My Ex and My Future Wife
My Ex and My Future Wife
MXMFW 5: Purity Culture Part 2
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Last week we learned about the history of purity culture, and this week Theo, Maggie, and Bridget dive in and discuss how Purity Culture effects people today. They discuss how Purity Culture leads to internalized sexual shame, how it promotes rape, rape culture, and child abuse, and they also discuss how unsuccessful abstinence-only sex education really is.
CW/TW: This episode contains discussions of sexual abuse, rape, rape culture, child abuse, misogyny, sexual shame, and racism
**Thank you to Tiktoker Rachel Cain (@iblamebill) for the metaphor about the vertical vs. horizontal view of sin
**Peggy Reeves Sandy is the researcher mentioned who researched the characteristics of rape prone cultures
Episode Transcript Available here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/11vsX6TPwQwaG5PYfLibPOTgSV_e1IHS6/view?usp=sharing
Sources for this episode
“Rape-Prone Versus Rape-Free Campus Cultures” by Peggy Reeves Sandy
Rachel Cain, @iblamebill on TikTok
“I Have the Power in My Body to Make People Sin': The Trauma of Purity Culture and the Concept of 'Body Theodicy” by Katie Cross in Feminist Trauma Theologies: Body, Scripture & Church in Critical Perspective.
“Daddy’s Little Girls” by Breanne Fahs
“Producing High Priests and Princesses: The Father-Daughter Relationship in the Christian Sexual Purity Movement” by Elizabeth Gish
“‘ARE YOU A ‘TRASHABLE’ STYROFOAM CUP?’: Harm and Damage Rhetoric in the Contemporary American Sexual Purity Movement” by Elizabeth Gish
“Suffer the Children: National Crisis, Affective Collectivity, and the Sexualized Child” by Susan Knabe
Developing a measure of Purity culture: Sexual messages in evangelical Christian culture, an unpublished doctoral dissertation by Amanda Ortiz
“Broken Promises: Abstinence Pledging and Sexual and Reproductive Health” by Anthony Paik, Kenneth J Sanchagrin, and Karen Heimer
“What is the Prosperity Gospel” by Dr. Anderew Spencer
The Impact of Patriarchal Religions on the Creation of Oppressive Cultures of Female Purity and the Contribution to Rape Culture, and unpublished doctoral dissertation by Haley Stepp
The purity myth: How America's obsession with virginity is hurting young women by Jessica Valenti
Theo (singing): In the beginning God made three lesbians who liked to talk, and they loved each other, and they loved God, but they have a few questions, and they think you might have a few questions too about religion, gay stuff, and life, so come join me, my ex, and my future wife.
Maggie: Welcome to my Ex and my future wife, I’m Maggie
Bridget: I’m Bridget, I’m the ex
Theo: and I’m Theo I’m the future wife
M: Today we are doing part two of Evangelical Purity Culture
(General groaning)
B: Oh Boy
T: Everyone’s favorite topic that’s so fun to talk about
M: So fun to talk about, if you haven’t listened to our episode on the history of Evangelical Purity Culture, go listen to it, it helps set up what we are gonna talk about today, but you could also probably just listen to this and be fine to be perfectly honest.
B: You don’t need to know about the history if you don’t want to hear about a lot of racism, but you can.
T: We’re probably going to reference it a lot, so like you should, also it’s interesting as much as it is horrifying.
M: Really quick, I would like to dedicate this episode to the paramedic that flirted with me while my coworker was going low
B: Yes
M: Now to talk about some misogyny and racism, are we ready?
B: Yes
T: Always
M: Really quick purity culture content warning, this is a hard topic, we’ll talk about sexual abuse, rape, rape culture, child abuse, misogyny, lots of not good things
B: Probably racism again
M: Probably racism again, yeah.
Okay, so to recap, what is evangelical purity culture? It’s kind of like naming a really wide trend, so it’s hard to exactly define, the most basic definition that the researcher Katie Cross came up with that I really like, is that the central tenants of purity culture include, but are not limited to, restriction of all sexual activity to heterosexual marriage, an emphasis on modesty and sexual purity, and abstinence only education. If you grew up in the United States specifically, like, white evangelical communities, you probably know what purity culture is whether or not you can name it. It’s very very—as you will see from our last episode—its deeply entrenched in United States History and Culture. And, like we also said in the past episode, in the Bible/Torah there is
(laughter)
B: The what now??
