00:00:03
welcome back to the ex- homeschoolers
00:00:05
Club I am of course your host Jacob
00:00:06
Gooden and today it is just me myself
00:00:09
and I that's right I'm doing a solo
00:00:11
episode and uh you know this show I've
00:00:14
talked a lot about my favorite things
00:00:16
about homeschooling I've talked a lot
00:00:17
about the positives and how I think that
00:00:21
I think that is worth a try if you're
00:00:22
thinking about it for your kids um but
00:00:25
one of the things that we haven't
00:00:26
highlighted so much on the show is the
00:00:28
Bad and the Ugly and so I wanted to take
00:00:31
an episode and talk about my the bad
00:00:34
stuff um and it's going to be I'm going
00:00:38
to be talking about purity culture and
00:00:40
growing up in Purity culture now Purity
00:00:42
culture is not exclusively a homeschool
00:00:45
thing it's it's more of a Christian
00:00:47
thing but because I was a Christian
00:00:49
homeschool kid it's really hard to
00:00:51
separate the two because a lot of my
00:00:53
community we just existed inside of that
00:00:55
same bubble
00:00:57
together and um and yeah so I'm gonna
00:01:01
I'm gonna share my experience with it
00:01:03
now I will give a little bit of a
00:01:05
trigger warning um I'm gonna be talking
00:01:07
about sex I'm going to be talking about
00:01:09
pornography I'm going to be talking
00:01:10
about masturbation I'm going to be
00:01:12
talking about um the downstairs area the
00:01:15
swimsuit area the No No Square um so if
00:01:19
that's something you don't want to hear
00:01:20
me talk about I recommend skip today's
00:01:22
episode it's okay I'll be back next week
00:01:24
with another one or go listen to a past
00:01:27
episode with one of my guests um but I
00:01:30
felt like it was something important
00:01:32
that I wanted to share and get off my
00:01:33
chest all right so let's dive into it a
00:01:37
little bit of understanding about me
00:01:39
before we really kick it off and I
00:01:41
wanted to share the brief overview of my
00:01:44
Christian experience and where I sit
00:01:46
today so you can kind of understand some
00:01:48
context of like when I was in high
00:01:50
school and a young kid going through
00:01:52
this where I existed inside of
00:01:54
Christianity so born and raised in a
00:01:56
Christian household when I was a young
00:01:58
kid I accepted Jesus into my heart
00:02:00
got baptized around the age of 10 I want
00:02:02
to say um and then I served and
00:02:06
worshiped and you know uh was at
00:02:10
churches up until my early 20s um and uh
00:02:16
I was part of a youth group I was part
00:02:18
of a worship team I would set chairs up
00:02:20
I'd tear chairs down I did the sound
00:02:22
system when I was in college I served at
00:02:24
a brand new church that literally didn't
00:02:26
even have its own building so we would
00:02:28
go build the whole church in the morning
00:02:30
you know get up at the crack of dawn on
00:02:32
a Sunday go build this whole thing run
00:02:34
events at the thing uh serve on the
00:02:36
worship team tear it all down after the
00:02:38
fact um I also went to a Christian
00:02:40
college and so we had Chapel we were
00:02:43
required to go to some Chapel every
00:02:44
single week and so there was a point in
00:02:47
my life where I was going to church like
00:02:49
things 5 to seven days a week um on top
00:02:52
of that reading my Bible um listening to
00:02:56
worship music like praying all that all
00:02:59
that Stu stuff I was very much in it
00:03:01
very thick and I truly believed in
00:03:04
God uh Flash Forward a little bit after
00:03:07
college and I started to kind
00:03:11
of question my faith a little bit I had
00:03:14
there were some things that happened in
00:03:15
college um that I started to wake up to
00:03:19
some ideas
00:03:20
that and be open to the idea that maybe
00:03:24
I didn't 100% know everything um and so
00:03:27
I started asking questions and I got
00:03:29
really interested in in pursuing more
00:03:33
knowledge and ultimately it led me to a
00:03:35
place of being uh agnostic so that's
00:03:39
where I sit currently and uh what that
00:03:41
means for me is that I'm open to the
00:03:43
idea that there is a God I'm also open
00:03:45
to the idea that there isn't a God and
00:03:48
um and I'm okay with just not knowing
00:03:50
right now and just asking questions and
00:03:52
seeking answers so that's where I sit
00:03:55
currently I know that's a very brief
00:03:56
overview and not a ton of detail there
00:03:59
um if you want to hear more about that
00:04:01
I'm happy to share about it um but yeah
00:04:04
so Purity culture growing up in it very
00:04:08
