Why was this book important to write?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So another piece of my upbringing that I didn't mention, but that is definitely a foundation for this book was I was raised in purity culture, you know, in the 70s, 80s and 90s, purity culture was the backlash against feminism, abstinence-focused teaching that really emphasize virginity until marriage, especially for women.

And again, for me being raised in the conservative South, that was also at play, just the culture of modesty, the culture of hospitality, the expectation for marriage and motherhood, all of this being very restrictive.

Of women and what we could do and how we could dress and what we could say and all of that.

So purity culture really taught me, really instilled that shame, which really taught me that my body, so my physical body, my female form, especially my female form, is a barrier between me and God.

How do you approach that issue?

And so how that plays into everything else we do, like how can we live fully embodied in worshiping the God who created our body if we just hate so much that part of ourselves? Right.

We hate it.

And so therefore also, and this is especially true for women, we were taught to not listen to our bodies.

So like in your case, in your medical, being pathologized and all this, we are absolutely taught to not listen to our bodies.

And so we do not learn to advocate for ourselves.

And so again, you transfer that into a child who's developing a sexuality and what you're teaching them is don't listen to your body.

So consent, like the value of teaching kids consent goes out the window because why would I listen to what feels good? I had a young woman tell me, And recently, it was actually a story someone told me about this young woman, but she said she got to a parking lot with a guy on a date.

Yeah.

I think, how do you, why do you think so many parents feel, like, paralyzed when it comes to these conversations, and, like, stuck in that in between place?

Yeah.

Part of it, I think, is exactly what you're naming, Steph, where you cannot lead someone where you have not been.

So we have not been given a sexuality free from shame, so we don't know how to give that.

[laughs] You know, we were given the purity culture, the very toxic messages around our bodies, and so yeah, we can't, we can't give what we have not received.

I think that's part of it.

I think the other part of it that goes along with that is so many parents, our age especially, if you were raised in purity culture especially, we carry our own body shame and our own sexual brokenness.

... we have really good intentions?