Episode 12: Erica Smith – Dropping Out of Purity Culture

Jared  

You’re listening to Faith for Normal People, the only other God-ordained podcast on the internet.

Pete  

I’m Pete Enns.

Jared  

And I’m Jared Byas.

Intro  

Jared  

Welcome everyone! Today on Faith for Normal People, I’m joined by our nerd-in-residence and friend of the podcast, Jennifer Garcia Bashaw. Welcome to the podcast again, Jennifer.

Jennifer  

It is good to be here and I am really excited about this topic today.

Jared  

I was really glad to have you on for this episode in particular as we chat about dropping out of purity culture with our guest Erica Smith.

Jennifer  

Yes, Erica is an award winning sexuality educator and consultant with over 20 years of experience. She’s provided comprehensive sex education and advocacy to young women and LGBTQ youth in Philadelphia’s juvenile justice system. She’s worked in abortion care, and she’s supported HIV positive, and transgender adolescents and their families.

Jared  

Yes. And in 2019, she developed the Purity Culture Dropout program, which helps people learn of all the sex education that they miss growing up, if they grew up in purity culture—I’m guessing, not just purity culture, I’m sure lots of people even outside of that could learn from this program. So it’s sex-ed that’s accurate, queer-inclusive, trauma informed, compassionate, comprehensive. Now, don’t forget to stay tuned after the episode for Quiet Time, during which Pete is going to hop back on into the episode and he and I are going to talk about our own experiences within purity culture, and reflect how our faith has evolved since. Alright, let’s dive into this interview with Erica.

Erica  

Jared  

Well welcome, Erica, to the podcast, it is great to have you!

Erica  

Thank you so much for inviting me!

Jared  

I hope we get into a lot of really good conversation. So let’s jump right into what is purity culture? And where did it come from?

Erica  

So when I answer this question, I usually go back to a definition that Linda Kay Klein included in the introduction to her book “Pure,” if some of you may be familiar with that book, but it’s an incredible kind of overview of the effects that evangelical purity culture has had on a generation of people. And she says that purity culture is present in all major world religions. And that it is a system of gender and sexual control. And so, you can find it in religions other than Christianity. So that’s kind of the broad definition. 

But the definition that we’re probably most familiar with is how, in America, and maybe the 90s and early 2000s, it grew into a movement, and a movement that had a whole industry around it. So, if anyone has ever read, “I Kissed Dating Goodbye,” or taken a True Love Waits promise. Those are some of the components of American purity culture, but it really relies on very strict gender roles and a very big emphasis on protecting the purity of women in particular.

Jennifer  

Hmm. So I’m wondering, so, full disclosure, I was raised in purity culture, as I was raised evangelical, so just so you know that—but maybe not all our listeners are—I’m wondering how you got introduced to purity culture and its effects on the people who are raised in evangelical settings?

Erica  

Yeah, I love this question, because I was not raised in purity culture, I was not raised in a family that was anything other than casually Christian. So, you know, church on Christmas, [Laughs] and I have worked as a sex educator since about 2000. And so I observed from the outside how the religious right had a lot of political power in the United States, and how that political power was used to create policy around sexual health and public health, especially in areas of like abortion and HIV. So, imagine I am a young sex educator, I’m actually working in abortion care, and I know that, you know, I am viewed as an enemy by this force. But I saw as a provider, as a person that did the education and counseling, how damaging it was for the people that came in to seek services to not have the right information about sexuality. And then a little bit later in my work, I was doing HIV related care and prevention for adolescents and we kept losing funding because funding was going to abstinence only programs. And so I watched all this from the outside knowing that not having good sex-ed was very harmful to people. But it wasn’t until about 2018 when I started asking people, “Were you raised in purity culture? What is your experience?” And I began hearing from people who were incredibly eager to have helpful, comprehensive, and holistic sex education, and were very forthcoming in sharing their stories about what not having that had done for them, and so that is kind of what got me to focus specifically on this in the field of sexuality.

Jared  

Well, I was also raised in purity culture, and you mentioned at the very beginning around gender roles and I would say, a lot of this conversation, I probably experienced this purity culture idea way differently, just because of my gender. So I’m curious to hear, what are some of those effects of purity culture? So we talk about it, and there’s sort of already this maybe negative connotation, but could you just say more explicitly what are the effects? How does it affect people’s view on sexuality, sexual performance? What makes it detrimental?