thick in the Christian environment when
00:04:09
I was in high school and going through
00:04:11
puberty things like that so what is
00:04:13
Purity culture if you're not familiar
00:04:14
with Purity culture Purity culture is
00:04:16
this idea of like an abstinence only
00:04:19
teaching within the church um so sex is
00:04:22
sex before marriage wrong things like
00:04:24
pornography wrong masturbation wrong
00:04:27
dating wrong um courtship okay um there
00:04:32
was also kind of these underlying things
00:04:35
in there and I'll get into some of the
00:04:37
specifics of like what it looked like
00:04:38
played out a little bit more um but yeah
00:04:41
it was just kind of this like anything
00:04:44
sexual before you're married wrong
00:04:47
sinful need to be repented of um and uh
00:04:51
you know when you're going through
00:04:53
puberty everything is sexual even when
00:04:57
you don't want it to be and that's just
00:04:59
your hormone right your hormones are
00:05:00
kicking in you're growing body hair well
00:05:03
as a guy you're growing body hair uh
00:05:05
you're starting to smell more your
00:05:06
popping boners left and right because
00:05:08
well Gus the wind turns you on um kind
00:05:11
of a thing and so it's very tricky area
00:05:14
to navigate you already just feel
00:05:16
awkward and weird and then you've got
00:05:18
your parents coming in there and telling
00:05:20
you things about like the birds and the
00:05:22
bees and you know but then pushing kind
00:05:25
of this idea of Purity culture right and
00:05:28
putting you in an environment where
00:05:30
that's being taught and so you're going
00:05:32
along with it um because you know that's
00:05:36
what you think is right so let me give
00:05:39
you an exam a couple examples of like
00:05:41
Purity culture played out a little bit
00:05:42
for me
00:05:45
so Purity culture for
00:05:49
guys was primarily this idea of like do
00:05:52
not look at pornography and do not
00:05:53
masturbate um I feel like that was the
00:05:55
big emphasis of like do not do these
00:05:58
things they are wrong uh they are sinful
00:06:00
they degrade you as a man um and that
00:06:03
kind of a thing that being said a lot of
00:06:06
us watch porn myself included but then
00:06:08
some of the other smaller ways that
00:06:10
things like this played out inside of
00:06:11
the homeschool Community was things like
00:06:14
um forward phasing hugs not a reality
00:06:16
between the opposite Sexes right uh a
00:06:19
lot of us did like the Christian awkward
00:06:21
side hug thing and uh some of us still
00:06:25
do it to this day I'm guilty of that
00:06:27
sometimes as well still it's just kind
00:06:29
of burned in my brain um there was kind
00:06:32
of this concept of like boys are blue
00:06:34
girls are red together they make purple
00:06:37
at a lot of our events and things like
00:06:38
that we don't make purple okay so uh so
00:06:42
there's that uh there's also like no
00:06:46
there wasn't a lot of dating within our
00:06:47
group as well um there was a few
00:06:50
courtships but yeah a lot of us didn't
00:06:52
date each other um because it was just
00:06:54
we were all friends right we were and I
00:06:56
think we were just a lot of us were also
00:06:58
just being told well you guys are all
00:07:00
friends like and I mean I know I was
00:07:03
told this by people it's like well why
00:07:04
would you want to ruin friendships by
00:07:06
like potentially dating somebody and
00:07:08
then you break up and then you just ruin
00:07:10
it for everybody right um because we all
00:07:13
know that when people break up then they
00:07:15
just can't get along ever again this was
00:07:17
something that was played out again
00:07:18
inside of The Homeschool Group I know
00:07:20
for for the girls um I've had a couple
00:07:23
people on now who've talked about this
00:07:24
but I like the home school dances there
00:07:26
was dress code for the girls that kind
00:07:28
of a thing growing up in southern
00:07:29
California when we go to the beach a lot
00:07:31
of the girls that we grow up with they
00:07:33
wee one piece bathing suits shorts a
00:07:36
tankini um uh I knew a lot of girls who
00:07:39
made their own bathing suits um and uh
00:07:42
things like that and so but for us guys
00:07:45
it was a lot easier just wear board
00:07:46
shorts not a big deal um move on forget
00:07:50
about
00:07:50
it so a lot of my sexual education my
00:07:55
sexual education comes from three places
00:07:58
okay
00:07:59
my sexual education comes from my dad
00:08:01
giving me the birds and the Beast talk
00:08:02
and I think he gave me maybe two or
00:08:04
three of these chats so there's the
