Then, when all the pain eased, pleasure remained. It was a form of comfort in a chaotic time, a moment to relax when pain was overwhelming, and an escape from grief in those months and the next two years of lawyers, family feuds and estate settlements.Ī happy and healthy sexual relationship was the therapeutic cornerstone of our lives. “How do I love someone who lost their mum? How do I take care of myself?” I sought advice from Mum and her best friend.
Purity culture trauma how to#
I felt too young to know how to support him in his grief, especially in the newness of our relationship, but old enough to realise my incapacity to do so. On my eighteenth birthday, the mother of my boyfriend-of-one-week died. Perspective came on the cusp of adulthood. I knew nothing about sexual health (STIs were for the promiscuous) or about the validity of my queerness (like my G-spot, it didn’t exist). I never learnt about consent (right and wrong sex was to do with marriage) or about healthy relationships (the wedding ceremony would ensure compatibility, respect and affection). While my classmates offered savvy insight about female pleasure, school mostly echoed religious dogma from home and church. My friends would often tell me I was lucky to be a ‘virgin’ because sex would ruin everything, but after they made fun of me for being ‘too innocent,’ I let it slip. I told no one about my sexual escapades for fear she would find out. One Christmas, she banged pots around the kitchen until apologising to my brothers, “Sorry, I had a dream your sister got pregnant.” Mum said if I had sex, she would jail ‘the man’ for statutory rape.
Church needs to stop being so obsessed with my vagina.” Impressed by my casual approach to sex, I ranted about my first time on Tumblr, “There was no pain or blood, I don’t feel different and I’m not guilty, but I’m not exhilarated either. After we bid the newlyweds farewell mid-reception and partied on, I glimpsed her husband draw the curtains at their accommodation across the vineyard estate. It was as mediocre as first times tend to be (in hindsight, this apathy owed to being more sexually and emotionally interested in a female friend). I had sex on my sixteenth birthday with a death-metal-obsessed teenage guy I was secretly dating. Unimpressed by his answer, I noted in my journal later, “God only cares if I am loving … whether I go out for a picnic or fuck my boyfriend. The pastor retorted that Joseph fled the Pharaoh’s wife! I thought, “Isn’t that because of political danger, not because sex is bad?” Perplexed by my indifference, I read the Bible cover-to-cover. Finding inadequate discussion around appearance, sex or marriage, I submitted an anonymous question at youth group asking where I could find the ‘no sex’ rule. Grabbing my wrist, she sneered, “Think of the poor men who might look down when you walk past.”
Meanwhile, the pastor’s wife called me a slut when I wore a singlet on a 40-degree day. My older sister played Harris’ sermons when her unsuspecting school friends came over and stored household items in her ‘hope box’ for when she was a married woman. Selling over a million copies, Harris’ outlined strict codes around sexuality and pushed for ‘purity culture.’ The onus was on women.Įveryone around me loved the book. I grew up in the early 2000s, a time coinciding with the popularity of Joshua Harris’ book I Kissed Dating Goodbye.Īccording to Harris, romantic relationships exist for the intention of marriage, devoid of physical intimacy until the wedding bells ring. Meghan O’Gieblyn writes in her collection of essays Interior States that to be a “former believer is to perpetually return to the scene of the crime.” Image: Malvestida Magazine The parking lot was now empty, and I took a photo.
Purity culture trauma full#
It was empty, dusty, sunny – just as I remembered.Īs we drove past my old church, the full car park – an unwanted flashback of a thousand Sundays- made my stomach turn. Last Christmas Day driving from Melbourne to Adelaide, my partner and I stopped in my country hometown.
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