M: The Bible/Torah
T: The books
M: The books
B: Those big books
M: The big ol’ books
T: Those big important books
M: There is talk about what it means to be clean and pure vs unclean and impure and sex is something--
T: Horrible
(laughter)
T: And not allowed
M: Not allowed, unless you are married, unless you are wed
T: Unless you’re straight married
M: Gotta get straight married
B: Well, you can’t be gay married and Christian, so
M: It’s true
T: Right I forgot
M: So, like, sex is something that could alter your status
B: You mean like it will make you really popular
T: Yes
M: No, it will not! That’s a lie!
T: From experience, it does
M: you know the ads about how cigarettes won’t actually make you popular, those anti-cigarette ads, think of that, but like sex.
T: Have you seen how big my polycule chart is?
B: Bro have you seen how popular people get when they smoke cigarettes?
T: (laughs)
M: Liberal lies y’all, liberal lies. Anyways.
So, from the kind of understanding that sex has like significant religious weight, people came up with something they like to call the Traditional Christian Sexual Ethic
T: That sounds hot as fuck.
M: the Traditional Christian Sexual Ethic?
T: Yeah, it sounds really hot
M: That phrase is like actually really triggering for me, so this is like, really fun
T: I know I bet
M: You love to see it
B: God
M: And that’s the idea that sex can only be had within the bond of marriage
B: What’s going on, like otherwise, if you think you’re having sex outside of the bonds of marriage, surprise that’s not sex
M: That is sex, but it’s bad sex
B: okay
T: illegal sex
M: If you’re like “I hold to the Traditional Christian Sexual Ethic”, if someone says that, they mean that they think sex should only be happen between two straight people who are married, that’s that belief.
T: Does it have to be only two?
M: Yes
T: Okay
M: Sorry no loopholes here guys.
T: I just thought I should clarify, I wasn’t sure.
M: That’s a good clarification, and the traditional sexual ethic is kind of, in an even broader community, that sex is good and holy, but that goodness of sex can be perverted, so it should be treated with care, and the way to treat sex with care is to only have sex if you are married. Other people think you should only have sex when you are in a covenant relationship, that’s a little more vague, vaguer, if you will.
(laughter)
M: That’s like, if you’re in a committed relationship then it’s okay to have sex
B: But you’re on thin ice
M: Yeah
M: There’s a lot of, yeah, and I think we could talk about how that is frustrating in the biblicality of that is like, not exactly clear, however, purity culture gets even worse than that.
B: Oh No
T: Thank God, I was worried it wasn’t bad enough
M: I know, right. I think we will talk about this Traditional Christian Sexual Ethic in the future, but that’s like not what this episode is about, and I want to make that clear. Because I think we should talk about the Traditional Christian Sexual Ethic, but it doesn’t necessarily, like, cause the pain that purity cultre does. It can, but Purity Culture, is like its own little beast.
B: Purity Culture is a much wider thing
M: Yes
B: It encompasses a lot more
M: Yes, so basically, Purity Culture takes the Traditional Christian Sexual Ethic and sprinkles in sexist assumptions about men and women and stirs and comes up with this misogyny-ridden culture that’s just like waiting for abuse to happen within it, and that’s the best way I know how to describe evangelical purity culture. There’s basically the atmosphere of fear, punishment, and shame around sex, and they set up this framework where women are the sexual gatekeepers of the relationship, so men want sex, and women say no, and that’s the dynamic.
T: Which feels quite bad (laughs)
M: Yeah
T: So, kind of a
M: kind of a
T: Gatekeeping girl boss type situation?
M: Yeah, a gatekeeping girl boss type situation, I couldn’t have said it better myself
T: Thank you
B: So, kind of the idea is like women can’t desire sex or they’re wrong, and men, like, can’t resist sex
M: yes
B: But they have to want it
M: Yes
T: so, really bad in so many directions
B: One of those beautiful, wonderful situations where it’s actually just bad for everyone.
T: Yeah, it like enables, like sexual abuse towards women and sexual abuse towards men, which is crazy!
M: Yes, purity culture effects both men and women, it gives them a really fucked up view of sex too put it lightly and maybe a little punny. But, my research has really focused on how Purity Culture impacts women because of misogyny, the purity culture and woman situation is pretty spicy, but I do recommend the book Beyond Shame by Matthias Roberts to learn more about how purity culture impacts men. I also feel more comfortable talking about how purity culture impacts women, as like a woman-adjacent woman.
B: And you can speak from more experience, and I can imagine you’ve spoken to more people who’ve had those experiences
M: Yeah, 100%. So, how does Purity Culture disproportionately harm women? Three ways!
T: Only three?
M: Well, there’s like three--
B: Broad categories?
M: Categories. It promotes internalized sexual shame, should I sing all of these?
T: (laughs)
B: Oh my God
M (singing): It enables rape culture
T: okay you have to stop now
M (still singing): including marital rape, and child abuse.