00:08:07
initial one right of like your body is
00:08:09
changing um and also like you know
00:08:12
here's how procreation Works um and I
00:08:15
don't remember him being
00:08:17
very explicit about it um I don't think
00:08:21
he did a bad job I don't think he did a
00:08:23
good job I think he just did a medium
00:08:25
job sorry Dad um but I think he also was
00:08:28
uncomfortable talking about it and so I
00:08:31
think he just wrestled with how to do it
00:08:34
um second place my sex education came
00:08:37
from was the church um and my church did
00:08:40
these things called Pur conferences and
00:08:43
at these Pur conferences they were
00:08:45
usually a day I think they were a day
00:08:47
maybe two at the max but um it was
00:08:51
essentially a time where it was speakers
00:08:54
from within the church telling us how
00:08:57
sex before marriage was wrong you should
00:08:59
should um if you do that you need to
00:09:01
repent cuz it's sinful um watching
00:09:04
pornography was wrong masturbation was
00:09:07
wrong sinful God hated that kind of
00:09:09
stuff and backing all this up with Bible
00:09:11
verses that sometimes were just taken
00:09:12
out of context other times not but um
00:09:16
yeah and then being put in an
00:09:18
environment too where we're also be
00:09:20
being told as men we have a
00:09:21
responsibility to the women to keep them
00:09:24
pure and then the women they have a
00:09:25
responsibility to keep the men pure
00:09:27
right and so it's kind of this just like
00:09:31
weird circle of
00:09:34
like you're kind of responsible for
00:09:36
yourself but you're also responsible for
00:09:38
other people um and uh yeah and then
00:09:43
during that you do a breakout session
00:09:45
and in that breakout session it's guys
00:09:47
and girls separated different parts of
00:09:48
the the building and I remember for the
00:09:51
guys we talked about there's two main
00:09:53
things that we talked about there was
00:09:54
the creating an accountability group
00:09:57
what an accountability group was
00:09:58
supposed to do was hold you accountable
00:10:00
for when you started to go down a sinful
00:10:04
path regardless if it was sexual or not
00:10:06
however teenage boys everything is like
00:10:09
sexually charged
00:10:10
right and so a lot of times it was just
00:10:14
us kind of being like Oh watch porn
00:10:16
again oh had a you know lustful thought
00:10:18
after somebody oh which you know and
00:10:21
then basically us then telling each
00:10:23
other well you need to pray about that
00:10:25
you need to read your Bible and you need
00:10:26
to repent um again coming from a place
00:10:30
of like boys who are the same age being
00:10:33
accountable to each
00:10:35
other to do what exactly we're all on
00:10:38
the same page of like none of us know
00:10:40
any better than the other people so um
00:10:43
so yeah so aside from just telling our
00:10:45
friends that well you need to read your
00:10:48
Bible and pray more what other advice
00:10:50
are we supposed to give them because I'm
00:10:52
struggling with the same thing
00:10:54
struggling with the same thing so
00:10:56
accountability groups and like I said
00:10:58
they were more than just sexual sin it
00:11:01
also had to do with you know other sins
00:11:03
lying
00:11:05
cheating the whole gamut of anything
00:11:07
right um this the second thing that we
00:11:11
were kind of emphas that was emphasized
00:11:14
at that was kind of this like the worth
00:11:18
of a woman right and how to find a Godly
00:11:21
woman and what to be looking for right
00:11:24
um there's like the Psalm 23
00:11:29
eight woman something like that
00:11:31
someone's going to correct me forgive me
00:11:32
I haven't read the Bible in a couple
00:11:34
years
00:11:36
um and it's this passage in Scripture
00:11:39
that basically outlines like what a
00:11:40
Godly woman looks like um and it's used
00:11:43
for everything and
00:11:45
like I don't know there there's a whole
00:11:47
gamut dudes use this as an example of
00:11:49
like this is the kind of woman I'm
00:11:51
looking for in my life um so we're told
00:11:55
kind of what to be looking for in a in a
00:11:57
woman and a wife in a potential man
00:12:00
and then we're given this example and to
00:12:02
this day this example
00:12:04
still weirds me out grosses me out it's
00:12:07
still confusing to me a little bit um
00:12:09
but basically it's the example of an
00:12:11
apple pie so a guy brings out an apple
00:12:13
pie sets it on the table asks everyone
00:12:15
uh who wants a slice of apple pie almost
00:12:18
every hand in the room goes up because
00:12:19
