Hi everyone! There are three major holidays in my personal world today.

1) Beyoncé's birthday (I'm Beyhive all the way in case you didn't know)

2) The Philadelphia Eagles home opener against Dallas (Go Birds!)

3) World Sexual Health Day

Don't worry, I won't bore you with facts about Beyoncé or Philly sports (unless you want some- reply and let me know lol), but I do want to talk to you briefly about World Sexual Health Day, what it means to be sexually healthy and why sexual health cannot exist under purity culture.

Sexual Health Cannot Exist Under Purity Culture

The World Health Organization's definition of sexual health is as follows:

“Sexual health is a state of physical, emotional, mental, and social wellbeing in relation to sexuality. It is not merely the absence of disease, dysfunction, or infirmity. Sexual health requires a positive and respectful approach to sexuality and sexual relationships, as well as the possibility of having pleasurable and safe sexual experiences free of coercion, discrimination, and violence.”

Sexual Health And Purity Culture Are Incompatible

Purity culture doesn't teach a positive and respectful approach to sexuality. It teaches that sexuality is dangerous and harmful unless we only do it in one very specific context- a monogamous, straight marriage.

Purity culture doesn't consider pleasure, address coercion or consent, and certainly doesn't bother in the least to teach solid safer sex practices. While sexual health is not merely the absence of STIs or sexual dysfunction, we do need to consider the dysfunction that many people experience after purity culture- things like vaginismus, pelvic floor issues, and debilitating anxiety around sex.

Purity culture insists that good sexual health is obtained simply by remaining abstinent until marriage and faithful inside the union. This doesn't take into account that some marriages can be abusive and that sex in marriage can be coercive.

Purity culture itself is coercive and manipulative. Lying to people about sex and keeping important information from people about sex in order to control them does not promote sexual health. Telling certain groups of people (unmarried people or queer and trans people) that they should not have sex is not in service of sexual health.

Public health experts have deemed abstinence only sex education a violation of adolescents’ human rights because it withholds critical health information, leaves them unprepared, undermines public health, and is harmful to LGBTQ+ young people and survivors of sexual abuse.

Purity culture does all of the same things.

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​So today, on World Sexual Health Day, please know that by taking steps to address the harm of purity culture, you are taking steps toward good sexual health.

Want to talk more about what you can do in service of your sexual health? Book a session here. ​

You can also join the Purity Culture Dropout™ Private Community on Mighty Networks. We have monthly learning themes, and during July and August our theme was Rethinking Sexual Health. (For September, it's Reclaiming Desire!)

And finally, because I'm going to be talking about my book from now until forever probably, you can preorder The Purity Culture Recovery Guide: The Shame-Free Sex Education You Deserve. It will be released in February from Bloomsbury Publishing.

Thanks for giving me your time tdoay!

xo

E