Erica  

Yeah, I’m glad you brought up the gender role stuff, Jared, because you’re right that men experience it differently—it absolutely affects everyone of every gender—but I think that women and LGBTQ people bear a very different burden from purity culture, and those are the majority of the clients I see. And I will say that some of the things that I hear over and over and over range from actual physical difficulty with sex, so folks that have—for a lot of people, difficulty experiencing vaginal penetration, because it is painful, because it is actually impossible. Some folks develop a physical condition like vaginismus, which is like a tightening of the pelvic floor muscles. And this can be brought on by fear and trauma around sexuality, it’s also common in people that are survivors of sexual assault. So that’s like a physical symptom. 

Other things that I hear commonly are fear and avoidance around sex, delaying their first sexual encounter for a very, very long time and now folks are in adulthood, and they feel like it is a burden that they have never dated or had sex. There is a lot of ignorance around bodies, anatomy, physiology, how bodies function. A lot of ignorance around things like sexual health, because there’s a lot of fear mongering in purity culture, like “you are absolutely going to get a sexually transmitted infection.” So there’s a lot of, kind of, cleaning up that misinformation that I do. 

I also hear from people that they are feeling very deep shame around so many things that involve sex, whether it’s masturbation, or just their bodies in general, or maybe having to talk to their children about sex, or wanting to be the partner that initiates sex. I also hear of folks who were just like, “I don’t know what I like, I don’t know what I want, I don’t know how to begin experiencing this, I don’t know how to figure it out, I don’t know how to talk to other people about it.” So it’s kind of like purity culture leaves this black hole of mystery around sexuality, but fills it with fear and paranoia. And from the men who I do work with, I hear that a lot of them feel very worried that they are going to harm someone. Like they are afraid of finding someone attractive, they’re afraid of expressing that, they’re afraid of initiating sex, because they were taught that all of that is very objectifying, and that their sexual urges are something that are just to be feared. So, those are some of the things, and it’s definitely not an exhaustive list.

Jennifer  

So it seems like purity culture affects people in so many different ways physically, emotionally, psychologically. How do you address all those different facets when you work with people who have been raised in this culture?

Erica  

Yeah, so my role is a sex educator, I am a person who has a master’s degree in education specifically in human sexuality. So I’m not a therapist, and I’m not a clinician. So I get right to work, figuring out what the topics are that folks want to know about and what they feel like their gaps in their education are and provide them with a nuanced and complete education on those topics. We also do a lot of deconstruction of values. So, I will ask them like, “You were told to believe this about sex” for example, that monogamy is the only option. “Do you actually believe that? Why do you think that? What might be underneath that belief? Do you feel any differently once you’ve received this information about it?” So there’s a combination of education and, also, really looking into the cultural context around their beliefs about sexuality. 

And I also do refer them to other necessary services that aren’t in my wheelhouse. So for example, if somebody says they experience pain with sex, we will find them a gynecologist or a doctor in their area that I think would be a good fit and I will give them a script on how to talk about that. Or if they’re sharing things with me that make it clear that they do require some kind of trauma therapy, I will work with them to locate a therapist in their area who can address sexuality issues in a very broad way that doesn’t involve like a Christian influence. So that’s a pretty good example of what I do.

Jared  

So, something that keeps coming to mind is this phrase that knowledge is power, this education piece. Because one thing I’m thinking of are a lot of women that I’ve talked to, it’s that they experience some sort of discomfort—and that can be on a spectrum too, you know, I don’t want to- It’s not a minimal thing. Sometimes it’s extreme pain—but some kind of something’s not right, like something doesn’t feel right, something hurts, something is not- I’m not experiencing…you know, it doesn’t feel healthy. But there’s this shame around it, so it’s not like there’s a lot of access to like go and just talk about it or even to admit or acknowledge these things. So do you experience that? And sort of what are ways that we can help? Because, again, I guess what I’m really trying to say is, I feel like this “knowledge is power” is a key idea, and it’s hard to get people to find answers to their questions when they’re discouraged from even asking the questions.

