Purity culture promised a body that had been told to stay silent for years that it would speak fluently on the wedding night. Many couples are still waiting.

Dr. Laura Anderson has spent her career at the point where that promise fails. A therapist, trauma recovery coach, and author of When Religion Hurts You, she founded the Center for Trauma Resolution and Recovery, created the Certified Religious Trauma Practitioner program, and works with people on nearly every continent on religious trauma, coercive control, sexualized violence, and the nervous system. Her view, offered plainly in this conversation, is that purity culture is a form of sexual abuse, and that the body holds that whether or not the person still believes it.

That claim organizes the hour. We begin in Nashville, where a stranger's second question is often which church you attend. We move through what purity culture actually contained, which was far more than a pledge card, and why its aftermath can resemble the aftermath of sexualized violence. We ask what the old rules do to desire inside marriage, why a patriarchal arrangement leaves even its men without a victory, and where a wife is supposed to find room to want when her husband asks her to want it. Laura describes her starting point for rebuilding a relationship with a body that was taught to be an enemy, and it involves the restroom. We also talk about deconstruction inside couples therapy, and about midlife, perimenopause, and why old material resurfaces when it does.

If you came out of a high-control environment, or love someone who did, this conversation offers vocabulary and leaves the verdict open. The question it returns: if a body can learn to treat itself as dangerous without anyone laying a hand on it, what exactly are we calling the injury?

Full show notes

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