who doesn't love apple pie he takes his
00:12:22
index finger he puts it in the middle of
00:12:23
the pie pulls it out asks again who
00:12:25
wants a slice of apple pie and a few
00:12:28
hands go down but most people are okay
00:12:29
with it right we know this guy we're
00:12:31
like okay his hands are clean he's you
00:12:33
know he's it's okay he just you know I
00:12:35
can eat around it uh he then takes three
00:12:37
fingers puts him in the pie pulls him
00:12:39
out ask the same thing more hands are
00:12:41
going down there's still people who are
00:12:43
like I could eat around it I could you
00:12:44
know whatever it's not a big deal he
00:12:46
then takes his hand starts to like
00:12:48
crumble up the pie now it doesn't look
00:12:49
like a pie anymore it looks more like an
00:12:51
apple crumble and he has again and now
00:12:54
hands are coming down right it's maybe
00:12:56
50/50 shot who wants it kind of a thing
00:13:00
and uh yeah cuz we're like even if his
00:13:02
hands are clean like he touched
00:13:03
everything at this point in this pie
00:13:06
then he spits in the pie and asks again
00:13:08
and mixes it in so he spits in the pie
00:13:10
takes his ant mixes it up disgusting
00:13:13
then he asks again who wants a slice of
00:13:15
apple pie and at this point there's like
00:13:17
the one dude who's like I'd still eat it
00:13:19
um but pretty much everyone's hands are
00:13:21
down
00:13:24
and this example was meant to exemplify
00:13:28
the different like going to different
00:13:29
bases almost with a woman um and then
00:13:32
her value associated with those right
00:13:35
and so the regular beginning apple pie
00:13:38
that everyone was like yeah little a
00:13:40
slice of that that is like a virgin
00:13:42
that's a a Godly woman right that's the
00:13:45
everything you know that we want okay
00:13:49
putting the the first finger in he kind
00:13:52
of alluded to that being like
00:13:54
handholding you know it's you know not
00:13:57
that destructive doesn't value the pie
00:14:00
that much right couple more you know
00:14:02
sticking three fingers in was like okay
00:14:03
we're starting to getting kissing
00:14:05
territory uh you know a little more
00:14:08
touching maybe More Hugging kind of a
00:14:10
thing so again it's like a lot of people
00:14:13
were still okay with it we're like I
00:14:15
could eat around that kind of a thing
00:14:17
but she's starting to like be this used
00:14:19
up thing then you get to the third one
00:14:22
and it's like okay now we're talking
00:14:23
about like heavy petting and like make
00:14:24
out sessions right and um you know and
00:14:28
more and more people are like I don't
00:14:29
know I don't feel comfortable with this
00:14:30
as much and then the final one is like
00:14:32
premarital sex right a girl who's had
00:14:34
premarital sex is just
00:14:36
like just this disgusting apple pie
00:14:39
that's been spit in now we're also being
00:14:41
told that that's kind of like well he
00:14:44
used it to represent women there also
00:14:46
was a slight lean towards like this is
00:14:49
also you right as a man your value goes
00:14:53
down uh because there's this kind of
00:14:56
there's this gold standard you get the
00:14:58
crown if you stay a virgin till
00:15:00
literally your wedding night kind of a
00:15:02
thing and so but it's not emphasized as
00:15:05
heavily as it is that like women who do
00:15:08
these
00:15:09
things are worthless right they
00:15:13
um and as someone who grew up with
00:15:17
family members who had had kids out of
00:15:20
wedlock obviously had had premarital sex
00:15:23
I had never looked at them as like a
00:15:26
worthless crumbled up spit in apple pie
00:15:29
um and even after that I don't feel like
00:15:31
I I looked at them that way I still
00:15:33
looked at them as people um with
00:15:36
value but it was just this weird in the
00:15:38
back of your brain kind of view of like
00:15:41
how people are and and that's not to say
00:15:43
that I never judged anybody I knew
00:15:45
people
00:15:46
who had premarital sex and who were yeah
00:15:50
maybe more affectionate with their
00:15:52
boyfriends or whatever and yeah there is
00:15:54
kind of a weird within Christianity
00:15:57
there's kind of this weird like well
00:15:59
well you're okay with doing that but
00:16:01
that like lowers your value
00:16:04
so it definitely impacted me let's just
00:16:06
say that and so and this is these are
00:16:09
the types of things we were being taught
00:16:12
so so to walk away from that day it's
00:16:15
weird to then go back into a room with
00:16:18
all these girls and be looking at them
00:16:21
like okay so these are all pies and at
