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Thank you for daring to listen.

Welcome back, everybody to the podcast.

This is another at the bus stop episode and we are honored and.

Thrilled to have Dr.

Camden Morgante here with us.

It's been a long time coming.

We've been trying to get her on the podcast.

We've had some scheduling conflicts, so we're so excited to have her.

She is a licensed, uh, psychologist.

She's a coach, a writer, a speaker.

She does have a book that came out called Recovering From.

Purity culture, which we'll dive into that and also a little bit more about her work.

It is an honor to have another doctor on the show.

Welcome to the podcast, Dr.

Camden.

Thank you.

It's great to finally connect with you guys and your audience.

We would love to hop in.

I'm sure if you're a listener, you're like, yep.

Purity culture.

We can probably jive on some stuff here and talk about some of common things that we heard at during our time, within our churches or that we're still hearing today.

If.

We're still attending churches.

I'd love for you to give us kind of like an overview of some of the work in your book, and then maybe we could dive into some of those concepts that you cover there.

Okay.

Yeah.

The book is recovering from purity culture.

I really wanted to.

I have a book that was practical and that had tools that people could apply to their healing because I felt like there's been some good books written about purity culture.

There's been some good memoirs and kind of like personal narratives and personal experiences that are shared.

There's been some like journalistic work on it.

There's been some research that's been done on it, but I felt like we were missing kind of the next step of how to heal.

Like we know what the problems are now.

How do we heal?

How do we move forward?

And so that's what I really wanted to provide using.

Tools that I learned as a psychologist and that I use in my practice and you know, myself too personally.

So I wanted to bring that perspective and help people take the next step in their healing.

So that's really the intent with the book I spend about the first half of the book talking more about like the history of purity culture, the research into it, and what are the problems that purity culture caused?

What are the myths?

That purity culture used to try to persuade young people, this whole generation of Christians to abstain from premarital sex.

And then the second half of the book is focused more on the reconstruction and the moving forward.

And what, what does healing look like when you're single, when you're married in your faith, reconstructing your sexual ethic, healing from shame, and then what does it look like in parenting?

So those are some of the topics I cover in the last section of the book.

While you were kinda working on getting this book written, what are some of the things that you were hearing as far as feedback from clients or people that you're interviewing working through these myths?

Yeah.

I first had the idea for this book in 2017, so it had been a while.

I got married in 2016, was working already as a psychologist and starting to see.

The negative effects of purity culture in my clients and then realizing some of them in myself.

So I had the idea then.

And then I started coaching for purity, culture recovery a few years ago and really like re honing this idea, refining it.

So I had several years to hear from clients and be working one-on-one with people.

And then of course talking on podcasts and on social media to get feedback and to hear different perspectives than my own.

And what really surprised me initially when I started doing this work is that.

Coaching clients were coming to me and they were saying, well, I already know that this belief and this myth is false.

Like I can cognitively say that this is false and that this is not true, but yet I cannot make my body catch up to my head.

There was just this disconnect between what they cognitively knew was true and knew it was false, and then how their body was reacting, especially within the context of their sexuality.

And so I realized that the disconnect that purity culture instilled in us, like this divorce between mind and body.

That was instilled in us, carried over into the healing from purity culture that we still felt this disconnect.

And so I learned it's not enough to just cognitively leave behind the myths of purity culture to change your mind or to say, yeah, this was, you know, this was false.

You really have to have an embodied experience of a new belief in order to experience that holistic change.

And so that was, that was kind of a surprise to me and something that really challenged my work and changed the direction of the book.

Are you seeing people now that you are putting those pieces together?

Right?

Like we can't just decide, okay, well that was a lie and I'm not gonna believe that anymore.

We have to embody it.

Are you seeing people being able to form those connections?

What is that process looking like for people as you're walking them through towards healing?

Yeah.

I think it's a, it's a slower and a longer process than we'd always, we'd allt like it to be, and I think.

It's small changes that we really have to celebrate.

So what that looks like, you know, is a woman being able to orgasm for the first time in a decade of marriage.

And that's, you know, a huge progress.

That is something to celebrate and also celebrate all the steps.

Up until that point, all of the.

Body changes she had to make in order to get to that point.

Or it looks like a woman feeling like she can say no in her marriage for the first time and that that's okay and that's safe and that's allowed, and her husband's supporting that.

Like that is a huge change that may not look like a huge change on the outside.

So I think it's really not underestimating those kinds of changes.

Developing a relationship with our bodies, listening to our bodies and our emotions, instead of just suppressing them or judging them.

Those things we can't discount and minimize because that's part of the change that comes with healing from purity culture.

I know in your book you go through a certain set set of myths that you talk about.

Is there a way that you can kind of outline some of them?