B: Wow, this is coping.
T: Yeah, this is coping
M (singing) and it increases pregnancy and STD rates among high school students
B: And I imagine probably college students too
M (singing): and probably college students too, so
T: And probably everyone.
M: A lot of people are getting pregnant
B: Well, probably like STD rates among like, even people within marriages and blah blah blah
T: That’s what I meant but I did not say it
M: So, considering those three topics, rape culture, internalized sexual shame, and abstinence only sex education, is there anywhere you guys wanna jump in first, or?
B: I mean, I’ve learned that shame is always a good place to start.
M: Let’s talk about internalized sexual shame
T: Okay
M: Purity Culture equates women’s worth with their virginity, they are full of worth if they are full virgin, basically, so
T: Full of virgin?
M: Full of virgin. I was like, trying, if they are virgins, they are worth, they have worth, full of virginity
B: brimming with virginity
M: I don’t know if you guys have seen it, a lot of people who grew up, correct that, a lot of like women-adjacent people who grew up in purity culture, or people who the church perceives to be women, have a story of like, what they were taught they were taught about what happens to their bodies when they have sex outside of marriage
B: Oh, yeah, like in Jane the Virgin
M: Jane the Virgin had a flower, some people did candy, some people did chewed-up bubble gum
B: I’ve heard the bubble gum one. I’ve heard the like, if everyone licks this lollipop one
M: Yeah, if everyone licks this lollipop, do you still want to lick it?
T: I think people don’t know about what I want from a lollipop.
B: You want to increase your chance of oral herpes to the highest possible chance
M: Basically, messages that premarital sex will make you worthless and used, and women are also taught that their bodies are inherently sinful and will cause their brothers to stumble. Have any oof you
B: You’re BROTHER??
M: Their brother to stumble, their brother in Christ. Oh, but there’s like a lot of conversation of “should you really wear short shorts in your house around your dad”.
B: God.
M: Have you guys heard about how men are visual creatures?
B: No
T: No, what’s that all about?
M: It’s where men see shoulder, boner, basically
T: I mean that is true, but that’s not my problem
B: What’s with the shoulder specifically?
M: Because its’ so close to the collarbone, which is SO CLOSE to a titty, so close to a titty
T: Once you get to the collarbone, you’re just hurdling towards titty
M: Hurdling towards titty and after titty comes pussy
T: directly nothing in-between them
B: There’s nothing, the pussy is just in-between the titties
T: You thought you knew about the torso, you were wrong
M: No
B: You were a fool to think you knew about torso
(laughter)
M: Yeah, so not only do they have shame about sex, they have shame about their bodies, because they’re responsible for how men view them, which makes sense.
B: So they being women
M: The women. I say “women” in quotes.
T: I think we’ve said it before on this podcast women is always in so many quotation marks, so many quotation marks, when we say men and women, those terms barely mean anything, but they do, a little bit.
M: A lil bit. And they are also taught that any desire for sex is their “struggle” is something they’re “struggling” with and they’re going to overcome it with the help of God, their dad, and their youth pastor.
B: Oh God, you can’t give youth pastors that kind of power
T: Or dads, only God.
M: Only God. So--
T: Yeah, that’s bad
M: Yeah, so something that I found very early on in my research in Purity Culture is that people who survive purity culture and left are now being treated for having PTSD
B: No way
M: So
T: So even if they didn’t endure traumatic abuse
M: Is this traumatic abuse
B: Theo that is traumatic abuse.
T: I guess I meant sexual abuse, sexual assault of some kind, buut no you’re right
M: But no other notable kinds of traumatic abuse, they just grew up in Purity Culture, and now they have PTSD.
T: Seem like
M: Anyways, so that’s what I have to say on internalized sexual shame.
B: I have a question, what does internalized sexual shame look like?
M: It looks like, even when you’re married, being sex is—being sex (laughs)
(All laugh)
T: Being sex
B: Where you going for being sexual?
M: Yeah, being sexual. Like there are people who get married and they have like, they have panic attacks when they try to have sex, they physically cannot have sex, they throw up, even though they are like safe and in the marriage and doing the good Christian thing
B: They spent so much time telling themselves sex is wrong that it can’t feel right.
M: Exactly, 100%
M: And also some people just abandon purity culture, and then they’re like, well I guess I’m having sex, I’m gonna have so much sex with strangers, and not protect myself physically, emotionally, or anything, I’m just gonna sleep with whoever I want, and be very risky with their sex life, and I don’t mean risky in like the Christian “Ohh they’re having risky sex, like they’re having one night stands”, doing harmful and dangerous things to themselves.
