be religious. So I would go with my friends usually
over the summer. I would do like, you know, by
a vacation camp with them, with their churches. I would
do things like that. But I always felt like the
friend who can't be saved or something, a friend who's
like not enlightened enough to realize that she's gonna go
(02:15):
straight now. Oh God, Okay, So you would have been
that friend that I would have been trying to convert
in high school, I guess. So. I mean by high school, yeah,
I was already like nope, but not religious. But yeah,
this is middle school where I was interested in religion,
(02:38):
but I just never I don't know, it didn't really
take off of me again. Yeah, which is interesting because
in my in my school, the popular kids were the
first Baptist church kids and they were the president of
all the s e A. So uh, Christians athlete clubs.
(03:00):
You are part of that. You came in early mornings
to do the different Christian clubs to be a part
of it. You weren't cool unless you went to church events.
And I couldn't afford it until way later. So I
was like ten to eleventh grade before I could go
to any of those things. But of course you also
know the tales that couples came out of these little
Christian camps as well. I was a die hard. When
(03:22):
it comes to anything emotional spiritual, I get caught up
in it. I love the beauty of of that being
swept into a moment, feeling that energy, and I got
caught all up in that. And it is and when
it comes to religion and sex, we know the lines.
(03:45):
It is very defined. And though value of virginity is international,
We've talked about this, we talked about this previously, is historical,
it's international when it comes to Western Christian ideology, specifically
in the US, the ideology of purity has a whole
new spin and a lot more money to it. So
we did want to talk about that in this episode.
(04:05):
And yes, again very we know it's very americanized in
this but it's such a fascinating subject to me that
if I were not in the middle of it and
it did not grow up in it, I would be
blown away. And and as you talked about, when you
visited like France, people are like, what is wrong with you? Yeah,
that was a real eye opener for me because, uh,
(04:27):
I don't know how it came up. But the Hose
family I was living with there was a woman a
little bit older than me at the time, so we
were both like, you know, eight nineteen, and she was like, oh, yeah,
my first time wasn't good. I barely remember, Like it's
not a big deal here, And I was like, what right? Right?
I find it funny because we talked about this earlier,
(04:49):
how you and I when I was doing this research.
Part of this research, I was looking at the cultural differences,
and again there's not a lot of cultural differences because
the value of women and autonomy, it's kind of overall. A. Yeah,
women are valued lest everywhere, let's just be very honest.
But the idea that outside of the U S, most
(05:10):
cultures are like, yeah, white girls are sluts, right, they
don't they don't care, they are crazy, like It's it's
almost funny to me to see that level because I
don't think about that. And again, I'm Asian, and to me,
I've been fetishized since my childhood. I've been abused, you know,
in my childhood because a part of that and a
part of that appeal of young girls and and the
(05:33):
nastiness of pedophilia and all that that, I was a
part of that world and so all of that ruined
so much of the concepts to me in general. So
because I've already felt dirty, I already felt like an outsider.
I already felt like the other white girls were the
obvious preference of who I wish I was and what
(05:55):
people prefer. In my mind, of course we don't. That's
not true at all, but it's kind of funny when
we look at like I think one of the research
papers talked about how the Latin X women who had
grown up understanding sex was beautiful and they also valued
their virginity and value this morality. But it wasn't about
waiting until marriage. It was just about waiting to find
(06:16):
someone you cared about and experiencing something beautiful in the story.
And this whole idea of waiting until marriage was so
absurd to them, in that idea of like, so you're
trapping yourself without knowing you're gonna you're gonna be happy,
Like that does serve why would why would you want
to do that? And that's kind of laughing, like, yeah,
I think I grew up when I finally realized that,
like twenty three that I'm like, I don't think I
(06:38):
want to be married. This is not this is not sustainable.
This idea is not sustainable. But I found that interesting
when you look outside that perspective of how different it
really is when it comes to the US and beyond.
So it's kind of like, Okay, let's take this deep
dive because it's a hell of a tell. So purity
(06:58):
culture has been around the u US for quite some time,
but in the early nineties, conservative evangilists in the U
S Protestant groups organized the strategy one person called extreme abstinence,
and this was kind of a reaction to the MTV
Wild and Out kind of era where girls gone wild
was getting really popular at this point, the beach house
(07:19):
where girls, you know, we're dancing in bikinis, and all
of the old fashioned American families were like, oh my god,
what's happening to our kids. So the reaction was extreme abstinence.
Oh lord. So those who advocated for this would advise
girls and women to be submissive, stay away from leadership roles,
(07:40):
and conform to old ideals of courtship, not being in
mixed company unless regulated, and making sure they're guarding every
part of their preciousness. And when they speak of courtship,
the practice involves making sure that the interaction between women
and men were specifically to pursue an intent in marriage
under the explicit supervision and permission of the woman's father.
(08:01):
Nowhere are we talking about mothers in this, by the way,
and as one article explains, quote, this expectation is that
pure young women will remain under the authority of fathers
until they trade it for the authority of their husbands
and marriages arranged by their fathers. So they were going
all out and controlling from young to old. So we
(08:22):
got you from childhood all the way up, and we're
going to control every aspect, including dating, including meeting men,
including getting married. Of course, I know on Smentthy they've
talked about marriages and weddings and all of the bad
connotations to that and all of the nice connotations, But
how that is steeped in patriarchal traditions, and this is
(08:45):
kind of fulfilling and being a part of that as well.
Beyond just the practices of abstinence and submission, the movement
goes another step backwards. Yeah, I said it for young
girls and women, with the expectations that women would be
wholly responsible for not being temptations or stumbling blocks for men.
That women must be responsible by doing everything in their
(09:05):
power in regards to the way they talk, dress, or
act in a way that would not evoke sexual desire
from a man, because obviously men can't control themselves, duh
when it comes to sex everything else. I can control
our bodies, but they can't control their own bodies. And
if you've ever been a part of Sunday School, we
(09:26):
all learned how Eve is the mother of temptation, and
she is the one that caused Adam to send so
of course that's going to affect all of creation and humanity,
right right, Yeah, And I you know, we are speaking
in a lot of like generalizations and needs because that's
just the research that we have or the information that
we have. But I remember the first time I went
(09:48):
to the Vatican and I it was summer, and I
was in shorts and a tank chop and I tried
to go on one of the churches and these like
old men came running at me, screaming at me in
like shoot me out, and they were they had like
this thing they would cover you with to go in.
And you know, I'm not trying to disrespect anybody's believe
(10:10):
our cultures, but it was just a moment of like,
holy hell, I can't even I was wearing shorts in
a day. It's not right or something, right, Um, but yeah,
feeling that shame like immediately just it drew so much
attention to me. It was so embarrassing, right, oh god. Yeah.
(10:44):
So this new strategy and not only pushed a powerful
narrative and movement, but yeah, it brought in a lot
of money, whether it was new books and steady guys
for church youth groups all over the country, retreats or
new programs. Um. There was money spent to push this narrative,
include geting large amounts of grants sent to schools and
organizations that taught abstinence only programs. My school was one
(11:07):
of those. I don't know if I take out any money,
but abstinence only was our education. So yeah, they would
because automatically that was the only qualifier. If you're willing
to not tach comprehensive sex said and do absence only,
you get this federal grant. At that point in time,
Wow wow. And out of that, with the mega push
(11:27):
from mega churches and the Southern Baptist Convention, we have
programs like True Love Weights. Did you have this program?
We might have. I don't remember it, but I mean
it sounds familiar, something I heard about clearly and vividly.
See the signs. It was a giant banner. We had
a whole table in the cafeteria during lunch that kids
(11:50):
can go over and sign the cars. You got a sticker,
you gotta pen uh, you got a little swag, and
then you walked away. It was purple and white and
pink and it was super cute and True Love Weights
and then we had a huge conference about it US
an assembly for it. Well, well, I do think we're
(12:12):
not talking about this this much in this one. We
didn't talk about it too much in the other one.
But I do think there's been kind of a push
back of um, basically what I'm saying, and we put
too much pressure on virginity one way or the other.
Because in my school, that would have been a very
uncool thing to do, like you would have been made
(12:35):
from of and that's like, that's not cool either. But
you know, I do think we've also got that aspect
of yeah, once you reach a certain age in your
virgin wipe your hands in that person, which is also ridiculous,
but okay. True Love Weights is a campaign created which
(12:56):
was an assin only youth program that used different tactics
for young teams to commit to abstaining from sex and
waiting for love. They use conferences, concerts, school campaigns that
registered kids to sign cards with with a vow of chastity.
Purity Balls began in the nineties as well, a bit different.
(13:17):
Instead of just a vow written on a card promising
to yourself and God, it was a father daughter dance
that allowed an opportunity for the daughter and father to
exchange vows of chastity and protection to each other, the
daughter vowing to her father to remain pure until her marriage,
and a father vowing to somehow protecting their daughter's purity
(13:40):
as well. Many of the events involved in exchange of
purity rings. A lot of these events were actually federally
funded and not surprisingly a pretty big hit in the
Christian schools, including Christian homeschool movements and a lot of
modern relevant churches and affiliated Christian in programs. Right. I
(14:01):
found these fascinating. I was not a part of this. Again,
my family, they would talk about it and would hope
for the best, but let you be kind of understand.