00:16:24
that point we don't know a lot of them
00:16:26
and
00:16:27
their sexual sin
00:16:29
um and so looking at them is like these
00:16:32
whole pies it's just I don't know it's
00:16:34
kind of weird weird analogy and um for
00:16:37
anybody who was at one of these things
00:16:39
or remembers this kind of thing or if
00:16:41
you were a girl um at one of these
00:16:43
things please like reach out to me
00:16:45
because I want to know what happened in
00:16:47
the girl side of things um and hear kind
00:16:49
of the conversations that were happening
00:16:51
back there
00:16:52
because because I just don't know I just
00:16:54
know what happened in the guy side and
00:16:57
um so that was kind of again sex ad
00:17:00
number two right sex ad number three
00:17:03
came from pornography because even
00:17:05
though pornography was wrong and
00:17:07
sinful you still have questions right I
00:17:10
still had questions well why was I
00:17:12
getting a boner okay what you know you
00:17:14
know what do boobs look like what does a
00:17:18
vagina look like um all those kinds of
00:17:20
things and there's really I don't want
00:17:24
to say there's only one way to find that
00:17:26
out um but it felt like at the time
00:17:30
there was only one way to find that out
00:17:32
and if you Google boobs what's going to
00:17:34
come up a link to Pornhub
00:17:37
um there's also a danger associated with
00:17:40
it right it's like oh you know it's bad
00:17:43
um you want to be a bad kid whatever but
00:17:45
yeah so sex ed my third area that I got
00:17:49
sex sexual ucation from was
00:17:52
pornography not very healthy because
00:17:54
it's a fantasy it's not reality and so
00:17:59
and that's going to come into play a
00:18:00
little bit later in my life too uh but
00:18:04
so in addition to getting an education
00:18:06
from that I also then felt a lot of
00:18:08
shame because I knew I was doing
00:18:09
something that was considered wrong um
00:18:12
and usually with looking at pornography
00:18:14
it wasn't just a like oh I wonder what
00:18:16
this is like it's also a I wonder what
00:18:18
this is like and then getting turned on
00:18:20
while watching and ending up
00:18:22
masturbating right and so there's like
00:18:25
double shame associated with it and I
00:18:27
know it's wrong and then that leads to
00:18:29
I meet with my accountability group and
00:18:31
they're telling me you need to pray
00:18:32
harder and you need to whatever and it's
00:18:36
like it's a giant circle jerk at some
00:18:38
point
00:18:39
right
00:18:41
so let's flush forward a little bit so
00:18:45
again we talked about high school didn't
00:18:46
date anybody a lot of my friends didn't
00:18:48
date people um so there wasn't a lot of
00:18:53
like sexual anything you know and um so
00:18:57
there was no opportunity to have kind of
00:19:00
this like oh I have a girlfriend oh I
00:19:02
know what kissing's like or anything
00:19:03
like that I got to college and it was
00:19:05
like all bets are off I was like I can
00:19:06
date anybody I want I can make out with
00:19:09
somebody I can you know um I wasn't
00:19:12
necessarily thinking along the lines of
00:19:13
like oh I can have sex with somebody um
00:19:15
because I still had this in my brain
00:19:17
that I was like no I'm going to stay a
00:19:18
virgin till I'm married
00:19:20
um mentality but I definitely went into
00:19:25
it a lot more with like okay now I'm
00:19:26
going to date somebody and I'm GNA like
00:19:27
find a partner kind of a thing even if
00:19:30
it's just for fun um and uh yeah and
00:19:35
I've only ever had like two
00:19:37
relationships one of them was very much
00:19:39
like surface level dating we went out a
00:19:41
couple times liked each other it didn't
00:19:44
work out um and then I dated my wife my
00:19:47
now wife and both times I
00:19:51
realized
00:19:52
that I was really scared I was really
00:19:55
scared of dating I was really scared of
00:19:56
anything that was like remotely sexual
00:19:59
because even the idea of dating was
00:20:01
still well I didn't have people telling
00:20:04
me like oh you have to like um you're
00:20:07
going to be doing this like
00:20:08
chaperoned um not dating but
00:20:12
um courtship type of
00:20:15
situation I still had in my brain that
00:20:17
it's like well I want to date someone
00:20:18
with the intention that I'm going to
00:20:19
marry this person and that's That's
00:20:23
Heavy that's a lot to put on an 18
00:20:25
19-year-old kid right um cuz there's a
00:20:28
lot of life left to live and um so I
00:20:32
kind of went into it with that and then
00:20:33
also with the the understanding that I
00:20:35
