Unraveling The Source of Our Sexual Shame: Jay Stringer Deconstructs Purity Culture

We’re starting a new series that is going to be fire–it’s For the Love of Dating, Sex and Relationships. We’re going to cover a lot of territory over the life of this series–and with this episode we’re going to start with a question; what was it that you learned about sex during the most formative years of your life? Because whether you realize it or not, this can greatly shape how you approach sex as an adult. Maybe you’ve been unraveling what it is you think about sex, how you think about your body, what sex means to you–and you’re tracing it back to what you learned as teenager or young adult–and maybe that education wasn’t positive. To help guide us through making those connections to our early sexual education and how we view sex today is therapist Jay Stringer–returning for his second appearance on the show. Jay pulls back the curtain on the teachings many of us got about sex when we were young. Even if you never were a part of movements like “True Love Waits,” or received lessons on purity culture by your church, or other religious organizations–perhaps there was a rigid sexual space in the childhood home you grew up in. We’re speaking to all the ways sex might have been presented to us with messages of shame. Jay encourages us to look at our sexual stories, seeking ways to find healing and wholeness toward a healthy view of sex. And bonus–for you parents who find talking about sex with your kids akin to a slow, painful death, Jay and Jen talk through ways can engage our kids around sex without the shame approach that a lot of us experienced, and to have those conversations in a loving, age-appropriate way by being open and responsive.  

Content Warning: This episode talks extensively about sex, sexuality, and unwanted sexual behaviors, so it may not be suitable for young listeners. 

Thought-Provoking Quotes

“If you hate your sexual desire, and you are militantly trying to stop it, you are going to develop a very severe and harmful theology, and that's exactly what happened in purity culture.” – Jay Stringer 

“I've seen the purity culture really affect women in three particular ways. I would say that it deprioritizes women's sexual pleasure. It set women up for sexual violation. Then, the third, is that it contributed to sexual pain.” – Jay Stringer 

“I think one of the greatest myths out there is that you can't change your past. In some ways, the past is far easier to change than the future, in that you can go back to that scared, adolescent girl, and you can begin to mother her. You can ask her, ‘what are the things that you wish that you would have known back in the day?’” – Jay Stringer 

“When we don't have language for what we're experiencing or what we're coming out of, we aren't going to have language to be able to create a new sexual world, so we've got to educate ourselves. We've got to get into community and start talking through this stuff in order to rewrite our sexual script.” – Jay Stringer 

“View sexual difficulties as a stage to be able to rewrite your story.” – Jay Stringer

Jay’s Links:

Website - https://jay-stringer.com 

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/JayStringerUnwanted/ 

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jay_stringer_/ 

Twitter - https://twitter.com/_jaystringer 

Connect with Jen!

Jen’s website - http://jenhatmaker.com/ 

Jen’s Instagram - https://instagram.com/jenhatmaker

Jen’s Twitter - https://twitter.com/jenHatmaker/ 

Jen’s Facebook - https://facebook.com/jenhatmaker

Jen’s YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/user/JenHatmaker?sub_confirmation=1

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