I think they understood, like, you can't make a kid
do something that's not possible. If you forbid something, why
why would you do that? And there was that was
a decent amount of conversation and trust when it came
(14:23):
to that type of conversation. I will say because of
this in my circle, which it was not necessarily uncool
to be a virgin, that was not a thing. It
was weirder to see people have sex. And I wasn't
shocked for it because I wasn't like but but but
but but but but but when it came down to
(14:43):
what happened instead, kind of in that same idea of
waiting till marriage, marriage ended up being at nineteen years
old and now chucking people and divorced, and that included
my family members. They're trying to save themselves in marriage,
they're trying to wait, do the right thing. And then
oh no, I rushed into this because of lust rather
than love, which is easy to confuse when we're confused
(15:04):
about what love and lust does in general, especially when
you're young. Yeah, but yeah, these purity balls were such
a weird concept to me. It sounded nice because of
course you want to be with your dad and hanging
out and cotinent reminiscent of the father daughter dance at
a wedding, which also has a lot to do with
the patriarchal traditions as well, and handing over the daughter,
(15:27):
all of these things, and the fact that this began
so early. So some of the people who are some
of the kids who attended, some of the girls were
six years old, so it started six years old. Yeah.
I know a lot of people say sixteen, but it
actually started at six. And so this kind of level
was this automatic like installment of your mind and if
(15:48):
you do this, you're going to disappoint me, which is
kind of the majority of sitcoms and or TV shows
that I've seen, is the narrative of disappointing the father
because they had sex owned and we're ruining their relationship
because they somehow broke a trust, which is sad. I mean, yeah,
so much of what we're talking about, all of it
(16:08):
it's very heateronormative. I know we said it in the
last one, but yeah, also here very head roonormative, vaginanta
penis X we're talking about. But almost everything we're talking about,
I'm struck and I shouldn't be by how it's all
about men, right, Like, even if we're talking about women
and why you know women doing these things, it's still
(16:29):
like the men first doing it. So you never signed
those cards, no, And I don't remember that being a thing.
Like I said, in my school, it was kind of
a tight rope and it was hard to win. But
that would have been very uncool. They were there were
certain there was a group of like really Christian kids
(16:53):
and yeah, my best friend who is her parents were
really Catholic. I got a lot of like hearing from
her about yeah, I know, living together before marriage and
sex before marriage. She always said try it before you
buy it. But yeah, in my group, we didn't really
do that. I I know. I've told the story before
that a niece of mine I got contacted she was eight,
(17:16):
but by her mother, and her mother wanted me to
be at this chastity ceremony and I refused to go,
and I told her why. I was like, look, I
want to be supportive of things that these are my
problems with it. I never heard from her again. How
old was the girl and they had the ceremony. I
think she was eight she was so were they having
her in like a white dress and all of that? Yes, yeah,
(17:39):
so it was a mock wedding with her father, Yeah yeah, yeah,
yeah yeah. There's so many things to uncover with that. Again,
it's it's kind of this whole, this whole conversation, as
we were saying before, it's like, yeah, it's very head
of normative, but it is also the understanding of how
this gendered roles and gendered biases are place and staunchly
(18:01):
looked down on if you try to disrupt it as well,
which is why they're not considered because automatically you're dismissed,
as we talked about in the last episode when marginalized
women were automatically dismissed of being pure point blank because
you're not white. It's that same concept here that if
you're not heterosexual and you're not this gender, that means
(18:22):
you're art automatically dismissed an impure So therefore you're not
part of this narrative. Again, very damaging in so many
ways because they neglects so much and obviously it's hurtful, dismissive,
and um just fairly the fact to other that because
you're not in this majority, which is not a majority
if you really think on it, but in their mind
(18:44):
it is because it's supposed to be the norm quote unquote.
And I'm saying this very very like sarcastically, but this
is the assumption. But yeah, this is that very big
conversation of like, we are instilling gender biases that are
damaging in this type of practice. But it's also yeah,
it is absolutely a key point for a lot of
(19:07):
the religious right. This is what they want, This is
what they're doing is to bring this and and we
don't talk about this in this episode. But actually and
everything I read through of course it hasn't involved I
was just tired. I think why we were just tired
by the end of this, we're like, oh, there's so
much that we're just like, okay, we can't get into
this too. But yes, this is very political. This is
a very big political stance. A lot of these movements
(19:29):
are political about taking autonomy away from women in general.
And it begins at a young age when it comes
to sexual identity, because you must find shame and shame
factors into what you're allowed to do, which you're not
allowed to do what you're seeing as And again, if
it's not based for procreation, then therefore it's already sent
to again with right. So it's it's this whole level.
(19:51):
And I remember growing up reading books like Passion and Purity,
which I'm sure you I was. I read a lot
of Christian literature in high school. And I want to
shout out to our friend who wrote to us, who
lives in rural Georgia. I'm saying, I hear you say
with them, I'm right with you with the religion. Hi, Yeah,
this is exactly like I was inundated and I put
(20:12):
myself there. But it wasn't my parents because they didn't
read this stuff. It was me that I got caught
up in that because I needed to feel whole. And
I'm going to kind of come back to my own
little editorial bit I guess in that because I got
caught up in this, I really wanted to find value
in myself again, and this felt like a way I could.
So I took that whole thing of I don't know
(20:33):
if I told you about this book, I Kiss Dating Goodbye,
Which turns out the dude who wrote this book made
a lot of money, finally found his wife, wrote about
that and about how he saved himself for marriage and
purity and courtship again we talked about in the first
episode if you want to know what we're talking about,
but courtship, all of these things, and then coming into
(20:54):
like I think present day, he was like, I was wrong,
never mind, don't do that, and essentially disavowed that. And
there's been several, actually several more um current contemporary Christian
people who are on that same line, not necessarily saying
you should have sex, but like, this is not the
right idea, this is not the right way, this is
too patriarchal. This is this is damaging to girls, and
(21:14):
as in fact, the woman that I read Passion and Purity,
she wrote the story about finding her husband, finding her love.
Turns out he dies. I think she married three more
times since they all die on her, which is sad,
but somehow finding love all the time you're like, well, congratulations,
I guess, and this whole idea of concept of like
having purity and growing together and their missionaries together and
(21:35):
saving the world together. And then he goes off and
gets killed. Uh, And so she finds a new husband,
but really idealized as her first husband. It was really odd.
Went to a conference that I didn't attend it, but
people who were so excited to see are so excited
to hear her words because she's such a you know,
godly woman, as they would say. And then she comes
about talking about how hey, girls, if you're fat, you're
(21:57):
displacing your husband. If you're not cooking for your husband,
then you're not doing it, like all these things, giving
a list of what you're doing wrong. And like I
remember one friend of mine at that time came home
heartbroken because she had already struggled with the fact that
she felt like she was overweight, which wasn't true. She
felt like because she was I think she was mid thirties,
late late twenties, that because she hadn't had found her husband,
(22:18):
she was failing and all she wanted to do was
have a child and be a wife, because that's what
she was told her value was. And because this woman
was blaming her for her physical state, not doing being
submissive enough, not praying enough, she truly felt that and
it was so heartbroken. I think she also understood this
was wrong, but still put that into herself, like that, yeah,
(22:39):
you're right, it's my faults. And I felt that in
religion being the leadership of me, I'm not faithful enough,
that I'm not submissive enough, I'm not all And it's
such a that that guilt when I finally was like
this is bullsh was such a release. I just can't
talk about enough. But this plays all into this, this
purity aspect, which I get the whole idea of virginity
(23:01):
was always about controlling women and subjugating women to men.
As it says of the meaning at the very base
of the word, that's what the problem is. It's not
the problem that you don't have sex. If you don't
want to have sex, that's perfect, that's normal, that's okay,
that should be your choice. And just as you said,
people pushing you in like this whole narrative of trying
(23:23):
to peer pressure someone into having sex. That's so absurd
to and that is just as dangerous as as all
we're talking about, for sure, But it is this whole
narrative is controlling it and what's why is it being
pushed That's the biggest thing. And honestly, as I was
talking about with my own self, feeling like even though
(23:44):
it was not my fault, it was nothing to do
with me, this dirtiness of this, and yeah it is.
It's it's part of that instilling that's dirtiness for girls
if they have sex. And as I was talking about earlier, um,
and it really always rubbed me the wrong way. But
it makes sense because I love a good analogy about
(24:05):
the lollipop. You know. So if you read Jessica Valenti's
book The Purity Myth, she actually talks about going to
a conference. Actually, uh, this dude says your body is
a wrapped lollipop when you have sex with a man.
He draps your lollipop and sucks on it. It may
feel great at the time, but unfortunately, when he's done
with you, all you have left for your next partner
(24:27):
is a poorly wrapped, saliva filled sucker. Yeah, so that's
the analogy that was being passed around, and I heard that, like,
you know, you take a lick and again I think
I said it in the first episode about the analogy
of this youth. Pastor brought out a candy bar, passed
it around and by the time he got to a
certain person of that like I don't want this, and like, see,
that's that's exactly what we're talking about when he talks
(24:49):
about sex. When you go around with so many partners,
who's gonna want you? It is absolutely do It didn't
have much to do with the guy, of course. Typically yes,
it was also supposed to be for men as well,
and that's why the Dude who Did I Kissed Dating
Goodbye was so popular because it was written by a
man about his virginity and finally we could see this,
(25:09):
but it had the same idea of you're being shared,
you're being dirty. There was also this whole conversation about
chewing gum, essentially unwrapping her and chewing her up. That's
who has left over is left over chewing gum um.
And if you've been doing any church or youth group,
I think this all sounds probably very familiar, because you know,
analogies and metaphors make up about of all the sermons
(25:33):
and lessons pret when it comes to stuff like this,
especially if they're like more of a relevant contemporary church,
you definitely hear that. I mean, that's kind of what
the Bible was, parables upon parables on parables. But the
Purity movement was no different. And again, yeah, there's so
many analogies alluding to the idea that people who have
sex are dirty and used up. And as in fact,
(25:54):
it's so steeped into our idea, it's not just there,
it's always been around uh sex. And the city did
the whole thing once again. They did. They talked about
the fact that against Charlotte, if she was too sexual,
she was the whore and he saw her as a madonna,
so he couldn't have sex with her because she was
too pure type of thing. But then at the same
(26:14):
time talking about how many partners they've had and feeling
dirty and oh my god, and like it's and it's
definitely the slut versus you know, am I. The episode
of the thing is called am I Slut? But it's
such an idea that it is inundated in women that
that's what it is. We're being used up, which is
such a weird conversation to have anyway, And it is
a part of this whole level of purity again obviously dirty.