Erica  

Oh, absolutely. And I would say that beyond the scope of Christian purity culture, we live in a society that doesn’t always take women’s pain seriously. So, I have worked with clients who feel they’ve experienced discomfort with sex, pain with sex, they finally work up the courage to speak to a doctor about it, and many times they are dismissed or their pain is downplayed. I have heard stories of women sharing this, you know, with doctors “That hurts when I have sex,” or, you know, “I feel like my partner cannot penetrate me successfully.” And doctors will say things like, “You just need a glass of wine,” or “You just need to loosen up.” So there’s this, not just the shame from the purity culture teachings, but also this, you know, real sense of like, “Oh, it’s just not that big of a deal if a woman isn’t experiencing her sexuality in a positive, pleasurable way.” And that, like, adds a whole other barrier.

Jared  

Well, and to that, I feel like that’s the deep narrative of purity culture, which comes from this very patriarchal theological system that privileges, you know, male pleasure over female pleasure. Can you maybe speak to that? Because I think that’s part of this bigger narrative of maybe why we are more dismissive or don’t take seriously that when women are able to communicate things.

Erica  

Yeah, it’s interesting. You know, there’s, there’s like a new take on purity culture, [Chuckles] which is worthy of talking about where it’s like writers and theologians are like, “Oh, we were a little too strict in the 90s. We do think that pleasure is okay for women, but you have to be married to experience that.” But you know, if we’re talking about the purity culture that most of the people I work with were raised in, you know, people that are in their 30s and 40s, there was never a mention of pleasure for women. And one of the areas that I see that the most in is lessons about masturbation or cautionary tales about masturbation. Young men will learn, you should not masturbate you know, it is very wicked is very sinful. And young women are given silence on that. So, I’ve worked with clients who told me “I didn’t even know that women could masturbate until I was in my 20s. I did not know that I had a clitoris or what a clitoris was until I was in my 20s.” So the focus on men’s pleasure is almost less of a focus and more it’s like we just acknowledge that men can feel pleasure while not acknowledging that women have that ability at all.

Jennifer  

Wow. So I’ll admit, that was me. I was one of those people who did not know that women masturbated…[Laughs]

Erica  

Yeah!

Jennifer  

…until I was in my 20s. And so I mean, I think about that, just the practicality of that, and what are some practices that you would give to people, especially women, to help them work towards a positive and healthy sexuality?

Erica  

That is such a good question and when I think about that task, I always wish that I could just like snap my fingers or wave a magic wand and like, make that relationship flourish for a woman and her sexuality. But it is unfortunately a long game. It is something that requires patience and something that requires, you know, like, action and diligence on the part of the person. So one of the things that I suggest people start with is focusing on pleasure as a concept. What did you learn about pleasure? Not even just sexual pleasure. But were you told that indulging in delicious food was bad? You know, what messages did you get from your family and your community about experiencing things purely for the pleasure of experiencing them? And there’s a lot in that for a lot of people. So then I start suggesting, I want you to think about pleasure and accept the fact that people deserve it for no other reason other than for the sake of pleasure. You don’t have to earn it, you don’t have to feel bad if you partake in it. And then I ask people to start noticing all of the little ways in their lives that they might experience pleasure or seek pleasure that aren’t even necessarily sexuality related. Things like, you know, the feeling of sitting in the sun, or the feeling of—I go back to food, because food is a big one, you know, it’s very, very related to appetites and sex, so just I ask people to really pay attention to pleasure in other ways, and then start to think about sexual pleasure, their relationship to that, and can they access that and begin to not feel as bad or like it is something they need to atone for when they do. So it’s really not an easy answer.

Jennifer  

That attention to pleasure, I think, has been really helpful for me. And so thank you so much for sharing that with our listeners, because I’m hoping that that will also help them as well.

Jared  

Maybe we could take that a step further, because I kinda want to talk about this for a little bit longer. It is related, and I think it’s so good because, you know, the messaging that I received a lot, and I’ve heard a lot in evangelical, fundamentalist evangelical circles is that actually God wants us to suffer, that it’s not always a message—You know, whenever I’m suffering, or I feel pain or discomfort, that’s not a message that things aren’t good. It can actually be…we can be taught to rewire that message to feel the opposite, that suffering is good. It may be actually God’s will for me, because, hey, following after God, a life of following Jesus does bring suffering. And so sometimes, the suffering is the path to- We need to follow the path of suffering, because that’s what leads to God and that’s what leads to right living. And so you’re almost taught this insidious way of not trusting your own body with those messages that suffering is our body’s way of telling us that something’s not right and we’re sort of taught theologically that suffering is actually teaching us that things are right. Can you speak more to that? And this concept of pleasure?