B: Yeah, like risky in terms of physical and emotional health
M: Yeah, or like using drugs and alcohol to cope, being afraid to look at your own body and your own body parts, those are some that I can think of off the top of my head, crying during sex, crying after sex, thinking God is going to punish you for having sex
T: Crying about sex while not having sex, crying
B: Oh, that’s big
T: Crying related to sex, just like whenever
B: And you mentioned that it’s not even just about sex necessarily, but it can even just be about your own, just like having a body, or like having, you know, any kind of attraction, you know what I mean, in a way that isn’t even necessary, like, sexual in the moment, did that make sense
M: Yeah, that makes sense, speaking of my paramedic friend, when I saw her and I was like “Oh my gosh she’s like hot” my immediate response was like, that’s bad.
B: Yeah
M: Like, don’t do that, look away, don’t engage in that, that is the devil
B: I love all the ways that Purity Culture also just, I feel like, interacts with internalized homophobia to make you so crazy
M: Oh my gosh, they love to kiss
T: They do love to kiss yeah
B: Yeah, do you wanna talk a little bit more about
T: About how they kiss?
B: about grappling with both internalized purity culture and internalized homophobia
M: I didn’t even grow up in intense purity culture, I just grew up in like
B: Or in the ways they might interact, not even necessarily for you
M: So, heterosexual people in purity culture learn that sex is bad and have PTSD, so how do you think people who wanna have homosexual sex feel in purity culture. IT”S WORSE
T: Probably pretty bad
M: Really pretty bad! Cause at least when you’re straight, your like, one day I’ll get married and I’ll just like fuck my husband, you know?
B: There is a form of sex out there that I’m theoretically allowed to have and allowed to want eventually, if I’m following the right rules
M: So they’re like ohhh I wanna find a husband, or ohhh I’m fantasizing about fucking my husband, like that’s safe, that’s a safe venue for me to express my sexuality. Should that be the only venue for people to express their sexuality, absolutely not. Does this still cause significant trauma, absolutely. But when you have no safe venues to express your sexuality—including masturbate—can’t masturbate, can’t look at anyone lustfully, unless you’re asexual, that shit’s gonna suck, in my professional opinion
B: So, Purity Culture not only forbids sex, but also forbids masturbation
M: Yes usually, yeah.
B: It’s rough out there
M: Cause sexual acts are between a man and a woman in covenat
B: Not someone and themselves
T: Nope can’t be that
M: Nope that’s against the law, that’s what Jesus said
T: Yea, he did say that, he said exactly that
B: Jesus never masturbated I’m sure
T: No, not once.
M: Also, was Jesus married? Anyways
T: Literally no
M: Later episode. Are you guys ready to talk about rape culture
B: Yeah, but I’m still gonna be thinking about sexual shame
T: I’m always thinking about sexual shame
M: They kind of go hand and hand
T: I mean, yeah
B: Boy howdy
M: One of the craziest experiences I’ve ever had in my life, was I was researching Purity culture for my religious studies class, and I was doing work on purity culture and like giving speeches about it and talking to people about it, and completely unrelated in my Feminist Criminology class one day, we were talking about sexual abuse and sexual assault on college campuses, and so a lot of people who study rape and rape culture study on college campuses, especially those with huge party scenes because it’s really bad. So, in my feminist criminology class we were talking about rape culture on college campuses, and I was like, oh we’re a feminist criminology class this makes sense, and a lot of people who study rape culture study it on college campuses, and there is one researcher, I forget her name, I’ll put it in the episode description, she found that there are 6, like, characteristics of a culture that make it a rape prone culture, and college campuses have all of them, and also evangelical purity spaces have all 6 characteristics of a rape-prone environment. Like, they are about as rape prone as college campuses with a huge party culture, so if you think rape is a big issue on college campuses, it’s a big issue in evangelical purity culture.
How is purity culture rape culture? One, it ties women’s morality to their sexual purity, women’s worth is in how “pure” they are, pure in quotes there. The patriarchal stereotypes about relationships promoted by purity culture promote victim blaming, because women are seen as gatekeepers of sex, they’re supposed to resist all of men’s uncontrollable sexual advances, so they like wear modest clothing so they don’t provoke men, they don’t flirt with any men, they are very like, responsible for resisting everything. So, if they are assaulted, it is assumed that they just did not resist hard enough and/or some places will say that if someone is sexually assaulted it is because that is God punishing them for sexual sins of their past.