(26:40):
If you're not pure, you're dirty. What else are you?
But it is so heavily laid that it becomes really
dangerous and problematic. Yeah, and I mean we've all heard
that the jokes about you know, the village bicycle and
that kind of puts I guess that's another avenue where
we see this value that we place on virginity and
(27:03):
purity because essentially what you're saying, there's like two men.
She's easy to get. Anyone can get her, like she
should be ashamed, she's dirty, and you want as a
man to get someone that other men could not get,
and that somehow is great for your ego. And yeah,
you don't have to worry that maybe she's gotten another
(27:25):
child with another man somewhere once again. Yeah, so it's
not surprised to see that these types of ideas and
(27:45):
methods and myths can be damaging. Um, and we wanted
to look a bit into what could be some of
the results of all this. And since Samantha, you brought
up sex in the city, I shall bring up something
I bring up all the time, horror movies. There is
a horror movie called The Last Exorcism, which has its issues,
but at the heart of it, it's a really religious
(28:05):
girl who, well it's complicated because there's a twist, but
she is traumatized because she had sex before marriage and
like goes into demon possession as an alternative to I
would rather people think that then think that I've had
set well before. Yeah. And she at the end, when
(28:26):
like the Exorcism is you know it's coming to a head,
she just screams out, I'm not in a set because
she had sex. But then also, demons happened, soon happened.
That's fair, yes, yes, But in the real world when
we are talking about problems of all this while we've
(28:47):
been talking about them, but here's some more. Um, there's
fetishism of virginity. It's not hard to see that it
has become a whole thing. Yeah, we've seen it in
badly made movies that reference the idea of taking someone's virgina,
the or porn videos which promote viewing of a young
girl losing her virginity or even seeing it as a
(29:07):
fear tactic of sex trafficking and young girls. There becomes
a dangerous line of how girls are viewed as literal commodities,
are trophies to be conquered, that is tied to the
overall mythical importance of trying to keep one's morality taken
is a prime example of that movie That whole I
(29:28):
never saw that documentary film my dad told me about.
Oh yeah, it's it's absolutely the whole thing again because
we talked about with bridget about the fact that, you know,
trafficking girls. But at the end, his daughter is a
prize because she's a virgin, a white virgin, and she's
(29:50):
bid on and given all of the fancy treatment, and
of course she saved. Her virginity is saved by her father. Y'all,
her virginity by her father. There that is huh. And
we can go on to one step further about this
fetishism which ties to the pickup artist believes in tactics
that women are taught to fight men, so that means
(30:13):
a man has to push harder and try harder. Because
it's all a ruse. This is something that is just taught.
This is something that's ingraded into them. But they don't
really want it, and they want me to pursue women
to the point of harassment and to the point that
they can't say no obviously, and this is kind of
that one last thing. This is kind of more what
you're talking about about the fact that women can choose
not to have sex. It's just either a way consent
(30:35):
is taken away, saying that you know, you don't want
to say no, you don't want to say yeah, but
you don't want to say no either. It's it's this
whole level and that is a game that we're being
taught because again, we have no autonomy. There's another problem
with this whole thing. Again, Yes, there's been so many
problems that I've been saying. I've been going off on
early sexualization of young girls, and it's that same narrative
(30:56):
we've seen repeatedly throughout society, whether we're talking about how
girls dress so a school dress code or what they're
being told to protect or how to act. It begins
to sexualize them. They don't even think they're coming on
with a cute dress. They want to match their mom
in a cute way. They want to wear hells, And
it's automatically like, how dare you dress a young girl
like that? That is sexualizing them. They're not doing it,
(31:18):
you're doing it. Why are you doing this? But this
is kind of that whole propagation of yeah, this is
what you're doing and it's your fault and I see
her like this because of you, and it's part of
this conversation. Again, it teaches girls things like purity balls,
which for some recur again in their adolescence, that their
bodies are a weapon of sin, so it is something
(31:39):
that can be used against them or they have to
protect as if it's like a weapon. And and instead
of being allowing a girl to be a girl, they're
just based on whether not they're tempting men. And we
talked about that in our book club for Um the
Househomengo Street is kind of that conversation on whether they're
tempting men just because they're there, just because they wore heels,
that that whole that kind reminds me of that. They
(32:01):
just thought it was pretty. They just liked it. They
they saw their parents and they thought it was cute.
And it became a weapon in a temptation for a man.
And it scared them because they realized what they were
being seen as, even though they didn't do this for them.
And in this very way, the Purity Balls are teaching
them to fear their own bodies. And not just Purity Balls,
but this purity movement and ideas are teaching kids at
(32:23):
a young age about their bodies and how they're tempting
and how they need to be afraid of themselves. And
we talked about it when we talked about the Lolita
podcast with Jamie and the whole Lolita effect which is
out there and out and about which allows for many
to blame a young girl for their own impure thoughts
or for some older women's self hatred. Like this level
(32:45):
of where we become so aware of ourselves and fearful
of what our bodies are doing. It's just it's so heartbreaking.
I hate it. I hate it so much. And this
also makes naive young girls gatekeepers of sex, as in fact,
Jessica Valenti, she talks about her experience when she first
has sex and what she thought of versus And then
(33:06):
she contacted her partner at the time, her boyfriend from
the time, and asked him what he thought for her book,
and he kind of was He literally just said, you know,
but you had more control than I did because you're
a girl. You know, a girl. Boys can't control this.
And because of these like misconceived ideas of who is
more sexual, girls are seeing being able to be in
more control. So therefore they have all of the control
(33:29):
of whether they say so of yes, having sex or
not having sex, or whether or not who's to blame
and who's the shame m h when this happens. So
it's kind of that whole levels like wow, y all
are putting a lot on young girls. How do they
even how did we function? No? For sure, Like it's
it's setting you up as a young girl to be
(33:51):
ready to blame yourself. Um, if any like sexual assault
happens to you, interfere your body, your body is to blame.
You did something wrong, you have to question that was
like sending any wrong signals anything like that. Um, it's
just from so young teaching them and then something we've
kind of discussed throughout is the misconception of consent for women.
(34:15):
When looking at the purity culture. The concept is that
sex is a commodity and has some type of moral value,
but is something to be owned and taken, which can
send a lot of mixed messages of what consent looks like. Biblically,
we have examples of women who were raped and not
being seen as a victim, but seen as soiled and ruined,
(34:37):
and if they are not married to their perpetrator, their
worth and value has been diminished and oftentimes cast aside
and no longer part of society and blamed for letting
their most valuable asset be taken. I feel like we
see that in movies all the time, where it's like
the army is invading, like I'm gonna rape your wife
(34:58):
over and over, and it's meant be like now she's
ruined for you, right, No, less about the trauma she's
going to go through, but for you, yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah exactly. Though this has changed somewhat in society, we
can see the value of women in that same manner
when it comes to roles inside of marriages today. It
wasn't until not too long ago when the law recognized
(35:20):
here in the US that rape can occur in marriage.
For those who are victims of abuse, who have been
taught that purity is the most valued part of them,
feeling of this overwhelming guilt and shame can really over
overshadow they're worse. Yeah, And it doesn't even if not
a question of oh my god, that's happened to me
(35:41):
and it's traumatic, and I have I haven't violated, it's
becomes a question of, oh my god, what did I do?
I allowed this, which we kind of talked about before,
and consent goes out that window. No one understands consent,
which is also that whole level of well, if I
tempted him, then I owe it to him, because this
is my fault. Was again going back to we are
(36:01):
the gatekeepers of our sexuality in general, and therefore we
are also the gatekeepers of whether or not a man
is tempted, and that means we owe it, and that
that takes away consent, that that absolutely takes that away.
And this misconception of I have to give it to you,
and if I didn't explicitly fight you, ye, then I
was willing. It's such a it's such a narrative that again,
(36:24):
it just perpetuates the rape culture that we were talking
about in that last episode as well. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
And it also teaches women and girls that any pain
or abuse that happens to them maybe a punishment for
their pre marital sexual interactions. Right. And I remember specifically
one of my friends who went through a few misharriages
(36:47):
are still born. It was so traumatic and I was
so painful for her because she just was so excited
and when these things happened to her, she came back
and told me, it's because I had sex with so
SO before marriage and I knew it, and I knew it,
I would think I was pregnant then, and I'm miscarried then,
Like there was no these are all these were all
assumptions for her. But she was so sure that it
(37:08):
was her wrongdoing that she suffered in her guilt to
the point that she pushed everyone away because she she
felt like she was so dirty and unclean because she
had sex before marriage and this was God's punishment to her,
and which I kind of was just like, what is happening?
This is no, that's not that's not how this works.
(37:29):
Because also that that conversation for those there's so many
who have in their mind done it the right way
that go through the same things. It's such a sad
punishment for needless, needless made up social construct that it
truly broke my heart. And I was just like, I
(37:50):
afflored me to be honest, I was like, I don't
know what to say to this other than no, it's not.
But you can't fight someone's religious, you know what I mean,
believe in themselves. You really can't. Even though I'm like,
what it was the whole thing. Another problematic thing with
the purity culture is the romanticism and the exaggeration of
having sex. The expectation of sex grows wildly out of
(38:11):
proportion when we really dream up this the night of
the wedding thing. And I know, I think it's finally
come to the point that everybody's like, hey, don't get
too excited, right, But it's this whole like kind of
a similar idea of getting your periods or you've become
a woman, you're a whole, you changed woman, you look different,
you walk differently. That's not true. Sure, I'm in pain,
(38:34):
I'm not even more pain, and I'm very confused what's
happening with my body. But that's not it's not a
romanticized thing, and it's just such a misconception of what
sex is and if and yes, having a connection and
an emotional intimacy is a beautiful thing. And if you're
you're using the narrative of saving yourself with the one
you know, do what you need to, if that's something
(38:54):
that you believe and that's what your treasure and it
works out, it's gorgeous. I'm so glad. I'm so glad.
