Purity culture

By 13, I clearly understood: Thinness was next to Godliness, and I could never achieve either without extraordinary means. Jesus loves skinny people.

I understood in no uncertain terms because of purity culture that having sex outside of marriage was the worst thing I could do as a young woman.

It’s time we stop teaching shame and start spending more time fostering healthy sexual identities in young girls.

For me, after growing up in evangelical purity culture, few things have been as healing and empowering as shopping.

Fortunately, when I look back at my childhood, it was mostly happy. I had parents who loved me. I had plenty of friends. I had access to food and shelter and education and more. Yet even with all my privilege, I don't want my daughter to have the same adolescence as me.

I eventually began to accept that truly being a feminist means embracing the idea of “my body, my choice” in all its incarnations. If I truly believe that women have the right to accessible birth control, the right to safe abortions, the right to consent to sex, and the right to make any decision regarding their own body, it also means I should believe women have the right to decide to never, ever have sex. There are two things that made it hard for me to come to that realization: virgin-shaming and purity culture.