The comparison widely used by purity culture to justify the control of female appearance and behavior is a “stumbling block”, or the implication that young girls are solely responsible for the sexual reactions of young boys and men.Klein explores how deeply this opens up every woman to blame for the unacceptable, yet not often held accountable behaviors from men such as ogling, cat-calling, and assault. But while her future seemed to be dedicated to spreading the love of God she had always known, it also meant facing that the same love came with a binding contract of keeping any hint of sexuality on lock. Offering a prevailing message of resounding hope and encouragement, ' Pure emboldens us to escape toxic misogyny and experience a fresh breath of freedom' (Glennon Doyle, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Love Warrior and founder of Together Rising).The book opens with an introduction to Klein’s early life as a blossoming young woman aspiring to be a missionary. Part memoir and part journalism, Pure is a horrendous, granular, relentless, emotionally true account' (The Cut) of society's larger subjugation of women and the role the purity industry played in maintaining it. These intimate conversations developed into a twelve-year quest that took her across the country and into the lives of women raised in similar religious communities-a journey that facilitated her own healing and led her to churches that are seeking a new way to reconcile sexuality and spirituality. She contacted young women she knew, asking if they were coping with the same shame-induced issues she was. When the youth pastor of her church was convicted of sexual enticement of a twelve-year-old girl, Klein began to question purity-based sexual ethics. This is the sex education Linda Kay Klein grew up with.įearing being marked a Jezebel, Klein broke up with her high school boyfriend because she thought God told her to and took pregnancy tests despite being a virgin, terrified that any sexual activity would be punished with an out-of-wedlock pregnancy.

This message traumatized many girls-resulting in anxiety, fear, and experiences that mimicked the symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder-and trapped them in a cycle of shame. Purity rings, purity pledges, and purity balls came with a dangerous message: girls are potential sexual 'stumbling blocks' for boys and men, and any expression of a girl's sexuality could reflect the corruption of her character.

In the 1990s, a 'purity industry' emerged out of the white evangelical Christian culture. In Pure, Linda Kay Klein uses a potent combination of journalism, cultural commentary, and memoir to take us 'inside religious purity culture as only one who grew up in it can' (Gloria Steinem) and reveals the devastating effects evangelical Christianity's views on female sexuality has had on a generation of young women.

Pure by Linda Kay Klein