But it also brings on the idea that sex will
be always be beautiful and magical and it's going to
be perfect when it was leading, and it can be
severely disappointing when everything goes awry. And I've I've heard
(39:16):
many tales of people's honeymoons being ruined because they didn't
know what was going to happen, to the point that
I even heard one person that it was so painful
that she cried and they had to stop. Yeah, and that,
I mean that is a similar conversation to what we
were talking about with the orgasms, where we've made it
into this huge, huge thing and it really shouldn't be
(39:37):
like if you wanted to be special and all that.
That's like, that's great, but yeah, I remember once I
think it was you know, college, and me and my
like really close group of um women, female friends. We
we talked about like so sex overrated, like yeah, yeah,
(40:00):
yeah yeah. And that's kind of where that lie comes in,
that women can't orgasm or or shouldn't enjoy sex. It's
not supposed to be for us, for us, you know
that men's perspective. And again, that type of line and
that kind of misconception is really dangerous too and really sad.
It's so sad when it can be a beautiful thing,
(40:20):
which also yes, leads to a complete misunderstanding of sex
in general. The terms technical virgin and partial version are
often floated around because the lack of sexual education when
it's abstinence only that we kind of ignore everything, so
everything is out of bounds, but nothing is talked about.
So of course girls are very confused about oral sex
(40:43):
and who can do what, and then it becoming dirty
and what becomes dirty and what becomes okay, what becomes taboo?
What's sinful beyond just having pretty mantal sex, and no
one talks about the ins and nows of sexual contact
or interaction at all, and paints everything as immoral. Like
I said, it's like it's just like all taboo and
all hush hush, And so therefore there's a lot of
(41:03):
things that you don't understand, which is not always bad,
but at the same time, to be lied to and
be taking advantage of happens a lot, a lot, which
allows for misleading information such as being able to get
pregnant and hot tubs that float around I believe different minute,
or that you can stop pregnancies by drinking bleach, which
(41:24):
was yeah, which actually done. Apparently there was a couple
of cases in Florida where teenagers got sick and you're like,
oh no, don't do that or that again. By defining
sex in such a headonormative manner ignores the queer community
completely again and others them and shames them in general
and brings even more confusion, and so more disinformation comes out,
(41:45):
and it just becomes a whole festival of disinformation. Yeah,
And I remember, like you see that in instances a
couple of years ago, when there was that story that
made headlines that a lot of young girls were being
pressured into oral because they were being told, it's not sex,
so we can have it and then you won't be dirty,
(42:05):
and you won't you know, lost your virginity and you know,
those those can be confusing lines across, but they were basically, yeah,
being pressured into something based on this purity thing and
based on the boys wanted to have some type of sex, right,
some type of sexual contact. It's everything but right, But yeah,
(42:26):
it is, And it is sad because you could the
conversation so that you can also get sdis this way,
and people are not talking about it, People are not
understanding it. It's it's seriously dangerous on a health level
when you look like again, spread this of information as
well as fins. Things like you know, accidental pregnancies are
happening because they're not talking about how they can get
pregnant or how it actually works and what they need
(42:48):
to do. And again, if they're not talking about it
at all, you're not gonna be prepared. So having a
condom is not going to be a thing. Knowing how
to use a condom is not going to be a thing, right,
which is all very sad, it is. It is indeed, Yeah,
I believe I've even seen God I'm trying. I can't
remember it exactly, but I remember there was this idea
(43:09):
that women could like stop sperm like by clenching so
it wouldn't go in far enough right too. There's also
lunar cycles that people base it on. M h yep.
I have a friend who did that on her honeymoon.
They only had sex at one time. Triplets. Yeah, so
(43:33):
a friend of a friend kept bluing that and was
surprised when he had the sixth baby. She's so clearly,
there are so many other things that we could cover.
We We've been talking about them on and off air
on your topics, and some we could absolutely go more
(43:53):
in depth on. Yeah. Yeah, there's nothing wrong at all
with waiting until you are comfortable to have sex, but
we can't ignore the trauma and overall damage these types
of myths can cause. Right. Um. For myself again, like
I've been saying, I think I've struggled, and you can
tell there's a lot of things that I'm a little
upset about, little angry about because I was inundated in
(44:16):
this culture as well. Again my choice. It was like
I pushed myself into this because this is what I needed.
I think at the time, but I'm now understanding, Wow,
I'm having a hard time on learning some of these
concepts even though I very well understand, like this is bad,
and then coming back to realize this is a strategy
that was used politically to motivate young women to understand, Hey,
(44:38):
you need be under the authority of men. And yeah,
I struggled, and I still struggled with the idea that
sex can quite love at all. Again, my own trauma,
my own ordeal as a child, really had a lot
to do with it. So absinence was actually easy for me.
I did not have sex until in my mid twenties,
but for me in high school because I was afraid
of men and intimacy, partially because of my own ethnicity,
(45:02):
once again being another I wasn't pure, And to begin
with again, my childhood experience as an orphan and things
that I I went through as an orphan um defined me
and UH as something that was no longer usable or
as valuable, and the culture of purity made me think
it was because I was already defined that it was
too late, And of course I clung to that faith
throughout some of the darkest time for me, and it
(45:23):
helped it pull me out in that forgiveness and being
able to come into but there's something else bigger than me,
and it's acting. That's beautiful and for people who truly
understands that, it allows that to be to make them
a better person, wonderful but like, but that also meant
intimacy or just having a boyfriend meant that I was owned,
that there was an ownership of me, and for me,
(45:44):
it was easier to understand that because that's what I
was taught and that's what I was understanding, and it
felt it made sense because that's already something that I've
been cultivated to feel like I've already been that way.
Literally was bought from Korea to the U s BO
me and it went through a lot of things, and
even when I came here, I was shown my worth
(46:05):
as a sexual being and being at ten and eleven
years old eighth so all of those things really did
prepare me to be the perfect vessel under this p
purity culture because I wanted to be clean because of course,
that type of trauma teaches you that you're not clean,
and I think that's part of this misconception why it
(46:26):
can be dangerous and I'm I've made it out, I
have had therapy, I still had need their panting medication.
I have to do all the things because it's not
going to be cleansed from me. Essentially, I guess the
best way because it's always always gonna be a part
of my history. But I think that's part of things,
like we have to really recognize it for what it
is and why these myths are dangerous and perpetuating it
(46:47):
in such a manner, especially when you're self serving for
an agenda. Why we need to talk about it and
dig a little deeper onto it again. That book that
I was telling you about, The Purity met But Jessica Valenti,
she has some really great takes in there, and we
probably should visit it as a book club, even though
(47:08):
I'm like, no, I don't know I can do this anymore.
But yeah, I feel like, and you know, I've talked
about this before, like that that feeling it attaches, and
when you start really going down that rabbit hole, it
feels dark, even though it doesn't have to be. Yeah, well,
and so much of what we're talking about here is
political and patriarchal, and we're teaching it from such a
(47:31):
young age. And I will say as we wrap this up,
like it's really nobody's business, because I know for me,
when like you be playing never vi ever and people
be like, have you lost your virginity? And I lost
it in a very traumatic sexual assault, and I would
(47:51):
I would literally freeze and not know what to do right,
And that turned into I know I've said before, there
were these rumors I was like a slut. It was
because people thought like I got into some badious and stuff,
which is not even like that's incorrect assumption as well,
but like that I anyway, like so that question can
(48:13):
be very traumatic, and my my therapist said some people
reframe it as like a separate issue entirely, but like
even the idea that this virginity has that much meaning
that you're doing that. So it is unfortunate and and
like one of the periods of abuse in my life,
(48:34):
I went to I didn't know what like dating was.
I didn't like this guy's telling me he's my boyfriend.
I'm like, I don't know, I guess maybe this is
how it is, and this is maybe how sexist because
I didn't have any education and I was young. So
it's really sad because there's all of these like things
(48:57):
that are coming together to create a very unhealthy, dangerous
system and society for for a lot of us. But
here we're talking about like young girls and setting them
up to take the blame for it. Right, So yeah,
there is a lot back. Yeah. We came in saying,
(49:19):
oh yeah, it's gonna be a big one. And then
I came and saying, okay, this might be a two parter,
and it was. It was. And if there's anything listeners
that you want us to unpack in more detail, there
was certainly plenty. Please let us know our emails, stuff
DiDia mom stuff at iHeart mea dot com. You can
(49:40):
find us on Instagram and Stuff I've Never Told You
are on Twitter at monst Off Podcast. Thanks as always
start a super producer, Christina, thank you, and thanks to
you for listening Stuff I've Never Told You. The production
of iHeart Radio for more podcast from my Heart Radio
is the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. What good of stuff
I never told your protection? I heart radio, and welcome
back to part two of the Myths of Virginity and Purity.
And here we're actually gonna be speaking a lot more
(00:26):
to purity and purity culture of what it looks like today.
But first, just a trigger warning. We're not really talking
in depth about anything really sexual or any of that.
We're just really talking more of analogies and present culture
and idea of absentence. But for those who have been
(00:46):
raised and maybe Southern Baptist cultures or Western Christian cultures,
this may be too much for you, and that's fine,
So just go ahead and put that here at the topics.
We're gonna dive deep into that the American idea of purity,
and sometimes I could be dramatic, especially if you've had
a falling out with religion, this might be a little
more traumatic. So f y, I right, So Annie, I
(01:08):
have to ask, and I already know this answer, but
I honestly I don't know if I know this answer.
