Still not hot - Even more lies we believed

 In part two of our finale on modesty culture, we’re moving from the wardrobe to the psyche. We joke about the ankle-length skirts and the rule against spaghetti straps, but what happens when you actually try to unpack the shame attached to them? This week, we’re tackling the heavier lies we were fed—like the idea that your worth is tied to your fabric coverage—while keeping it light enough to remind you that we all survived it. Tune in for the final breakdown of why "modest is hottest" was the biggest lie of the 2000s. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:27

I I made mention already multiple times of how we have a lot of evidence that the that the metaphorical deck is really stacked against everybody, significantly more stacked against women. Uh and and this tracks and if you have any level of knowledge of of Bible verses, typically the ones we're exposed to uh growing up in in faith, then you at least at some level understand just how stacked it is and really how horribly women are painted. The church tells us that the Bible is God's word. We're intended to live as he instructed, based on that word, uh while we're on earth. And since that's the case, I think the only logical step is to paint a picture of exactly what the Bible tells us a woman's role is. Now understand that there are a lot of examples to pick from, and I I feel like I read a lot of them. These are the three that bothered me the absolute most. Now for this one I'm gonna kind of uh I guess we'll call it Tarantino it. I'm I'm gonna start at the end, uh just a few of my takeaways, then we'll get to the uh to the verses. Uh so the creation order is the most obvious place to start when looking at the message uh sent by the way the creation played out. And now if Genesis is an account of the creation, then we're left being four forced to believe that this is an accurate account. Then the creation story tells us not only was man made first, but that woman was created to fill a void in a man's life. He needed a, and this is a quote we'll get to, he needed a suitable helper. This doesn't say suitable partner, this doesn't say equal, it says helper, and I think the word helper is really important. Now, when I hear the word helper, the first image that comes to my mind, many years ago, probably 14-15 years ago, I was changing out the trailer bearings on my boat trailer, and my eldest daughter, who is uh almost 19 now, came out into the garage to help. And so as I'm doing the work, there's increasingly more and more bearing grease on every surface somebody that height could reach. Uh, she was randomly hitting things with a hammer because dammit, she was helping dad. That's what comes to mind when I hear helper. The man in the garden needed what a a little buddy, I guess. If that's if that's the terminology they're gonna use. So now to to back up the the helper, uh, I'm gonna share the verse from Genesis that covers this. I don't typically sit here and read scripture. I've mentioned this a few times. In fact, I think I think this is a disclaimer I throw out uh like twenty times an episode when I read scripture, that you know I I always aim not to, but here we go. Into Genesis. The Lord God took man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. The Lord God commanded the man, you are free to eat from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the tree the knowledge of good and evil, for when you do eat from it you will certainly die. The Lord God said, Quote it is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him. Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them, and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky, and all the wild animals. But for the man, no suitable helper was found. So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep, and while he was sleeping he took one of the man's ribs, closed up the place with flesh, then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. When finishing up my outline for this episode, the plan was to read the passages and then immediately return back to what I was fortifying with said passages. However, as you've all already discovered, I'm still relatively new to managing my ADHD. Ultimately that just says that I'm powerless over side quests. I can't ignore a few obvious cracks. Remember, when we're being curious, all you need is a crack for the questions to start. So we'll go back to Genesis sixteen. And the Lord God commanded the man, you are free to eat from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die. And then it continues, the Lord God said it's not good for man to be alone. But going back to sixteen, if this is an accurate account, which again we're told it is, that's that's what believers are taught, technically God never commanded the woman not to eat from the tree of knowledge. The story and all the depictions through artwork, they always show Eve fucking around by the snake in a tree while Adam unsuspectedly is sitting up against a different tree, and then she brings this thing over. We'll go back to old old times when these original images were being documented. You guys can only imagine how many female artists there were in the game and how few people there were to challenge the artist's horrible depiction of how this happened. So so apparently that's just how it happened. Again, God never commanded the woman not to eat from the tree of knowledge. So maybe everybody could stop smearing her. Uh, because everybody always says, you know, it's it's the woman's fault. Maybe everybody didn't say that, but it was something I heard very often. And I'm a husband. Uh we're actually coming up on 20 years. I will tell you, and anybody who's married can understand this. I have forgotten to tell my wife more things than I've probably remembered to tell her. So lo and behold, Adam forgot to relay the message to Eve. Eve unknowingly ate an apple. Uh religion of deprecation, shame, and guilt was formed from it. Anyway, let her off the hook, this is on the dude. Next up, Lord God said, It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him. Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground, all the wild animals, all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them, and whatever the man called them, on and on and on. We just read it. But for the man, no suitable helper was found. The first thing that popped into mind, it's kind of that word association. I've always found benefit in that because I am such a visual, it's always an analogy for me, it's a visualization. So here we go with the suitable helper title again. Okay, so God made everything from the ground. Previously in in the book of Genesis, it tells us that during the creation week. Well, just about a full week. So he created everything from the ground, which he also created, and he brought every animal to the man so that he could name them. And apparently that's still what they're called. No, we could spend countless hours on the logistics of this, you know, God parading every single thing he'd created in front of the man who's just rolling out these fire names based on a language he didn't know with very historical significance. I used Bat in a thousand. Really, until the woman came in the garden, nobody could miss. I'm sorry, that's a fucked up thing to say. I'm sorry. Well we're not going to get into the logistics of that. But it ends by saying, quote, but for man no suitable helper was found. And yes, I had to read that again and then again. So I'll repeat it really quickly. But for the man no suitable partner was found. So the only pool that existed to draw from so far to look for a suitable helper were the animals. Apparently only this only the snake can talk. There's a side quest on that too, but regardless, they rolled out all the animals, found that nothing would be a suitable helper, and then God decided to make the woman. Again, because none of the animals that he created had offered the solution. Oftentimes people will defend this by saying that you cannot read between the lines. There were no implications. While we hear X, Y, and Z, it's clearly not what it meant. It's about the only time a defender of the Bible will admit that there could be errors through translation. That's kind of the juxtaposition behind this being God's absolute word. And then when you bring up the one that says hey, but but you know, pluck your other eyeball out, that's when they say, well, you know, maybe things got lost in translation, but you know, the meat and potatoes are the same. There's my side quest. Get back to the creation order's depiction of women. First Corinthians, now we're we're gonna get to those three that I had mentioned that that just really pissed me off. 1 Corinthians 11, 8 9. For man did not come from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman created for man. This is when I really felt to myself think things are really shifting here. I've read that and I've heard that, and I've heard that multiple times, it absolutely never resonated with me the way it does now. So things are shifting. And and it's something that I want everybody to be aware of. If if you're listening, whether you're listening to deconstruction stuff for me or for somebody more qualified and professional, uh at least professional sounding and and less profane, and likely doesn't have a Midwest accent, it's important to pay attention to uh to a big notice, something that I've heard multiple times, many times, uh was just accepted as the word, and it wasn't questioned. So if the image being painted by the presenter of this information to me, in my case, my dad, uh, in a very patriarchal home, it's definitely going to be an image that leans away from man's responsibility in all of this, and I didn't challenge that. But this says that women were created for man. Just like the word helper, sometimes I do get hung up on words, and maybe that's why it is such a strong defense that things may have been lost in translation or that we cannot use our own interpretation. In the same book, Genesis, God commanded, I give you all of the seed bearing fruits and animals to use. That to me is the definition of making something for someone. I if we're gonna use that definition, then much like the green bean or the cat, they're for men, well, so is woman. Stacked deck. Now we've got two more, so let's keep moving. Another one of the three that really got to me. One Timothy two twelve. This is on the prohibition of leadership. One Timothy says, I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man. She must remain quiet. So in Timothy we're hearing that women can't teach men. They can't rule over them at at any level, from you know, political all the way down to in your home. They they don't have any authority. They can't have authority over a man. Her role is to and this is a quote from the Bible, her role is to be quiet. Now I'm not female, but that is something that I was told an awful lot as a kid because I was too excited or I was I was going a million miles an hour. Or, like you're hearing right now, I I'm rambling and with any level of patience I and a kid that should be okay, right? Be quiet. That I mean what a damaging thing to to tell somebody. However, to tell over half of the human beings you've created this message to be quiet. That's boy, that's so much worse than me just being told uh to be quiet and eat eat my dinner. But I will tell you that as a man who is married to the breadwinner, uh I for one am glad that women sto stopped being quiet. At least to the extent that thing things are now. Obviously there's still a ton of work to do. Uh however, we have come a long way from be quiet. Now we'll move on to the last one. So in first Peter chapter three, verse seven, this is arguably the one that got that got to me the most. One Peter says, quote, likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding and patient way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel. Obviously we have covered that I'm a man, and I do not want any of this interpreted as me pretending that I can understand any of this from the woman's perspective, because I cannot, and I certainly don't imagine that I ever will. I have, however, been married, as I just said, nearly