My Ex and My Future Wife

MXMFW 4: Purity Culture Part 1

Bridget Fox, Maggie Haralson, Theo Unger Season 1 Episode 4

What is Purity Culture? How did it emerge and evolve in the United States? How is it related to American Christianity's history of racism and misogyny? How did it become politically terrifying? How is it related to the Lavender Scare and the unsolved murder of JonBenet Ramsey? 
Join us for this episode of My Ex and My Future Wife as we discuss the history of Evangelical Purity Culture in the United States.

**Episode Correction: Nat Turner—not Nat Taylor—lead the 1831 slave revolt mentioned in this episode.

CW/TW: This episode contains discussions of racism, abusive theology, misogyny, sexual abuse, rape, rape culture, and child abuse 

Sources:
“I Have the Power in My Body to Make People Sin” by Katie Cross, found in the book Feminist Trauma Theologies
“Daddy’s Little Girls: on the perils of chastity clubs, purity balls, and ritualized abstinence” by Breanne Fahs
“Producing High Priests and Princesses: The Father-Daughter Relationship in the Christian Sexual Purity Movement” by Elizabeth Gish
“Suffer the Children: National Crisis, Affective Collectivity, and the Sexualized Child” by Susan Knabe
“It’s like Playing with a Nuclear Bomb” by Sara Moslener
Developing a measure of Purity culture: Sexual messages in evangelical Christian culture by Amanda Ortiz
The Impact of Patriarchal Religions on the Creation of Oppressive Cultures of Female Purity and the Contribution to Rape Culture by Haley Stepp
“‘Some Could Suckle over Their Shoulder’: Male Travelers, Female Bodies” by Jennifer Morgan from Women’s America Refocusing the Past Ninth Edition
Beyond Loving: Intimate Racework in Lesbian, Gay, and Straight Interracial Relationships
by Amy C. Steinbugler
Maggie’s True Crime Obsession