I don't want you to give away the whole book, but outline some of those myths that you're covering and talk a little bit more about those, those in detail a little bit.

Sure.

Yeah, and I know.

Your podcast specifically speaks to experiences of spiritual abuse and trauma, and I conceptualize purity culture as a form of trauma.

For many people, these myths were not just, you know, things they heard, they really became ingrained in us and caused a trauma response in our bodies later on.

And that's why it can be so hard to overcome and why it's not enough to just make that cognitive shift because these beliefs just.

Live in our bodies, like the belief that you're damaged goods if you do have premarital sex or you're sexually abused, even that is not something that we can just cognitively shift away from and and feel, you know, feel healed from right away.

Like it's really something that takes an internal and holistic change.

And so I think the shame from that myth is something that lives on in people.

The gatekeepers myth, that's the one that sets up women as the gatekeepers of sexuality and men as telling them they have sexual needs that their wife needs to fulfill, and women have to put up the boundaries before marriage and then after marriage, always be available to meet those needs.

That is something that harms both men and women and takes a long time to undo and to relearn what is the truth and what is healthy.

Within the context of your relationship.

So those are a couple of them, and those are why I would say purity culture is it can be trauma because those beliefs just become so ingrained in us and they affect us in so many different areas of life.

When you talk about.

Trauma and purity culture, and then we talk about spiritual abuse.

In the context of this podcast, I put them together.

Like to me those are, those go hand in hand because I think so often these spiritual concepts.

Are what are utilized within purity culture to get people in line and fitting in these boxes.

I struggle, and maybe you could put better words to this, as the expert, I struggle to even pull those things apart as different categories because they're so intrinsically connected in my mind and in my body.

When I think about sex purity culture, like biblical womanhood and biblical manhood, all of those concepts utilize.

The sacred and your view, like who you are as a, an, an image bearer, even like your worthiness is attached to mm-hmm.

This messaging and you following these rules, do you see those things being super tied together with clients or do you have a way that you delineate them or is it kind of like they're the, they're swimming in the same, the same soup.

I certainly see them as very tied together now, but I think that is a new concept for many people that this could be a form of trauma because people don't always see like these external teachings, how do this, how does this cause trauma?

Because of how ingrained they are, because of how long last.

They are, because some of the messages you heard probably started when you were a kid.

You know, the first time girls are told, well, you can't wear that.

That's not appropriate because boys will or men will look at you or the first time you're told like, you can't control your sexuality or something like that.

Like you can start getting those messages when you're a young child.

And so that.

It really hits to the core of who you are, your identity and your sexuality.

And then it hits to the core of our faith too, because of all of the false promises of purity culture.

That's really.

How I was affected the most by purity culture was the way that it impacted my faith.

When it sets up this sexual prosperity gospels, what it's been called, you know, it sets up these, these false promises of if you remain pure, then God will give you a, a spouse or God will give you a great sex life.

God will bless your, your marriage, things like that.

And that does just doesn't always happen for people in the timeline that they expected.

And so when, when it works out.

You know, in a different way than you expected.

That can cause a lot of disillusionment in our faith and trauma, in our faith too.

So for many people it's, it's new to think about this as trauma.

And they might even deny that at first.

The, some of the pushback I might get from people is like, well, purity culture didn't harm me.

You know, and I'm sure you guys hear that too.

Or This teaching didn't harm me, this practice didn't harm me.

And that's because trauma is subjective.

So the same.

Stressor or event is not going to affect everybody the same way, but that doesn't mean we just discount it or, you know, stop listening to the people that call it trauma.

You know, they, they have something important to say and something to offer us and something to help us understand better so we can do better in the future.

Something that I could see you particularly running into with the work that you're doing, and I mean, we see it even with calling for reform within churches.

Safeguards in churches.

Mm-hmm.

Do you run into, okay, well maybe they didn't get everything right with purity culture, but you know, at least it's protecting people from this big bad here.

I do think there is some validity to, you know, there is dangerous messaging surrounding sex in.

In all sorts of different places.

What do you do to combat that in churches?

What are some ways that people within community or people that are wanting to, you know, still view sex as sacred?

Mm-hmm.

What do you do with that?

Because I think that so often we're, we're in these situations where we see everything is very black and white, so it's either really good or really bad.

How, how are you dancing?

On that line and helping people to have healthy views of this.

Mm-hmm.

Well, the black and white mindset is what, you know, fundamentalism baked into all of us, you know, to view things as either good or bad, right or wrong, evil or good, and, and the truth is usually somewhere in the middle and we need to.

Seek out what that could be.

Finding the both and is what I talk about a lot in the book instead of either or and what you're getting at there.

Jonna, I know that this is something you guys affirm too, is the difference between intentions and impact.

You know, like we can say that many of the creators of purity culture had good intentions.

