Shattered 💔: The Toxic Impact of Purity Culture on Relationships

I’ve been plagued over and over with this anger and guilt about how my poor decision and devotion to Christianity and family duty came before considering the heart of another. I am guilty: I broke the heart of a beautiful boy when I was 12. 

And it all was because of the Christian ideology of Purity Culture. Let me take you back. …

I grew up in a small town in SoCal, in a very small Christian school. I was a happy and well taken care of child. But one day the Purity culture demon tore through my peaceful home. 

It ravaged and tore through our relationships leaving my parents ashamed, and me abandoned. I can’t say much detail to protect the innocent and natural teenager that left our family to live “in sin” as they’d say out loud, with her boyfriend. 

It wasn’t my siblings leaving or their natural desires that broke us all. It was the Purity Culture. 

Because of Purity Culture they were shunned, my parent’s shamed, disappointed, and depressed that they would do the ultimate sin. In reality, it is only natural and nothing to be ashamed of. But in “God’s eyes.” It was a grave sin and everyone judged us. As if they had a Scarlett letter on them. 

 I only mention this back story because it set me up to vow to be as perfect a child for my family. Following ALL the rules, and since Christianity was value above all else, to be the best Christian devoted daughter.

When I was 12, a beautiful soul and boy feel madly and romantically in love with me, and secretly I with him. He was warm, a gentleman, we laughed and were true friends. At the graduation dance he wrote the most romantic letter to ask me to be his girlfriend, since he was going to another school and couldn’t bear not seeing me. 

I was so shocked and flattered. I longed to say yes. But the heavy demon of Purity Culture and shame weighed down heavily on my desires and heart. 

I debated, and wrote pros and cos, as if that were to help my decisions. 

You see I was afraid. I learned that carnal desires are something to be feared and rejected. I learned that this only leads down a path of destruction, shame and regret. And I must fulfill my duty of being a perfectly good Christian child for my family. It was my responsibility to NOT cause another scandal. 

I asked my deeply fearful mother advise on how to respond, “What do I do?” She used scripture, rather than her own opinion to sell me on her idea of what to do. — To say “no.” 

She was so afraid, and as a mother, and if I believed what she believed then and had experienced the shame and guilt, I too would’ve done a similar manipulative tactic. 

She told me “God says to Not be “unequally yoked.” It gave me pause, surely I do not want to disobey my parents let alone God. As a 12 year old child, I pondered on this, for we both were Christians, how on Earth else could we be unequally yoked? Except his skin was the most luscious, smooth mocha chocolate. It was to die for, however, quite darker than my pinkish white skin that burnt like a red lobster in the Sun. 

I sadly declined his offer, but before being able to speak with him, my nagging best friend, who had a crush on him asked me what I was going to say. 

I told her “I can’t, because he is black.” — UGH- heartbreak, heartache. After I said it out loud, time stood still, my heart and gut dropped, and a piece of my heart was lost in the black void. She hung up on me, and never spoke to me again. She then called him up and told him what I said. And he never spoke to me again. 

I don’t blame either of them. 

All out of fear of this Purity Culture. I am not remiss to notice that I was steeped in white privilege and racism. As an adult married to a Vietnamese man, I have been able to educate myself and awaken to as many blindspots as he can point out. 

It is the most offensive thing to say, then, and especially now. Or ever! But that is the length the ideology will go to keep a child pure. 

Versus, educating about sex, the hormonal natural drive, safe sex, or even the advantages to wait to have sex until you are older. What I have learned is, being a parent is all about open communication and education. But to give her the benefit of the doubt, it was all too much to handle for a mother of a 12 year old she knew had deep passion and desire who just had a teenager do the unthinkable. It doesn’t make it right, but I know why she did it. And if I was under the trance of the Purity demon I too may be tempted to go to great lengths to lie and manipulate. 

But thankfully I am not under the spell of the darkest controlling demon to roam religion. We all have the power within us to make our own choices, have body autonomy and it is no one’s business about who and how they love. I cherish that beautiful 12 year old boy for his eyes, his heart, his honor, and especially his skin. 

Do not let religious manipulation keep you from feeling alive, and from learning and experimenting through relationship and love. 

We were so young. I can imagine, after our romantic innocent fling before Jr. High, we would’ve fizzled out, especially being at different schools. But at least we both could have touched each other’s hearts for a time. Learned, laughed, and loved in order to be ready for our next relationship. 

Do you know how my first adult relationship went? 

I’m sure you guessed it! The pendulum swing so far back to the other side, my first intense love boyfriend and I did it before marriage — many times. And actually I didn’t care to get married because of the intense rebellion of purity culture. But that too put a rift in my relationship with my family. They were so sad. And I was so mad I didn’t speak to them for years. And that anger and decision, has scarred our relationship. I stayed silent, and didn’t voice my feelings and anger. I had good reason. I didn’t want to get into a religious debate, because ultimately that is what it was all about. Not our relationship, I feel they cared more about the fact that I would be a Christian so I didn’t go to Hell. The fear of that religion just wrecks with relationships. 

Even though my actions all the way back in 1995 scarred a boys heart. I know he is brave and bright enough to overcome that set back in his love life.

I would give anything to go back and dismiss the powerful hold of Purity culture on me to have just a week of a romantic love with this beautiful soul. But I can’t turn back time. I can’t tell him I’m sorry in person. But I can ask for forgiveness and dissolve this heavy burden in the quantum field of my dreams and meditation. 

And I have done just so. If you have struggling with heartache, betrayal, remorse, regret. You can dissolve that agreement your psyche made to hang onto that so you never experience that pain again. When you dissolve it, you let it go, it lets you go and you can move forward with the beautiful lesson from that experience. The weight of the heavy energy is gone, allowing you to manifest and live in light and in your power. 

The heavy negative emotions weigh you down, pulling you under the water like a weight attached to your ankle. You can’t swim forward, you can’t swim away, you are stuck. 

For a long time, I was angry at how my family’s religious culture handled all of that. And as a 12 year old I was denied my chance at experimenting with love and experience. While, yes, parents do make mistakes, we ultimately still made our choices to obey or disobey. 

While you may be saying to yourself while reading this, “You were brainwashed, a child, and depended on your parents. They should have known better.” A lot of us have parents who were not prepared for what they faced. — That is no excuse. But my answer is, since I am not my parents, I can’t control how they parented. 

I also have a broader view that my soul chose those parents to set the stage for me to be conditioned to then learn and fix my Tikkun, (soul’s correction) to find myself and call my power back. 

You can only control what you can take responsibility for, ONLY in order for you to have the power to learn from it and grow. 

Once you unshackle yourself from that cycle of “I was brainwashed” you can see your part that you acted out of fear, and you take the good from that lesson and carry it on with you and swim to shore to a new path. 

Yes that whole mess of Purity culture in the Christian religion broke up my family of origin. But it doesn’t have to hold us back from healing, forgiving each other and moving forward to try and repair. It may be a long road, but it’s possible when we can drop our fears and resentments and wisely repair relationships with whom have good intentions are ready to. This is not a blanket statement to repair things with a Narcissist or someone who repeatedly shows you they do not care for you. Draw your personal appropriate boundaries, wish them well on their journey, and move on. 

But with those who do wish to repair and rectify, we can then “just keep swimming” forward.

What are the lessons that you can take away from your trauma? What is your Soul’s life lesson? 

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