Erica  

Oh, for sure. And I’m really glad you brought that up because, you know, like I said, I wasn’t raised in an evangelical family. So it’s like, always a good reminder for me. I learn so much from the folks I work with. And that is it just, you know, you saying that right, then it’s like, “Oh, that’s right. Like, I have heard that from people.” And it’s so hard to ask someone to kind of make friends with their body and to trust their body and to listen to their body if they were taught those lessons, that suffering is not a big deal and it’s actually good. So that right there, I think that takes deconstruction beyond just wanting a different relationship with your sexuality. That takes some, you know, deconstruction, of like theological teachings that really aren’t in my wheelhouse. But I think a lot of the work I do with people around sexuality leads to them asking larger questions, or they come to me when they’ve already started asking those larger questions about the things they were taught. 

Jared  

Well, in some ways, what I hear you saying is you can’t really decouple those because—and that’s why I appreciated the way you started it—is to talk about sexuality, is to talk about things like pleasure, and that will take us outside the bounds of just sexuality because you can’t… You can’t change your views on sexuality in this larger sense without also changing your views on other things.

Erica  

Yeah, so many other things. Sexuality—I want to highlight that, when people hear that term, typically they think of the act of intercourse. They think about sex as an action that happens between people and it’s like, you know, a person’s body part goes in this other person’s body part and that is sex and that is sexuality. But in reality, to give people education and information around sexuality involves a lot of different topics and the reproductive aspect, like the physical act of sex is just one of them. You also have to talk about things like gender roles, relationships, communication, sexual violence, sensuality, which is the experience of pleasure, the way that our bodies react the fantasies we have. So, there’s so much to think about just, you know, in the umbrella of sexuality.

Jennifer  

So, I hear you saying that this is a long journey, because for people who are raised in purity culture, there are ideas that need to change and practices that need to change and feelings and I affirm that because I’m still on that journey. But I would also love to hear a little bit of hope. Like I would love to hear about your purity culture dropout program, and like, what kind of changes that you’ve seen occur in the lives of people who participated in it.

Erica  

Yeah, I love this question because it’s really one of my favorite things to talk about. [Laughs] So, beyond the folks that have participated in working with me directly one-on-one, I also get a lot of really wonderful feedback from my Instagram audience. So I will get messages every once in a while from folks that tell me, you know, “I just had a wonderful sexual encounter for the first time and I feel like, it might be weird to tell you this, but that you were absolutely part of that experience.” In fact, I’ve received a message like that from a guy, actually, yesterday, and I don’t know this man. He’s just somebody that follows my account and he said, “You played a large part in me being able to re-evaluate and scrutinize my own sexual ethics, post-purity, post-divorce, so it only seems right to tell you this: I had a delightful connected sexual experience with someone devoid of shame and baggage, and it was amazing.” 

And I was just like, I love getting messages like that. And so, he goes on to say, “In two decades of marriage, we struggled to engage so directly, it was a bit surreal, but clear communication, eliminating expectations ahead of time, and being honest were great additions to desire and arousal.” And I hear those stories often from people. Other success measures are folks who maybe have never had sex before, and they are late—They’re what they would consider “late in life virgins.” I know that, you know, that—that’s all relative, really. But they’ll say like, “I had sex for the first time at age 40 and it was a great experience, I was very connected, you know, nothing bad happened, and I just really appreciate the guidance you provided me.” Other success stories I have seen are folks who, sometimes, actually end up leaving the relationship they were in—and I never tell people to do that, but I will often work with women in particular who, in unlearning all of the shameful and kind of patriarchal messaging about sex, they realize that the relationship they’re in does not support this kind of new sexual ethic that they have. Those are just some of the stories off the top of my head, but I get messages like that all the time. So, there is definitely hope.

Jared  

And is there some specific like, recurring—the only word I can think of is “aha!” moments—like recurring “aha!” moments of people coming out of, you know, this fundamentalist evangelical subculture, now as they come out of that—one example would be what you said, Jennifer, “Aha! Like, women can masturbate. I didn’t know that until I was in my 20s!” Are there other things that you hear often that are “aha!” moments for people?

