PURE: A Book Review
Pure: Inside the Evangelical Movement That Shamed A Generation of Young Women and How I Broke Free: written by Linda Kay Klein, reviewed by Terri C. Pilarski
When the invitation showed up in my Facebook feed looking for people to review this book, I immediately responded, "yes." However, I did not anticipate that this book would change me and how I see the world, as it has. I am after all, of the generation BEFORE the women in this book. Born in 1957, I could be the mother enforcing and reinforcing the views and values that shamed the generation this book interviews and references, girls born and raised in the 1980's-2000's. My own daughter was born in 1988, my son in 1992.
As a parent I worked hard to encourage my kids to know their own minds and to minimize body shaming and encourage a healthy self-worth. I did not always do this well, but that was my intention.
By the time I was a parent I was leaning just a tiny bit more toward healthy than not. That was thanks to years of therapy and the desire to be a healthy person so I could be a healthy mom. I wasn't always either. But, as I said, that was my hope and my intention.
I anticipated that this book would be an easy read. After all, I had not been raised in the "Evangelical" church so no "purity movement" for me.
Turns out however, that because I was born into the Mormon Church, even in the late 1950's, I know more about theological body shaming than I thought I did. The Mormon Church is the church of group think, subjugation of women, and the John Birch Society of conservative values.
I started my journey out of that "thinking" when I was 15 and my mom bought me a subscription to MS magazine, the first year it was published. She later bought me "My Body, My Self." Yes, she wanted me to have a healthy sense of self and my sexuality. Little did she, or I, know of the cultural messages I had internalized, messages she reinforced, perhaps unknowingly.
The body shaming that I internalized was neither formed nor played out exactly as this book describes, but the book definitely brought it all up for me and laid it out in a clear, concise, yet gentle way. Gentle is totally the wrong word. Laid it out in a way that I felt invited to consider and then recognize how it resided in me. Laid out in a way that was filled with dignity and integrity and compassion. As Linda says towards the end of the book, she did not want to shame the church that had caused her to internalize shame, she did not want to inflict that same blame back on them. She wanted to lift up another way of being.
That she did.
Regarding shame she writes:
I did not know the degree to which I had internalized these body messages until this book pushed me to think about them more deeply. I had spent lots of time becoming aware of anxiety and stress and how my body responded to that. Its actually rather horrifying, in retrospect, to realize that I have been blind to my acceptance and complacency to the abuse I experienced. Let me tell you a small piece of my story.
When I was 19 I fell in love. I was in, what I thought, was a loving relationship, that was "good" for me, for the next 7 years. What I did not see then and really only fully came to terms with while reading this book, 35 years later, is that for the last 2.5 years of that relationship it was filled with sexual abuse and rape. I did not see it that way at the time. I thought, and fully accepted the notion, that my body was his to do with as he desired. In fact, I fully accepted the idea that my only sense of worth and value was in the desirability of my body by a man. I had internalized the idea that my sole purpose in life was to be desired by a man, who would no doubt hurt me and leave me, and therefore I had to have a college education so I could have a job, any job, not a career that was meaningful, just a job so I could take care of myself. Because, I had also internalized that men were not reliable.
The long term result of this experience was not a sense of shame, not an awareness that I had been raped and abused. I never thought that. I always thought it just was what it was, sex with the partner who loved me.
On the other hand another long term result has stayed with me. I am jumpy, easily overwhelmed, and defensive to unanticipated touch. My truly loving and respectful husband of 32 years has been the recipient of my reactivity, which until recently I had no idea why I reacted as I did. Now I get it. I was traumatized. Because I did not perceive these experiences as traumatic, at least not consciously, they resided in me more like small quiet traumas. Klein writes:
I am a woman who has had a lot of therapy. Who has worked hard to be aware, healthy, high functioning, and to reconcile my life history so I can live full out. I have been humbled and a little stunned to consciously acknowledge this abuse in my life. Somehow I must have known that this experience was actually abuse, because until I told my husband about it a few weeks ago, and now in writing this, I have NEVER TOLD ANOTHER LIVING SOUL. Not even my therapist exactly what happened. Sometimes shame causes us to minimize what we've experienced, as if that will make it less important. But, as I quoted above, even "small" traumas trigger the same reactivity as large traumas.
While most of the women in this book had other experiences of shame, humiliation, and sexual oppression and suppression, mine was the flip side of the same issue - women's sexuality means we are temptresses and our only hope for salvation is to suppress ourselves (or in my case, use my body) in order to be good and loved. Neither side enables a girl to develop a healthy sense of self, neither side encourages a healthy, free, whole sexuality.
This book is well written, with engaging stories and thoughtful reflections. Its a book of faith and hope, of tenacity and courage. Its a book for women but its a book that will inform men, too. I encourage everyone, regardless of your age or life experience to read it because I believe that everyone in our culture has been raised with some kind of sexual and body shaming that we need to be healed of and from.
I also believe that God yearns for us to be whole, loving, sexual, healthy, beings.
When the invitation showed up in my Facebook feed looking for people to review this book, I immediately responded, "yes." However, I did not anticipate that this book would change me and how I see the world, as it has. I am after all, of the generation BEFORE the women in this book. Born in 1957, I could be the mother enforcing and reinforcing the views and values that shamed the generation this book interviews and references, girls born and raised in the 1980's-2000's. My own daughter was born in 1988, my son in 1992.
As a parent I worked hard to encourage my kids to know their own minds and to minimize body shaming and encourage a healthy self-worth. I did not always do this well, but that was my intention.
