Walking the Middle Path

Walking the Middle Path

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Walking the Middle Path
Walking the Middle Path
“I upheld my end of the bargain, but God hasn’t upheld his.”

“I upheld my end of the bargain, but God hasn’t upheld his.”

A Surviving Purity Culture Interview on Prolonged Singleness

Camden Morgante's avatar
Camden Morgante
Oct 25, 2024
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Walking the Middle Path
Walking the Middle Path
“I upheld my end of the bargain, but God hasn’t upheld his.”
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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

Walking the Middle Path is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.


“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.

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