Episode 373 - Dr. Camden Morgante, "Recovering from Purity Culture"

Welcome to another episode of "Restoring the Soul with Michael John Cusick." Today, Michael sits down with Dr. Camden Morgante, licensed clinical psychologist and author of "Recovering from Purity Culture." Together, they dive into the real impact of purity culture within evangelical communities, exploring the myths and messages that have shaped so many lives, often with shame and fear at the center.

Drawing from both professional expertise and personal experience, Camden unpacks the psychological and spiritual wounds purity culture can leave behind and offers a thoughtful path toward healing, reconciling mind, body, heart, and soul. The conversation doesn’t stop at identifying problems; it reaches for hope and reconstruction, offering practical tools for embracing a healthier, grace-filled sex ethic—and even guidance for raising the next generation with greater wisdom and compassion.

Transcript

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Hi, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Restoring the Soul. I'm Michael Cusick and today I'm excited for our guest, Dr. Camden Morganti. Hi, Camden. Welcome. Hi, Michael. Thanks for having me here. You bet. I'm holding up your book, Recovering from Purity Culture. I have to look at the COVID to read the subtitle because it's a long one, but a good one. Dismantle the myths, reject shame based sexuality, and move forward in. In your faith. Wow. A lot of people have been talking about purity culture. In my estimation, it really emerged conversationally around the MeToo movement. And you are one of a few books that addresses this, but I think you address it in a really substantive way. So thank you for all your labor and your heart and your wisdom bringing this forth. Yes, well, thank you. From another author. You know, what goes into this. So I appreciate your appreciation. I do indeed. And then, you know, writing the book is one thing, but then it's getting it out into the world, doing these kinds of podcasts, that it's both fun and a whole nother task of doing it. So let's jump into the topic itself. I'd like you to talk about what purity culture is, because I hear a lot of people throwing the term around and I've actually said to people, when you say that, what do you mean when you say that? A little bit like the Princess Bride line, where when you say that word, it does not mean what I think you think it means. And also, you wrote this book as a licensed clinical psychologist. You're a coach, you have a practice, but you also live through this, your personal experience. So just define it and talk about what led you to write this. Yes, it is really important that we are working from a similar definition or at least a similar understanding. So my definition of purity culture was that it was a sociocultural political movement. I focus on the evangelical movement of purity culture that attempted to persuade young people to abstain from sex until marriage, using shame and fear as the tools of control. So I distinguish it from, you know, traditional Christian teachings about sexuality. It's really the use of the shame and fear to promote the. Promote those teachings and promote that message. So to me, it's. It's different than just a Christian sexual ethic. And what may me want to write this book is it's the first one on the subject written by a psychologist. I wanted to bring the personal and the professional together because I saw that there were a lot of memoir type books written by people with their personal experience, which is very valuable and very Helpful for us to see, you know, how this is lived out, how this. How this plays out in someone's life. And so I do share a little bit of my personal experience with purity culture in the book, but I really wanted to focus more on the psychological tools for healing, because I didn't see that in a lot of the books that were put out there. It was more like, here's what the problems with purity culture are, but not the next step of, you know, how do we heal from that then? And the. The psychology, you know, that I was trained in, the different therapy techniques I was trained in, I was using with my clients. And it just seemed to be really helping them to get their mind and body on the same page. And so that's what I wanted to offer in the book. Well, thank you for part two of that. There are a lot of people describing and putting words to the problem, not just a purity culture, but of toxic Christianity and rigid Christianity and the whole movement of deconstruction, but not a lot of people talking about reconstruction or what it actually means to move into health. So I loved how you shared stories, especially of clients that you've worked with, but also every chapter ended with something practical, and you really had an emphasis through the whole book on mind, body integration. So give people kind of a preview of how that was your framework. Yeah, well, when I first started doing purity culture recovery work with my clients, I was getting clients at the point where they had read a few other books already and they knew that these myths, as I call them, were wrong, but they couldn't make their body seem to catch up with their brains. You know, they had the intellectual head knowledge, but. But yet they weren't feeling that in their bodies. And that's, you know, a common experience we all have of where we know something to be true, but we don't feel like it's true. And so I realized, like, it wasn't enough to just rely on