By the time I was a parent I was leaning just a tiny bit more toward healthy than not. That was thanks to years of therapy and the desire to be a healthy person so I could be a healthy mom. I wasn't always either. But, as I said, that was my hope and my intention.
I anticipated that this book would be an easy read. After all, I had not been raised in the "Evangelical" church so no "purity movement" for me.
Turns out however, that because I was born into the Mormon Church, even in the late 1950's, I know more about theological body shaming than I thought I did. The Mormon Church is the church of group think, subjugation of women, and the John Birch Society of conservative values.
I started my journey out of that "thinking" when I was 15 and my mom bought me a subscription to MS magazine, the first year it was published. She later bought me "My Body, My Self." Yes, she wanted me to have a healthy sense of self and my sexuality. Little did she, or I, know of the cultural messages I had internalized, messages she reinforced, perhaps unknowingly.
The impact that shaming has on people’s lives generally goes unacknowledged and sometimes even unnoticed within the communities in which it most regularly occurs. In some case, shaming is so common it is coiled around core beliefs, laced through theology, and twisted into doctrine, making it nearly impossible to see. pg 16
Overt shaming is easiest to identify. But more powerful and far more prevalent messages are covert: shaming attitudes embedded into everyday language, sharing lessons slipped into stories, shaming treatment felt by those who are being shamed and observed by those who fear they will be shamed next. pg 21
The body shaming that I internalized was neither formed nor played out exactly as this book describes, but the book definitely brought it all up for me and laid it out in a clear, concise, yet gentle way. Gentle is totally the wrong word. Laid it out in a way that I felt invited to consider and then recognize how it resided in me. Laid out in a way that was filled with dignity and integrity and compassion. As Linda says towards the end of the book, she did not want to shame the church that had caused her to internalize shame, she did not want to inflict that same blame back on them. She wanted to lift up another way of being.
That she did.
Regarding shame she writes:
"Shame can become like the smell of our own homes. The hum of an air conditioner. The feel of a wedding ring. It’s just….there. Which is when it is most dangerous. Because it is then that we are most likely to dismiss, rather than deal with, it’s dangerous effect....pg 16
I did not know the degree to which I had internalized these body messages until this book pushed me to think about them more deeply. I had spent lots of time becoming aware of anxiety and stress and how my body responded to that. Its actually rather horrifying, in retrospect, to realize that I have been blind to my acceptance and complacency to the abuse I experienced. Let me tell you a small piece of my story.
When I was 19 I fell in love. I was in, what I thought, was a loving relationship, that was "good" for me, for the next 7 years. What I did not see then and really only fully came to terms with while reading this book, 35 years later, is that for the last 2.5 years of that relationship it was filled with sexual abuse and rape. I did not see it that way at the time. I thought, and fully accepted the notion, that my body was his to do with as he desired. In fact, I fully accepted the idea that my only sense of worth and value was in the desirability of my body by a man. I had internalized the idea that my sole purpose in life was to be desired by a man, who would no doubt hurt me and leave me, and therefore I had to have a college education so I could have a job, any job, not a career that was meaningful, just a job so I could take care of myself. Because, I had also internalized that men were not reliable.
The long term result of this experience was not a sense of shame, not an awareness that I had been raped and abused. I never thought that. I always thought it just was what it was, sex with the partner who loved me.
On the other hand another long term result has stayed with me. I am jumpy, easily overwhelmed, and defensive to unanticipated touch. My truly loving and respectful husband of 32 years has been the recipient of my reactivity, which until recently I had no idea why I reacted as I did. Now I get it. I was traumatized. Because I did not perceive these experiences as traumatic, at least not consciously, they resided in me more like small quiet traumas. Klein writes:
"small, quiet traumas - trigger the same brain-survival reaction as larger traumas - Brene Brown, quoting Dr. Shelly Uram“Its possible that many of our early shame experiences, especially with parents and caregivers, were stored in our brains as traumas. This is why we often have such painful bodily reactions when we feel criticized, ridiculed, rejected, and shamed….the brain does not differentiate between overt or big trauma and covert or small, quiet trauma, it just registers the event as a threat we can’t control. " page 15
I am a woman who has had a lot of therapy. Who has worked hard to be aware, healthy, high functioning, and to reconcile my life history so I can live full out. I have been humbled and a little stunned to consciously acknowledge this abuse in my life. Somehow I must have known that this experience was actually abuse, because until I told my husband about it a few weeks ago, and now in writing this, I have NEVER TOLD ANOTHER LIVING SOUL. Not even my therapist exactly what happened. Sometimes shame causes us to minimize what we've experienced, as if that will make it less important. But, as I quoted above, even "small" traumas trigger the same reactivity as large traumas.
While most of the women in this book had other experiences of shame, humiliation, and sexual oppression and suppression, mine was the flip side of the same issue - women's sexuality means we are temptresses and our only hope for salvation is to suppress ourselves (or in my case, use my body) in order to be good and loved. Neither side enables a girl to develop a healthy sense of self, neither side encourages a healthy, free, whole sexuality.
This book is well written, with engaging stories and thoughtful reflections. Its a book of faith and hope, of tenacity and courage. Its a book for women but its a book that will inform men, too. I encourage everyone, regardless of your age or life experience to read it because I believe that everyone in our culture has been raised with some kind of sexual and body shaming that we need to be healed of and from.
I also believe that God yearns for us to be whole, loving, sexual, healthy, beings.
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