NPR 0 Fresh Air Evangelical Purity Movement Sees Women's Bodies As A 'Threat'
https://www.npr.org/2018/09/18/648737143/memoirist-evangelical-purity-movement-sees-womens-bodies-as-a-threat https://www.npr.org/2018/09/18/648737143/memoirist-evangelical-purity-movement-sees-womens-bodies-as-a-threat September 18, 20181:34 PM ET Terry Gross Listen 43'11" https://audio.wnyc.org/otm/otm082418_cms876668_pod.mp3 https://audio.wnyc.org/otm/otm082418_cms876668_pod.mp3?siteplayer=true When she was 13, Linda Kay Klein joined an evangelical church that valued sexual purity. She recounts her experiences in the memoir Pure. Jami Saunders Photography/Simon & Schuster When Linda Kay Klein was 13, she joined an evangelical church that prized sexual "purity" and taught that men and boys were sexually weak. According to Klein's faith, girls and women were responsible for keeping male sexual desire in check by wearing modest clothing, maintaining a sexless mind and body and taking a "purity pledge," in which they promised to remain virgins until marriage. Looking back now, Klein says, "It was all about how [a woman] needed to be a good Christian by protecting them from the threat that is you — the threat that is your body. The threat that is your sexuality." Klein says the central tenet of the purity movement is to delay the age at which young people first have sex. But in practice, she says, the movement is most effective at stifling women's sexuality and creating a "deep, long-lasting shame" among its practitioners.