was like okay I don't want to have sex
00:20:36
till I'm married I'm okay like holding
00:20:38
hands I'm okay kissing um I was
00:20:40
comfortable with those things but yeah
00:20:44
so I started dating my wife my now wife
00:20:47
and there was a lot of things that just
00:20:49
were like hard for me it was hard for me
00:20:52
to kiss her the first time because it
00:20:53
was just
00:20:55
like I I didn't know what I was doing
00:20:58
one but also
00:21:00
I felt like I was maybe taking advantage
00:21:04
of this person right and I was
00:21:07
like devaluing them in some way and
00:21:11
thankfully we'll talk about this near
00:21:13
the end of the episode but thankfully I
00:21:15
had had some consent education and so I
00:21:18
understood that like before I kissed her
00:21:20
I was like can I kiss you um kind of
00:21:23
thing but
00:21:24
uh but yeah I just felt really weird
00:21:27
about it I liked it I liked kissing her
00:21:29
but I just felt awkward about it and
00:21:32
like I was like maybe I'm devaluing this
00:21:34
person I didn't feel really any shame
00:21:36
around it um but it felt weird well one
00:21:40
thing leads to another and ultimately we
00:21:43
ended up having sex premarital sex and
00:21:47
um
00:21:49
afterwards I remember just feeling this
00:21:52
wave of like guilt and shame and disgust
00:21:55
in myself and like I had ruined somebody
00:22:00
and I was and I had ruined
00:22:02
myself and there was a part of me that
00:22:04
was like I don't give a [ __ ] like
00:22:07
whatever and then there's a part of me
00:22:10
that's like oh no
00:22:13
like if I'm not if I don't end up with
00:22:16
this person I've devalued myself
00:22:20
and will somebody ever want me will
00:22:23
someone ever want her um
00:22:26
because you know we're no longer virgins
00:22:30
right and there's no going back
00:22:33
um and so that continued like we started
00:22:37
to have a sex life and it still and I
00:22:41
wasn't communicating this to my partner
00:22:44
I was just like we were having sex and
00:22:47
then these were just emotions that were
00:22:48
running through my brain after the fact
00:22:50
of just this like guilt and shame and
00:22:52
disgusted myself and it took a really
00:22:55
long time including even after we were
00:22:57
married of just like having to battle
00:23:00
this and I'll get a little bit into
00:23:02
like what changed for me but but yeah so
00:23:06
there was definitely this like don't do
00:23:09
this it also didn't help I went to a
00:23:10
Christian college and we had signed
00:23:13
lifestyle agreements and in that
00:23:14
lifestyle agreement you agreed to not
00:23:15
have premarital sex I don't know
00:23:18
how they I don't know I don't know how
00:23:20
they were going to like uphold any of
00:23:22
this I knew plenty of people in college
00:23:24
who had sex um and broke pretty much
00:23:26
every rule in that book uh but yeah kind
00:23:29
of a
00:23:30
weird thing as well you know and but
00:23:34
again even my accountability group that
00:23:36
I had in college with dudes again when
00:23:39
we were going to each other and saying
00:23:40
oh yeah I'm still you know watching porn
00:23:42
or I'm still whatever there was this
00:23:44
still kind of like well just pray about
00:23:46
it be better about it you know and these
00:23:48
were dudes who were not homeschooled
00:23:49
these were just dudes who were other
00:23:51
Christian dudes from all over the
00:23:53
country and so again I still felt like
00:23:57
I'm a porn addict cuz I watch it CU I
00:23:59
jerk off to it um and then I started
00:24:02
having sex and I was like now I'm also
00:24:04
like I'm a filthy [ __ ] basically I was
00:24:07
like I am valueless at this point and
00:24:11
and I have devalued this other person so
00:24:13
that being
00:24:14
said the these things kind of these
00:24:16
feelings these emotions kind of
00:24:18
continued and so even after I left
00:24:20
Christianity when I was about 22 is
00:24:24
23
00:24:26
um I still there was still this weird
00:24:28
guilt and and even to this day I think
00:24:30
sometimes when I talk about certain
00:24:32
things that are sexual I think it's hard
00:24:33
because it was again we didn't talk
00:24:35
about this as kids we didn't talk about
00:24:37
this with parents didn't talk about this
00:24:38
with religious leaders didn't talk about
00:24:40
this with anybody it was just like
00:24:42
figure it out for yourself um and so
00:24:47
so even after I left Christianity I
00:24:50
still wrestled with these feelings of
00:24:53
like guilt and shame Associated around
00:24:57
sex and so
00:25:00
but I was like I knew I knew in my brain
00:25:02