Because you said you were pretty you grew up in
a religious town. Did you ever get involved in any
type of Christian organizations in school when you were in Delanaga,
which is a small town in Georgia. Yes, I didn't
get involved in school. Funnily enough, I once like really
(01:30):
embarrassed myself. I was in seventh grade and this popular
girl asked me in a very like in a clear
way that there's only one right answer, and she said,
are you a Christian? And I didn't know what that meant.
Even though I did go to church, I didn't know.
But I went through a period where it is really religious,
but in general I wasn't. That was like one hardcore
(01:52):
year of my life. I thought it was cool to
be religious. So I would go with my friends usually
over the summer. I would do like, you know, by
a vacation camp with them, with their churches. I would
do things like that. But I always felt like the
friend who can't be saved or something, a friend who's
like not enlightened enough to realize that she's gonna go
(02:15):
straight now. Oh God, Okay, So you would have been
that friend that I would have been trying to convert
in high school, I guess. So. I mean by high school, yeah,
I was already like nope, but not religious. But yeah,
this is middle school where I was interested in religion,
(02:38):
but I just never I don't know, it didn't really
take off of me again. Yeah, which is interesting because
in my in my school, the popular kids were the
first Baptist church kids and they were the president of
all the s e A. So uh, Christians athlete clubs.
(03:00):
You are part of that. You came in early mornings
to do the different Christian clubs to be a part
of it. You weren't cool unless you went to church events.
And I couldn't afford it until way later. So I
was like ten to eleventh grade before I could go
to any of those things. But of course you also
know the tales that couples came out of these little
Christian camps as well. I was a die hard. When
(03:22):
it comes to anything emotional spiritual, I get caught up
in it. I love the beauty of of that being
swept into a moment, feeling that energy, and I got
caught all up in that. And it is and when
it comes to religion and sex, we know the lines.
(03:45):
It is very defined. And though value of virginity is international,
We've talked about this, we talked about this previously, is historical,
it's international when it comes to Western Christian ideology, specifically
in the US, the ideology of purity has a whole
new spin and a lot more money to it. So
we did want to talk about that in this episode.
(04:05):
And yes, again very we know it's very americanized in
this but it's such a fascinating subject to me that
if I were not in the middle of it and
it did not grow up in it, I would be
blown away. And and as you talked about, when you
visited like France, people are like, what is wrong with you? Yeah,
that was a real eye opener for me because, uh,
(04:27):
I don't know how it came up. But the Hose
family I was living with there was a woman a
little bit older than me at the time, so we
were both like, you know, eight nineteen, and she was like, oh, yeah,
my first time wasn't good. I barely remember, Like it's
not a big deal here, And I was like, what right? Right?
I find it funny because we talked about this earlier,
(04:49):
how you and I when I was doing this research.
Part of this research, I was looking at the cultural differences,
and again there's not a lot of cultural differences because
the value of women and autonomy, it's kind of overall. A. Yeah,
women are valued lest everywhere, let's just be very honest.
But the idea that outside of the U S, most
(05:10):
cultures are like, yeah, white girls are sluts, right, they
don't they don't care, they are crazy, like It's it's
almost funny to me to see that level because I
don't think about that. And again, I'm Asian, and to me,
I've been fetishized since my childhood. I've been abused, you know,
in my childhood because a part of that and a
part of that appeal of young girls and and the
(05:33):
nastiness of pedophilia and all that that, I was a
part of that world and so all of that ruined
so much of the concepts to me in general. So
because I've already felt dirty, I already felt like an outsider.
I already felt like the other white girls were the
obvious preference of who I wish I was and what
(05:55):
people prefer. In my mind, of course we don't. That's
not true at all, but it's kind of funny when
we look at like I think one of the research
papers talked about how the Latin X women who had
grown up understanding sex was beautiful and they also valued
their virginity and value this morality. But it wasn't about
waiting until marriage. It was just about waiting to find
(06:16):
someone you cared about and experiencing something beautiful in the story.
And this whole idea of waiting until marriage was so
absurd to them, in that idea of like, so you're
trapping yourself without knowing you're gonna you're gonna be happy,
Like that does serve why would why would you want
to do that? And that's kind of laughing, like, yeah,
I think I grew up when I finally realized that,
like twenty three that I'm like, I don't think I
(06:38):
want to be married. This is not this is not sustainable.
This idea is not sustainable. But I found that interesting
when you look outside that perspective of how different it
really is when it comes to the US and beyond.
So it's kind of like, Okay, let's take this deep
dive because it's a hell of a tell. So purity
(06:58):
culture has been around the u US for quite some time,
but in the early nineties, conservative evangilists in the U
S Protestant groups organized the strategy one person called extreme abstinence,
and this was kind of a reaction to the MTV
Wild and Out kind of era where girls gone wild
was getting really popular at this point, the beach house
(07:19):
where girls, you know, we're dancing in bikinis, and all
of the old fashioned American families were like, oh my god,
what's happening to our kids. So the reaction was extreme abstinence.
Oh lord. So those who advocated for this would advise
girls and women to be submissive, stay away from leadership roles,
(07:40):
and conform to old ideals of courtship, not being in
mixed company unless regulated, and making sure they're guarding every
part of their preciousness. And when they speak of courtship,
the practice involves making sure that the interaction between women
and men were specifically to pursue an intent in marriage
under the explicit supervision and permission of the woman's father.
(08:01):
Nowhere are we talking about mothers in this, by the way,
and as one article explains, quote, this expectation is that
pure young women will remain under the authority of fathers
until they trade it for the authority of their husbands
and marriages arranged by their fathers. So they were going
all out and controlling from young to old. So we
(08:22):
got you from childhood all the way up, and we're
going to control every aspect, including dating, including meeting men,
including getting married. Of course, I know on Smentthy they've
talked about marriages and weddings and all of the bad
connotations to that and all of the nice connotations, But
how that is steeped in patriarchal traditions, and this is
(08:45):
kind of fulfilling and being a part of that as well.
Beyond just the practices of abstinence and submission, the movement
goes another step backwards. Yeah, I said it for young
girls and women, with the expectations that women would be
wholly responsible for not being temptations or stumbling blocks for men.
That women must be responsible by doing everything in their
(09:05):
power in regards to the way they talk, dress, or
act in a way that would not evoke sexual desire
from a man, because obviously men can't control themselves, duh
when it comes to sex everything else. I can control
our bodies, but they can't control their own bodies. And
if you've ever been a part of Sunday School, we
(09:26):
all learned how Eve is the mother of temptation, and
she is the one that caused Adam to send so
of course that's going to affect all of creation and humanity,
right right, Yeah, And I you know, we are speaking
in a lot of like generalizations and needs because that's
just the research that we have or the information that
we have. But I remember the first time I went
(09:48):
to the Vatican and I it was summer, and I
was in shorts and a tank chop and I tried
to go on one of the churches and these like
old men came running at me, screaming at me in
like shoot me out, and they were they had like
this thing they would cover you with to go in.
And you know, I'm not trying to disrespect anybody's believe
(10:10):
our cultures, but it was just a moment of like,
holy hell, I can't even I was wearing shorts in
a day. It's not right or something, right, Um, but yeah,
feeling that shame like immediately just it drew so much
attention to me. It was so embarrassing, right, oh god. Yeah.
(10:44):
So this new strategy and not only pushed a powerful
narrative and movement, but yeah, it brought in a lot
of money, whether it was new books and steady guys
for church youth groups all over the country, retreats or
new programs. Um. There was money spent to push this narrative,
include geting large amounts of grants sent to schools and
organizations that taught abstinence only programs. My school was one
(11:07):
of those. I don't know if I take out any money,
but abstinence only was our education. So yeah, they would
because automatically that was the only qualifier. If you're willing
to not tach comprehensive sex said and do absence only,
you get this federal grant. At that point in time,
Wow wow. And out of that, with the mega push
(11:27):
from mega churches and the Southern Baptist Convention, we have
programs like True Love Weights. Did you have this program?
We might have. I don't remember it, but I mean
it sounds familiar, something I heard about clearly and vividly.
See the signs. It was a giant banner. We had
a whole table in the cafeteria during lunch that kids
(11:50):
can go over and sign the cars. You got a sticker,
you gotta pen uh, you got a little swag, and
then you walked away. It was purple and white and
pink and it was super cute and True Love Weights
and then we had a huge conference about it US
an assembly for it. Well, well, I do think we're
(12:12):
not talking about this this much in this one. We
didn't talk about it too much in the other one.
But I do think there's been kind of a push
back of um, basically what I'm saying, and we put
too much pressure on virginity one way or the other.
Because in my school, that would have been a very
uncool thing to do, like you would have been made
(12:35):
from of and that's like, that's not cool either. But
you know, I do think we've also got that aspect
of yeah, once you reach a certain age in your
virgin wipe your hands in that person, which is also ridiculous,
but okay. True Love Weights is a campaign created which
(12:56):
was an assin only youth program that used different tactics
for young teams to commit to abstaining from sex and
waiting for love. They use conferences, concerts, school campaigns that
registered kids to sign cards with with a vow of chastity.
Purity Balls began in the nineties as well, a bit different.
(13:17):
Instead of just a vow written on a card promising
to yourself and God, it was a father daughter dance
that allowed an opportunity for the daughter and father to
exchange vows of chastity and protection to each other, the
daughter vowing to her father to remain pure until her marriage,
and a father vowing to somehow protecting their daughter's purity
(13:40):
as well. Many of the events involved in exchange of
purity rings. A lot of these events were actually federally
funded and not surprisingly a pretty big hit in the
Christian schools, including Christian homeschool movements and a lot of
modern relevant churches and affiliated Christian in programs. Right. I
(14:01):
found these fascinating. I was not a part of this. Again,
my family, they would talk about it and would hope
for the best, but let you be kind of understand.
