The following was originally written for, and read at the Religion and Sexual Abuse Project.

As a white, cisgender woman growing up in fundamentalist Christianity- during the climax of the purity culture movement in the 1990’s, at the epicenter of evangelicalism, one of the most common questions I’d ask was,

“What does it mean when you feel like you’re dreaming?”

I didn’t have the language at the time, nor did anyone in my life, for dissociation.  I didn’t recognize nor understand that the shaming messages I was inundated with about my body, gender, relationships, and sexuality left me no place to go but- away from myself.  Dissociation is our nervous system’s response to ongoing trauma we cannot escape. Dr. Tina Schermer Sellers, founder of the Northwest Institute on Intimacy has documented how she witnessed in her private practice as well as among her evangelical college students a shift among those who grew up before and after the movements such as true love waits, silver ring thing, purity balls, and chastity pledges. She recognized that those who grew up in purity culture were exhibiting the same symptoms as sexual abuse- even if they had not experienced assault or abuse. She coined the term “religious sexual shame” to articulate the subjective experience of those who grew up in purity culture.  Embodied Sexuality therefore becomes an antidote to religiously infused shame and trauma.

White, cisgender women do not recognize we have given up a humanity in exchange for our access to power and privilege, yet there is undoubtedly a dehumanization that happens to white, cisgender women within purity culture.   White, cis-women have played passive and active roles in white and christian supremacy, but these roles can be subverted, in part, through white, cis-women claiming agency and autonomy over our own embodied choices.  I am focusing today on white cisgender women due to the rhetoric of binary-gender and heteronormative, that is to say heterosexist language of purity culture. While my curriculum welcomes non-binary folks who are comfortable in a space that centers the female bodied experience- I have found it necessary to offer a starting point for white, cisgender women who are haven’t yet had opportunity to question their gendered and sexual identity. The course I offer serves as an introduction to the deactivation of normative categories that have become somatically lodged.  While I deeply honor those of all gender and racial identities- I offer the support of embodied sexuality for white, cisgendered women because, as the French existential philosopher and feminist activist Simone De Beavoir stated- “[I]t is more comfortable to endure blind bondage than to work for one’s liberation”. While the oppressive status of gender, race, and sexual identities that deviate from the normative categories within fundamentalist christianity are more obvious in their lack of access to privilege and power- it is more difficult to see, and therefore more comfortable to ignore for those who may fit closer to the normative categories within purity culture.  White, cisgender women were the emphasis of purity culture, and used as a trope for the advancements of christian and white supremacy. 

My emphasis on this population, aside from my own locatedness, is due to the fact that for the last 6 years I have worked in private practice as a mental health counselor primarily with white, cisgendered women who grew up in purity culture. I have seen themes within this population of a lack of connection to desire, sensuousness, boundaries, eroticism, and anger. These emotional and sensational states are not only difficult to access, but are also difficult to metabolize and wield in productive manners for self or other.  White cis-women have suffered due to the normative categories of the purity movement while being the apex of it.  This highlights the distinction between interpersonal violence and institutionalized violence.  While we must address abuse that arises from interpersonal, relational violence- too often institutionalized violence in its elusiveness goes unnoticed. The dehumanization and dissociation that occurs for white, cis-women within purity culture enable us to be used as pawns in a system that disproportionately harms bodies of racial, sexual, and gender diversity. 

While there has been a new movement of white, cis-white women promoting sexual liberation through pro-sex platforms after purity culture, too often these promotions do not acknowledge the institutionalized violence that is systemic and targeted against bodies of Color, and LBGT+ bodies within purity culture, and therefore perpetuate erasure and monopolization even within these so-called liberative practices.  Embodied sexuality, therefore, becomes not only focusing on the liberation of self, but recognizing such liberation as a framework of liberation for all. This is not to say it is a movement of saviorism, rather, an awareness that “[our] liberation is bound up together” as the Aboriginal activist Lilla Watson states.  When institutionalized violence against gender, race, and sexuality become the cultural waters we swim in we can begin to believe that this is just the way things are. That is- until we look further into the subjective experiences of those within the culture. There we find the dissociation and dehumanization that occurs within all bodies. 

When we have lack of access to our sensual selves we have lack of access to our liberation. The Nigerien-Finnish Afro-feminist author Minna Salami writes in Sensuous Knowledge that “tyrants have always known the more robotic people are the more easily controlled they are.” Embodied sexuality is the shedding of the myths that serve to control relational or sexual decisions through compulsive thoughts and behaviors.  Embodied sexuality affirms all sexual orientations- including asexuality. The asexual journalist Angela Chen reminds us in ACE:What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex, that inhibition is not the only reason someone does not want to have sex; therefore, sexual liberation does not necessitate a pro-sex ethic for everyone (although for some liberation may mean being pro-sex!).

Embodied Sexuality is pro-pleasure and sensuousness.  

This invitation of sensuousness is for all bodies, with a particular focus for those that have had more access to power and privilege within these systems.  Too often power is received in exchange for humanity. What this does is generate a series of questions around what embodied sexuality is and what it may need to look like for white, cisgendered women who are engaged in a trauma healing process to regain a sense of sexual agency independent of their religious beliefs and practices. 

In my capacity as a mental healthcare professional- my work has generally been twofold.

One: creating therapeutic space for white cisgendered women to name and sense how shame and trauma impact their experiences of sexuality and embodiment.

And…

Two: perhaps the more complicated piece-is creating space for these clients to sense into the connections between disempowering religious doctrine and a racialized experience of privilege and power. The challenge is that upon first coming into awareness of this double bind between doctrine and privilege -one most often experiences a loss of privilege and therefore a place in the world.  In my therapeutic and group work I have developed a curriculum that anticipates these challenges and therefore normalizes them as white, cisgender women endeavor towards growth.  

A component of the curriculum traces the history of “purity” through Greek philosophy, religious doctrine, and ultimately- christian nationalism.  Participants can explore the scientific, psychological, and historical aspects of sexual politics while also engaging in somatic and mindfulness exercises that enable them to explore their embodied sexuality from the inside out.  Engagement of mind and body enables a subjective experience for white cisgender women that is one of embodiment. I’ve observed this experience remedies the dissociation that comes from traumatic objectification within systems of purity culture that are not disconnected from the perpetuation of white supremacy. 

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Learn more about the Embodied Sexuality Course HERE

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Register for the Unpacking Purity Culture, Sex, and Race Workshop on May 22nd HERE