In 2016, I started my holistic sex education certification. As part of the two-year certification, I have learned a lot, but in general, this process is a process of forgetting. Webinar after webinar, seminar after seminar, have shown me how deeply the culture of purity has affected many different aspects of my life: my experience of sex and sex, and of course, how I interact with My body-related gender expression; body image, fitness and food culture; and even the deep-rooted cognitive distortions surrounding work, perfectionism, and value are more or less affected by the heritage of pure culture.

When I think of pure culture, I think of certain aspects of my own childhood growth. I have been a Catholic since I was a child, and I attended religious education courses every Sunday from grade one to grade seven. I did all the sacraments: I was baptized. I went through reconciliation (this is a half-trip for second graders to "confess your sins"-most of them are just things that ordinary nine-year-olds would do, such as making fun of their little brothers and skipping their housework) I did the sacrament and chose my patron saint. Finally, as part of my graduation ceremony, I reaffirmed the vows my parents made for me when I was baptized when I was a child. During all this, I also sang in the church folk band, played on the church softball team, and read Harry Potter under my desk on Sunday morning when I was supposed to be paying attention to my religious education instructor, thus endangering my immortality. soul.

Pure culture—especially the version spread by Catholicism—is an integral part of my childhood and adolescence.

The Catholic flavor of my pure culture—it bears the extra flavor of the Italian-American tradition (by my father’s side) and the intergenerational trauma of growing up as an immigrant daughter (my mother was born and lived in Peru until she was 9 Years) – However, this is far from the only way to experience pure culture. In general, the United States is flooded with it, all the way back to the country’s Puritan colonial origins, and the intersection of white supremacism and evangelical Christianity (and the way Christianity is used to justify the genocide and enslavement of indigenous peoples). ). Depending on your cultural, religious, and ethnic background, and how multiple marginalized identities influence the way you experience the world, pure culture may express itself in very specific ways. Even if you do not believe in religion and did not grow up in any religion, the idea of ​​"separation of church and state" in the United States is a farce at best; no matter who or how you grow up, the culture of purity is likely to have been affected in some way, shape or form. Your sexual orientation, relationships, and self-concept.

In order to understand how we forget and heal from pure culture, we must first define what it is. According to ReckonSouth.com, the culture of purity appeared in the 1990s, partly in response to the AIDS pandemic: "The Purity Movement was born in Protestant Christianity in the 1990s as a response to the AIDS pandemic and a free love movement in the 1960s and 1970s. Purity Culture advocates abstaining from sex before marriage, and discourages dating in some cases. In 1993, the Southern Baptist Convention launched the'True Love Waiting' campaign, using youth conferences, books, and promises of purity to prevent teens from having sex."

When we talked about the culture of purity, this article made a very important point, which is that depending on where you grew up in the United States, you might have some very unique experiences with it. But whether you grew up in an evangelical Christian home or town, or like me, you have lived in one of the freest cities in the world all your life. Pure culture is water to some extent. Cruising in the patriarchy. The concepts of "purity" are everywhere, sometimes they are almost invisible, and go far beyond the realm of sex education. Purity culture is white supremacy and colonialism, and even stretches its fingers to another huge source of shame and harm, food culture.

Although there must be a lot of Catholicism in my childhood, I was fortunate that I never experienced any lesson in passing gum wrappers in the room, symbolizing what would happen to a woman's body if she had sex before marriage. I have been to a public school. Although my sex education is not comprehensive, I at least understand sexually transmitted infections and prevention of pregnancy. When I was in college, I was at least confident enough to advocate the start of birth control-even at my gynecologist (She has been my mother's doctor for many years) After feeling embarrassed and unprofessional, when she started talking, she asked me if I was still "a good girl".

Like many other things, the culture of purity exists within a scope and is affected by many factors: the degree of religious beliefs or traditions of your family, and how conservative the area you live in may be. How isolated your community is, and whether people around you are willing to raise objections. Even things like your relationship with your parents can affect the way you experience pure culture: for example, my father worked as a science teacher in high school for many years, and when my brother and I entered puberty, he gave us a description of the sexual reproduction cycle. Very realistic, but he—and us—has no language to discuss the gender and social dynamics of pure culture.

When I think about the emotional tone of these experiences, I mainly think of guilt, shame, anxiety, and self-awareness. As a therapist, in my opinion, these are some signs of pure culture. According to Evergreen Counseling, here are some other signs of pure culture (in terms of sexual purity/shame and food culture):

Healing from a culture of purity can be a complicated process because it is deeply ingrained-it may take us years to understand the extent to which we have internalized some or all of the above expectations and norms. If you can use it, I certainly recommend that you work with a professional, and maybe someone in the field of sex education-a sex therapist, educator, or coach. Specifically, some people have studied and concentrated the treatment of pure culture in their methods. I also recommend working with people who understand how pure culture connects with racism, white supremacy, and colonialism, and interact with food culture and other ways in which we are disconnected from reification. It is not enough to forget the toxic information that we are taught-our recovery requires us to then use what we know to resist the ways these systems harm us all in different ways.