Erica  

Yes. One of them is—if I point this out to someone, they’re often like, “Oh, my gosh, you’re totally right.” A lot of folks are so uncomfortable with a partner finding them desirable because they immediately equate being desired as being disrespected. Or they are very afraid to express their attraction to another person, because they have been taught that to be attracted to someone is to be disrespecting them or to maybe be tempting them into sin. So that’s something that a lot of people are like, “Oh my gosh, I had no idea that those two things were connected in my mind.”

Jared  

Yeah, that’s good. And, maybe, if someone did say that, like how do you help them work through that, like, what’s maybe a healthier way to think about that? Because I do think that resonates with me. Like desiring someone can feel disrespectful. So, I feel like there’s some good impulse in that, but there’s also some maybe not great impulses in that. So can you unpack it a little bit?

Erica  

Yeah, so, what I would usually start sharing is, you know, the mechanics of arousal and desire. We don’t really control what we find hot. [Laughs] We can look at someone and our brains and our bodies might respond, and I don’t think that’s something that is inherently a problem. It’s just like, “Oh, wow, I just saw that cute person in the grocery store and I found them attractive.” That to me—well, not just to me—but that is such a human normal behavior. We are animals. We are on this planet to mate with each other. So, if we find someone attractive, and if our body responds to that, I do not think that that is inherently harmful. 

Where it could become harmful is how we approach someone else with that message. So I’ve actually taught a class on sexual communication, and one of the things I share is like how to communicate your desire. And I believe that there is a way to do it that is not creepy, you know, with the term “creepy,” I really mean like that you’re coming on to someone in a way that’s disturbing to them. And you can communicate your attraction and desire to someone in a way that’s not aggressive. And that gives that person the choice about whether or not to engage with you. So, you might not be able to control like, “Yeah, that lady is really cute, I want to ask her out, I want to talk to her.” And you don’t need to control that, because that is just a human impulse to find another person attractive. 

And the way to make that remain harmless is if you do decide to communicate that to somebody, say like, “I’m interested in dating you, I’m interested in taking you out,” and giving them the option about whether they want to do that or not. What is harmful is when we make our desire for another person their problem, or make our desire for another person, kind of like, immediately known to them and not giving them the opportunity about whether or not they want to engage. For example, if you cat call someone on the street. But I think that it’s really harmful to believe that purely finding someone hot, having fantasies about them, thinking about them in a sexual context, is bad. I do not believe that those very human impulses are bad. I think that we have control over how we present them to people and that is kind of where the difference lies.

Jennifer  

So on the flip side of, kind of avoiding desire or to be desired, I think I also grew up with messages in purity culture that objectified me, you know, over-sexualized me, and I’m wondering, you know, how you combat those, especially when you’re talking about people who are getting that from a faith context?

Erica  

Yes, so, would you explain a little bit more about like, what messages you mean, in particular?

Jennifer  

Yeah so, a lot of the little activities that we did growing up in youth ministry talked about how they would talk about us covering our bodies and how women had to not be a stumbling block. But in those messages, they taught they were actually sexualizing, over-sexualizing us, you know, and that and so I just, I wonder, you know, how you do encounter that with some of the people you work with? And and how do you talk about that? 

Erica  

Oh, yeah, so that would be another area where I would want to look directly at the values they were taught and deconstruct those values. Like, for example, the idea that it is your fault if somebody finds you attractive, you must cover your body at all times in service of modesty so that you don’t tempt someone. So, I will ask directly, like, what do you think of that value? How do you think that value kind of hangs on in your life now? And there are folks that will say, like, “I still don’t even know what I like to wear, what is actually me and what is actually like, leftover from modesty culture.” But again, it’s something that will require experimentation and getting out of your comfort zone. 

For example, I worked with a woman once who said, “I wore shorts to the grocery store and I was shocked that nobody seemed to care. And that men weren’t freaking out.” [Laughs] So, it can take like, you know, a little bit of trying new things, seeing how you feel in those new things, reminding yourself that like, regardless of anyone else’s perception of your body, it is your body to do what you want with and to adorn as you like, and if somebody’s respect for you is contingent on what you wear, then they already don’t respect you. That’s like a baseline.

Jennifer  

Thank you. That is empowering and helpful.

Erica  

Thank you. I’m glad to hear that.