T: God that is just the worst thing I’ve ever heard
M: So…
B: I don’t have any words, that’s so fucked up
T: I feel like I have to leave this silence pause in the podcast to emphasize how horrifying that is
M: Yeah, and that idea is kind of like where purity culture and the prosperity gospel meet. And prosperity gospel is the idea that good things happen to good people, and bad things happen to bad people
T: They took Karama and they fucked it up
M: They took karma and they added white supremacy
B: Literally what the fuck
M: And so, yeah, if you’re assaulted that’s bad, and bad things only happen to bad people and therefore you must be bad and deserve punishment from God
T: Yeah
M: And, additionally, purity culture equalizes all sexual sin, so within—this is again from another person who I’ll have to put in the description of the video, I wanna cite my sources but I don’t have them.
T: The video? This is a podcast!
M: This is a podcast. Within evangelical purity culture and purity spaces sin is seen as like an offence against G-d, it’s a vertical thing, like you broke G-d’s rule and G-d’s mad at you.
B: What?
M: They don’t see sin as a horizontal thing, as like I harmed that person, that’s a sin, or they harmed me that’s a sin.
B: Or even, like, I made my own personal covenant with G-d and I messed that up, and so by sinning, like the person. I’ve wronged is myself, not G-d
M: Yeah
B: Well I hate that, I don’t think that G-d is just like sitting around being mad at you all the time.
T: No! Like I don’t know where Christians came up with that, but they really like took it and ran with it
M: If you have sex before marriage, you broke God’s rule that’s a sin, if you sexually assault someone, you broke God’s rule, that’s a sin, they’re all kind of sins, we’re all sexually sinning, you looked at pornography and masturbated, like we’re all sexually sinning, like why am I, why am I bad, we all struggle with sexual temptation! Why is sexually assault any worse than any of that
T: Yeah, that’s like really bad
B: Yea sexually assault, can’t think of a single reason why sexually assault and masturbation might be differently bad
T: Can’t think of a single reason
M: Like, are you guys familiar with the Duggars’
T: Yes
B: Yeah
M: Joshua Duggar was recently arrested and convicted for holding like so many files of child pornography, and do you know what his family response was? We think all pornography is bad, so there you see
T: Yeah
M: He watched porn, he broke G-d’s rule, and not like, he abused children, this is child abuse, where is the horizontal my friends, where is it
T: I hate Christians so much, anyways
M: one more part of rape culture is marital rape—purity culture enables marital rape.
T: fucking, yeah
M: because women are seen as having no sexual desire, they are supposed to perform their wifely duties and be constantly available to fulfil their husband’s sexual desires, and because purity culture idolizes sex within a heterosexual marriage, and is like this sex is SO GOOD and SO GODLY, there’s really no concept of sex within a heterosexual marriage being abusive or bad or just even uncomfortable
B: What my mom said to me earlier today, is she said, Christians love to pretend they don’t have choices
T: That’s so interesting, I love that, that’s true
B: and that someone else is like deciding everything for them and that they didn’t have a choice
T: That’s like when they evangelize, and they’re like, I’m just doing what G-d told me to do, like you could not though, you could actually not do that, it’s so bad.
B: Yeah it’s really bad, and then basically the other side of that, right, is that then if you are like a Christian and you’re a victim of abuse from another Christian, you’re supposed to be okay with it and understand
T: Yeah, cause you have to be like everyone sins sometimes
M: That and there’s also, like, forgiveness is a huge part, and that’s a huge part of spiritual abuse, is like, well if you actually love them and love God, you’d forgive them, like yeah they wronged you, but God calls us to forgive
T: I’ll say it I don’t think everyone deserves to be forgiven
B: Forgiveness is a complicated thing, Katie and I for months now have been having an ongoing conversation, sorry this is going to be a little bit of a tangent
M: love a tangent
B: Katie and I have been having an ongoing conversation about forgiveness vs. redemption and some other concepts that are sort of aligned with those concepts
T: Yeah, it is complicated
B: And something that we’ve come to is the idea that you can’t deserve to be forgiven, forgiveness can only come from the person who’s been wronged and it’s about how they feel, so if they wanna forgive you, if they don’t, it’s not actually about whether or not you’ve redeemed yourself at all, it’s about them letting it go and like not wanting to like hold that inside of them anymore, but also t’s like completely fine if you’re someone who’s been wronged who’s never gonna forgive someone else, like that’s 100% your call. Redemption is something that only the person who is wronged can do, like you have to work to redeem yourself, and like you can’t judge for yourself if you’ve redeemed yourself,
T: The other person gets to decide
B: It’s not even necessarily that the other person gets to decide, we almost kind of said that like the larger community gets to decide if you’ve redeemed yourself, but like you can redeem yourself without someone forgiving you, and you can forgive someone who hasn’t redeemed themselves, and they’re two separate things, but just because you’ve been forgiven doesn’t mean you’ve been redeemed and also like redemption takes work and you can’t be redeemed through a single act ever.