that I was like this isn't normal and I
00:25:04
shouldn't be experiencing this and so I
00:25:06
I was like I got to I got to do
00:25:08
something what really sent me over the
00:25:11
edge and this is me getting very
00:25:12
vulnerable with you guys was that I
00:25:16
started to have
00:25:19
some uh erectile issues and I was having
00:25:22
trouble maintaining an erection or even
00:25:24
getting an erection whether it was with
00:25:27
a partner or solo
00:25:31
and that was scary because I was like oh
00:25:34
no I'm going to be I'm going to have to
00:25:36
take the little blue pill um uh Viagra
00:25:39
for anybody who doesn't know what that
00:25:41
is um and I was like I don't want to do
00:25:43
that I'm like in my 20s I should still
00:25:45
be still be good um and so I started to
00:25:49
to educate myself on like how this stuff
00:25:51
works and um and started to also be like
00:25:55
okay I think these feelings of like I
00:25:57
also because I was leaving religion I
00:26:00
also felt a lot of Shame and a lot of
00:26:01
guilt around I'm leaving and I felt this
00:26:05
pressure that I was disappointing my
00:26:06
family I was disappointing my friends um
00:26:09
that my parents friends were going to
00:26:11
look down on them because they had a kid
00:26:13
who walked away right and there's that
00:26:15
Bible verse the famous bible verse that
00:26:17
train up a child in the way he should go
00:26:19
and when he's old he will not depart
00:26:20
from it and so there was there was a lot
00:26:23
of factors right that were just bigger
00:26:25
than even like sexual factors in this
00:26:27
whole thing um but I started to educate
00:26:29
myself so what happened well uh I
00:26:34
listened to this podcast called ear
00:26:36
biscuits yeah ear biscuits uh with Rett
00:26:39
link from good mythical morning if
00:26:40
you're not familiar with them love them
00:26:42
I've watched them since I was a kid and
00:26:45
um they are two former Christians who
00:26:49
are yeah no longer Christians and but
00:26:52
they so aside from listening them
00:26:55
because they tell great stories and they
00:26:57
had shared share their leaving religion
00:27:00
stories which is again how I kind of got
00:27:01
tied back into their podcast they did a
00:27:04
month in it was September and they
00:27:06
renamed it sextember and they talked
00:27:08
about their sex lives and they had a sex
00:27:10
expert come on there and share
00:27:12
about the guilt associated with sex
00:27:18
because they were telling their they
00:27:19
were telling their stories of like
00:27:20
saving themselves from marriage and the
00:27:22
guilt and the shame they felt when they
00:27:24
would like have a make out session with
00:27:25
their like fiance um who became their
00:27:28
wives and and I was like okay this This
00:27:31
Woman's on to something so I started
00:27:32
listening to her podcast her podcast is
00:27:34
called sex with Emily it's a great
00:27:35
podcast highly encourage people to
00:27:36
listen to it she talks about whole
00:27:38
gambut of everything having to do with
00:27:42
the Kink um uh the kink like following
00:27:45
to uh sexual performance to female male
00:27:49
pleasure toys all anything and
00:27:53
everything you could ever imagine right
00:27:54
relationship types all that kind of
00:27:56
stuff so very very interesting so I
00:27:59
started listening to her and and then
00:28:02
she recommended a couple books and I
00:28:03
read a couple books and or listen to a
00:28:05
couple books
00:28:06
and I just started going down this
00:28:10
pathway of seeking out answers to the
00:28:13
questions I had and uh and slowly but
00:28:16
surely my guilt and my shame started to
00:28:18
go away and well I won't say it's 100%
00:28:22
always gone um I do think that it helped
00:28:26
because I started to wake up to the fact
00:28:27
that a lot of the things that I had been
00:28:31
told with this whole Purity culture
00:28:35
movement was
00:28:37
just was based and birthed out of this
00:28:40
place of like wanting to teach
00:28:42
abstinence only sex education um and
00:28:46
parents essentially being lazy and not
00:28:49
wanting to actually like have real
00:28:51
conversations with their kids and so it
00:28:54
made me feel better about myself because
00:28:56
I was like okay well
00:28:59
there's people who push back on this
00:29:00
famously the guy who authored the book I
00:29:03
kiss Dating Goodbye which is a huge like
00:29:06
basically the handbook for like what
00:29:07
courtship looks like um he has famously
00:29:10
like denounced that book and said that
00:29:12
that was like [ __ ] um and so things
00:29:15