Jared  

And maybe we can say a little more because I keep coming back to, you started with this idea of control as built into the definition of purity culture, and there’s… Maybe you can help me sort this out because I don’t have all the pieces together, but there’s this sense in which there is like an implicit understanding that you need to control your thoughts and feelings which is broader in Evangelical subcultures than just sexuality. That’s an assumption that we can do that. That we need to control our feelings, and if we don’t, if we have certain feelings, that’s sinful. Even depression because you should be able to control that. You should be able to be happy, right? Like, “Just don’t be sad, be happy.” “Oh, okay.” 

And so there’s a sense that we should be in control of our feelings and then when we can’t, that’s very shameful, like, you’re doing something wrong. And then there’s also this sense that we—women in particular, at least the messages I heard—were in control of men in a lot of ways. Like, if you dress in a certain way, like men can’t help themselves, they’re not really in control of their own bodies, you have to really regulate that for them. And so there’s this insidious irony that it feels like all the messages of control were… The way I would say it is women were given all of the responsibility with none of the authority.

Erica  

Oh, yeah. And when I hear things like that, I am like, why are we acting like men are little babies who have no control over themselves, yet they’re the ones that we are trusting to lead? You know, we’re trusting them to be the head of our communities and households yet, in this one area, we have to be like, “Oh, no, he just can’t help it.” And sometimes even just pointing that out and asking folks to like comment on it goes a long way in deconstructing the idea that they’re responsible for men’s sexual thoughts, feelings, and actions. They’re like, “Wait a minute, that actually is like, really, really backwards.” And I would honestly think that more men would be upset with that teaching as well. Because it paints men as just buffoons who are, you know, thinking with their penis, and it’s just, it hurts everybody, not just women.

Jared  

So as we wrap up our time, we talked some about the practicalities and some about some of the impacts that your program has had for people. Could you maybe leave people with, they’re just now, this might be the first time they’re really coming to be aware of the messages that they received and starting to think about the impact that that has had on them: what would you say are some good next steps—you know, besides reaching out to you and and hiring you to coach them—but what are some things that people can maybe do on their own, as far as that very first step? Because I know it can be scary to have that light bulb go on to say, “Oh, you know what, maybe this is impacting me more than I thought it was.”

Erica  

Yeah, I have a lot of thoughts on this one! And I think the first thing I would encourage folks to do is, you can’t fix all of this at once, and you might be raring to go, but it is a long process. And I would encourage people to not create a new standard for their sexuality that is on the opposite end. So, you do not have to, for example, become a different version of yourself in order to heal from purity culture. Not everyone who deconstructs these ideas and who learns more about sexuality is going to, you know, decide that they’re really into having casual sex, and they’re really into, I don’t know, all kinds of like kink things. Some people land there naturally, but there’s no one place that you have to land if you start evaluating the role of purity culture in your life. 

You don’t have to like casual sex, you don’t have to be, you know, somebody who would make certain choices for yourself—and I mean, like certain kinds of like, liberal sexual choices for yourself—I think one thing to remember is that being more positive about sexuality is less about what you like to do sexually and more about your attitudes toward everything. So, do you think that other adults should be able to make decisions about their sexuality as long as everyone is consenting, it’s nobody’s business? That is a really positive way to view sexuality. But that doesn’t mean that you have to go and do all kinds of things that are completely unappealing to you. 

I do see some people kind of thinking, “Well, you know, I’m just like, I’m married and I’m monogamous and I really don’t want to be any different.” I’m like, you don’t have to! Undoing purity culture harm, is, again, not about embracing all kinds of sexual practices that are really aren’t you. It’s about like, finding out who you really are underneath all of these teachings and deconstructing the values you were taught, learning more about the basics of sex, and also starting to talk to other people in your life is a big one. I know some folks are like, “I’ve never talked about sex to anyone.” But I would encourage you to try to like start those conversations like with your friends.

Jennifer  

Yes, and we are almost out of time. But I, this has been such an amazing conversation and helpful and empowering, and I just want to thank you so much for your work, personally. And then I know that our listeners will also be changed by the things that you’ve taught. I wonder if you should have a little mantra or motto “changing lives one orgasm at a time,” or something like that.

Erica  

Jennifer  

Because I just really feel [Laughs] like you are changing lives.