T: I agree with all that
B: This is the product of like several
T: It’s a really interesting conversation
B: We’ve been having this conversation forever (laughs)
M: That makes sense, I really like the conclusion you came to, that’s like an awesome conclusion, I’m gonna start using that.
B: That’s like kind of, and then like there’s a whole other layer of reconciliation
T: That’s what I was gonna say, you can forgive someone without wanting to reconcile or having any positive feelings towards them
B: Reconciliation almost always requires both forgiveness and redemption, and that’s where they come together
T: I love that
B: Yeah, anyways, that was my little tangent
T: I liked it, it was good
M: excellent tangent I will say
B: Those are my beliefs about forgiveness, redemption, and reconciliation
T: And I think Christians are wrong about forgiveness
B: I think so, don’t think you should ever feel obligated to forgive someone, true forgiveness cannot come from a sense of obligation, true forgiveness has to come from you being ready to forgive and truly truly feeling it
T: and wanting to not like feel bad about that thing anymore
B: Sorry Maggie, continue
M: Oh, no, I’m just thinking. So that’s kind of what I got on rape culture, any other thoughts before we more to child abuse, sorry I have to sing it cause it’s so terrible
T: Yeah, no I get it
B: I feel like, you know, we touched on the fact that like internalized sexual shame is not only a product of purity culture, but also exists in our society partly because purity culture is so deeply intertwined with the way that like Americans interact with the world and like the way that like white supremacy and evangelical values have permeated our social norms so much of the time, but I feel like rape culture is, I would say even more commonplace, and even more baked into our society than sexual shame is, how much of that do you think is because of purity culture and like how do you think that one, I mean I feel like the answer to the question that I’m like trying to ask is just like misogyny and the subjugation of women is like just really appealing to a lot of people in positions of power, but I don’t know, do you think a lot of that sort of is partially stemming from a root of purity culture
M: I think it could be, what I’m leaning towards right now, in this moment, and I might change tomorrow, is that misogyny is the top of the tree, and from that tree branched out rape culture and like a little subset of rape culture is purity culture, and then rape culture and purity culture once they were kind of established had like a symbiotic relationship, you know what I mean? And started, like, to influence each other over time and didn’t exist in a vacuum, but I think just general misogyny like you said is a pretty good, if we were to detective-it and trace it back, I’d say misogyny is a pretty good guess.
B: Okay
T: Yeah, it does seem that way
B: Yeah, I guess because we have to touch on this just, how does this play in with being gay
T: Yeah
M: What specifically, rape culture and being gay?
B: How do those interact?
M: Oh that’s a good question, I don’t know, how do you guys think being gay and rape culture interact?
T: Well I feel like there’s a lot of room for like specifically talking about women who like other women, there’s a lot of room for, you’re told to you know give sex to men, like allow men sex basically, and like I feel like if you, it’s just so much harder to realize that’s not actually what you want when there’s no opportunity to learn what like, sex you want actually is, so I feel like that enables, like, it enables the gay people being in straight marriages first of all, and then also just like probably from there, you know. Seeing sex as something you owe to men is just never good and especially when you don’t wanna have sex with men, it’s extra bad
M: It’s bonus bad, also in one of my gender studies classes we talked about how rates of sexual abuse among LGBT couples is not that drastically different from the national averages and like from straight couples, so like, queer people don’t fix rape culture, like there’s not like magic gay juice that makes rape culture go away
(laughter)
B: Yeah, I feel like when I think about rape culture, when I think about lesbianism, I obviously am also, I always have to think about the like idea of corrective rape
T: Yeah
B: And how, like that’s this like, you know, that’s kind of a purity thing, of like “oh there’s just something wrong with you and you just need to have sex with men and like allow men to like use your body and then you’ll be cured of your homosexuality”
T: And also, with all sexual sin being equalized
B: People love to like to say like a joke that like isn’t funny
T: With all the sexual sin being equalized thing, it also feel like that just an easy way to have corrective rape, because someone can be like “well, I’m preventing you from sinning further so it’s fine, I’m taking one for the team here”
B: Trying to help you out here, yeah
T: Which is like, that’s horrible
B: I’m committing sexual sin so you don’t have to
M: Conversion therapy vibes for sure
B: That’s the whole thing about corrective rape is that it’s supposed to be effective method of conversion
T: Turns out its actually just rape, so
B: yeah
M: Turns out it’s just harmful
T: Not correcting anything
B: I know
M: Making things worse even
B: This is not a fun one
M: Not a fun episode, is it time to talk about child abuse?
