Random Experiences Of Former Participants In 'Purity Culture' (16 items)

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  (#1) This Woman Learned To Be Ashamed Of Her Body

  From Redditor /u/lunazeus:

  Purity culture destroyed my self-esteem because older people in church told me I couldn't wear tank tops and shorts like my friends because I had [a chest] and curves at 11. "It might cause your Christian brothers to stumble." Well, maybe creepy Mr. Mike, the usher, shouldn't be [fantasizing about] an 11-year-old girl. But no, it was my fault. I got in trouble so many times for the clothes I wore innocently because I wanted to be like my friends who just happened to not be developing the same way I was.

  I was still a child. There were always extra rules for me. We all had to wear one-piece bathing suits to church camp, but I was told to put a t-shirt on, too. So most of the time, I just didn't swim. What kid wants to swim in a t-shirt?

  I hid my body behind oversized clothes and didn't dress cute or enjoy fashion for years because I didn't want to be a stumbling block. I'm lucky that I wised up and got out of it so my self-esteem and confidence could be on the mend, but I look back at my teenage and childhood self, and I feel terrible because of the way adults made me feel ashamed of my body. If I have a daughter, I will never expose her to that. It nearly destroyed me.
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  (#2) Someone Taught Them That Women Don't Enjoy Intercourse

  From Redditor /u/curse-the-wind:

  Purity culture makes women feel broken and guilty for having a sex drive rather than viewing [it] as a distasteful duty that must be fulfilled for her husband.

  I was taught women just didn't enjoy [intercourse] like men. It was something to endure for the sake of men. Imagine my confusion when I discovered I really f*cking liked it.
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  (#3) Someone Told Her That Lost Virginity Scars Women Forever

  From Redditor /u/BrandeP:

  It is also something men can move on from, but women will always be "no longer a virgin." I was always told that God would forgive me, but I wouldn't have that "special gift" to give. Where I was from, I think everyone was more blunt about the double standard. There was never really an expectation that your husband would be a virgin, but it would be catastrophic to a woman's future choices in a potential mate. It seemed to me that a man's role was breadwinner, so as long as he worked and made a decent living, he was golden.

  If he goofed off until he was 25, he could turn his life around and still make a great husband. A woman's primary role was [purity]. It didn't matter if she was educated, talented, or anything else, if she had [relations] before marriage then she couldn't come back from that. She can't un-ring that bell.
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  (#4) Hugging Was A Sin At This Church

  From Redditor /u/DashSyri:

  At my church growing up, it was sinful to just be checking someone else out. Christian side-hugs was a must. One paster caught me hugging one of my co-workers who I ran into in my early 20s. He made the off-handed comment, calling them boob hug, and warned me I was in danger. Dating in high school was forbidden unless you were courting someone. Which [led] a friend that I grew up with proposing to his high school crush so they could just date.

  I took my prom date to church and was told, "Don’t trade your destiny for [pleasure]." The ministry during my adult years encouraged that you shouldn't even kiss before marriage. I lived with guilt and shame for years and felt that I had screwed my entire life up for making out with a girl in my early 20s.

  This madness got even crazier when a family, who was housing an engaged bible college student, got their 15-year-old daughter pregnant - which is below the age of consent in the state I was in. Her family sent her out of state during her pregnancy and then she had to give up her child for adoption. When she came back I heard people claiming that she seduced him rather than calling him a [predator].

  Then the biggest pain and regret I have was when I did have [relations] for the first time in my mid 20s with my girlfriend - we both lived with other church members. She confessed to her roommate... and she demanded that we both confess to the pastor or [her roommate] would rat us out. The pastor told us that we had to get married, but we needed to have accountability partners so it doesn't happen again, and if it does we would be kicked out of the church. I still look back at this [and] think of how ridiculous it is.
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  (#5) One Woman Went Into Anaphylactic Shock During Intercourse

  From a person who spoke with Linda Kay Klein, author of Pure: Inside the Evangelical Movement That Shamed a Generation of Young Women and How I Broke Free: 

  And then, I distinctly remember him saying, "Wait, there is... What's on your back?" I reached around and it felt like an enormous mosquito bite the size of your palm. And then I looked and they were on my arms, like this [in real-time, the speaker shows Klein the size of the welts by taking half of a large orange peel and placing it over herself]. And I am watching them rise on my stomach, on my breasts, like a horror movie. And then my coughing - I was struggling to breath, to catch air...

  Not one person can make sense of what happened. The most anyone can tell me is that I might have a mild version of some kind of allergy - maybe to cat fur on his bed or some kind of lubricant on the condom. But I mean, these are really stretches. Some people I've told the story to have suspected the photojournalist tried to roofie me, and it went wrong. But I did not have any food or drink with him that day. All of it remains a perfect jet-black mystery.
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  (#6) Some Women Base Their Identities On Being A Virgin

  From Redditor /u/CttCJim:

  Purity culture is women basing their entire identities around their virginity, so once it's gone, be it by premarital sex, r*pe, or married honeymoon copulating, the woman slowly realizes she has nothing left to offer the world but the drudgery of child-rearing.
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  (#7) Purity Culture Affected Her Into Her Adult Years

  From Linda Kay Klein, author of Pure: Inside the Evangelical Movement That Shamed a Generation of Young Women and How I Broke Free:

  Based on our nightmares, panic attacks, and paranoia, one might think that my childhood friends and I had been to war, and in fact, we had. We went to war with ourselves, our own bodies, and our own sexual natures, all under the strict commandment of the church.
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  (#8) This Woman Based Her Worth In Her Marriage On Sex

  From Redditor /u/gasoleen:

  My non-Christian husband had past partners; I didn't. Literally from day one of our honeymoon, I was depressed because I felt like I would never measure up to more experienced girls he'd been with. Imagine quietly crying yourself to sleep most nights of your honeymoon because: a) you can't get your stupid recently de-virginized body to do what you think his past girlfriends did (i.e., what p*rn stars do); and b) you have to hide your sorrow from your husband because you feel like exposing him to this insecurity would make you seem even less sexy compared to his past partners.