You know, I can say that like many of them, and certainly parents that taught us this often had good intentions.

They wanted us to avoid the dangers of becoming sexually active at an early age, or they wanted us to view the sacredness of sex.

But intentions are not the same as impact, and good intentions don't negate the negative impact.

So we still need to look at that and.

Allow ourselves to experience healing for the impact, even if the intentions were good.

Most of the clients that I work with did wait until marriage to have sex because they were, you know, purity, culture adherence, and, and really strongly believed in that.

And some of them, you know, get to the point where they regret that they, they almost wish that they hadn't waited or they at least regret and grieve the effects of purity culture the way that it set them up for failure.

When it came to their sexual intimacy because of the lack of sex ed, for example, or the ways that it hurt their faith or their marriage.

And so it's a grieving process too, of grieving what you lost or what you missed out on, or the way things turned out so differently when you followed all the rules and expected it to turn out in a certain way, and it didn't.

There's grief with that, and that needs to be honored and held and validated.

Yeah, so I think helping people to see the both and helping people to see.

That we can still value the sacredness of sex without myths and false promises.

So yeah, there's, there's lots of points in my book where I talk about, you know, you can, you can still instill some of these values into your kids.

Even the value of waiting until marriage, if that's still something that you believe in without the shame of purity culture, the shame, the fear and the control and coercion is really what distinguishes it for me.

So.

You can share your sexual values and beliefs and faith with your kids without that shame and fear and control.

Yeah, I always, I mean, shame's a big one for me, shame's in my story and I, I would love to hear your perspective from your work, like how shame plays into this and where you see it and some of the things that you're doing to help people, you know, identify shame, name it first 'cause it's important to name it that it's there.

Well, I call shame the universal experience of purity culture because whether someone's male or female, whether they waited until marriage or not.

Everybody seems to have shame.

Yeah, shame about our sexuality.

Shame about our bodies.

Shame about our identity.

Yeah.

Shame is just very inherent in purity culture.

And so how we start is by identifying it.

Helping people differentiate between shame and guilt is kind of a good starting point.

So guilt, you know, as I did something bad.

Shame as I am bad, and helping them see that guilt can be healthy.

And can be adaptive because it can point us to when our behavior is not aligned with our values.

But shame is never healthier adaptive because when all we're left with is, I am bad, I am wrong, I am damaged, I am broken, then we're kind of hopeless to do anything about that.

We just kind of stay stuck in that shame spiral.

Whereas a focus on behavior and guilt, there is something we can often do about that or something we can change in the future or repair.

Yeah, so I think that distinction between shame and guilt is really important.

And then bringing it back to your values, it's so important to be clear on what your values are.

And values don't just have to come from religion or come from religious authorities who've told you, you know, this is what you should do or what you should value.

They can be your your own too, or you can make them your own, those values.

And so.

So being able to say, I am acting in alignment with my values, so therefore the shame is not justified.

You know, the shame can be, can be discarded, can be left behind, and I can move forward with confidence in the choices I'm making.

The one time that we're gonna be okay with anything left behind is when it's shame.

Yeah.

Leave that behind.

Yes.

As you were talking, I was thinking in particular, I often find women with teenagers.

That are deconstructing themselves.

They, they start, you know, looking at some of these things as they're.

Becoming parents of teenagers and saying, wait, all of this did this to me, and these are things that I've said to my kid, and now I'm starting to deconstruct it and talk about shame.

Do you have any advice to parents that are now deconstructing some of the purity culture that they were raised in and that they believed and they even have raised their kids in up to this point?

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

How do you start having those conversations with your kids about the fact you messed up, you know?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I always say it's never too late to repair with your kids.

And I quote Maya Angelou who said, when you know better, you do better.

You know?

So it's never too late to say to your kids, this is what I thought was right.

I know this is what I told you.

This is what I thought was best, but I've learned.

Since then I've learned more.

And I actually don't think that anymore.

Don't believe that anymore.

And here's what I would say instead, like that's really modeling this healthy repair for your kids, which we know is so important for a secure attachment to have that rupture and repair process.

And it's also modeling this healthy like lifelong.

Faith development, that faith is not a one and done.

Okay, I've, I've got the right answers and I'm done.

You know, like that it's evolving and growing and that we're constantly learning and reforming in our faith, and so I think that's, that's very healthy for parents who have made Ms.

Stake in the way they've raised their kids.

Of course, we all make mistakes, but to go back to your kids and say, I no longer believe this and I wish I had taught you this instead because here's maybe how it played out in my life.

If you, if it's appropriate and you feel comfortable sharing some of that of, you know, it made me feel shame about my body, or it made me feel.

This way about myself as a man or as a woman, like to share that with your kids, I think could be really healing and make a big impact on them.