like that were starting to happen in
00:29:17
that like late 2010s um when when I was
00:29:21
kind of going through a lot of this
00:29:23
stuff and so I bring all that up to say
00:29:26
that it's just like
00:29:30
educate yourself please and thank you um
00:29:35
because I don't think a lot of us got
00:29:37
the proper education when it came to sex
00:29:39
when it came to pornography when it came
00:29:41
to uh a pleasure for either of our
00:29:46
partners um I think a lot of what we've
00:29:48
learned especially for us guys comes
00:29:50
from pornography and that is
00:29:53
unfortunately a fantasy it's not real
00:29:55
it's make believe and um
00:30:00
um you know my stances on a lot
00:30:04
of stuff have changed over the years my
00:30:07
stance on sex before marriage changed um
00:30:11
you know I believe that sex should be
00:30:12
between two people that love each other
00:30:16
um I believe that pornography is not
00:30:18
inherently evil I think that there's
00:30:20
evil pornography um and unethical
00:30:22
pornography I think there's also ethical
00:30:24
pornography um I think that masturbation
00:30:27
saves lives
00:30:28
um and what do I mean by that I think
00:30:30
that it offers an outlet and a release
00:30:32
for people who are sexually frustrated
00:30:36
and born out of sexual frustration
00:30:37
sometimes comes really nasty stuff um
00:30:41
and so that ability to release that and
00:30:44
get that dopamine hit um I think can be
00:30:47
really beneficial to a lot of people um
00:30:50
the other thing that I said I was going
00:30:52
to bring up what is is uh consent
00:30:55
education this is something that even
00:30:58
now I'm learning a lot more about
00:31:01
and I think that there is this idea
00:31:04
within Christianity and within Purity
00:31:08
culture
00:31:09
that I mean I kind of talked about it
00:31:12
when I got Mar when you get married sex
00:31:14
is on the table and I think for a lot of
00:31:18
guys there's this view that that means
00:31:21
that I have my own personal porn star
00:31:23
which is not true
00:31:25
um and maybe for women it's true it it
00:31:28
feel not not that it's true but maybe
00:31:30
for women it also sometimes feels that
00:31:31
way too but
00:31:33
um you know sexual activity requires
00:31:38
consent and there is no such thing as
00:31:39
universal consent when it comes to
00:31:41
marriage uh even if you are with a
00:31:43
partner if your partner says no you it
00:31:45
means no okay you don't own them and you
00:31:48
don't owe um and they don't owe you
00:31:50
anything okay so I say that because as
00:31:55
someone who got most of his exx head
00:31:57
from pornography pornography does not
00:31:59
portray consent um at all it portrays
00:32:02
like Universal consent that anything is
00:32:04
on the table right vaginal sex anal sex
00:32:07
oral sex hand jobs blowob anything
00:32:10
anything is on the table any position
00:32:13
that's just like not the case right um
00:32:16
and
00:32:16
so please for the love of God educate
00:32:20
yourself on on consent um you know and
00:32:23
know that no means no regardless male
00:32:27
female they them um it doesn't matter
00:32:30
who you are uh no means no um so yeah
00:32:33
that's my little soapbox
00:32:36
there I don't think I missed anything
00:32:39
I'm hoping I didn't miss anything um
00:32:42
this might be a conversation that gets
00:32:43
had again um maybe with other people
00:32:46
maybe there'll be more things that get
00:32:47
Unearthed for me as I
00:32:50
continue growing as a as a human being
00:32:53
um and I do hope that this was helpful
00:32:57
and inform formative um I don't know
00:33:00
100% why I felt really this need to put
00:33:03
this out there and if you've ridden with
00:33:06
me this long in this episode thank you
00:33:09
um if you have your own stuff you want
00:33:12
to talk about whether you agree with me
00:33:14
disagree with me whatever I don't care
00:33:16
um I I welcome the the conversation okay
00:33:19
and so there's two ways you can reach
00:33:20
out to me you can reach out to me on
00:33:22
Instagram at uh exhs club or you can
00:33:26
email me at exh s [email protected]
00:33:29
um both those places uh I'm pretty
00:33:33
active in there okay so um I would love
00:33:36
to have a conversation with anybody and
00:33:38
everybody um I'm still open to learning
00:33:41
um about things and I don't think I have
00:33:43
it all right okay uh and uh yeah so with
00:33:49
that I don't know where else to take
00:33:51
this okay so I'm GNA end it there but
00:33:54
thank you again for listening um and uh
00:33:58
I'll see you next week all right peace
00:34:07
[Music]
00:34:13
[Music]
