"I grew up believing sex was bad, and of course my body paid the price for it."
A Surviving Purity Culture Interview on Vaginismus in Marriage
Welcome to Surviving Purity Culture, a mini-series of interviews with purity culture survivors and diverse experts. These are the full-length transcripts1 of the interviews I conducted for my book, Recovering from Purity Culture. Today’s final interview is with Hanna Ward on vaginismus in marriage. Here is a line-up of this Mini-Series.
Experts:
Brittany Broaddus-Smith, a Christian sexologist: Purity Culture's Effects on Black Women
Bridget Eileen Rivera, an activist and author: Purity Culture’s Effects on Queer Christians
Sarah McDugal, an advocate and coach: How to Recognize Unhealthy or Abusive Relationships
Survivors’ Stories:
“Carrie”: prolonged singleness
“Nicole”: divorce and marital rape
Emily: dating and reconstructing your sexual ethic after the death of your spouse
“Elizabeth”: dating and your sexual ethic after divorce
Hanna: vaginismus in marriage
Hanna is a 28-year-old married mother of an infant. She’s the host of the Say What? Podcast and Instagram account, which seek to help Christian women overcome toxic purity culture, be confident in their sex life, and feel less alone, especially when it comes to painful sex. (You can listen to my podcast interviews with Hanna from 2022 and 2024.)
Hanna has also created a product called The Eden Notepad to reveal the lies you're believing, replace them with the truth, and root yourself in God's Word. It’s very similar to the cognitive-behavioral thought records I walk readers through in my book, and I love that this is a handy tool to record and remind you of truth!
Much of my interview with Hanna ended up in the Flipped Switch Myth chapter of my book. Her story perfectly illustrates the unexpected consequences of the myth that sex will be automatically easy and pleasurable in marriage—if you waited.
In order to protect both the women’s stories and the material in my book, this mini-series will only be available to paid subscribers or members of my launch team. You can subscribe for $5 per month or $50 per year and support my writing. When you subscribe, you get access to all the previous paid posts as well!
Camden: What did you learn about sex and purity culture growing up?