Recent headlines about the denim ad wars—Levi’s tapping Beyoncé, American Eagle turning to Sydney Sweeney, Gap retreating after backlash—have offered a telling glimpse of how American brands still traffic in gendered norms that signal national belonging.
In conversation with Anna Rollins
Anna Rollins is the author of the painful and powerful new memoir Famished: On Food, Sex, and Growing Up as a Good Girl. The book illuminates the unholy alliance between diet culture and evangelical purity culture, both of which teach…
James Dobson’s America
Whatever a real American family was supposed to look and act like, I couldn’t have told you. I was raised on 1980s comedy television. Each evening, I watched the whole slate of sitcoms, most of which were about families, and…
My Parents’ Obsession With Purity Nearly Ruined Us. Years Later, I Found Their Secret In A Box Of Their Things.
My first sexual intercourse, just before I started college, was unplanned. It would have been largely forgettable if we’d used birth control.
A vessel for whom? How I learned self-hatred and neglect at church
Conservative legislator Sen. Mike Lee of Utah has introduced the Interstate Obscenity Definition Act that, in part, would ban pornography in the United States. As conservatives push more restrictions, we have to question: Who actually benefits from a culture that…
Purity culture is alive and well in the Christian nationalist agenda for public schools
Last week, I attended a school board meeting for the Southlake-Carroll Independent School District in North Texas which has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Education over its changes to Title IX. This is the school district in…
Finding faith when you are wrong: Reflections on religious research
What happens when your faith doesn’t seem to align with something you learn? Like many people who grew up Christian, I was taught there are “absolute truths” about the Bible and Christianity. These informed how I viewed the world, mostly…
I asked 46 college students if they feel shame after having sex, and this is what they said
Gen Z is a post-Purity Movement generation, having barely escaped the doling out of purity rings. However, exemplified by the popularity of “Virginity Rocks” T-shirts and regalia, this does not mean sentiments of purity culture never impacted our cohort of…
Preston Sprinkle’s strange interview with Sheila Gregoire and Rebecca Lindenbach
Ten days after defending his decision to endorse Josh Butler’s controversial book about Jesus, marriage and sex, Preston Sprinkle released a Theology in the Raw interview with Sheila Gregoire and Rebecca Lindenbach where he continued to prioritize the perspective of men. But this time,…
Interpreting the recent dramatic decrease in American teen pregnancy rates
Ryan Burge — pastor, author and statistician — frequently shares intriguing research data on his Twitter account. On Nov. 19, Burge tweeted a graph showing the dramatic decrease in the amount of recorded U.S. teen pregnancies with the caption, “Can…
Why Bathsheba is not an adulteress
Growing up in the church, I have heard the 2 Samuel narrative of Bathsheba and David many times. Often, I have heard this narrative retold by preachers who believe Bathsheba is a dangerous woman and who utilize this narrative as…
We don’t talk about periods, no no
Disney made a movie about menstruation and — surprise, surprise — American evangelicals got upset. The movie, Turning Red, directed by Domee Shi (a Chinese Canadian filmmaker), is the first full-length Pixar film to be directed by a woman. Let…