Several Women Betrayed by Christian "Purity Culture" Are Speaking Out Against It

[NeoGreen]

https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/02/07/several-women-betrayed-by-christian-purity-culture-are-speaking-out-against-it/

Several Women Betrayed by Christian “Purity Culture” Are Speaking Out Against It
By Sarahbeth Caplin, February 7, 2019

While Joshua Harris, author of the infamous pro-abstinence book I Kissed Dating Goodbye, has been on an apology tour of sorts for the harm his advice caused, four women spoke to Cosmopolitan about what it was like to have their churches use this book in place of sex education.

“I started romanticizing the idea of not being physical,” Lyvonne says. “My relationship would be ‘pure’ and perfect. I totally bought into it.”

She and some friends from her gospel choir set about following Harris’s dictates, trying to “keep my legs closed,” she says, so that “God would send me a chocolate man who was 6 foot 3 with a killer smile.” It wasn’t always easy — in the eight years that followed, she had slipups, each ending with a burning rush of shame.

…

That she was a survivor of childhood sexual abuse only intensified her regret. “I felt ashamed of my body and trauma,” she says. “I didn’t know how to reconcile it with my faith.”

That’s just one issue (on top of several) with purity culture: There’s no room for healing for assault survivors. Sex — unwanted or not — essentially tarnishes and stains a person’s soul in ways that other sins do not. The enforcers of purity culture might object and say otherwise, but the proof is in the way they treat sexual transgressions differently than any other behavior they deem sinful.

[bobbieinok]

1. Chris Stroop and Libby Anne have posted many stories of 'purity cult' survivors--see----

See Chris Stroop's blog Notyourmissionfield and Libby Anne's blog lovejoyfeminism at patheos

Both were raised in Fundagelical families. Chris went to super conservative Christian schoools; Libby Anne was home-schooled

Chris started #exvangelical and the recent #exposechristianschools, the latter in response to VP's wife teaching at an anti-LGBT school.

He has a recent post at his blog about how RW is attempting to drown out negative stories of Christisn schools by great praise of such schools.

The pro response seems to be a massive move in the campaign to 'rehabilitate' CovCath

[Act_of_Reparation]

2. These dipshit "cool" pastors are the fucking worst.

[trotsky]

3. Sexuality is probably the most complicated aspect of humanity.

It is wholly unreasonable to expect it to fit into such simplistic boxes, yet religion so often tries. It's all about the control.

[MineralMan]

4. Biology Trumps Theology Every Last Freaking Time

Back in Bronze Age and Iron Age times, marriage happened shortly after puberty. Lifespans were too short to wait to reproduce. It really wasn't until the Industrial Age began that people waited for several years after the onset of puberty to marry. That was a problem, really, since their bodies wanted to get down and get it on, while social pressure tried to block those urges, often using religion as the tool. It never did work, really.

A good number of adolescents simply could not block out their biological imperatives with theological barriers. The drive to reproduce is probably the most powerful biological drive we have. It's essential that we, as mammals, make babies. So, theology, which is purely an intellectual and social phenomenon, simply cannot compete with a couple of kids whose hormones are telling them to get it on together.

And that's that, really. Religion cannot trump biology. It's simply not powerful enough to do that in most cases. Even the preacher's daughter is likely to get together with the nice boy down the street and do what mammals evolved to do - make more mammals.