two decades, and I do have two extremely empathetic and independent daughters. And just the thought of telling any of those three that there's an ounce of truth in be quiet, that really hurts to think about. I think about how much of a hurdle that was for me to overcome. I wouldn't wish any amount of that on on anybody and and consider that as a woman they're just gonna deal with with more shit than I have to. Say for some reason, and this is gosh, I don't know, you yeah, this this one's out there. Say, for argument's sake, that I could rally around every other teaching of the Bible, which of course is saying a lot, because as we know, there are verses that condone slavery, uh, rape, murder, venge. Say I can say I can accept all of that. Simply considering how the book, the Bible, paints women deal breaker for me. Has not always been. Again, we talked about growing up and still living in the shit, and that is that is not the same opinion I have today. Like again, to be fair, when I was still deep in the faith, I did believe this. It literally says that women were created for me. How as a kid, when you're forming your associations to things and your your imagery, how could that not be interpreted uh by a boy or a girl as the woman being second rate? I I I don't think from the word go, from the first words that explain how woman was created, like out of the gate, it is negative, it's derogatory, it's a helper. When a helper presents an idea on paper, as a parent, that's when you grab a magnet and you put it on the fridge because it makes that little helper feel feel really good and feel like they contributed. Again, that's what I picture with helper. Now that we've discussed like just three examples that are painting a a picture of a woman's role, maybe it's time we consider the logic, and I'm putting that in quotes, you can't see it, logic, behind the extra burden placed on women. Not an opinion, by the way, if again, refer to the three verses that I just read or Google it and carve out an afternoon, because there are that many examples. Teaching that women are second rate, this is the division. Uh if you look over history, I I think because of how close this was to the creation of man and woman, I think this might be some of the first fuel for the gender divide. Not shocking that it's still present. It's not shocking that it's still such an issue. Uh again, I mean, keep keep in mind how many how many laws we have on the books because of deep faith that so many politicians have. I mean, faith religion does an awful lot of law writing in this country. So to so to think that corporate in 2026 is not aware of a gender divide is is foolish to believe. I've made many references since my first episode to the examination of conscience. This is nothing new for anybody that's listened to anything. So this was a ritual that we had to sit through prior to our weekly confession. The more I sat with this memory, uh the more comes to mind, and I'm forced to sit with just how sick this Catholic system was, and how it pays absolutely no attention to the actual well-being of their proclaimed flock. If any of your core doctrine is discriminatory or not inclusive, then of course in hindsight that that's a red flag. When when we hear it put that way and we hear it through our adult ears, you think, well, yeah, no shit neck. I was actually just talking to my my therapist this morning about this. I'd mentioned that I'm noticing how preposterous so much of this is, and I'm recognizing that part of the reason I see it at the level that I do is because how indoctrinated I was. This is started ex like extremely early in the child's life, not long after our instincts alone associate mom and dad with food safety and survival, like lizard brain stuff, shortly after that, if not before and during. That's when this starts. So anything for a good number of years, anything that comes out of mom and dad's mouth is is absolute. These are the people that keep us alive, so they have to be right about everything they're saying. So we'll do a super quick run through on the examination of conscience. So we've we've done a pretty decent run through on aspects of this examination, super quickly go over it again. Remember, this is where the priest stands in front of everybody and dissects the Ten Commandments and tells them, Boy, you think this is what it means, but this is also what it means. So here's many, many, many more opportunities uh to have sinned and we want to hear all about it. During that examination, we made a stop at the sin of lust, and of course the priest began uh by directing his words to the guys uh wandering eyes kind of thing. He actually went so far as to say that if our wandering eyes happen to see something that causes us to lust, as long as we recognize that, stop going down that path and move on, we're good since we can't control everything. But remember last episode we discussed how we have to control our thoughts and our imaginations. So the sin is simply a venial one, not a mortal one. If you're not familiar, the Catholics kind of rank their their sins two types, venial and mortal. Venial are the we'll call them little guys. They don't prevent you from getting to heaven. They they send you to purgatory, and we talked about that. You're still basically burning. And then there are mortal sins. And when you die, if those haven't been confessed, then there are no questions asked. One way to get to hell. So for a guy that's just a venial sin. Again, but now we'll get into this deck deck. It gets really bad for the gals here. If the lust inducing thing that I saw was a woman, even though my sin was just a venial one because I didn't look twice, honestly, the fact that I was tempted is evidence that the woman is guilty of a mortal sin because she tempted me based on what she was wearing. Now I don't need to point out how close this is to the disgusting logic that the rape victim brought this on based on their behavior or their outfit. It's sick. Like it is it is really sick. One of my first episodes, the question was what now? And something that that covers is the that that falls into kind