This is a difficult task and it may take some time to find a sex educator or clinician you are willing to work with. So, at the same time, I suggest you take a look at the five knights of pure culture mentioned above and reflect on how they appeared in your own life. It is helpful to read to understand the various aspects of pure culture and its origins. Some books I recommend are:

In the process of reading, reflect on how you have internalized normative information about sex, love, and what is “good”, “bad” or shameful in your own life. It looks like you are writing a diary, or gathering with like-minded friends, and setting up a learning group to support each other in the process. List your “shoulds”—the rules you follow automatically and without a doubt—and ask yourself whose voice you hear. Is it your mother's voice? Your father's? Teacher's? Is it your voice, from a certain age? For example, what will your adolescent self or your adolescent self tell you about how you should live? What is the feeling behind these rules? When we are very quiet with ourselves and try to practice compassion and non-judgment, even if we most want to change the parts of ourselves, we often find that the driving factor behind them is fear. What is the purpose of following the rules of pure culture to protect you from?

Healing from a pure culture is a journey from shame to happiness. Shame puts us into trouble and fear-we are out of touch with our true desires, because in a way, we decide that this is the proper price to pay for our safety. Security can look like approval, confirmation, "normal" and "adapted". Take stock of the way you are ashamed of the decision. Are you fidgeting? anxious? angry? Numb?

Then ask yourself how you want to feel, and try to imagine some ways you can start moving in that direction. Healing from a pure culture will not happen overnight. Although we may want to jump into the abyss and transform our entire sexual history to become a fully realized and sexually liberated queer idol in our dreams, it is important not to let ourselves compare You are almost ready. The first thing you must do is-maybe for the first time-to establish a sense of security in your body. If your benchmark is "My body is guilty", "My body (and its desires) is out of control (and therefore dangerous)" or "I cannot be trusted to make the right decisions about my body", it will take some time It's time to re-guide these core beliefs. Without a new safety baseline and trust in the body, directly changing your sexual experience may be overwhelming.

Fortunately, there are many ways to be happy. Think about your senses and consider your surroundings. What changes can you make to your physical space to make you more enjoyable? It looks like treating a bunch of flowers you bought from a grocery store, or making sure the lights in your apartment are soothing and pleasant. It may mean burning incense or scented candles and taking a deep breath. This may mean learning how to make a meal that will bring you comfort and warmth, and participating in all the steps of making and enjoying it. It can be as simple as sitting outside, with its toes on the grass and the sun on its face.

Charis of Evergreen Counseling writes that healing from a pure culture means “becoming friends with our bodies and returning to ourselves”. In order to do this, we must learn to trust the wisdom of our bodies-this is not a trivial matter, especially for those of us who have experienced trauma in the past. Our bodies want us to be alive, safe and healthy-and our bodies want us to do so more than those who might persuade us (parents, caregivers, pastors, teachers, etc., all of which are listed in the last point In) above).

Reconnecting your autonomy and initiative means understanding your wishes and celebrating them. This can also be broken down into smaller steps when we learn to distinguish between "should" and our true desires. Even the way each word sounds when I say it feels different in my body—the heaviness of "should" and the feeling of long, almost juicy desire in my mouth. Responsibility is juxtaposed with sweetness and the potential for play. When you locate each word, what do you notice in your body?

Because we are forgetting the pure culture at the same time we are also forgetting the oppressive system, so we are also learning to resist. It is important to do this in the community. Talk to your friends about the culture of purity. Write down affirmations and design systems for mutual checks, making sure to give priority to the ability to actively agree and respect each other to maintain this personal emotional space. When you notice the culture of purity and policing coming out of your mouth, call each other tenderly and sympathetically—whether it's judgments of others or your own self-deprecating criticism.

Healing from a pure culture is ultimately our way of forgetting the oppressive system on an embodied rather than intellectual level. It enables us to find a home in our body again. This is going home; or more precisely, a series of back-to-school activities that we participate in in our lives and learning. It’s okay if you need to learn a lesson multiple times, as long as you continue to learn.

Christina Tesoro is a writer, sex educator, and therapist in New York City. In her spare time, she likes to read tarot cards, lift heavy objects, and walk long distances with her dog. She is determined to learn how to do the splits.

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Wow this is such a good article. Thanks!

Great article, I am very happy to see this conversation taking place on AS. For a book devoted to curing the sexual shame of queer people influenced by pure culture, Matthias Roberts' Beyond Shame is great and very approachable. The other two that I have not read but highly recommend, Jamie Lee Finch’s "You Are Your Own" and Emily Joy Alison’s #ChurchToo, may be worth a look.

Thank you very much this time! This is just the right time, because I have recently returned to fanaticism, and I am shocked by the dominant (or loudest?) discourse surrounding shipping and fantasy that seems to follow my inner spiral of shame for twelve years-my old self.

This this this! I have recently returned to the fan circle, and I have a similar feeling. I hope that the noisiest people will one day also do this job, and unravel all the fear and shame that make them criticize others' harmless expressions so strongly!

Great article, Christina, thank you very much.

Your articles are always great, but I have been thinking about this lately, so thank you very much!

Thank you very much for linking the culture of purity to the white supremacist patriarchy of private patriarchy-putting these personal "wrong" feelings that feel so heavy (and so) in a cultural context is very helpful for moving toward recovery. Thanks also for the great resource recommendation!

Haven't read this article yet, but before I read (want to spend time on it), I must recommend Pure: In the evangelical movement that shamed a generation of young women and how I got rid of Linda Kay Klein (Linda Kay Klein) article. I am currently reading it and it is very good!

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