So it's never too late to do that.

You know, there's grief with my kids wouldn't be struggling in this way, or maybe wouldn't be in the place they are spiritually if I hadn't taught them.

And that's usually not just about purity culture.

I mean, usually it is.

Broader to any kind of fundamentalism that they've instilled in, in their kids.

So, so there is a lot to repair and the kids, the young adult kids are gonna have their own growing process through that.

Yeah.

I don't know that I can say, you know, every kid needs to be in therapy or coaching.

It would definitely depend on their age and where they're at and what problems they're experiencing.

Certainly the younger they are, the easier it can be to correct and kind of choose a different course with them.

But yeah, everybody's gonna come outta childhood probably with some wounds and so it's, yeah, it's up to us to seek that healing for ourselves.

And then if you're the one that inflicted some of those wounds as a parent to, to do the repair process with your kids, I just think it's better to stumble through it and just have the conversations because at the end of the day, like.

I'm, I don't want there to be misinformation out there and, and you know, like I see in my perspective, I see a rise in like really strong lean back toward purity culture and, and this younger generation, which I don't want my kids to.

I want them to know, like that's not the answer.

And, and that there's, there's multiple answers and the, the biggest thing to do is dialogue about it.

Now, I'm not perfect at it, but I just keep thinking about being open and talking.

About it is so helpful.

I would love your perspective on men for a man's perspective, I grew up in the, you know, I'm, I'm in my forties, so I grew up in the height of all of it and in and outta church.

But I do definitely realize that, you know, when I was there, there's expectations that were put on men for sex and for marriage and what sex would be like after marriage.

And, and all of those are wrong.

And so I, I think the men are the ones that are.

More times than not the abusers in these situations where they're enforcing these stiff boundaries and these stiff requirements in sex that are not, in my opinion, biblical, right, godly or good.

But I also think there's some men that inner marriage with just a really warped sense of what intimacy looks like, and when they get there, they're shellshocked and they don't know what to do.

So in your work with men, like what have you.

What, what have you uncovered?

What have you seen?

What are some areas that they struggle in?

I'm not talking about the ones that are like narcissistic and like sex has gotta be whenever I want it.

Those that have grown up in the culture and want to have a healthy sex life with their, with their spouse or significant other.

Yeah.

I think like anything that is steeped in patriarchy, which purity culture is born out of patriarchy.

It's, it's.

The effects on men are gonna be more insidious and a little harder to observe on.

On first glance, at first, it can seem like patriarchy benefits men or that purity culture even can, could benefit men because it certainly prioritizes men's sexual experience and sexual needs, quote ahead of women's sexual experience often.

And so.

But the, the effects really are there.

And really, once you dig deep, and so you were saying like, you're not talking about the narcissistic kinds of, of men, but men are often taught sexual entitlement by purity culture.

So whether or not they're, you know, they may not be narcissistic, but some of that entitlement can be present and that that can be hard to hear and hard to really look at yourself to see, are there.

Patterns of sexual entitlement here because men are told sex is gonna meet all of your sex or marriage is gonna meet your sexual needs.

Marriage is gonna be the outlet for all of these sexual desires that you've been, that have been pent up for so long that you've been holding in.

That is not fostering like a mutual mindset in marriage.

It's not fostering this mindset of we're sharing this experience mutually instead of I'm taking or she's giving.

So that give and take mentality.

Yeah, so it can be hard to undo that entitlement and really reckon with that for men.

And then another effect that I often see is that, and this is again broader than purity culture, but men were not given really good emotional skills.

And so they weren't taught how to identify their emotions, how to validate them, how to regulate their emotions.

And so sex often becomes a coping strategy, a way to regulate feelings of discomfort or stress, or I'm feeling disconnected from my.

Spouse, that must mean we need to have sex.

You know, they're taught that sex is the only, or at least primary way to, to feel connected and to feel loved, and therefore it puts sex in the need category instead of a desire or a want category.

So I would argue that sex is not a need.

The need is actually connection.

The need is attachment.

The need is intimacy by definition of like connection, not the definition being sex.

And so I try to help the men that I work with see those deeper connection needs and how can you get those needs met without putting all this emphasis on intercourse to meet that.

That need and putting so much pressure on your wife to perform sexually in order to meet that need.

Yeah, so there's a lot of layers to unpack for men too in how they can be partners in their, their female partners healing and you know, 'cause they play a big, big role in her ability to heal and feel like it's safe to say no, for example, or to explore her own sexual desires and pleasure.

But also in their own healing.

There's a lot of layers to unpack there too.

Yeah, that's great.

I think the entitlement aspect is huge and just being able to listen for men, because it is a lot of times our, our desire or our expectations for sex are rooted in things that, like you said, connection and other things that we've struggled with that we may not know that we've struggled with or hurt, and we're placing sex as a.