I think they understood, like, you can't make a kid
do something that's not possible. If you forbid something, why
why would you do that? And there was that was
a decent amount of conversation and trust when it came
(14:23):
to that type of conversation. I will say because of
this in my circle, which it was not necessarily uncool
to be a virgin, that was not a thing. It
was weirder to see people have sex. And I wasn't
shocked for it because I wasn't like but but but
but but but but but when it came down to
(14:43):
what happened instead, kind of in that same idea of
waiting till marriage, marriage ended up being at nineteen years
old and now chucking people and divorced, and that included
my family members. They're trying to save themselves in marriage,
they're trying to wait, do the right thing. And then
oh no, I rushed into this because of lust rather
than love, which is easy to confuse when we're confused
(15:04):
about what love and lust does in general, especially when
you're young. Yeah, but yeah, these purity balls were such
a weird concept to me. It sounded nice because of
course you want to be with your dad and hanging
out and cotinent reminiscent of the father daughter dance at
a wedding, which also has a lot to do with
the patriarchal traditions as well, and handing over the daughter,
(15:27):
all of these things, and the fact that this began
so early. So some of the people who are some
of the kids who attended, some of the girls were
six years old, so it started six years old. Yeah.
I know a lot of people say sixteen, but it
actually started at six. And so this kind of level
was this automatic like installment of your mind and if
(15:48):
you do this, you're going to disappoint me, which is
kind of the majority of sitcoms and or TV shows
that I've seen, is the narrative of disappointing the father
because they had sex owned and we're ruining their relationship
because they somehow broke a trust, which is sad. I mean, yeah,
so much of what we're talking about, all of it
(16:08):
it's very heateronormative. I know we said it in the
last one, but yeah, also here very head roonormative, vaginanta
penis X we're talking about. But almost everything we're talking about,
I'm struck and I shouldn't be by how it's all
about men, right, Like, even if we're talking about women
and why you know women doing these things, it's still
(16:29):
like the men first doing it. So you never signed
those cards, no, And I don't remember that being a thing.
Like I said, in my school, it was kind of
a tight rope and it was hard to win. But
that would have been very uncool. They were there were
certain there was a group of like really Christian kids
(16:53):
and yeah, my best friend who is her parents were
really Catholic. I got a lot of like hearing from
her about yeah, I know, living together before marriage and
sex before marriage. She always said try it before you
buy it. But yeah, in my group, we didn't really
do that. I I know. I've told the story before
that a niece of mine I got contacted she was eight,
(17:16):
but by her mother, and her mother wanted me to
be at this chastity ceremony and I refused to go,
and I told her why. I was like, look, I
want to be supportive of things that these are my
problems with it. I never heard from her again. How
old was the girl and they had the ceremony. I
think she was eight she was so were they having
her in like a white dress and all of that? Yes, yeah,
(17:39):
so it was a mock wedding with her father, Yeah yeah, yeah,
yeah yeah. There's so many things to uncover with that. Again,
it's it's kind of this whole, this whole conversation, as
we were saying before, it's like, yeah, it's very head
of normative, but it is also the understanding of how
this gendered roles and gendered biases are place and staunchly
(18:01):
looked down on if you try to disrupt it as well,
which is why they're not considered because automatically you're dismissed,
as we talked about in the last episode when marginalized
women were automatically dismissed of being pure point blank because
you're not white. It's that same concept here that if
you're not heterosexual and you're not this gender, that means
(18:22):
you're art automatically dismissed an impure So therefore you're not
part of this narrative. Again, very damaging in so many
ways because they neglects so much and obviously it's hurtful, dismissive,
and um just fairly the fact to other that because
you're not in this majority, which is not a majority
if you really think on it, but in their mind
(18:44):
it is because it's supposed to be the norm quote unquote.
And I'm saying this very very like sarcastically, but this
is the assumption. But yeah, this is that very big
conversation of like, we are instilling gender biases that are
damaging in this type of practice. But it's also yeah,
it is absolutely a key point for a lot of
(19:07):
the religious right. This is what they want, This is
what they're doing is to bring this and and we
don't talk about this in this episode. But actually and
everything I read through of course it hasn't involved I
was just tired. I think why we were just tired
by the end of this, we're like, oh, there's so
much that we're just like, okay, we can't get into
this too. But yes, this is very political. This is
a very big political stance. A lot of these movements
(19:29):
are political about taking autonomy away from women in general.
And it begins at a young age when it comes
to sexual identity, because you must find shame and shame
factors into what you're allowed to do, which you're not
allowed to do what you're seeing as And again, if
it's not based for procreation, then therefore it's already sent
to again with right. So it's it's this whole level.
(19:51):
And I remember growing up reading books like Passion and Purity,
which I'm sure you I was. I read a lot
of Christian literature in high school. And I want to
shout out to our friend who wrote to us, who
lives in rural Georgia. I'm saying, I hear you say
with them, I'm right with you with the religion. Hi, Yeah,
this is exactly like I was inundated and I put
(20:12):
myself there. But it wasn't my parents because they didn't
read this stuff. It was me that I got caught
up in that because I needed to feel whole. And
I'm going to kind of come back to my own
little editorial bit I guess in that because I got
caught up in this, I really wanted to find value
in myself again, and this felt like a way I could.
So I took that whole thing of I don't know
(20:33):
if I told you about this book, I Kiss Dating Goodbye,
Which turns out the dude who wrote this book made
a lot of money, finally found his wife, wrote about
that and about how he saved himself for marriage and
purity and courtship again we talked about in the first
episode if you want to know what we're talking about,
but courtship, all of these things, and then coming into
(20:54):
like I think present day, he was like, I was wrong,
never mind, don't do that, and essentially disavowed that. And
there's been several, actually several more um current contemporary Christian
people who are on that same line, not necessarily saying
you should have sex, but like, this is not the
right idea, this is not the right way, this is
too patriarchal. This is this is damaging to girls, and
(21:14):
as in fact, the woman that I read Passion and Purity,
she wrote the story about finding her husband, finding her love.
Turns out he dies. I think she married three more
times since they all die on her, which is sad,
but somehow finding love all the time you're like, well, congratulations,
I guess, and this whole idea of concept of like
having purity and growing together and their missionaries together and
(21:35):
saving the world together. And then he goes off and
gets killed. Uh, And so she finds a new husband,
but really idealized as her first husband. It was really odd.
Went to a conference that I didn't attend it, but
people who were so excited to see are so excited
to hear her words because she's such a you know,
godly woman, as they would say. And then she comes
about talking about how hey, girls, if you're fat, you're
(21:57):
displacing your husband. If you're not cooking for your husband,
then you're not doing it, like all these things, giving
a list of what you're doing wrong. And like I
remember one friend of mine at that time came home
heartbroken because she had already struggled with the fact that
she felt like she was overweight, which wasn't true. She
felt like because she was I think she was mid thirties,
late late twenties, that because she hadn't had found her husband,
(22:18):
she was failing and all she wanted to do was
have a child and be a wife, because that's what
she was told her value was. And because this woman
was blaming her for her physical state, not doing being
submissive enough, not praying enough, she truly felt that and
it was so heartbroken. I think she also understood this
was wrong, but still put that into herself, like that, yeah,
(22:39):
you're right, it's my faults. And I felt that in
religion being the leadership of me, I'm not faithful enough,
that I'm not submissive enough, I'm not all And it's
such a that that guilt when I finally was like
this is bullsh was such a release. I just can't
talk about enough. But this plays all into this, this
purity aspect, which I get the whole idea of virginity
(23:01):
was always about controlling women and subjugating women to men.
As it says of the meaning at the very base
of the word, that's what the problem is. It's not
the problem that you don't have sex. If you don't
want to have sex, that's perfect, that's normal, that's okay,
that should be your choice. And just as you said,
people pushing you in like this whole narrative of trying
(23:23):
to peer pressure someone into having sex. That's so absurd
to and that is just as dangerous as as all
we're talking about, for sure, But it is this whole
narrative is controlling it and what's why is it being
pushed That's the biggest thing. And honestly, as I was
talking about with my own self, feeling like even though
(23:44):
it was not my fault, it was nothing to do
with me, this dirtiness of this, and yeah it is.
It's it's part of that instilling that's dirtiness for girls
if they have sex. And as I was talking about earlier, um,
and it really always rubbed me the wrong way. But
it makes sense because I love a good analogy about
(24:05):
the lollipop. You know. So if you read Jessica Valenti's
book The Purity Myth, she actually talks about going to
a conference. Actually, uh, this dude says your body is
a wrapped lollipop when you have sex with a man.
He draps your lollipop and sucks on it. It may
feel great at the time, but unfortunately, when he's done
with you, all you have left for your next partner
(24:27):
is a poorly wrapped, saliva filled sucker. Yeah, so that's
the analogy that was being passed around, and I heard that, like,
you know, you take a lick and again I think
I said it in the first episode about the analogy
of this youth. Pastor brought out a candy bar, passed
it around and by the time he got to a
certain person of that like I don't want this, and like, see,
that's that's exactly what we're talking about when he talks
(24:49):
about sex. When you go around with so many partners,
who's gonna want you? It is absolutely do It didn't
have much to do with the guy, of course. Typically yes,
it was also supposed to be for men as well,
and that's why the Dude who Did I Kissed Dating
Goodbye was so popular because it was written by a
man about his virginity and finally we could see this,
(25:09):
but it had the same idea of you're being shared,
you're being dirty. There was also this whole conversation about
chewing gum, essentially unwrapping her and chewing her up. That's
who has left over is left over chewing gum um.