Erica  

Thank you. I love, love, love doing this. It’s just, I don’t know, I feel like a—I know, I’m a guest in the space of ex-evangelicals and I know that I’m not someone who has been raised in this community, so it does feel like I feel very honored that I get to facilitate this kind of work and facilitate these kinds of transformations. Because I’m always aware that like, you know, everyone’s trusting me and letting me in from the outside.

Jennifer  

Yes. Well, you are always welcome in this ex-Evangelical space. Thank you. 

Jared  

Yes, thank you so much, Erica, for coming on. We appreciate it.

Jared  

And now for Quiet Time.

Pete  

With Pete and Jared. 

Pete  

Alright, well, Jared, one ramification of the conversation you had with Erica is you talked about trusting one’s body. So, what does that look like for you? Trusting your body?

Jared  

Yeah, I think- There’s a few things I think about whenever you ask that question. One was, this is an area where I’m so grateful I was a terrible evangelical.

Pete  

Ah.

Jared  

Because I think the assumption was like, you can’t trust your own body, you can’t trust your own feelings and… I’m just not built that way. As much as I probably said I didn’t trust my own body and stuff. I don’t even know how to do that. Like it is my personality- 

Pete  

You don’t know how to not trust-

Jared  

I don’t know how to not, like it’s just, I’m my own authority. Like you’re not the boss of me.

Pete  

Wow, okay.

Jared  

That’s just sort of… That’s how I’ve been since I was a young tyke. So, it didn’t really affect me in the same way that I think a lot of—for certain a lot of women—but a lot of people in general. But also just, yeah, I think on top of that, like being in tune with my own body has always been very intuitive to me. 

Pete  

Intuitively, huh? 

Pete  

Mhmm.

Jared  

And very important, so I often do, I think, sometimes in sort of like meditation circles or mindfulness, they talk about body scans, where you’re like, pay attention to what’s going on in your body. I feel like I do that naturally-

Pete

Intuitively, huh?

Jared  

-A couple of dozen times a day, just checking in, like, does everything feel good? Is everything working right? So, I think I got lucky, to be honest, in that I had this, whatever it was, my genetics and my experiences as a young person with my parents or whatever, that those messages didn’t really sink in. 

Pete  

Hmm.

Jared  

How do you relate to that trusting your own intuition body, piece?

Pete  

That’s the thing- I mean, not to blame my parents for all of my problems. 

Jared  

Well… At least most.

Pete  

As they say, if you’ve had parents, you need therapy, right? So, but you know, the thing is that, you know, I’m 62, my father—had he lived—he’d be over 100 by now, you know. It’s just, it’s a different world, I grew up somewhere between not even being connected enough to even think about trusting your body, or like you’re saying, being aligned with it. It’s just, it didn’t happen. Or if something was coming up, it was shame-based and not… It’s just, you just don’t, the fact that you don’t talk about it, means there’s some sort of shame element there, you know? And these, I mean…sexuality, these were non-topics in my house-

Jared  

Right.

Pete  

—absolutely non-topics. Like, why would you ever talk about it? 

Jared  

Mhmm.

Pete  

But it was never said. It was more caught than taught, you know. And I understand. I mean, I understand my parents where they came from, and the war and Europe and all that kind of stuff, you know. 

But so for me, it’s something that I’ve only become more conscious of, I have to say probably midlife, you know, in my mid late 40s is like when I was really starting to- Even just checking in with your own body. And what is it doing? Now I’m very conscious of that. Like, “I have an emotion, what’s my body doing?” And that’s a very important inner-dynamic that I have now, which I’m very thankful for.

Jared  

Okay, so speaking of parents, why don’t we, maybe, we’re going to parent our younger self for a second. So if you could go back in time, and educate yourself about just your body or sex or any of that, what are some of those things that have become…This is another way of saying it, is this: What’s become more important to you now that you wish you had known when you were younger?

Pete  

Gosh, so much. I think—I’m not suggesting that I did this well with my kids, so let me go back to my own life. 

Jared  

Right. 

Pete  

You know, back when I was a little guy—That it’s okay. [Chuckles]

It’s really quite simple. I remember just moments, which I won’t get into, but just me having some type of, like, a comment about a girl or someone of the opposite sex and it was clearly discomfort in my family, to say to my, I can’t change my parents, but I can change me and say, “It’s okay, what’s your feeling or thinking isn’t wrong,” and it’s, and it’s not like it was wrong for my parents. It’s just, it was-

Jared  

It wasn’t- It didn’ seem like it like it was moral, as much as cultural. 

