#ChurchToo

“By the time I started getting into relationships as an adult, I had shut off all connections to my own sexuality. I had fully internalized the message given to me by my family and my church that what I wanted was irrelevant at best and deadly at worst. The idea to be interested in or date women would never have occurred to me during that time because my decisions were based not on desire or curiosity but rather on what was acceptable based on the narrow interpretation of Scripture I had been taught. It's not so much that I was stuffing any desires down consciously; it was more that the connection between my body and my mind had been severed long before I ever had my first boyfriend or my first kiss. Purity culture created and then reinforced that disconnect, making me feel like I was a better person than my friends for being able to resist temptation so valiantly. But the truth is, I simply didn't know what I wanted because I'd never been given the freedom to consider my own desires.”

well reader i cried