changing the mind. You really have to work on that mind, body, heart and soul integration. And so that's the framework I used of helping people to get alignment between their mind, heart, body, and soul, so that you not only know something to be true, but you also feel. Feel it in your heart. You live it out in your body, and you also believe it in your soul. You mentioned and quote Andy Colbert quite a bit, and we talked a little bit about before the show that, that you've really appreciated her work. And she's a friend of our podcast. I think she. She holds the esteemed seat of the most appearances on our podcast. And I was recently with her. So hi to Andie, if you're listening and thanks for your ongoing contribution to so much of this mind body integration. So you alluded to Dr. Morganti the myths, and I'd love it if you could run through those and kind of give a 30,000 foot overview of what those are because people will probably be going, check, check, check. Right? Yes. Yeah. So the, the second section of the book is organized, one chapter for each myth. So there are five of them. And the first one is the spiritual barometer myth that our faith and our spiritual maturity is measured by our purity or virginity, especially for women. So there's a sense of like you're a better Christian if you are pure, if you wear a purity ring, if you have made a true love weights pledge, and that you could tell how mature someone was in their faith by their sexual choices, basically. The second myth is the fairy tale myth that God will give you a fairy tale spouse and marriage as long as you remain pure. So it's a very prosperity gospel based if then kind of formula. The third one is similar. It's the flip switch myth that you'll have an amazing sex life if you wait until marriage. And all of the couples in my sex therapy practice that waited until marriage would disagree with that myth. Because just because you wait doesn't. Doesn't make sex amazing and wonderful. The fourth one is the gatekeeper's myth that women are the gatekeepers of men's sexuality, responsible for the boundaries before marriage and then common, constantly being available to meet their husband's sexual needs after marriage so that he doesn't cheat or look at porn or something like that. And then the last one is the damaged goods myth, which I say is probably the, the most harmful myth because it teaches that you are damaged goods and that you should be ashamed if you do have premarital sex or even if you're sexually abused. And so that's one that can be really a long, a long lasting damage. And for that last one, it's not just that one should be ashamed, but that premarital sex is really the worst kind of violation and the most shameful thing because of. And I want to go back to how you define this at the beginning, a socio political cultural phenomenon which also has huge theological spiritual implications. Right. Because our cultural, social and political defines and the theological defines that. But so many of those I could relate to. Even though I'm a baby boomer, I am the very, very last year of being eligible for a Baby boomer. So I grew up as a young Christian and graduated high school back in 1982. So it was a full 20, 25 years before all of what we specifically are calling purity culture. But there were a lot of these beliefs that were still there because Focus on the Family had just come about, and they were a big part of what brought about this, the programs that came out of that. But the two that I want to just comment on is the spiritual barometer. And I think this is helpful, not just with true love weights and purity rings and things like that, but as I've worked with sex addicts and people with sexual brokenness, including, as you pointed out, sexual abuse, that the degree to which I'm acting in these behaviors is a spiritual barometer of how much I'm devoted to or dedicated to God or even how I see myself as worthy or unworthy of his love. So, so, so damaging. So it's so helpful to have you frame it this way. The other one about the flip switch, and I want to. I want to take a little bit of time here because we at restoring the soul work with couples again. It's this idea that if you. If you keep yourself for your wedding night, that on your wedding night, it's going to become this wonderful thing. And I remember Dr. Tony Campolo, who I was able to spend some time with before he passed, he used to say that, you know, we're taught as Christians before marriage, sex is filthy, filthy, filthy, filthy. And then on your wedding night, you know, it becomes this beautiful thing. And how in the world do you make that shift? This is controversial, but I've almost witnessed in my work that couples that wait until the wedding night, because of the pressure and because of the lack of conversation and because of the lack of sexual education and even exploration of their own bodies, that sometimes it's actually far less than in the secular world, where people may have had that experimentation. Now, I say that knowing that there will be people that are gasping and, you know, deleting their subscription to our podcast and that kind of thing, but can you comment on that? Yeah, I mean, I don't. I don't think we're. Yeah, we're not encouraging anyone to act outside of their values, but it's. It. You're just describing what you see. I think when there is such a buildup and such a pressure for the wedding night to be this, you know, amazing thing that you've waited for, it's like this promise, reward, and then it. When it's not, it can