  Bonus: c) If/when you go through a dry spell in your marriage, you immediately assume he's no longer attracted to you because he wishes you looked like his past partners, who will forever remain in their late-teens and 20s in his memories. And you don't tell him this, again, because you're afraid admitting the insecurity will make you even less [libidinous].
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  (#9) Shame Over A Situation She Couldn't Control Drove Her To Make Dangerous Decisions

  From Redditor /u/hufflepuffinthebuff: 

  Purity culture is what made me feel worthless and ashamed after being r*ped. It's what made me jump into a subsequent horrible and risky relationship because if I'm already going to be seen as used-up and worthless, I might as well try to enjoy [it] and have some fun on my own terms. Any guy that would still marry a non-virgin probably wouldn't care if it was one guy vs. two, right?
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  (#10) She Learned To Rationalize Abuse

  From Becca Andrews, writing for Mother Jones:

  As we laughed at our foolish former selves, I retold the rest of the story of that day at the boy's apartment - how, after I composed myself, roused him, and got dressed, his roommates came home and knocked on the door to see if he wanted to go to dinner. "Now, you won't believe this one," I said. He literally asked me to hide under his bed, wait five minutes, and sneak out after they all left, and "don't forget to lock the door behind you." Then I delivered the punchline - "and I did it!" - and waited for the laughter. My friends were silent...

  This exchange took place not long after the #MeToo stories had begun to circulate, and it was an early hint that I had been working to rationalize - and minimize - what had happened to me.
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  (#11) One Woman Worried That She Would Ruin Her Life With Sex

  From Rebecca Renner, writing for the Chicago Tribune:

  At age 19, I had never had a boyfriend. I was afraid of being intimate. Evangelical purity culture had convinced me that if I did choose to have [relations] outside of marriage, I would ruin any chance I had at a life. I thought the Christian sorority I joined would understand, but because so many of the members measured their value by the men in their lives, I felt utterly alone.
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  (#12) There Are Possible Physical Side Effects

  From Linda Kay Klein, author of Pure: Inside the Evangelical Movement That Shamed a Generation of Young Women and How I Broke Free:

  Some females experience what is called vaginismus - an involuntary physical tightening of the v*gina that makes sex painful and sometimes even impossible. According to therapist and obstetrician/gynecologist interviews by The Sydney Morning Herald, vaginismus is "more common among women who are saving themselves for marriage" and "women, who due to religious or cultural reasons, have developed an overriding fear of [intercourse]."
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  (#13) The Dating Stakes Are High

  From Becca Andrews, written for Mother Jones:

  The stakes are high in purity culture. Every slip-up is a strike against any hope of a successful marriage. My body was not my own, not really. It belonged to God and to some featureless specter of a future husband. My Cru [a national campus ministry] mentor, the woman "disciplining" me and a few other newbies, made it clear that if we failed in finding a godly husband, we should simply "date Jesus." On the organization's website, meanwhile, an unnamed blogger declared that "the core need of a woman is to be wanted and pursued, as opposed to men, whose core need is for respect." 
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  (#14) An Ex-Pastor Believes Purity Culture Harms Marriage

  From Redditor /u/rayhartsfield:

  Purity culture is a mindset that encourages married couples to be insecure about [intimate] experiences their partner had before they even met. I've heard youth pastors teach students that sleeping with someone is like cheating on your future spouse.

  Few marriages can survive the crushing weight of infidelity from day one. Purity culture harms marriage.
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  (#15) This Church Taught That Premarital Sex Haunts You Even After You Are Happily Married With Kids

  From Redditor /u/JarethOfHouseGoblin:

  The Christian group I was part of a few years ago had a sermon on [intimate] immorality. The speaker that night was a student leader. He did the Christian dude-bro humble-brag thing of admitting to taking a former girlfriend to the boneyard, but being totally remorseful about it, of course. For Jesus. Then telling us that his former girlfriend is now married with kids, and she'll "have to carry that with her for the rest of her life."

  Had I not already been in the [de-conversion] process, that would have flipped the "this is bullsh*t" switch in my brain. Along with the fact that, after the sermon, we had to read the anonymous postings about the various acts of immorality committed by the organization members. They were taped to the walls and we had to walk by to read them like we were going through the world's sh*ttiest haunted house. It was mind-bending what people thought was worthy of an anonymous confession. I wish I did know who they were so I could tell them that they're just people and are not deeply broken.
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  (#16) One Former Purity Culture Follower Burned Her Membership Card

  From WordPress blogger A Spirit Unchained:

  I finally arrived at my conclusion that remaining a virgin until marriage was not a God-given mandate. After well over a decade of wholeheartedly embracing purity culture, I took a good, hard look at it and chose to walk away. I burned my True Love Waits card a few months later as a symbol of the fact that I no longer believed in or followed purity culture. 

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