Julia and Jeremiah from the Sexvangelicals podcast (a podcast for providing the sex education the church didn’t want you to have) join Uncertain podcast to discuss how Purity Culture can impact men.Some topics addressed in this episode: Erectile DisfunctionShame around sexSexual Agression Gender Binaries Check out two of the Sexvangelicals' episodes featuring Uncertain’s host Katherine Spearing:Episode #53: Kicking Off the New Year with Spiritual Abuse: How to Leave a Controlling Family Environment, with Katherine SpearingEpisode #54: Kicking Off the New Year with Spiritual Abuse: How Romantic Comedies Can Reinforce the Worst Parts of Evangelical Culture, with Katherine Spearing





























Katherine: [00:00:00] Hello. How are you? Julia: Good. We're excited. Katherine: Yes. It is morning where I am, or early, early, early afternoon, and then it is evening where you all are. I know. So, thanks for giving up your Saturday night.I know you would. Probably normally be out wildly partying, Jeremiah: right? Wildly. The wildest Julia: of parties. Katherine: You in the Netherlands. Jeremiah: That's right. Hanging out with windmills and eating a bunch of cheese. Julia: Today is Sinterklaas and so I have heard that it is a chaotic time to be out. So this is a good day to be inside.We've got tea. It is raining outside. So this is actually a cozy and a Perfect way to send Saturday night. I love Katherine: it. I am so excited to be able to talk to you. I love, I love y'all's podcast episodes. I have recommended them to, I mostly recommend them to friends of mine who are recently [00:01:00] divorced and first exploring.All of the things that they were not allowed to explore pre evangelical marriage. And and so that's a, that's a recommendation y'all are a recommendation that I pass around to some folks. I love your intro. My favorite part about your, your. Podcast episode for listeners is how you, you kind of interview each other and chat like before your episodes, those, those are always really, Jeremiah: yes, absolutely.And we do talk about divorce a lot on our podcast. So, that is unfortunately a part of our story and, and, and how we've come into how we've come into recognizing the impact of purity culture on relationships, so. Is that a part Katherine: of both of your stories? Julia: It is. Yeah. We are both we are both divorced.Katherine: All right. And then, did you all get into doing what you do as sex and relationship therapy post [00:02:00] evangelicalism? Our post? These experiences or was this something that came up before, were you already working in this? Jeremiah: So I, a little bit of both for me. So, I joke with people, except it's not a joke, that I did my first couples therapy session when I was 12.And listeners, you can... Put some of the pieces together. I, so, so I've known for some time that that I wanted to be a couples therapist. Huh. And in the field of psychotherapy there's a specific license for marriage and family therapy. My license is in marriage and family therapy. And a lot of the marriage and family therapy schools are either at these big kind of research schools. So Ohio state has a big program where Julia went Michigan state has one or they're at Christian schools because the history of couples therapy and marriage family [00:03:00] of the history of couples therapy.The history of marriage therapy is pretty closely linked to the Christian community. In fact, our professional organization split in the seventies from the California organization because religious people, the, the pastors spiritual directors in the seventies said like, no, like what's happening in California is too liberal, is too progressive.Let's, let's talk about marriage and let's talk about marriage from the perspective of heteronormativity. And this is. A little bit before James Dobson starts taking over with, with focus on the family, but, but, but it's all connected to that. So. So my graduate program at Abilene Chri