As a distraction or as a, or a solution where it's really not the solution.

Connection is what we're desiring or intimacy or honesty or vulnerability, and all of those things are things that men are taught.

Hey, just that's not, that's not manly.

So I.

And that's why I think like for men, for purity culture, it is tremendously hurtful to us and it has set us back from what I see in the Bible.

I mean, sex is everywhere in the Bible and, and what I see in the Bible when it's represented in a way that I think is honest, is more of that mutual, mutual relationship.

And we're not taught that at all.

And it's, it is harming us.

And my concern is I, as I get older and I see this is, it seems to be swinging back toward that.

Mm.

And I just wish men would, would give themselves a chance to know that there is a greater chance that you're going to enjoy your intimacy and you're going to enjoy your marriage or relationship if you're open to listening and you're opening to exploring yourself and what's going on in your own life.

Because there's a lot of things that were unhealthy, that you were taught that you are projecting, whether you know it or not.

So, mm-hmm.

Yeah.

And the trust and the safety that, that, that fosters in, in a relationship when the husband or male partner is willing to do that, to do their work and to partner with, with their, their wives healing.

Like when I have a couple where the woman has.

Vaness or sexual pain that makes intercourse impossible, and the husband is willing to take my, you know, advice or that they don't have intercourse or don't attempt intercourse for a time period while she is getting the help she needs to heal and they focus on other activities that are pleasurable for both of them when he's willing to take that advice.

And really partner with her in her healing that just, that just enhances the intimacy so much because she feels safe and she feels cared for.

And I think like that's, that's the love that Jesus is, is asking of us to do in our, in our marriage.

It's not about.

You know, when giving the other one your body, you know, they have a claim to your body.

Like one Corinthians seven is often mis misinterpreted to, to say.

It's really about sharing in each other's healing experience too, and sharing in each other's faith, growth, healing, and that's one way to do it.

Something I've been thinking about as you've been talking is how newlyweds are affected by this messaging and the way that.

These things are joked about, and I was specifically thinking about a pastor that was joking about like, your wedding day, you know?

Mm-hmm.

Dudes, you stand there and look good for the wedding day and give her what she wants and women at that night, you stand there.

I.

And you give him what he wants.

I'm not perfectly quoting it.

Mm-hmm.

Was grosser than that, to be honest.

But a lot of dude bros could say, those are just jokes.

You need to lighten up when they're preaching.

But how does that messaging, how is that impacting young adults or even.

Married couples.

Do you see that emboldening abuse in marriages?

Like how do you connect those dots?

Yeah, I know exactly what clip you're talking about.

It came out too late for me to include that as an example in the book, but I include it now when I speak because that was the gatekeeper's myth.

You know, the wedding night is for him.

Just stand where he tells you to stand, where what he tells you to wear, do what he tells you to do, and.

The saying it's joking is again, we're we're arguing about intentions over impact because the, the women that are hearing that, the young, young women and single people who are hearing that, it's instilling that message already that sex is not for me.

Sex is for him, and I need to mold myself to his fantasies.

And it's instilling that entitlement in men, that sex is not mutual.

That the wedding night is not this mutual experience that we're sharing together and that we get to, to decide together what we want this to be and how we want to start out our sex life together, if that's the, the case in the situation, but this very one-sided and self-serving and selfish view of sex.

So don't make jokes like that and recognize that.

Jokes like that.

Um.

Are really leading to fostering a rape culture in the church.

We might not like to admit that there is a rape culture in the church, but when you put so much emphasis on what women wear in order to stop men from lusting or causing them to stumble, and you tell women that the wedding night is for him and you need to do what he tells you to do, that can.

Quickly turn into blaming a woman for her own sexual assault in marriage or outside of marriage because of what she did or didn't do, or wore or didn't wear.

Um, I think most pastors would, would say that they, they don't want to foster rape culture, but they might not recognize how jokes like that can lead to.

Rape culture.

Yeah.

And it also just plays into a bigger thing where if you're, if you're joking about things like that or if that seems to be something that you can be at ease with, but yet we're turning our eyes to, you know, and allegations of rape and abuse within the church.

There's a hypocrisy.

Mm-hmm.

There's a huge hypocrisy and we, we need to, we need to look at it.

We need to spend time with it and understanding why this continues to happen and.

And, and that hypocrisy damages the faith and it damages relationships and it damages so much that it's just sad to me.

And it also, like from a, from a father perspective, like I, I have a, you know, I have kids, I, I have a daughter, like I don't feel safe.

And putting her in places where I know that the really, at times at any church, because I know how prevalent that teaching is and what it does to an individual at a young age.

And I, I mean, I love books like yours because I'm like, they're out there, but I'm like.

