Episode 253 (Transcript): Revisiting Purity Culture | A Conversation with C.A. Larson
Episode Transcript
Many thanks to listener Summer Kartchner for her work in transcribing this episode!
This episode can be found on any podcast app or can be listened to here on our website as well. All the notes and resources we cited in the episode are found at this link as well:
CAL: And healing is not about becoming more sexual or less sexual, it’s about embracing our agency that we should have had all along. It’s about relearning consent, trusting bodily signals, separating worth from obedience, reclaiming choice, going slowly and allowing ambivalence. You don’t owe your body to doctrine and you don’t owe your healing to anyone else’s timeline.
SH: Hello, I’m Susan Hinkley.
CW: And I am Cynthia Winward.
SH: And this is At Last she Said It. We are women of faith discussing complicated things, and the title of today’s episode is Revisiting Purity Culture, A Conversation with CA Larson.
Cynthia: CA is in the house today.
CW: I’m so excited.
SH: Our listeners are as excited as we are. I’m sure. I think that you’ve been on the podcast every season except last season.
CAL: Oh yeah, that might be true, but I’m always happy to be here.
SH: Welcome, CA. Well, we’re thrilled to have you. We are calling this episode Revisiting Purity Culture because some of our listeners may remember that we took on this topic previously in episode 112, with Colette Dalton, so it’s been 150 episodes since we visited it. And I wish I could say that all of the problems had been resolved and disappeared since then. But unfortunately, Cynthia and I got a message just this week, or maybe it was someone in our chat that said something about sitting through a relief society lesson about chastity.
For 50 and 60-year-old women. Do you remember that, Cynthia? And we laughed out loud. I mean, they were talking about things like watching racy movies and stuff like that. Bridgerton I think maybe came up. I mean, just ridiculous.
CW: It never ends!
SH: No matter what age women get to, you can’t age out of it.
CW: unbelievable.
SH: It continues. And so we figured it was high time to take it on again. So we’re gonna pretty much just turn it over to you. CA the notes look amazing, so listeners prepare to need to lie down.
CAL: Okay. Maybe that could be included in our warning about this episode. If you feel a need to lie down, it’s okay to do that. But also, more seriously, I wanted to just let you know that if this conversation feels overwhelming in any way that you can pause, you can skip ahead or you can stop altogether.
Nothing we talk about today requires you to relive anything you are not ready to. We’re gonna talk about purity culture in the LDS church, what it is, why it’s harmful, how it creates conditions for abuse, and how it deeply affects marriage and intimacy. We’ll also talk about healing and healthier approaches to sexuality and self-worth.
So, all right, that’s our preamble.
