The Purity Culture Recovery Guide: The Shame-Free Sex Education You Deserve, by Erica Smith

In her upbeat and reassuring book, The Purity Culture Recovery Guide: The Shame-Free Sex Education You Deserve, Philly-based sexuality educator Erica Smith reframes that pledge as a sex-positive affirmation that is remarkably one-size-fits-all—applicable to people of all genders, ages, and sexual orientations.

“I pledge to be true to myself and to the sexual ethics that I’ve carefully chosen,” it begins. “I pledge to allow myself joy, pleasure, and the freedom to choose my own partners and experiences. I pledge to trust myself … I pledge to embody my sexuality without shame.”

For individuals raised in purity culture—with homophobia and misogyny, strict dating guidelines, rigid gender roles, and beliefs that virginity is prized, sexual desire suspect, and masturbation a sin—signing on to a sex-positive pledge is a heavy lift.

Smith’s book attempts to lighten that load.

By offering facts to counter purity culture lies (no, masturbation will not make you blind; nope, the vagina is not an open-ended cave; actually, your body belongs to you, not to God or to your father), along with back-to-basics diagrams of anatomy and frank discussion of everything from consent to sexual fantasies, she aims to leave readers informed and empowered to thrive as sexual beings—whatever that might mean for any individual.

Rejecting spiritual and sexual binaries

A refrain in the book—one that bears repeating for people raised in religion-driven purity cultures—is that there is no one way to think about sex or behave sexually.

She rejects the binary thinking of high-control religions, encouraging readers to “get curious and become comfortable with nuance … You are allowed to explore or even remain in the gray.”

Smith, who has worked in HIV prevention, abortion care, and sex education, including with young people in Philadelphia’s juvenile justice system, brings a refreshingly non-judgmental perspective to all aspects of sexuality, including non-monogamy, use of sex toys, pornography, and consensual sex work.

Her language is inclusive and non-gendered: “people who menstruate” rather than “women”; “people who make sperm” instead of “men.” She puts purity culture’s holy grail of sexual activity—“penis-in-vagina sex,” or as she cheekily terms it, “P-in-V”—in its place as just one item on a vast menu of pleasurable things two (or more) people can do together. She scoffs at the myth of “lost” virginity, dubbing that experience instead a “sexual debut” and noting that it may be delightful, awkward, silly, momentous, or ho-hum.

It’s never too late for a healthier approach

More soberly, she addresses the toxic shame—and, sometimes, physical harm—that can result from a youth steeped in messages about the inherent untrustworthiness of the body and its desires.

Smith writes that through the Purity Culture Dropout Program, which she created in 2019, “I’ve worked with people who were told that premarital sex would lead to suicide. I’ve worked with people who were unable to categorize the sexual assault or rape they experienced as sexual violence … The messages that your body is dangerous, your body is sinful, your body is tempting, your body does not belong to you are repeated over and over, especially to young women.”

Still, she insists, it is never too late to develop a healthier approach to one’s sexual life, and there is no need to apologize for a lack of sexual experience. That may be a particular boost to older readers who have left purity culture mindsets and feel anger or grief about the developmental, exploratory years they missed.

We deserve to know our own bodies

Knowledge is power, Smith writes, and that is especially true for individuals and their own bodies. Noting that people raised in purity cultures may lack the most fundamental sex ed, she devotes several chapters to demystifying vulvas, vaginas, foreskins, the menstrual cycle, and the physiology of orgasm.

Some facts may surprise even those who think of themselves as sex-savvy: Did you know the human clitoris contains 10,281 nerve endings? That seminal fluid is made of sugar, mucus, vitamins, and protein? Or that for the first seven weeks of gestation, all fetuses have the same genital material—it’s not until then that hormones kick-start development into a vulva and vagina or a penis and scrotum.

Developing your own sexual ethic

Smith includes questions in each chapter, prompting readers to consider their attitudes toward pornography, their beliefs about casual sex, and their own sexual ethics. For every purity culture value she cites—for instance, “You are responsible for the sexual desires and actions of others”—she asks, “What’s your worst fear about letting this value go?” and “What’s the best thing that could happen if you let it go?”

A chapter on sexual communication and consent should be required reading in high school health classes; it includes numerous examples of language a person could use to tell a partner what’s working and not working in a sexual encounter, phrases ranging from “Don’t stop,” to “Hey, babe, let’s try ______ instead,” to “I have a hair stuck in my mouth; hang on.”

Questions on porn and purity cultures

Smith covers all bases: there are chapters on sexual orientation and gender identity, abortion and reproductive justice, pornography and sex work. While she notes that much anti-porn rhetoric stems from fundamentalist religious groups, she short-circuits critiques of pornography from other sources, such as feminist and queer scholars and activists.

The book is also a bit featherweight in its discussion of the history of purity cultures and high-control religions; I finished that chapter with so many questions about how and why purity paradigms flourished at different time periods, especially in the 1990s.

The last word is yours

It’s clear that Smith wants to focus on a practical, enlivening message: if you grew up believing that sex outside marriage was wrong, that homosexuality was evil and that your desires would lead you astray, you are not broken; you can heal, find community and partner(s), if you wish, and establish a healthy sexual life.

“Purity culture does not get to have the last word,” she writes. “Each of us has a different story to write about our experience of sexuality, and now it’s your turn to write yours.”

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