of the psychological fallout aspect of deconstructing. There's psychological fallout to every aspect of it. The flip the switch problem, that's kind of what it's referred to as the flip the switch problem, really showcases some of the psychological fallout. One of the aspects of religion that we've accepted uh as a huge reason many people who begin to question the validity, that's when the curiosity starts, is the moving target aspect, the very inconsistent nature of religion. I don't know that that's ever been more evident than, let's say, defining our animal instincts. Think about it. Until there's a wedding ring on my finger, I was raised to believe that I had to remain completely pure of thought and act as it relates to sex matters. Now it's it makes sense that after being told how vile sex is, how it is your one way ticket if you're not married, how demeaning it is to yourself and to your partner, that we would grow up to have sex being one of those things on the list of things we have to avoid. It's no. It it is a deal breaker. It's it's a no. Keep in mind that while we were fearing sex, And avoiding all thoughts that were sex related. A consequence of that is that now as an adult, not only are we in the dark about our partner's needs, but we've never developed any amount of sexual maturity ourselves. Let's say we spend uh eighteen to twenty five years believing that if we even look in the direction of sex or something that leads to it, we're gonna burn in hell. Our partner will leave us because we're dirty, right? Chewed gum last episode. But now that we're married and vows are involved, not only is sex good, it's no longer bad and dirty, right? It's good. But it's required because we have to make babies. Another commandment out of the Bible, not one of the ten, that's that's not what I mean. Another commandment given by God was to be fruitful and multiply. So this thing that if touched will send you to hell. Um like I mean just th think think of the psychological damage and how how how deep and old a lot of these horrible traumatic core memories are for people. A lot of them are based somewhere on a spectrum of sexuality. It's such a dangerous thing to to bestow on on anybody, but to consider doing it to your kids, uh. But now we go from that belief to this has to happen. We're required to, we're instructed to. I think this is a great example about how short-sighted this I guess the word that keeps coming into my mind is predatory, but so let's call it that how short-sighted this predatory approach really is. The survivors of purity culture, the survivors of the growing up in this, they are now walking out into this deconstructed this new world utterly unprepared for interpersonal relationships. The relationships that we had, I I covered this. My friends were friends through church, they're friends through youth group, they were friends through serving for masses and funerals. My entire network was rooted in in my faith, in my beliefs. So when I stepped away, boy, you you feel like you're on an island. Now, this person who's who's moving on, uh man or woman, is learning as they go, they're an adult, they're in that 18 to 25 range, and they're dealing with adults in that same range, but they're not where that other adult is. You can kind of assume how this would create incompatibility. You can kind of imagine how apples and oranges this this would be. You know, say two 20-year-olds one growing up deeply ingrained in this purity culture, and one not, they're they're just they're apples and oranges. The short-sightedness of let's get them now uh completely ignores or realizes and just disregards what might happen later. Every relationship that that they've been in was based on on what? On your typicals, your fear, shame. Or maybe it's just a rule laid out by the man of the house and your brand of religion is a very is based in uh you know patriarchal leadership, iron fist, what the man says goes because of course the woman, you have to what if you're paying attention, uh you have to be quiet, you have to remain quiet. And if and if you are a woman coming out of that, then your understanding of of your expected role is fucking just upside down and backwards. When when being raised in a culture like this, there there isn't consideration to the future of the person, how this is gonna help or hinder them in in their future. Imagine leaving purity culture. Imagine breaking away from that and how many and just the level, what obstacles you would face in your quest for kind of that that fairy tale life, happiness and peace, and I don't know, maybe maybe kids, but people simply aren't being raised to have more than one option in life. That's that purity culture, that's the deep religion. You're a boy, you turn into a man, you marry a woman. That's what I did. That's the way we've always done it. But that's black and white thinking. And as my therapist recently told me, black and white thinking is a young voice. That's that's young thinking. The vast majority of the world exists in the gray. And and I think most everybody knows that. I feel like I was one of the last people to to realize that. I'm not gonna spend too much time with the next one because we have touched in on it. Um RTS, religious trauma syndrome. So purity culture's contributions to shame, body dysmorphia, and actually sexual dysfunction, performance anxiety, or legitimate physical issues from it. So again, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna sit on this for too long, but it's worth the stop to point out uh purity culture's role in shame and body dysmorphia and sexual dysfunction as mentioned, which can show as again performance anxiety, uh ED, and a few things I don't really wanna wanna get into, but Google's an amazing thing. So you guys can can dig in deeper if you'd like, but but you get my point. Survivors of RTS often struggle when deciphering between reality and the reality of their their past doctrines. And it's not too different than the overall uh deconstruction fallout. As I mentioned as we were getting into the flip the switch problem, that the overall deconstruction, let's call