Pete  

Yeah, that’s really what it was. It wasn’t moral, like you’re dirty, dirty, dirty. It was more like, “Ew. We don’t talk about this.”

Jared  

It was really uncomfortable. 

Pete  

It’s very uncomfortable. Now, the question is, why it’s uncomfortable—but to maybe try to give the little guy a sense of the importance of fostering a different mentality as you grow up, but that’s hard. I mean, obviously, that’s “Don’t be affected by your family of origin.” Good luck with that one. Right. 

Jared  

Pete  

So, you know, I mean, it’s just, but it’s, you know, I go back, and I do… I have thought many times, actually, in my adult years, how some of my choices in life might have gone differently had that ease with my own body in all aspects of it, if that would have been something that was nurtured. 

Jared  

Mhmm.

Pete  

That’s the word I’m looking for. Not taught, nurtured. 

Jared  

Right. Yeah. 

Pete  

And again, I want to say mom and dad, if you’re listening up there…Nothing against you, you did the best you could, you survived the war, you know, the big one, WWII. So I understand, but you know—and that’s why you keep learning, right? That’s why this is a good question. We have to keep being in touch with ourselves and changing paradigms and breaking through these ceilings and things like that. So…

Jared  

Yeah, I think for me, the main one that I would—if I could go back, and hopefully I’ve done this with my kids, they would know better whether I’ve done this well or not—but it’s to take sexuality out of the category of morality and put it into the category of wisdom. 

Pete  

Ah, yeah. 

Jared  

And that’s been a big thing for me is, I don’t use—I mean, in general, I don’t use categories of right or wrong about anything—but especially not around sexuality. We’re not going to talk about what’s right or wrong, except for areas of like, non-consensuality. 

Like, coercion, power dynamics, that kind of thing. But in general, we talk about it in terms of wisdom. And so there, you know, there are risks. Yeah, there’s just different factors as to when it’s a good decision to do certain things and… that’s in all areas of sexuality. So, that’s been more of my approach and that’s what I would have gone back to tell myself is say, don’t worry so much about it in the realm of morality.

Pete  

Mhmm.

Jared  

Because that would have been—again, I grew up right smack dab in purity culture that we talked about in the episode to the point that, you know, I went on a purity retreat, and we wrote letters to our future spouses and talked about how we are saving ourselves for them in all of these ways. And, again, some of that’s maybe not necessarily bad in and of itself, but all of the messaging around it, bringing into morality, and sort of was the… We see it, I think, in terms of like LGBTQ inclusion and conversation in the church, it’s almost like we highlight that more than anything, like sexuality is highlighted in so many ways that makes no sense to me. 

Pete  

Jared  

I don’t know why we pick that and sort of amplify it as the thing that will ruin your life or it’s the worst thing you can do is mess up in these areas. 

Pete  

Right, right.

Jared  

And it makes no sense. So, that’s for me, what it would be is to take it out of morality, put it into wisdom, because it creates so much anxiety and worry and concern. I mean, sexuality is worrisome as an 11 and 12 year old anyway.

Pete  

Jared  

You don’t need the like, “and if I mess up, God’s gonna hate me forever.”

Pete  

Right.

Jared  

So, that I think has been what I would say and hopefully what I’ve done with my kids, time will tell.

Pete  

Alright, cool. Well, folks, there you have it. 

Jared  

There you have it.

Outro  

Jared  

Well, thanks to everyone who supports the show. If you want to support what we do, there are three ways you can do it. One, if you just want to give a little money, go to www.TheBibleForNormalPeople.com/give.

Pete  

And if you want to support us and want a community, classes, and other great resources, go to www.TheBibleForNormalPeople.com/join.

Jared  

And lastly, it always goes a long way if you just wanted to rate the podcast, leave a review, and tell others about our show.

Outro  

Thanks for listening to Faith for Normal People! Don’t forget, you can also catch the latest episode of our other show, The Bible for Normal People, wherever you get your podcasts! This episode was brought to you by the Bible for Normal People podcast team: Brittany Prescott, Savannah Locke, Stephanie Speight, Natalie Weyand, Steven Henning, Tessa Stultz, Haley Warren, Nick Striegel, and Jessica Shao.