Sex as a Southern Woman: A Story of Shame
Three months before my seventeenth birthday, I sat in my room with anxious sweat on my palms. After dating for two years, my boyfriend and I decided we were ready to have sex. My mother, a...
View ArticleThe Church Doesn’t Get to Make the Rules About Sex Anymore
A few weeks ago a young friend of mine wrote a guest post for me entitled “Sex as a Southern Woman: A Story of Shame.” In that piece, she explained what it’s like coming of age as a sexually active...
View ArticleA Letter to Bristol Palin
[Today's guest post is written by Holly Baer, a religion and gender studies major at the University of Mississippi] Dear Bristol Palin, Our lives couldn’t look more different. You grew up in Alaska, I...
View ArticleHow Abstinence-Only Sex Education Led Me Down An Unexpected Path
Imagine being an almost-24-year-old, intelligent, moderately-attractive-yet-socially-awkward female venturing into the real world for the first time, having never even held hands with a guy and not...
View ArticleBody Shame 101: Lies the Church Told Me about My Own Sexuality
We start getting messages about sex and the culturally approved ways of expressing our sexuality long before our bodies even hit puberty. From birth, we are surrounded by these messages and we absorb...
View ArticleWhy Grown-Ups Need Sex Ed Too: Exposing the Long-Term Harm of Abstinence-Only...
I recently published an article about my experiences with abstinence-only sex shaming, er…”education,” and the discussions that followed showed me something really important. Even among progressives,...
View ArticleRemoving the Fig Leaf: A New Blog About Sexuality Without Shame
Abrahamic faiths have never been very big on celebrating the human body. While some religions revel in our inherent sensuality, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam each in their turn have taught us not to...
View Article10 Things You’re Taught Growing Up as a Christian Woman
When you’re a young woman growing up in conservative Christianity—or in a culture heavily influenced by conservative Christianity—you learn some things about your body, your sexuality, and yourself as...
View ArticleBacon, Sex, and Why Your Condemnation Doesn’t Stick
It has taken me a long time to become confident enough to write publicly about sex and its relationship to deconversion. I’ve been writing now as an atheist for nearly three years, publishing hundreds...
View ArticleThe Worst Sex Education: Not Talking About It at All
[Today's guest post is written by Karen Garst, former Executive Director of the Oregon State Bar and editor of an upcoming book entitled Women Beyond Belief: Discovering Life without Religion.] Two of...
View ArticleBorn Again into Purity Culture
At the age of sixteen I became a born again virgin. What is a born again virgin? It’s a term evangelicals use to deal with those who have already given away “the most precious gift you can give your...
View ArticleSex, Lies and Fundamentalism
I couldn't have been more wrong without thinking that actual dolphins would appear from nowhere and leap over the bed when it happened.
View ArticleAutistic, Bisexual, and Afraid
I feel that I've been luckier than most in my experience of growing up a homeschooled conservative Christian. It hasn't taken me long to distance myself from the harmful ways of thinking, and my...
View ArticleA Brief History of Me and My Buddy
Some rights reserved by stallio (derivative work) I grew up in the purity culture of the evangelical movement of the late 90’s and early 00’s. My uncles and dad used to rag me when I was little about...
View ArticleHow I Let Go of JOY to Find Happiness
You’ve probably heard the refrain: you must learn to love yourself before you can love anyone else. It’s cute and apt, but growing up I instead learned you must love Jesus first, everyone else second,...
View ArticleTrue Love Weights
I was so excited when I turned 13; I was to get my promise ring. This gift from my parents was more than a piece of jewelry. It was even more than a rite of passage: it entitled me to discuss sex....
View ArticleI’m Transgender, and I’m Allowed to Enjoy Sex!
I am a transgender woman, and I LOVE sex. That should not be a thing I need to proudly declare, but here we are. There are a ton of problematic narratives surrounding transgender people in our society,...
View ArticleBeauty to Ashes: How Sexual Shame Nearly Killed Me
As I entered into adulthood I experienced the deepest turmoil and pain of my life. This turmoil was brought on by my perceived failure as a godly Christian woman. I failed at the one thing I had worked...
View ArticleFinding a Kink in Your Marital Intimacy
I am a big believer in continual self improvement. When I was a Christian–as a youth and teen–I wanted to be the best Christian that I could be. I went to church 2-3 times a week for Sunday service,...
View ArticleMy Mother’s Challenge
It was a bright and sunny day and we were tourists on the streets of Chicago. I hadn’t seen my mom and her husband for three years, since before my deconversion. I was living in Honolulu and they were...
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