“I upheld my end of the bargain, but God hasn’t upheld his.”
A Surviving Purity Culture Interview on Prolonged Singleness
Welcome back to Surviving Purity Culture, a mini-series of interviews with purity culture survivors and diverse experts. These are the full-length transcripts of the interviews I conducted for my book, Recovering from Purity Culture.
Recovering from Purity Culture released ten days ago and was the #1 new release and #1 best seller in Amazon’s Gender & Sexuality in Religious Studies category! If you haven’t grabbed a copy yet, you can buy the paperback at Amazon on sale right now for $12.49! Kindle and audiobook formats are also available.
Today’s interview is with “Carrie” on prolonged singleness. 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
Alisha: abusive marriage and remarriage after divorce
Hanna: vaginismus in marriage
“Carrie” is a personal friend of mine who asked that I change her name. I knew I wanted to interview Carrie right away because she and I shared so much of our purity culture journey together as we struggled with singleness in our 20s. My years of singleness ended when I got married at almost thirty, and I am aware that I speak from a different position now as a wife and mother. Today, Carrie is single and almost forty (thirty-eight at the time of the interview).
When I starting to think about writing about purity culture in 2017, Carrie was who I had my first conversations with, conversations that shaped the direction of my 2024 book. I included some of my interview with Carrie in the Fairy-Tale Myth chapter of the book, but had to cut a lot for length. I am grateful to share our full interview with you here.
My 38-year-old friend Carrie is single and a virgin. On a video chat with me while she took a walk around her neighborhood, she explained that the Fairy-Tale Myth of purity culture has ultimately left her disillusioned.
“I feel like God hasn’t upheld his end of the bargain. And I feel like it’s a bargain he drafted in the first place.”
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 to support my writing.