{"id":498,"date":"2014-08-07T16:20:00","date_gmt":"2014-08-07T16:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2014\/08\/the-church-sex-abuse-we-dont-talk-about.html"},"modified":"2014-08-07T16:20:00","modified_gmt":"2014-08-07T16:20:00","slug":"the-church-sex-abuse-we-dont-talk-about","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2014\/08\/the-church-sex-abuse-we-dont-talk-about.html","title":{"rendered":"The Church Sex Abuse We Don\u2019t Talk About"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

This week I read an article from Samantha Pugsley<\/a> in which she bravely recounted her upbringing in the church and how it nearly ruined her sexually<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

No, she was not molested by a minister or trusted adult (at least I hope not). She, like nearly all youth in the church, was taught that sex was reserved for marriage and that she should save herself for her husband. She was one of many young girls who took the \u201ctrue love waits\u201d pledge, stating that they would abstain from sex, sexual thoughts, and anything that would lead to sexual arousal.<\/p>\n

This would be all fine and good, except that for Samantha, she was taught from a very young age that her identity in Christ was directly linked to her sexuality and her sex life, so much so that she came to define who she was by it. She was taught, perhaps not intentionally, that conversion equaled sexual abstinence. That was the hallmark of her faith \u2014 being a member of the V-Squad. Otherwise, who was she in Christ? And who was she at all?<\/p>\n

She\u2019d spent a lifetime being taught that sex was essentially bad, or at least something about it was. So when she finally lost her virginity \u2014 on her wedding night \u2014 she couldn\u2019t resolve that what she had done was good, natural, and okay. She still felt dirty.<\/p>\n

Thankfully, she has a loving, supportive husband, but she still isn\u2019t able to reconcile being a sexual being with being a Christian. While this saddens me deeply, I can\u2019t help but understand it. It\u2019s the story of so many of us who grew up in the church \u2014 especially girls. And it\u2019s why I\u2019m leery of so-called \u201cpurity culture,\u201d not because I think that abstinence is bad (please, God, let my daughter wait!), but because I know that this is an area in which the church has likely done more harm than good. Much of these notions the church has had about purity, virginity, and girls\u2019 bodies are profoundly (if unintentionally) abusive. It truly is a form of sex abuse in the church that no one talks about \u2014 and is, in fact, often sanctioned by the church.<\/p>\n

Here are my issues with \u201cpurity culture\u201d and the environment in which Ms. Pugsley was raised:<\/p>\n

Read the rest here<\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week I read an article from Samantha Pugsley in which she bravely recounted her upbringing in the church and how it nearly ruined her sexually. No, she was not molested by a minister or trusted adult (at least I hope not). She, like nearly all youth in the church, was taught that sex was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Church Sex Abuse We Don\u2019t Talk About<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This week I read an article from Samantha Pugsley in which she bravely recounted her upbringing in the church and how it nearly ruined her sexually.No,\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2014\/08\/the-church-sex-abuse-we-dont-talk-about.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta 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