just be Devastating to people. And it can feel like, what was the whole point of this? And then they start blaming themselves or blaming each other, and it just. It sets them up for a very frustrating honeymoon instead of an enjoyable one. So I think giving people permission to, like, you don't even have to have intercourse on your wedding night. If you need to take some time or you need to get to know your own body a little bit more before, even before marriage or before going into that, sometimes that can be wise. And having sex education beforehand. So that chapter focuses a lot on sex education and how we can empower ourselves with that knowledge and have conversations with your, you know, your partner and communicate about sex before or and after marriage. And that that's a way to offset this flip switch myth, you know, to know that it's your. Keep your expectations reasonable, I think, and know that it's going to be a lifelong journey, that your sexual intimacy will grow in your marriage. So the wounding that happens as a result of this. I just made a brief list from your book and I wrote down personal wounding, relational impact, spiritual impact, psychological impact. And then of course, it takes impact onto the family as people are raising children. And I love the fact it was a surprise at the end when you had a chapter on parenting after purity culture. So thank you for that talk about the impact personally. And then I'm really interested in spiritual because a lot of our listeners, if not formally deconstructing, they're trying to wrestle with this gap between what the Christian life was promised to them and what their actual daily experience is. Right. Yeah, I. I categorize the effects into. Into three, like sex, relationships, and faith. And so the. And so that kind of encapsulates the ones that you just mentioned. And so you were asking about personally and also faith. And that's really where purity culture affected me the most, was my faith. Because I was a big proponent of purity culture and bought into it and very proud of it. I had the, you know, kind of that sinful pride of the spiritual barometer myth that I had maintained my purity and virginity and were a ring and things like that. And then when a relationship I was in that I thought was going to lead to marriage, when that ended, I was devastated. Not just to lose this person that I, you know, thought I was going to be with, but also in my faith, because it felt like these were empty promises, false promises, and it felt like kind of what's the. The whole point of my faith. And it's very risky to build your faith on just one. You Know, one theology, one value. And. And so when that doesn't turn out the way you expect, and then your whole faith is kind of crumbling, Very, very risky. And so it was a long process of deconstructing and rebuilding my faith and realizing that just this theology of grace is really what changed it for me, is realizing that grace was not just this theology, theological salvation, but also just these unearned gifts in my life. And that I didn't do anything to earn or deserve marriage or, you know, a spouse, a family. And those are things that I, you know, have now, but I don't feel like I've earned them or deserved them. It was gifts of grace and blessings from God. So being able to kind of just shift my mindset from this, like, workspace, I need to earn this, and I deserve it, to more of a gratitude and. And just acceptance kind of posture. And that made my relationship with God less dependent on my works as well, and less dependent on outcomes. You delved into a controversial topic, and I was glad you did. You quoted Beth Ellison Barr and others about patriarchy and talk about how patriarchy has fueled purity culture in particular. Yeah, I believe patriarchy is the root of all of purity culture and other toxic cultures that I list off in the book, because patriarchy is about controlling and subduing women. And purity culture was a way to control and subdue women's sexuality. And even in Jesus and John Wayne, Kristin Dumas says, like, purity culture was a way for them to maintain control after society was changing so much. You know, we see the height of purity culture in, like, the 90s and 2000s. And if you think about the decades prior and the sexual revolution, the feminist revolution and birth control and women going back to work and higher divorce rates, like, all of these, social change meant less control over women. And so purity culture was another way to maintain control. And it's closely related to, you know, modesty messages and courtship and. And some of those. Some other cultures that are also about control. Controlling what women wear, controlling their dating choices, men being in charge of that, instead of women having some agency and autonomy. Yeah. So patriarchy is the root of it. And, yeah, that might have been controversial, but it's honest. And I felt like that needed to be explored. Yeah, thank you for that. I think sometimes patriarchy and misogyny, which sometimes accompanies that, maybe patriarchy is rooted in misogyny, that it's very, very overt. And I often think that some of the more covert and subtle forms of patriarchy are the ones that are Especially insidious. And you quoted from the book Every Man's Battle, you talked about how the authors said that wives should basically be their husband's methadone. So sexuality is like a craving for heroin, was the analogy. And when. So in order for them to not give into temptation and sexually sin, wives should be the methadone and