Damn.

Like how do we make this more accessible to these younger kids?

Because I don't want that garbage to be what they hear.

And I don't know if that's a question.

I don't think you probably have an answer, but I'm just sitting there like racking my head.

I don't want that crap out there anymore because it's so harmful and it's so prevalent.

'cause it's on TikTok and it's on Instagram and it pops up.

And unfortunately those are the loudest voices in, especially in Evangelicalism.

I mean, those are.

Those are the voices that get the big book deals that make the bestseller lists.

I mean, I was, I'm grateful for my book deal, but my book's not gonna be a New York Times bestseller, and it's not gonna be, you know, widely read and, and shared by, you know, evangelical churches because it challenges the status quo and challenges.

The power structures that exist and the patriarchy that exists.

So those are the things that really make money in the evangelical industrial complex as it's called.

And so that's what gets widely shared and circulated, unfortunately, like you're saying, Jay.

But I would also just to juxtapose, like you're saying, you're seeing this kind of resurgence security culture, but I also wanna point out like.

Anytime we recognize something is harmful, we're often wanna go in the opposite direction, right?

We wanna swing the pendulum because we wanna get as far away as we can from what was harmful, but that's still an either or kind of black or white mindset.

And so the other danger besides perpetuating purity culture is going this direction of complete sexual liberation freedom.

There's no rules.

And so in my book, I talk about these two as an ethic of shame, which is purity culture.

And an ethic of consent only.

So this sexual ethic that says all you need is consent in order for something to be legal and acceptable.

And I really push back against that and challenge that that is not enough.

Consent is absolutely necessary, but it is a floor, not a ceiling, is what another author says.

You know, it's just, it's not enough for a robust sexual ethic.

Especially if you're someone who still identifies as a Christian and wants to, you know, exhibit the love of Christ in your life and in the choices you make.

So I really push back against that too.

So we have to be careful not to go to either or in either direction.

I love that you talked about that just now because.

I do see that a lot.

I think that's actually really important for people that are listening to bodies behind the bus that have deconstructed or would consider themselves progressive now I see that so much.

Mm-hmm.

On the progressive side in particular, I see a lot of men.

That espouse this, the, the polar opposite of purity culture, which I'm gonna be honest, as a woman watching that content, I see patriarchy in that as well.

Mm-hmm.

And I also see the commodification of women's bodies, or just human bodies in general bodies.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

We have to start having this conversation that the opposite of purity culture is not just anything goes free for all.

Mm-hmm.

Bodies are just bodies and do whatever you want.

Like I'm familiar with the criticism for both sides.

I get it.

And, and so when I speak to more progressive audiences or podcasts, this, this chapter is kind of controversial in my book about reconstructing your sexual ethic and not going to the other pendulum swing.

And then when I speak on more conservative podcasts, the chapter on patriarchy, it's the controversial one and calling out rape culture and things like that.

But yeah, I, I just see it as exchanging one form of legalism for another.

You know, you're, you're still exchanging one sexual ethic.

That someone gave you the church for a sexual ethic that you know the broader culture is giving you.

And I had one client who described herself as an atheist.

She had grown up Christian but was no longer religious or spiritual.

And she said that she exchanged purity culture for hookup culture and found both of them to be just as disembodied and shaming because she had to divorce her mind from her body.

In both of those.

Cultures, and that was so eye-opening to me, like, here's somebody without invoking religion, without bringing the Bible into it, who is saying that hookup culture was damaging and dis embodying?

Yeah.

So that's something to really consider, and I, again, go back to your values.

I try not to tell people what to do or what to believe or what their sexual ethic should be, but more about discovering what your values are and then making choices.

Aligned with those values, like crafting and constructing your sexual ethic around your values and beliefs, which for many of us can still have elements of our faith and theology in there.

But yeah, constructing it from that rather than what, from what any culture or external authority tells you.

I was gonna say how empowering you people must feel when you help them, when you empower them to, to choose their values, to, to align, to say, what are my values?

To make that decision for themselves.

And that's actually, yeah.

What I say in the book is that this is the harder choice, but it is empowering exactly what you two just said.

But it, and it's funny, when I, when I have read reviews of my book, so many people.

Love the empowerment aspect of that.

And they feel like there's so much respect in being able to choose for themselves.

And that's something that they've never been allowed to do or a book has ever encouraged them to do.

But then some people said, well, I really want a book that gives me more of the how tos or tells me what.

And I'm like, that's 'cause that's what you're used to and that's what feels safe.

And so you're not gonna like that.

I leave it up to you to do the work.

'cause you, you want someone to tell you 'cause that is easier and safer.

And so it's kind of missing the whole point.

Of that chapter, what does integration look like then when you have couples that are in places where they've done the work and they're on, not, I wouldn't say on the other side, but they're, they're progressing and they're healing.

