Episode 12: Deadly Sexual Sin #6 (According to the Church): Don’t Say No, with Laura Anderson, part 1
“In purity culture, both men and women are hypersexualized and then also supposed to be asexual at the same time,” explains Dr. Laura Anderson, cofounder of the Religious Trauma Institute.
In short, the expectation is that men are expected to say yes to all things sexual, and women are expected to say and embody the word, no. The sixth deadly sexual sin captures the practice of rigid gender roles.
Men are expected to be dominant. Women are expected to be submissive.
Don’t say no to those gender roles.
Laura, Jeremiah, and Julia talk about:
The pressures on men to say yes to positions of leadership (4:40). Jeremiah explains how his seven-year old self was pressured into a position of leadership strictly because of his sex.
The pressures of women to present and embody submissiveness (16:00): Laura explains “You're told like there's this very specific certain way that you're supposed to live and act and think. And if you do these things, then you're gonna get this reward. In my case, it was gonna be a husband that I could then have children with, and that's how I'd serve God. But there's no room for any self authenticity, curiosity, freedom of expression.”
The paralysis that accompanies decision making for women (21:40): Laura shares, “In the context of relationships, it's going, which shirt should I wear today? So that if I do come in contact with my future husband, he will look at me and, oh, I chose this shirt. And he'll be like, wow, what a godly woman. Versus if I took and wore this shirt over here, he would be like, oh wow. Her shirt reflects this? So it was absolutely paralyzing. What do I wear? What do I eat for breakfast? What socks do I wear? What shoe?”
The pressures on dating (32:50): This episode talks largely about Laura’s adolescence and young adult experiences. Laura summarizes: “I can't just date anybody. I have to only date who I'm going to marry, which then means I've gotta wear the right shirt to school. I can't date for fun. I can't even try things out. It really felt like this huge weight descending on me. Everything had a holy consequence to it.”
The “threat” of single women in Purity Culture (43:30): Laura reflects, “And I know from my experience as a single woman, I was even more dangerous. It was this idea of, “Because I didn't have a husband to rein me in, I would then seek opportunities to make other men stumble, especially married men, to get them to sin sexually,” right? So then there's this hypersexuality of all you are good for is sex or your sexual being, but then also don't act on it because that's a sin and that's gross and that'sdisgusting and you are only supposed to act on it in a very specific context. So keep it shut down even though this isn't who you are.
Laura closes the episode by describing an experience of saying yes to herself and her sexuality, and the freedom that experience opened up for her (49:30).
Julia closes the episode:
“I'm thinking about how the theme around the episode is, Don't Say No. And this is a story in which you said Yes. Yes. And you experienced freedom. What you learned, what I learned, Jeremiah, what you've described that you've learned is that freedom comes from following the rules, which means saying no to all these different things.
Obviously that was not freeing for you, for me, for many people. And then you said yes, and the journey was much longer after that. But what a beautiful moment in which you could connect with yourself and connect with a yes.
Healing together involves finding spaces to say yes to things that are meaningful to us.