give them a fix whenever. And it's those subtle kinds of ways. What other subtle ways have you seen patriarchy and misogyny play out in purity culture? Yeah, that methadone one is. Is a shocker when you read that. And Sheila Ray Gregoire is one that has identified that message and how harmful it is. But other ones, yeah, there are very subtle messages, especially the modesty ones, you know, and sometimes I get pushed back about modesty. Are you just saying people can wear whatever they want and it doesn't matter? And, you know, and I'll say modesty is a biblical virtue, and they'll, well, then how can we ignore what, what women wear? And to me, it's just about respect for yourself and respect for others and the environment. It's not about controlling what men think, you know, and protecting them from stumbling as it's. It's often said, you know, for the woman to have agency over her choices of what she wears and to not have to fear for her safety because of that, and for men to be responsible for their thought and their thought life and. And not put the onus on women. So I think that's one subtle demonstration. But, yeah, the Gatekeeper's myth, which is the one that's all based in like, these. These gender differences, really has a lot of patriarchy in it. And I, I hear this a lot in my practice. You know, women believe sex is a need for him. There's no conception of sex as enjoyable or for her. Like, that could be something for her pleasure, her enjoyment, or something she could want. It's just seen as a need for him that she has to fulfill. And I will say that sex is not a need, and that. That has been controversial when I said that on social media, but I say that to my clients, it's not a need. But yet connection is human connection is. And so how can we meet that need for human connection, which can include sex in marriage, but is also met in a lot of other ways? And so I think that's where patriarchy and purity culture have harmed men too. You know, it's interesting that you say that it's not a need because one of my favorite authors, and you quoted Richard Rohr a few different times. But Father Ronald Rolheiser, who's a spiritual writer, and he's written quite a bit about celibacy and about chastity and about Eros, which I was taught as a young believer that Eros is simply our sexual desires, when in fact, Eros is about longing and yearning. And he expands the whole sexuality conversation beyond genital sexuality into how does a celibate person bring their sexuality into the world and therefore bring about generativity in the same way that. That having children through intercourse would bring about generativity? So that really expands the conversation to support this idea that it's not a need. No one has ever died from a lack of intercourse. Right. Yeah, Yeah, I. That's really interesting. I'll have to look up that book because, yeah, I included a chapter in my book on singleness and sexuality because I wanted to not ignore single people and also make the point that you have. Your sexuality is. Is lifelong. It doesn't just get turned on when you're married or when you start having sex, that single people are sexual as well, and. And, you know, can embrace that sexuality and choose to express it in ways that are congruent with their values and beliefs. So I like his take on that, about generativity. That's. That's cool. Yeah. I will send you the. The links afterwards because he. He weaves it throughout a number of different books. The first one I read it in is called the Holy Longing. Then he has one called Forgotten among the Lilies, which I'm saying this so that listeners can read him as well. So all throughout the book, there's explicit and implicit stories and framework around shame and fear. And you started out in the definition talking about how this is driven by shame and fear. Talk about the impact of shame that people, men and women, carry over. And, you know, I want to say that it is men and women. And as a former sex addict, I profoundly understand from a male masculine perspective the way that shame plays out. But I want to just acknowledge that I think women were the true ones that were wounded through purity culture much more than men, because it was them that the shame was placed on. And there was almost the sense that if men somehow had sex before marriage, that was excusable because they have this primal need and they have to. But women, it was, you know, almost this. This Middle Ages chastity belt kind of idea that. That somehow all of their honor was gone. So talk about shame. And then I'd like to just transition into your excellent descriptions of how people Heal. Okay, yeah, yeah. I, I quoted Zachary Wagner who's his book on non toxic masculinity where he said purity culture dehumanized women's bodies, but it dehumanized men's minds. And so it does harm us both and it does create shame for, for both of us. So a lot of body shame for women, a lot of shame about modesty and what they wear and shame about sex. Like, do they like it too much or too little? Do they, you know, want it too much or too little or, you know, there's just so much shame about am I normal? And is this okay for me as a woman? And then for men, when he says dehumanizes men's minds, like shame about, you know, their thought life and their natural sexual desires or urges. But I will say in my practice, I'll say, you know, just because you have a sexual urge doesn't mean your wife is obligated to fulfill it. You know, so there's, there's a element of self control that we, we all have to learn. So. Yeah, so