What, what does that joy look like in their hearts, in their lives, in their marriages or relationships?

Because I think that's important to talk about when you do the work and you listen, what does that look like in, in your practice?

Yeah, I think it looks like integration and alignment between your mind, heart, body, and.

Soul where you feel like all of all four of those are on the same page and you're living in alignment with your values and you feel at peace in your faith or spirituality, whatever that might look like.

You know Jonna earlier when you were saying, I've deconstruct and to reconstruct.

Constructed a million times.

Like in the past, I thought this was a kind of a one and done experience for me.

Like I went through deconstruction in my twenties.

Now I've reconstructed and now I'm done and I can share this with others.

And like, and now, you know, having been speaking and writing about this for several years, like I've gone through several, like many d and reconstructions through the process to the point where I'm like, this is a never ending journey for me.

Like I no longer say I'm a.

Post deconstruction Christian or anything.

I'd say like I'm a deconstructing Christian.

This is ongoing in my faith development and I'm not arrived yet.

So yeah.

So feeling at peace in your faith journey doesn't mean you've arrived and you're done, but it can look like a sense of congruence and a sense of acceptance.

Less distress and dissonance.

We would.

Say in therapy and then feeling like you are integrated in your sexuality too.

Like you're em embodied.

You know that you are embracing your sexuality, whatever that looks like for the person.

So yeah, so I think healing and your, and your faith and your relationships and your sexuality, all of that is, is what this.

The path forward looks like.

I find too, like in my own story, like when, when you're more aligned with your body and what your body's saying, your body's story and, and just being honest about, you know, what you've experienced and what you felt that you do have a, there is a more, it's easier to be spiritual and I, and I shouldn't say easier, that's the wrong way.

Spirituality feels more, for me personally, more aligned and it feels more like it's coming from a place of.

Truth in my own life, not covered up by the different layers of other people's spirituality or beliefs.

That's why I think when you talk about empowerment like that is so key when you can empower people to pick the, you know, to say what is valuable, like what is important to you, what are your ethics?

Because when.

I think in these spaces, especially coming out of, you know, purity culture or just places where it, it's very conservative or it's very high control, that in itself.

That work to just create that value system is so freeing.

It's so freeing.

It's so freeing.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

And it allows you then to connect in my own experience with others, to hear other people's stories, to listen when it comes to sex and marriage and intimacy.

It creates a, a space to where you can have an open heart and to understanding.

Wanting to listen and wanting to desire that your partner or spouse have equality in sex.

I, I just, I just wanna commend you, like I I, that that empowerment that you're with the value system is so critical, and I just wanted to share from my own story.

I feel like it allows with, to milk your body more spiritual if, if you choose to be, mm-hmm.

Yeah.

When we idolize sex the way we do in these contexts and evangelical spaces, I know that it does such deep damage to the singles.

In these communities.

And I'm just curious, like if there, if, if there's a listener out there right now who's single, who's listening to this mm-hmm.

Who one is probably in the midst of deconstructing how this has affected them, but also like what are, what are some empowering things?

That they can be doing right now to work towards healing, because I think it probably feels lonely when we have this conversation.

And you think about if someone is in a committed relationship and then trying to work through this stuff, they do.

Hopefully, if it's healthy, have a partner to talk to about all of this and to work through and grieve when you're talking about the things that we have to grieve.

Mm-hmm.

Like having that person with you mm-hmm.

Can be really helpful.

And so I'm thinking about.

Singles and how they're so often forgotten in these spaces, but yet this is damaging people who are not married too and who may never want to get married, but they're still having to deal with the consequences of these messages.

Mm-hmm.

What would you say to them?

Yeah, there's a whole chapter in the book on singleness and sexuality.

'cause I felt like it was so important to integrate those topics like that.

Singles are still sexual beings.

Whether or not you are sexually active in a relationship, you are still sexual and you can still embrace your sexuality in ways that are congruent with your values.

And so there's a lot of like embodiment exercises and practices and mindfulness.

Kinds of practices in the book to help with that.

Yeah, so I think that's a process of learning, like my sexuality is good and I can claim that I'm a sexual being and find ways to inhabit and express my sexuality in ways.

Again, stay within my values.

Yeah.

So that's gonna look kind of unique or different for each person probably.

But the main point I wanted to get across to singles was that you are still a sexual being and that your sexuality is good, and that you're not less than because you're not married or partnered or in a sexual relationship, that you're not somehow missing out on a sanctification experience.

Uh, you know, as, as we often hear with marriage or you're not missing out on some.

Pinnacle of adulthood.

You know, this makes you an adult to be married or something.

Yeah, I heard a lot of those kinds of things because I was single until I was 30, unmarried until I was almost 30.