And if you've been doing any church or youth group,
I think this all sounds probably very familiar, because you know,
analogies and metaphors make up about of all the sermons
(25:33):
and lessons pret when it comes to stuff like this,
especially if they're like more of a relevant contemporary church,
you definitely hear that. I mean, that's kind of what
the Bible was, parables upon parables on parables. But the
Purity movement was no different. And again, yeah, there's so
many analogies alluding to the idea that people who have
sex are dirty and used up. And as in fact,
(25:54):
it's so steeped into our idea, it's not just there,
it's always been around uh sex. And the city did
the whole thing once again. They did. They talked about
the fact that against Charlotte, if she was too sexual,
she was the whore and he saw her as a madonna,
so he couldn't have sex with her because she was
too pure type of thing. But then at the same
(26:14):
time talking about how many partners they've had and feeling
dirty and oh my god, and like it's and it's
definitely the slut versus you know, am I. The episode
of the thing is called am I Slut? But it's
such an idea that it is inundated in women that
that's what it is. We're being used up, which is
such a weird conversation to have anyway, And it is
a part of this whole level of purity again obviously dirty.
(26:40):
If you're not pure, you're dirty. What else are you?
But it is so heavily laid that it becomes really
dangerous and problematic. Yeah, and I mean we've all heard
that the jokes about you know, the village bicycle and
that kind of puts I guess that's another avenue where
we see this value that we place on virginity and
(27:03):
purity because essentially what you're saying, there's like two men.
She's easy to get. Anyone can get her, like she
should be ashamed, she's dirty, and you want as a
man to get someone that other men could not get,
and that somehow is great for your ego. And yeah,
you don't have to worry that maybe she's gotten another
(27:25):
child with another man somewhere once again. Yeah, so it's
not surprised to see that these types of ideas and
(27:45):
methods and myths can be damaging. Um, and we wanted
to look a bit into what could be some of
the results of all this. And since Samantha, you brought
up sex in the city, I shall bring up something
I bring up all the time, horror movies. There is
a horror movie called The Last Exorcism, which has its issues,
but at the heart of it, it's a really religious
(28:05):
girl who, well it's complicated because there's a twist, but
she is traumatized because she had sex before marriage and
like goes into demon possession as an alternative to I
would rather people think that then think that I've had
set well before. Yeah. And she at the end, when
(28:26):
like the Exorcism is you know it's coming to a head,
she just screams out, I'm not in a set because
she had sex. But then also, demons happened, soon happened.
That's fair, yes, yes, But in the real world when
we are talking about problems of all this while we've
(28:47):
been talking about them, but here's some more. Um, there's
fetishism of virginity. It's not hard to see that it
has become a whole thing. Yeah, we've seen it in
badly made movies that reference the idea of taking someone's virgina,
the or porn videos which promote viewing of a young
girl losing her virginity or even seeing it as a
(29:07):
fear tactic of sex trafficking and young girls. There becomes
a dangerous line of how girls are viewed as literal commodities,
are trophies to be conquered, that is tied to the
overall mythical importance of trying to keep one's morality taken
is a prime example of that movie That whole I
(29:28):
never saw that documentary film my dad told me about.
Oh yeah, it's it's absolutely the whole thing again because
we talked about with bridget about the fact that, you know,
trafficking girls. But at the end, his daughter is a
prize because she's a virgin, a white virgin, and she's
(29:50):
bid on and given all of the fancy treatment, and
of course she saved. Her virginity is saved by her father. Y'all,
her virginity by her father. There that is huh. And
we can go on to one step further about this
fetishism which ties to the pickup artist believes in tactics
that women are taught to fight men, so that means
(30:13):
a man has to push harder and try harder. Because
it's all a ruse. This is something that is just taught.
This is something that's ingraded into them. But they don't
really want it, and they want me to pursue women
to the point of harassment and to the point that
they can't say no obviously, and this is kind of
that one last thing. This is kind of more what
you're talking about about the fact that women can choose
not to have sex. It's just either a way consent
(30:35):
is taken away, saying that you know, you don't want
to say no, you don't want to say yeah, but
you don't want to say no either. It's it's this
whole level and that is a game that we're being
taught because again, we have no autonomy. There's another problem
with this whole thing. Again, Yes, there's been so many
problems that I've been saying. I've been going off on
early sexualization of young girls, and it's that same narrative
(30:56):
we've seen repeatedly throughout society, whether we're talking about how
girls dress so a school dress code or what they're
being told to protect or how to act. It begins
to sexualize them. They don't even think they're coming on
with a cute dress. They want to match their mom
in a cute way. They want to wear hells, And
it's automatically like, how dare you dress a young girl
like that? That is sexualizing them. They're not doing it,
(31:18):
you're doing it. Why are you doing this? But this
is kind of that whole propagation of yeah, this is
what you're doing and it's your fault and I see
her like this because of you, and it's part of
this conversation. Again, it teaches girls things like purity balls,
which for some recur again in their adolescence, that their
bodies are a weapon of sin, so it is something
(31:39):
that can be used against them or they have to
protect as if it's like a weapon. And and instead
of being allowing a girl to be a girl, they're
just based on whether not they're tempting men. And we
talked about that in our book club for Um the
Househomengo Street is kind of that conversation on whether they're
tempting men just because they're there, just because they wore heels,
that that whole that kind reminds me of that. They
(32:01):
just thought it was pretty. They just liked it. They
they saw their parents and they thought it was cute.
And it became a weapon in a temptation for a man.
And it scared them because they realized what they were
being seen as, even though they didn't do this for them.
And in this very way, the Purity Balls are teaching
them to fear their own bodies. And not just Purity Balls,
but this purity movement and ideas are teaching kids at
(32:23):
a young age about their bodies and how they're tempting
and how they need to be afraid of themselves. And
we talked about it when we talked about the Lolita
podcast with Jamie and the whole Lolita effect which is
out there and out and about which allows for many
to blame a young girl for their own impure thoughts
or for some older women's self hatred. Like this level
(32:45):
of where we become so aware of ourselves and fearful
of what our bodies are doing. It's just it's so heartbreaking.
I hate it. I hate it so much. And this
also makes naive young girls gatekeepers of sex, as in fact,
Jessica Valenti, she talks about her experience when she first
has sex and what she thought of versus And then
(33:06):
she contacted her partner at the time, her boyfriend from
the time, and asked him what he thought for her book,
and he kind of was He literally just said, you know,
but you had more control than I did because you're
a girl. You know, a girl. Boys can't control this.
And because of these like misconceived ideas of who is
more sexual, girls are seeing being able to be in
more control. So therefore they have all of the control
(33:29):
of whether they say so of yes, having sex or
not having sex, or whether or not who's to blame
and who's the shame m h when this happens. So
it's kind of that whole levels like wow, y all
are putting a lot on young girls. How do they
even how did we function? No? For sure, Like it's
it's setting you up as a young girl to be
(33:51):
ready to blame yourself. Um, if any like sexual assault
happens to you, interfere your body, your body is to blame.
You did something wrong, you have to question that was
like sending any wrong signals anything like that. Um, it's
just from so young teaching them and then something we've
kind of discussed throughout is the misconception of consent for women.
(34:15):
When looking at the purity culture. The concept is that
sex is a commodity and has some type of moral value,
but is something to be owned and taken, which can
send a lot of mixed messages of what consent looks like. Biblically,
we have examples of women who were raped and not
being seen as a victim, but seen as soiled and ruined,
(34:37):
and if they are not married to their perpetrator, their
worth and value has been diminished and oftentimes cast aside
and no longer part of society and blamed for letting
their most valuable asset be taken. I feel like we
see that in movies all the time, where it's like
the army is invading, like I'm gonna rape your wife
(34:58):
over and over, and it's meant be like now she's
ruined for you, right, No, less about the trauma she's
going to go through, but for you, yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah exactly. Though this has changed somewhat in society, we
can see the value of women in that same manner
when it comes to roles inside of marriages today. It
wasn't until not too long ago when the law recognized
(35:20):
here in the US that rape can occur in marriage.
For those who are victims of abuse, who have been
taught that purity is the most valued part of them,
feeling of this overwhelming guilt and shame can really over
overshadow they're worse. Yeah, And it doesn't even if not
a question of oh my god, that's happened to me
(35:41):
and it's traumatic, and I have I haven't violated, it's
becomes a question of, oh my god, what did I do?
I allowed this, which we kind of talked about before,
and consent goes out that window. No one understands consent,
which is also that whole level of well, if I
tempted him, then I owe it to him, because this
is my fault. Was again going back to we are
(36:01):
the gatekeepers of our sexuality in general, and therefore we
are also the gatekeepers of whether or not a man
is tempted, and that means we owe it, and that
that takes away consent, that that absolutely takes that away.
And this misconception of I have to give it to you,
and if I didn't explicitly fight you, ye, then I
was willing. It's such a it's such a narrative that again,
(36:24):
it just perpetuates the rape culture that we were talking
about in that last episode as well. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
And it also teaches women and girls that any pain
or abuse that happens to them maybe a punishment for
their pre marital sexual interactions. Right. And I remember specifically
one of my friends who went through a few misharriages
(36:47):
are still born. It was so traumatic and I was
so painful for her because she just was so excited
and when these things happened to her, she came back
and told me, it's because I had sex with so
SO before marriage and I knew it, and I knew it,
I would think I was pregnant then, and I'm miscarried then,
Like there was no these are all these were all
assumptions for her. But she was so sure that it
(37:08):
was her wrongdoing that she suffered in her guilt to
the point that she pushed everyone away because she she
felt like she was so dirty and unclean because she
had sex before marriage and this was God's punishment to her,
and which I kind of was just like, what is happening?
This is no, that's not that's not how this works.
(37:29):
Because also that that conversation for those there's so many
who have in their mind done it the right way
that go through the same things. It's such a sad
punishment for needless, needless made up social construct that it
truly broke my heart. And I was just like, I
(37:50):
afflored me to be honest, I was like, I don't
know what to say to this other than no, it's not.
