Episode 149: Linda Kay Klein | Breaking Free From The Evangelical Purity Movement

Linda Kay Klein, the author of PURE: Inside the Evangelical Movement that Shamed a Generation of Young Women and How I Broke Free, joins me today. She is the founder of Break Free Together, an organization committed to helping people claim their whole selves—mind, spirit, and body. Linda's work has been featured on NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross, Elle.com, GoodHousekeeping.com, and many others.  Linda is a trained Our Whole Lives (OWL) sexuality education facilitator and Vice Chair of the Board for the Forum for Theological Exploration. She holds an interdisciplinary Masters degree from NYU, where she focused on American Evangelical Christian sex and gender messaging for girls. By the title of the book alone, you can tell where this conversation is heading. If you grew up in the True Love Waits or I Kissed Dating Goodbye culture then you will find this very interesting. We talk about growing up during the purity movement, where this movement came from and what it was a reaction to. We also talk about the fear and shame that have been used as external motivations for purity and how we can start building a healthy conversation around sexuality. This conversation may be uncomfortable or awkward or it may cause you to feel frustrated. But  this is such an important conversation for us to have especially if you grew up in the purity movement and especially if you are now parenting kids after growing up through that movement. We have to be aware of the shame that we carry—we can't build shame resilient kids if we don't address our own shame. And we have to be committed to figure out how to have conversations around sexuality that don't include shame. Links Mentioned: Linda's book: PURE: Inside the Evangelical Movement that Shamed a Generation of Young Women and How I Broke Free Daring Greatly by Brenè Brown Linda's organization Break Free Together Connect: SarahBragg.com Sarah on Instagram & twitter & FB Shownotes Sponsors: Warby Parker - for FREE Home Try-On Kit go to warbyparker.com/survive