And so.

Which is not old in the grand scheme of things, but is old within evangelicalism.

And so I felt like second class citizen at times or just left behind or less than, especially in the church.

Like I wasn't as much of an adult because I was not married and not a parent yet or things like that.

So yeah.

So there's a lot of work to do to rebuild a healthy vision of singleness in the church.

I remember John, I remember there's that story from our former pastor who would, who tried to match, make from the pulpit with people.

And I just, I just think about how, I mean, one, how harmful that is, but how much pressure we're putting on singles too in these spaces to, to get married.

Or if you are gonna get married, you need to find your spouse in the church.

God, that's gotta be so damning and so harmful to them, and giving them space to feel that type of freedom, to be able to make their own choices.

Again, it's empowering, but I would say, you know, we don't talk about that enough, right?

We really don't.

We don't talk about how harmful this culture is to singles in these spaces.

Well, and I think too, I did get married young, very young.

I was 21, which I guess.

Is just not very young, just like a normal age in evangelical culture, but I don't know, it's very young in the world.

Mm-hmm.

And you know, you think.

Going into marriage that it's gonna be the answer to all of the stuff, any of the shame or the guilt that you carry into it because of purity culture, because of the things that you've been taught surrounding sex.

And then you get married and those things don't go away.

Mm-hmm.

And that was like earth shattering for us.

Like in our marriage, the first.

Year, maybe two years of my own marriage was, I mean, my husband was not raised in super high control evangelicalism, like just was not a part of his journey.

And so the stuff I was raised in just blew his mind.

He's like, what are you talking about?

Why do you feel this way?

What do you think?

What is happening?

But like we got married.

All of that guilt and all of that shame came right into our marriage with me and I didn't know how.

And I think, and talking to friends and the more I've grown and the more I've looked at purity culture and learned from people like you or even Sheila, the more like I realized that I didn't know how to experience anything sexual without feelings of guilt and shame.

Yeah.

Like those things were.

So tied together and that's happening.

If you are single, you like the magic ticket to getting rid of that shame and guilt that's associated with sex is definitely not marriage.

Not marriage.

Yeah.

It did not answer.

It didn't fix that.

I had to work through that for years in our marriage years.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah, and that's a great example.

The trauma becoming embedded in our bodies, because I say your mind may know that you're married, but does your body know it?

Like just because you have a ring on your finger doesn't mean that your body has turned off that shame.

Equal sex button.

You know, there's like still this.

This sense that sex is wrong and dirty and shameful and a sin and it doesn't just go away because you said I do.

So, yeah, you're, you're not the only person that takes years to work through that in their marriage.

Talk to us about where people can find you.

Your work.

You've got a lot of stuff on your website.

That's great.

I'm scrolling through it right now.

There's a lot of good resources here.

You also do some intensivess and you have the ability to practice in multiple states.

So talk a little bit about where we can find your work.

We'll definitely post links, but how can we get, how can we follow you?

What's the best way to continue to to continue to continue to learn and hear from you as you, as you progress in your career?

Yeah, my website is dr camden.com and I'm on Facebook and Instagram and Threads at Dr.

Camden, so that's the best place to connect with me.

And yeah, I have a therapy practice here in Knoxville, Tennessee, where I live, but I do coaching online.

I offer therapy intensives, like one to three day intensives if people wanna work with me very intensively.

On purity culture and the ability to integrate EMDR with that, which is a trauma based therapy because purity culture can be trauma.

So that's a new thing I'm offering and, and yeah, people can buy the book recovering from purity culture on Amazon, of course, and wherever books are, and I hope that it can really help people take that next step in their healing if you.

I felt like you have read books, already heard podcasts, and you've identified all these problems related to purity culture, but you just don't know what to do with them.

Then I hope my book can be the next step for you.

Hmm.

I appreciate everything that you've brought today so much.

You're such a calming presence.

Like I'm like, okay.

I bet you that one to three day intensive is so good and as I'm sitting here I'm like, that would be.

That's something where I'm like, I wish as a single person, honestly, that I had done that.

Hmm.

Like a one to three day intensive prior to trying to figure out all this stuff within a relationship.

'cause it feels like that would be so empowering to do that on your own and to find that healing and.

We will be putting all of that in the show notes, including where to buy her book and go give her a follow on social media.

She's a great follow and she's on tons of podcasts and I feel like there's, so, there's tons of resources out there to hear a little bit more from her and see if she's somebody that you would wanna work with on a more intense basis to work through some of this stuff.

But thank you so much, Camden.

Thank you, Dr.

Cam.

Yes.

This was a pleasure.

I'm so glad that we could finally have you on the podcast.

Me too.

And thank you guys for the work that you're doing too.

Thank you.

Thank you.

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