it the capital D overall deconstruction, and all of these subcategories within that deconstruction, they all have their own little fallouts. Uh I'm picturing kind of a kind of a family tree. Every thread you pull out, uh well while it's now useful, it's it's just one thread that was in this ball of uh of mess. Uh again, I'm big on imagery. I have recently accepted that while the imagery in my head is ultra high definition, I mean this is perfect, it makes perfect sense. There isn't even going to need to be a conversation. This example is gonna make so much sense to this person that it's gonna put it to rest. I have recently accepted that that is nowhere near the case, and that oftentimes when I bring up these these examples, I'm I'm kind of seen as crazy. When you're raised in purity culture, so many things are skewed, but something that isn't considered, but is a really common part of the fallout is redefining consent. There is a lot of fallout from this type of of upbringing. I think the most important aspect of sex or any sex act involving a partner, both adults, is consent from both participants. Consent isn't mentioned in this upbringing though. It it wasn't for me. Sex equals no. Period. Never never consent. It was always no, now you're married, now you do this. It was it was never mentioned that hey, if one of you two doesn't want to, then then then you don't. But consent was never brought up. So again, now we're we're thrown into bed with our our new spouse, and up until that night, remember, we had never said yes before. When propositioned with it or when the opportunity was there, we were never given the option to say anything but no. We we we were never given the option to say yes before. Now we're married and it's it's a requirement. But requirements don't care about consent. It's it's required, that's the way it is. I have to pay taxes, I don't consent to paying taxes, but consent doesn't mean jack shit when it comes to taxes. Consent now is extremely important. You're in a marriage, but it's a completely new concept for many people coming out of purity culture. Now obviously this is all based on the understanding that I'm speaking as though these people have lived their entire lives up until marriage, the way the church teaches us to. But like all good Christians we did, every single one of us. Another part of this fallout, the grief phase, this is the part that's likely gonna get me in trouble with my wife. She listens to every episode. There's that that inner struggle between I made a commitment that I was gonna be honest when I recorded this, but I'm also married. I'm kidding. This will be the segment though, I'm sure that that pisses her off. It's entirely possible that while discussing this next one, that I'm gonna say something that's either gonna end or damage my marriage. Um maybe there's gonna be a freak accident in my house and there will never be another episode. There were girls that I certainly had the opportunity to be to be with, but my religion told me what? There was no consent. No, you you don't get to. And I had to say no because it was life or death for me, for for my soul. I was going to go to hell if I didn't say no. I didn't want to disappoint God. So the point is that there really is a grief phase in this part of the deconstruct. There really are lost years or and here we go, missed experiences. These are normal and they're real. And for the record, I know that everyone listening, including my wife, has been propositioned or had the opportunity at some point before marriage, and likely have regrets about not being able to experience that. When I stepped away from this type of thinking, and it's a constant theme, it comes up constantly when I'm when I'm writing my scripts and when I'm recording my episodes and when I'm editing my episodes, I used to be this person, and being raised in this, one of the strongest tools they use is shame. And I'm learning that stepping away from this and shedding myself of so much crap, I didn't shake the shame off. I I can't shake the shame off. We talked about of coursing and this is my roadblock on of coursing. Now of course that is the way I behaved, but I still feel so much shame because of it. So I've been at it long enough. We have covered uh something that's that's frankly molded uh who I am. I've been moving away from the indoctrination for for quite a while now, but it doesn't matter because the shame and the guilt and the scars left by this, they're always there. We'll we'll keep asking questions, we'll keep looking for the next answer, we'll keep moving forward, we'll keep finding comfort through other people's shared experiences. Another thing that that came up today in therapy was the power of storytelling, and it sounds it sounds odd to hear that out loud. That's that's what somebody's paying a therapist to talk about. Uh but the important role of storytelling and how the human aspect is added to it, to say it out loud is sharing. You're bringing different senses into it. To hear it, you're you're getting humanity back. You're not on an island anymore. And if you are, it's the island misfit toys, and and I'm on it too, and there are a lot of us on it. Storytelling brings a lot of that isolation aspect out of it. I like to end episodes on kind of a kind of a chipper note, like more of an upbeat note. Uh this one this one's really hard for me to do that with because our worth was so tied to something that we couldn't beat. I want everyone and and I wish I had been told this a long, long time ago. Our worth was never a status that could be lost. It was a worth that you earned with your first breath and will hold until your last. With the holiday week coming up, uh I'm gonna be up north uh recreating for a little over five days. That's gonna greatly reduce the amount of time that I have to prepare my next episode. Uh there's there's gonna be a two-week break uh between this episode and my next. Again, just just to give myself some time to put together decent episodes. So I hope everybody enjoys their holiday break. If you're listening to this kind of in real time, and until the next episode,