shame shows up in many different ways. I mentioned body shame, shame about sexuality in general. Like, a lot of women have really cut off and suppressed a sexual part of them that they aren't even really aware of or in touch of their own sexual desires or urges. And so I have to try to help them get back in touch with that and to experience that as good to think about sex with your spouse and to enjoy connecting in that way and enjoy pleasure in that way. And then it shows up. Yeah, in for people who are ashamed of their sexual past and like we mentioned earlier, sexual abuse as well. Like, and I'll say, like, shame is not from God because shame is. I'm broken and I'm damaged and I'm wrong and I'm, you know, kind of irredeemable. And that's not the message of the gospel. The message is that God forgives us and redeems anything and so, and heals us, makes us whole. And so that's, I think that's the antidote to shame is that wholeness through Christ and then also empathy and connection from other people in our life. How important is it? You're a clinical psychologist, so I think, I know you're biased to this, but how important is it for people to process their story and in particular to go back and to say here are the moments or here was the season where these toxic beliefs, pressures, behaviors were put upon me and here's how it impacted me? Yeah, I think it can be really powerful and healing to revisit your past and where you got these messages. But for some people, they don't even remember because this was just so a part of their. Their upbringing, their family, their culture, their school, their church, and that they don't even remember where it came from. You know, but I can remember specific books that I read that that gave me these purity culture myths and messages and, you know, times where I read a book that said, you know, make a list of the traits you want in your future husband and pray about it and stay pure and God will give you that whole list. And I remember the moment of making the list and like praying over it and really believing that and then feeling crushed and devastated when it didn't happen in the way and in the timing that I thought it would. So, yeah, so revisiting those moments, revisiting ourselves at those moments too, and giving ourselves compassion that, you know, we were just doing the best that we knew with what we were taught, what we were reading, what we were, what was instilled in us and, and being able to release those burdens. You know, I'm kind of using language from internal family systems there. So that's, you know, approach that I sometimes use in therapy as well as emdr. So revisiting those moments in therapy can be really powerful. So, yeah, as you expected, that's something that I really value. And you, you described that not all, but for many in purity culture, that there's actually trauma there. Either trauma that was done to them through this culture or trauma of shaming ourselves on top of the shame that was put there. So you provided an appendix at the end of the book about how to access professional help. So for those that are reading the book and if you need a therapist, there's a number of great websites and resources there for people that will be adequately trained. So thank you for that. One of the things I really, really just, I have to say respect you for how you did this was you ver. You walked a fine line with the sexual ethic chapter. And that was, you know, I was not knowing you or knowing your work. I was hoping and hoping and hoping, okay, let's not get to the end and then have it be. Here's what the Bible says about sex. Instead, you gave people a four prong framework for thinking about asexual ethic. And I thought it was respectful because it, it met everyone where they are on their journey and it gave permission. And I want to just call out in First Corinthians 6, it says, that or, I'm sorry, First Corinthians 9, that everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial. And it's just important to say that anytime there's a rule that says you can't do this or do that, that it's not that we don't need to follow morals, it's not that there aren't certain things where we need to align ourselves with God, but that God's affection for us, God's care for us, God's love for us is no longer contingent upon whether or not something's permissible. The question is really about is it beneficial? Does it allow us to live in a healthy way where we can actually receive love? So would you. I'm going on and on, but will you talk about those four posts to the sexual ethic? Yeah. I appreciate you saying that, Michael, because that was the hardest chapter to write and to walk that fine line. And my editor and I went back and forth a couple of times on is this too prescriptive or, you know, do I share this? Do I not so? But my intent was to give people the tools of how to reconstruct their sexual ethic without telling them what it should be. And so those, those four different prongs, as you said, were like, to find sources of truth. And here I, I spoke of Wesley's quadrilateral and, and that we can find truth in scripture and church tradition and experience and in reason. And so looking at what does, what do all four of those parts of the quadrilateral say about sexuality? And then exploring your theology for people who are still Christian and who, you know, the Bible is a, is authoritative source of truth, like exploration, exploring what the Bible says about sexuality. But the greater, bigger story of scripture that, because there's no