Pure

While I read this book for the first time a few years ago, I wanted to revisit this book for a few projects I am working on.

Jumping into this literature made me think a lot of the ways I was influenced by the purity culture as a Christian teenager in the 90s and being at a Christian college when I KIssed Dating Goodbye was popular. Even though I strive to be sex positive now, this is still a weird chapter of my life that still impacts me.

I love the way the author weds personal experience with journalistic research. It's really eye opening how this purity movement influenced a whole generation of women. I've read some really good memoirs on people deconverting from Christianity and other cults but what makes this stand out for me is the sociological emphasis of this book. I have been putting in a lot of work into my own religious trauma and this book is dismantling an important aspect of the culture I grew up in. 

Due to the overtly sexual nature of the subject, I have to put in trigger warnings for homophobia, sexual assault, incest and clergy abuse. I feel that one of the strengths of this books is that it doesn't gloss over these issues and approaches them with sensitivity.

This book has been instrumental in some of my own healing from the messages I was given in faith settings about sexuality. I would highly recommend this book to professionals that deal with issues relating to faith or sexuality as well as people who want to understand this part of the history of the modern American evangelical church.