Pure: Inside the Evangelical Movement That Shamed a Generation of Young Women and How I Broke Free

Linda Kay Klein

Top 10 Best Quotes

“The purity message is not about sex. Rather, it is about us: who we are, who we are expected to be, and who it is said we will become if we fail to meet those expectations. This is the language of shame.”

“Religious Trauma Syndrome (RTS), defined as “the condition experienced by people who are struggling with leaving an authoritarian, dogmatic religion and coping with the damage of indoctrination,”

“The first stumbling block those raised as girls in the purity movement must overcome is the message that if you are suffering, it’s your fault: It may be your sin; it may be your psychosis; but it is certainly not the shaming system you find yourself in. When taken to heart, this message can make us miss—or, when we do see it, dismiss—our suffering, until one day, it’s too late.”

“The cornerstone of the purity myth is the expectation that girls and women, in particular, will be utterly and absolutely nonsexual until the day they marry a man, at which point they will naturally and easily become his sexual satisfier, ensuring the couple will have children and never divorce: one man, one woman, in marriage, forever. For this formula to work, my girlfriends and I knew we had to follow a slew of rules. Unfortunately, none of us knew what they were.”

“In junior high, the term stumbling block annoyed me. The implication that my friends and I were nothing more than things over which men and boys could trip was not lost on me.”

“You can be born again and have your slate wiped clean of lying, stealing, even murder. And if you do these things again later but honestly apologize to God, your sin is again forgiven. But sex outside of marriage is the only "sin" that I have ever heard described as changing you.”

“When I was a teenager, I wasn’t allowed to experience anger or sadness because that was just evidence that you’re giving in to the Devil and him wanting you to feel that way—not having joy in the Lord, and all that stuff.”

“Valenti argues this myth is as present in religious sexual shaming as it is in secular sexual exploitation: Abstinence-only education during the day and Girls Gone Wild commercials at night! Whether its delivered through a virginity pledge or by a barely dressed tween pop singer writhing across the television screen, the message is the same: A woman’s worth lies in her ability—or her refusal—to be sexual. And we’re teaching American girls that, one way or another, their bodies and their sexuality are what make them valuable.1”

“Surviving gives you a very unique set of skills. It costs a lot. But it also makes you powerful.”

“Still, Laura said, “my mom decided I was responsible for the rape. I worked at Victoria’s Secret at the time, so she thought I got drawn into that kind of culture that’s sexualizing women and celebrating sexual beauty and things like that.”

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