The evangelical purity movement of the 90s and early 2000s is a hot topic among Christians today. More and more women (and men) raised in purity culture are sharing their stories of trauma, dysfunction, and abuse.
Born in 1992, I grew up during the shimmery golden age of the evangelical purity movement. Purity culture is a strange beast. Initially intent on constructing a helpful sexual ethic for Christians, it instead produced oddities like purity balls, where girls accepted "True Love Waits" rings and promised their fathers they'd remain virgins until marriage.
Purity culture also set impossible standards for evangelical girls, planting the seed of self-hate when we didn't measure up. Many of us came to regard our bodies with suspicion and even to outright reject them as dangerous and inherently sinful. Worse, purity teachings made some of us feel like we could control and contain our "dangerous bodies" through eating disorders and other self-harm behaviors.
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