But you can't fight someone's religious, you know what I mean,
believe in themselves. You really can't. Even though I'm like,
what it was the whole thing. Another problematic thing with
the purity culture is the romanticism and the exaggeration of
having sex. The expectation of sex grows wildly out of
(38:11):
proportion when we really dream up this the night of
the wedding thing. And I know, I think it's finally
come to the point that everybody's like, hey, don't get
too excited, right, But it's this whole like kind of
a similar idea of getting your periods or you've become
a woman, you're a whole, you changed woman, you look different,
you walk differently. That's not true. Sure, I'm in pain,
(38:34):
I'm not even more pain, and I'm very confused what's
happening with my body. But that's not it's not a
romanticized thing, and it's just such a misconception of what
sex is and if and yes, having a connection and
an emotional intimacy is a beautiful thing. And if you're
you're using the narrative of saving yourself with the one
you know, do what you need to, if that's something
(38:54):
that you believe and that's what your treasure and it
works out, it's gorgeous. I'm so glad. I'm so glad.
But it also brings on the idea that sex will
be always be beautiful and magical and it's going to
be perfect when it was leading, and it can be
severely disappointing when everything goes awry. And I've I've heard
(39:16):
many tales of people's honeymoons being ruined because they didn't
know what was going to happen, to the point that
I even heard one person that it was so painful
that she cried and they had to stop. Yeah, and that,
I mean that is a similar conversation to what we
were talking about with the orgasms, where we've made it
into this huge, huge thing and it really shouldn't be
(39:37):
like if you wanted to be special and all that.
That's like, that's great, but yeah, I remember once I
think it was you know, college, and me and my
like really close group of um women, female friends. We
we talked about like so sex overrated, like yeah, yeah,
(40:00):
yeah yeah. And that's kind of where that lie comes in,
that women can't orgasm or or shouldn't enjoy sex. It's
not supposed to be for us, for us, you know
that men's perspective. And again, that type of line and
that kind of misconception is really dangerous too and really sad.
It's so sad when it can be a beautiful thing,
(40:20):
which also yes, leads to a complete misunderstanding of sex
in general. The terms technical virgin and partial version are
often floated around because the lack of sexual education when
it's abstinence only that we kind of ignore everything, so
everything is out of bounds, but nothing is talked about.
So of course girls are very confused about oral sex
(40:43):
and who can do what, and then it becoming dirty
and what becomes dirty and what becomes okay, what becomes taboo?
What's sinful beyond just having pretty mantal sex, and no
one talks about the ins and nows of sexual contact
or interaction at all, and paints everything as immoral. Like
I said, it's like it's just like all taboo and
all hush hush, And so therefore there's a lot of
(41:03):
things that you don't understand, which is not always bad,
but at the same time, to be lied to and
be taking advantage of happens a lot, a lot, which
allows for misleading information such as being able to get
pregnant and hot tubs that float around I believe different minute,
or that you can stop pregnancies by drinking bleach, which
(41:24):
was yeah, which actually done. Apparently there was a couple
of cases in Florida where teenagers got sick and you're like,
oh no, don't do that or that again. By defining
sex in such a headonormative manner ignores the queer community
completely again and others them and shames them in general
and brings even more confusion, and so more disinformation comes out,
(41:45):
and it just becomes a whole festival of disinformation. Yeah,
And I remember, like you see that in instances a
couple of years ago, when there was that story that
made headlines that a lot of young girls were being
pressured into oral because they were being told, it's not sex,
so we can have it and then you won't be dirty,
(42:05):
and you won't you know, lost your virginity and you know,
those those can be confusing lines across, but they were basically, yeah,
being pressured into something based on this purity thing and
based on the boys wanted to have some type of sex, right,
some type of sexual contact. It's everything but right, But yeah,
(42:26):
it is, And it is sad because you could the
conversation so that you can also get sdis this way,
and people are not talking about it, People are not
understanding it. It's it's seriously dangerous on a health level
when you look like again, spread this of information as
well as fins. Things like you know, accidental pregnancies are
happening because they're not talking about how they can get
pregnant or how it actually works and what they need
(42:48):
to do. And again, if they're not talking about it
at all, you're not gonna be prepared. So having a
condom is not going to be a thing. Knowing how
to use a condom is not going to be a thing, right,
which is all very sad, it is. It is indeed, Yeah,
I believe I've even seen God I'm trying. I can't
remember it exactly, but I remember there was this idea
(43:09):
that women could like stop sperm like by clenching so
it wouldn't go in far enough right too. There's also
lunar cycles that people base it on. M h yep.
I have a friend who did that on her honeymoon.
They only had sex at one time. Triplets. Yeah, so
(43:33):
a friend of a friend kept bluing that and was
surprised when he had the sixth baby. She's so clearly,
there are so many other things that we could cover.
We We've been talking about them on and off air
on your topics, and some we could absolutely go more
(43:53):
in depth on. Yeah. Yeah, there's nothing wrong at all
with waiting until you are comfortable to have sex, but
we can't ignore the trauma and overall damage these types
of myths can cause. Right. Um. For myself again, like
I've been saying, I think I've struggled, and you can
tell there's a lot of things that I'm a little
upset about, little angry about because I was inundated in
(44:16):
this culture as well. Again my choice. It was like
I pushed myself into this because this is what I needed.
I think at the time, but I'm now understanding, Wow,
I'm having a hard time on learning some of these
concepts even though I very well understand, like this is bad,
and then coming back to realize this is a strategy
that was used politically to motivate young women to understand, Hey,
(44:38):
you need be under the authority of men. And yeah,
I struggled, and I still struggled with the idea that
sex can quite love at all. Again, my own trauma,
my own ordeal as a child, really had a lot
to do with it. So absinence was actually easy for me.
I did not have sex until in my mid twenties,
but for me in high school because I was afraid
of men and intimacy, partially because of my own ethnicity,
(45:02):
once again being another I wasn't pure, And to begin
with again, my childhood experience as an orphan and things
that I I went through as an orphan um defined me
and UH as something that was no longer usable or
as valuable, and the culture of purity made me think
it was because I was already defined that it was
too late, And of course I clung to that faith
throughout some of the darkest time for me, and it
(45:23):
helped it pull me out in that forgiveness and being
able to come into but there's something else bigger than me,
and it's acting. That's beautiful and for people who truly
understands that, it allows that to be to make them
a better person, wonderful but like, but that also meant
intimacy or just having a boyfriend meant that I was owned,
that there was an ownership of me, and for me,
(45:44):
it was easier to understand that because that's what I
was taught and that's what I was understanding, and it
felt it made sense because that's already something that I've
been cultivated to feel like I've already been that way.
Literally was bought from Korea to the U s BO
me and it went through a lot of things, and
even when I came here, I was shown my worth
(46:05):
as a sexual being and being at ten and eleven
years old eighth so all of those things really did
prepare me to be the perfect vessel under this p
purity culture because I wanted to be clean because of course,
that type of trauma teaches you that you're not clean,
and I think that's part of this misconception why it
(46:26):
can be dangerous and I'm I've made it out, I
have had therapy, I still had need their panting medication.
I have to do all the things because it's not
going to be cleansed from me. Essentially, I guess the
best way because it's always always gonna be a part
of my history. But I think that's part of things,
like we have to really recognize it for what it
is and why these myths are dangerous and perpetuating it
(46:47):
in such a manner, especially when you're self serving for
an agenda. Why we need to talk about it and
dig a little deeper onto it again. That book that
I was telling you about, The Purity met But Jessica Valenti,
she has some really great takes in there, and we
probably should visit it as a book club, even though
(47:08):
I'm like, no, I don't know I can do this anymore.
But yeah, I feel like, and you know, I've talked
about this before, like that that feeling it attaches, and
when you start really going down that rabbit hole, it
feels dark, even though it doesn't have to be. Yeah, well,
and so much of what we're talking about here is
political and patriarchal, and we're teaching it from such a
(47:31):
young age. And I will say as we wrap this up,
like it's really nobody's business, because I know for me,
when like you be playing never vi ever and people
be like, have you lost your virginity? And I lost
it in a very traumatic sexual assault, and I would
(47:51):
I would literally freeze and not know what to do right,
And that turned into I know I've said before, there
were these rumors I was like a slut. It was
because people thought like I got into some badious and stuff,
which is not even like that's incorrect assumption as well,
but like that I anyway, like so that question can
(48:13):
be very traumatic, and my my therapist said some people
reframe it as like a separate issue entirely, but like
even the idea that this virginity has that much meaning
that you're doing that. So it is unfortunate and and
like one of the periods of abuse in my life,
(48:34):
I went to I didn't know what like dating was.
I didn't like this guy's telling me he's my boyfriend.
I'm like, I don't know, I guess maybe this is
how it is, and this is maybe how sexist because
I didn't have any education and I was young. So
it's really sad because there's all of these like things
(48:57):
that are coming together to create a very unhealthy, dangerous
system and society for for a lot of us. But
here we're talking about like young girls and setting them
up to take the blame for it. Right, So yeah,
there is a lot back. Yeah. We came in saying,
(49:19):
oh yeah, it's gonna be a big one. And then
I came and saying, okay, this might be a two parter,
and it was. It was. And if there's anything listeners
that you want us to unpack in more detail, there
was certainly plenty. Please let us know our emails, stuff
DiDia mom stuff at iHeart mea dot com. You can
(49:40):
find us on Instagram and Stuff I've Never Told You
are on Twitter at monst Off Podcast. Thanks as always
start a super producer, Christina, thank you, and thanks to
you for listening Stuff I've Never Told You. The production
of iHeart Radio for more podcast from my Heart Radio
is the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Stuff Mom Never Told You News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Samantha McVey
Popular Podcasts
United States of Kennedy
United States of Kennedy is a podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week, hosts Lyra Smith and George Civeris go into one aspect of the Kennedy story.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com