Episode #59: Banned Books: The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, with Deesha Philyaw
Purity Culture is largely embedded within White social and political systems intended to dominate and control bodies through a hyper-moralistic, anti-sex landscape.
However, in this last week of Black History month, it's imperative that we talk about the ways that Purity Culture has impacted Black communities.
To help us, we are sharing our interview with Deesha Philyaw, author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, about how the values of Purity Culture have infiltrated Black churches and informed sexual relationships and expectations within the Black community. We talk about:
Purity Culture within Cultural Contexts (5:00): Julia starts us off: “We must remember that purity culture, although within a racist system in the United States, has fucked with the sexuality of black communities and many other communities outside of middle and upper middle class white communities in the interview, Deesha shares about her experiences of black churches, and I hope that as we continue to explore and discuss how purity culture perpetuated several generations of relationally and sexually illiterate individuals and families. We don't lose sight of the nuances of how purity culture gets portrayed in different communities, in largely black communities and in other minority communities.”
Values (9:00): Jeremiah says, “Julia and I, as white people, are dedicated to using this podcast to challenge the ways that white Christianity has created a moral code around sexuality and the usage of our bodies centered around order and has used control, coercion, and manipulation to maintain that order. Sexvangelicals invites folks to share their experiences about experiencing freedom, peace, and joy through sexual exploration and sexual health.”
What Informs the Writing? (16:00): Deesha when asked about her process: “All roads seem to lead back to sex. And so we're figuring out who we are as young people. And then we take that into adulthood. Who are we going to be? And we're just dragging these notions, these fears, the shame, the guilt, all that stuff that we're loaded down with those binaries that aren't helpful. And it's a lot of heavy baggage. People navigate that differently. So I found myself very interested in writing about how women navigate those things."
The Lack of Conversation (24:00): Deesha says: “But there was not conversation about sexual health. It was just always about not having a bad reputation and not going to hell. You know, there was just no nuance there. No subtlety. That was what contributes to secrecy and hiding and people being dysfunctional and being harmed.”
Divorce within the Church (29:00): Julia discusses “the response from the church towards divorce, particularly with the idea that God hates divorce, then creates another bind for folks. Can I be a divorced person and be a part of the faith community? And depending on the faith community, sometimes the answer is no. The literal ostracization.”
Fiction and Sexual Health (38:00): Jeremiah says: “When it comes to sexuality, when it comes to trauma, the field of fiction is light years ahead of the field of mental health than being able to describe healthy sexuality and describe processing trauma in a really accessible way. But it's really interesting that even with sex education, one of the places that you turned to was the world of fiction.
Suffering in Silence (42:00): Deesha discusses her experience with faith: “I have been living the secret in the marriage. The secret was, I'm doing all this praying and I'm not feeling anything. Going to every Bible study and all of these things and I'm just not feeling it their plan, God's plan for marriage doesn't excite me in sex and all of that. And so I was suffering in silence.Well, not always silent like my then husband, you know, we would talk about these things but my takeaway was you know, because Christianity is so freaking self referential, right?”
“Daddy Issues'' (51:00): Deesha discusses, “One of the things that she [Deesha’s therapist] did that I am forever grateful for is that she zeroed in on the father stuff for me, you know, people joke about daddy issues, but you all know that that's absolutely real. And so she said … there's got to be a book about fatherless daughters, you know and how that impacts you and your relationships because you know, once you've been divorced twice you start wondering like, okay what do I need to do differently, you know, because clearly there's a pattern something's going on.”
Grief (58:00): Deesha shares, “When my mother died and my father died and my grandmother died and it was like all these deaths, I then had that experience of, you know, grief is not the five stages that they tell you and it's not just sitting around sad.”
Working Through Self-Hate Through Fiction (1:19:00): Deesha discusses her work: “I also conflated God and Moses. And so Moses has the long beard. So I figured God was this white man who had a long beard. One intentional choice I made in the story was Olivia's [Character] concept of God then is black has dark skin. And I don't interrogate that much, but maybe it's because she's just so smart that one thing she didn't Inhale or not inhale, but absorbed is any kind of self hate and so if she's dark, then God would be dark too though that was great.”
Sexism within Black Churches (1:30:00): Deesha shares, “We see the church grappling around this issue specifically with the Black Lives Matter movement, which is black woman led, queer led, and the church trying to figure out how do we partner with people when we think of them as sinners? How do we partner primarily and what is the church willing to relinquish in order to be in a healthy relationship with the movement and also the church as a follower, right?”
Let's heal together!