one verse that says do not have premarital sex or, you know, and so, and I feel like that was. People weren't honest about that. In purity culture, you know, that it does take a full, a full view of scripture to really have a robust sexual ethic. And then just identifying your values, looking at what your values are even outside of your faith, because some people have read this book that are not religious, no longer religious. And so some of those other, you know, things I offer aren't going to apply to them, but I, I would challenge them to look at what your other values are. And then lastly, knowing your deeper why, you know, having a deeper why for your sexuality beyond because the Bible says so or because true love waits? You know, those were the things that I believed as A teenager and a young adult and that. That I clung on to. But then, you know, that didn't really sustain me past those years. And so I had to really find a deeper why for my sexuality, my sexual ethic. Yeah. So I think if people take the time to reconstruct their sexual ethic, that's what I wanted to challenge them to do. Even if they end up in a different place than me, I was less concerned about where they ended up and more concerned about the journey for them and how. And how they really rethink it for themselves, because I didn't. I see people coming out of purity culture and just replacing an ethic of shame, which is purity culture, with the world's ethic of consent only, you know, that all you need is consent, and then that, that's, you know, that makes it ethical. And so I really wanted to challenge, especially Christians, to dig deeper and see what else is there besides consent in order to have a robust and, you know, and meaningful sexual ethic. Yeah. You really call people to internalize their values and internalize how they come to see the world and the framework that they have, whether that's scriptural or not, as opposed to the whole purity culture, which is, here's the. Here's these things that are coming at. Coming at us from the outside. And as you, I'm sure, in your clinical psychology doctoral work, you studied moral development. Lawrence Kohlberg was one of the late great thinkers in that, and there's been a lot of research done since then that I'm sure you're familiar with that the more rigid and fundamentalist a culture is, the more likely they are to have addictive behavior because of the hiddenness and because of the rigidity that's there. So you're calling people to a higher level of moral thinking. What is it internally that is there that compels me to live and to act? So I appreciated that. Yeah, exactly. I saw that purity culture met people at these very early stages of moral development. Like that really don't last past, you know, childhood, past school age. And so there was like, rewards and punishment language. There was, you know, be a good girl or a good boy and get approval from your church and parent language. Like all of those are very early stages. And if we meet people there, we're going to stunt their moral development instead of challenging them to think more critically and think deeper and internalize, as you said, their sexual ethic and their values. Let's close with this because I think it's, It's. It was a Beautiful ending toward the book, I don't think it was the very last chapter, but Parenting After Purity Culture. In other words, how do you raise healthy kids, not create a toxic sexual culture? And then people are always asking me, in light of my work around sexual addiction, how do we talk to kids about sex in a way that's healthy? So comment on that a little bit. Yeah, that is, that is an ongoing, you know, journey for me as a parent of still young kids. But, but really I wanted to, to say why Purity Culture failed because of those. The moral development piece we talked about and then to challenge people to think more broadly about their goals for sex education with their kids. Like, my number one goal for my kids is not that they're virgins on their wedding day. It's that, you know, that they're empowered with knowledge that I didn't have and that they have a shame free view of their sexuality as a gift from God and that they have critical thinking skills that I didn't have and have like maintained an open relationship of, you know, dialogue with me about sexuality. And so I offer some, some guidelines to how to talk to kids about their bodies and modesty and consent and things like that, porn and masturbation. But I couldn't do that topic justice. So. So parents will have to read other resources for that. But just, yeah, that there are shame free ways to share your families and your values with your kids, your sexual values with your kids without promoting shame and fear in them. And really that comes from respecting their autonomy too, that, you know, they're going to make their own choices as young adults that I won't have control over. But if I've instilled some of these values and skills in them earlier on and nurtured some of those values, then I can trust God between them and God to make wise decisions for themselves. Dr. Camden Morganty, thank you for writing this book. I'm going to hold it up again, Recovering from Purity Culture. It is a baker book and it's available wherever fine books are sold, online and otherwise. Thanks for taking the time today to talk with me. And I hope that this message gets out to all the people that are hungry for clarity about their story and for a way forward. So thanks again. Yeah, thank you for having me and for the work you're doing.