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Erin Griffiths's avatar

Wow, this is heart-wrenchingly beautiful. I had to read it through three times. I am so excited to read your book if *this* is what is deleted! Gorgeous, sad, infuriating, poetic-- just all of it. Thank you for sharing.

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Gemma Hartley's avatar

Thank you, Erin! I think I could have written a whole book about just purity culture, but I'd need a LOT of therapy to get through that.

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Katie Gresham's avatar

I didn’t grow up in purity culture but this excerpt made me realize how “easy” it would be to believe in it as a teenage girl if that was how everything was framed for you.

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Gemma Hartley's avatar

I also think you don't need to grow up in it in order for it to have affected your life. In writing this book I want to show the ways that Christian culture seeps into the mainstream patriarchal culture in ways that harm women. Purity culture is ultimately the basis of rape culture: pacing the burden of responsibility on women for men's actions.

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