Welcome to another episode of the Almost Awakened podcast. I am Teresa Hobbs. And I'm Bill Real.

And today we're going to be talking about purity culture and sexual shame. And we're going to go

over how this shows up for people. We're going to talk about the origins of it, where it comes from.

We're going to talk about the way it impacts people differently and how to sort of deconstruct

from it and heal from it.

So to get started, I want to just talk a little bit about, you know, how it impacts people

and why it's an important thing to even bring up right now.

So purity culture and sexual control systems, they shape our sense of worth, our body image, they shape

intimacy and self-trust, and after leaving a religion or a high control system, the conditioning

will remain embodied through shame, through numbness, through fear of pleasure, or confusion about consent.

And we end up with this for internalized self-policing that happens.

And healing requires integrating the body, learning to trust desire and pleasure, and reclaiming

your inner authority again.

And I'll just say two, Trace.

I think it matters because every one of us has been affected by it.

We'll see some of this later as we get into it.

But it shaped how I perceived sex, how safe it was to explore sexuality.

It affected my children in lots of ways as they grew up in a system. sex, how safe it was to explore sexuality.

It affected my children in lots of ways as they grew up in a system.

And I think that people will find that practically everyone and, you know, you and the people you love have been affected by this.

And I think this is a great chance to just slow down and notice it and give us all a

chance to do something with it. Yeah. And I think, you know, I don't think there's any woman out

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