B: yeahhhhh
M: I think we talked a little bit about this yesterday of how Purity Culture is actually related to the JonBenet Ramsey case
B: Oh, we did talk about that in the other episode
M: So that is just generally in the 1990s there was a crisis of childhood innocence in an increasingly sexual and visual world, so like porn was becoming more accessible and like the JonBenet Ramsey case happened, and they were like “oh my gosh, there’s vulnerable, innocent white middle class young female children and they’re just out in the world, and they’re just gonna be abused because of these like evil internal threats of like the man in the bushes
T: Evil external threats
M: Evil external threats, and purity culture said I think some of those threats might actually be internal and I think actually a girl’s own sexuality is also a threat to her, so I think that because we are a patriarchal society, and we are a very patriarchal community within that patriarchal society, and I think because the dad is the protector of the family, the dad’s need to protect the girls from like the outside external threats, but also from their own sexuality
T: Hmm
B: Cause your own sexuality is the number one danger to yourself
M: It’s true
T: Isn’t it funny how if you have a brain you can see how that’s bad.
M: But, Theo, a girl’s father is obviously responsible for protecting her purity until she gets married and then her father gives her purity to her husband
B: As a nice little gift
M: In a gift
B: Wraps it up with a bow. Did you know back in the olden days, I don’t know if this is true, but I think it is because I read it in a factually inaccurate book once
T: Okay
B: If a woman died a virgin, they used to put a white bow around her coffin
T: That’s weird
B: Well, I’m sorry if she died before she was married, in a lot of like wealthy Christian households that was like the thing to do
T: That’s fucked up, fucked up if true
B: To acknowledge that she died with her virginity, I wonder if it is true, okay Maggie keep talking I’m gonna google this
M: Please do. In reality, father-daughter incest is not like, rare, in the United States, it is more common in families with patriarchal characteristics. There has not been exact data on the rates of child sexual abuse within purity culture because that kind of data is like really hard to collect, that’s yeah, that’s really hard to collect. However, girls are encouraged to like date their dates, pledge their sexuality to their dad, their dad can do no wrong, dad is the protector of the family, so I think it’s safe to put two and two together and say that purity culture does not necessarily protect child from child sexual abuse.
T: It actually enables their dad to abuse them
B: Not just their dad, but anyone in their family
M: Yep and even if, like, maybe purity culture doesn’t enable childhood sexual abuse, just going out on a limb, all that messaging is like really triggering for survivors of that kind of sexual abuse, and how are they supposed to get the help they need when everyone around them is like date your dad, your dad’s your protector, ask your dad all your questions about sex, all that kind of stuff.
T: Did you, this is you don’t have to answer this question, was that like an element of the purity culture you experienced at all
M: That was not an element of the purity culture I experienced, this purity culture is like when we get into purity balls, purity rings, purity ceremonies, where people like pledge their purity. I, thank goodness, did not experience that.
T: That’s good. It’s interesting though, when you think about, like again, just normal American like normalized American culture, your dad giving you away at your wedding, that’s just a normal thing to do for like secular people even, it’s fucking weird.
B: It is.
T: Yeah
M: it is.
T: Yeah it’s really uh, so crazy that like you set up this narrative and you’re not immediately like oh that’s gonna make dad’s just able to abuse their daughters, and nobody is considering that, or they don’t care I guess, like hello? Can we please care about people, anyway…?
B: Does it work Maggie?
M: What do you mean?
B: Do people who pledge their purity to their fathers stay virgins til marriage
M: Oh, Bridget what an excellent segue into the adverse effects of abstinence only education. The majority of people who pledge their purity, i.e. pledge to wait to have sex before they are married, break their pledges. I think it’s something like 80% break their pledges or something ridiculous like that, something absolutely bananas.
B: Which is, I think actually the same with like drug pledges
M: Yeah
T: Interesting, yeah
M: That would make sense
B: It’s like very, I don’t even know if the numbers are that high, but I think it’s pretty similar
M: So, purity culture just doesn’t work, and the way they explain this away is that like those people weren’t really Christians, those people weren’t really dedicated to G-d.
B: All 80% of them
T: Damn 80%
M All 80% of them just struggled to hard with sexual sin, didn’t love G-d enough, and those 20% just fucking loved Jesus, so it’s like really the least effective thing ever. So what happens to the 80% who break their purity pledges, most people who do make those pledges, who like sign their name, like have a purity card or a purity ring, or go to purity retreats, they are in places where they have abstinence only sex education and a huge part of abstinence only sex education is teaching misleading information, being like condoms and birth control are actually not that effective
T: And also evil
M: They’re evil, and teaching in schools, teaching that like women don’t want sex and men want sex and teaching those gendered stereotypes
B: So, abstinence only education is all about teaching how birth control is evil
M: Birth control is evil and condoms break, the end, full stop.
T: (laughs)
B: So that’s why you should hit it raw, you should hit it raw because condoms might break and it’s actually safer to not even try
(Laughter)
T: Sorry, that really got me
M: So…
B: I didn’t expect it to get you that much
T: It just was so surprising for you to say that
M: So, when teens who break their purity pledges, are like actually I’m gonna get some, they first of all don’t know how to access contraceptives, and are like, well if I’m gonna have sex, I’m just gonna get pregnant and get 7 STDs and be shamed by my community and G-d, so…
B: Might as well go hard
M: There’s nothing I can do, might as well go hard and hit it raw
(Laughter)
M: Mom you can’t listen to this podcast episode. So teens who grew up at purity culture are at statistically higher rates, like they statistically more likely to get unintentionally pregnant and have STDs at significantly higher rates
B: Nice
T: Which isn’t surprising
M: Which just isn’t shocking when you like hear it with your brain
B: ST—well okay the more up to date terminology is STIs—but STIs are so, so treatable, but if you don’t know anything about them because you were raised with abstinence only education, you won’t get them treated
T: And then they can get really bad
B: Here’s the thing that I think should be the selling point for curriculum to want more education about STIs, which is if you get them and you don’t know about them and you don’t get them treated, they’ll fuck up your fertility and then you can’t have kids, and Christians want people to have kids!
M: Just don’t have sex
T: No
B: It’s not an effective tactic
T: It’s crazy how ineffective that is
B: I mean it works really well for me, but not for anyone else
(Laughter)
M: Here’s how I think purity culture, is I think they just use internalized sexual shame
T: I mean honestly, that is pretty effective
B: I’m saying that works really well for me, but it doesn’t actually, what you have told us statistically, does not prevent teen pregnancy, in fact does the opposite of preventing teen pregnancy
M: It encourages teen pregnancy
T: It increases teen pregnancy
B: Increases teen pregnancy and increases STIs
M: In conclusion, use condoms, they don’t break as much as you think they do. Any closing thoughts on the horrors of purity culture, on this two part-er?
B: Well, do you have any closing thoughts? Anything you feel like we didn’t touc on, anything that you feel like needs to be touched on as our resident expert
M: It’s important to know that a lot of people who are promoting purity culture truly think they are loving G-d and helping others love G-d. And also, it’s really powerful, and it’s really powerful redirect, and even if you didn’t grow up in purity culture, if you are a sexy and like to date religious people, there’s a good chance you could date someone who is a survivor of purity culture, and they may not even know it yet (laughs)
T: They might not
M: They might not
T: It’s crazy
M: They might be like, oh, yeah my parents believe sex should be in marriage, but I’m good to go, let’s do this, and then you’re like lets have sex, and then they’re like AHHH this is bad, so just be patient and there are a lot of things to, like, make fun of Christians for and I do this all the time, but people’s PTSD and internalized sexual shame, like definitely make fun of the structures that create purity culture, but individual victims and promoters of purity culture a lot of them just have some trauma, so please be kind, and be patient, I don’t know, that’s my closing thought
T: And abolish Christianity
M: (laughs) and abolish Christianity
B: Oh my God. Theo do you have any closing thoughts?
T: Me?
B: Yeah
T: I feel like I just said mine
(Laughter)
B: Abolish Christianity, yeah
T: I just think purity culture bad
M: Purity culture bad
T: And I also think America bad
B: I think purity bad, I’m just gonna
T: I think purity bad, being impure is fun and cool
B: The idea of purity to begin with is I think really bad
T: Yeah
M: And racist as fuck
T: It is really racist, your goal should not be to be pure, it should be to be just content
M: It should be to be impure; your goal should be to be impure
T: Yeah
B: Oh my God
T: You should try to be as impure as you possibly can
B: My closing thoughts are like, sexual shame and rape culture and child abuse are not exclusive to purity culture, but boy does purity culture sure make them worse
T: yeah
M: yeah
B: That’s my takeaway
M: Dials it up to an 11
T: and like the insidious Christianity in America’s values
B: Is like what makes those things so prevalent in general
M: To my fellow people who survived purity culture, especially my gay ones, we can do this (laughs)
T: Yeah you go this, it’s okay
M: We got this, it’s gonna be fine, G-ds not mad at you, I pinky promise, I pinky swear. Thank you for listening to my ex and my future wife, I’m Maggie
B: I’m Bridget
T: I’m Theo
M: We’ll see you next week, and in the meantime be gay and question God
T (singing): My ex and my future wife