Meet the Sexvangelicals (w/Julia Postema & Jeremiah Gibson) (Conspirituality podcast #218)

You’re an eight year-old girl. The purity culture of your evangelical church, ruled by men but policed by women, has you worried that the spaghetti straps on your summer top might be sinful. You learn from the women around you how to defer, serve, please, keep your voice girl-like forever, and use it to both signal obedience but also piously request relief from sexual aggression.

You’re a seven year-old boy. The holy laws of gender in your church dictate that when you’re the only male present at Bible study, you must lead the room full of women in reading and prayer. You must perform manliness in your boy’s body, assuming an anxious leadership role you did not earn. If you don’t puff yourself up, you’re a sissy—one of the girls alongside you learning the tones of the Fundie Baby Voice.

These are parts of the stories of Julia Postema and Jeremiah Gibson, the co-hosts of the podcast Sexvangelicals: The Sex Education the Church Didn't Want You to Have. They are Boston-based licensed psychotherapists and certified sex therapists. They specialize in helping couples with negative religious backgrounds discover sexuality that works for their partnership. Julian and I sat down with them to learn about how their clients recover from purity culture, and sometimes in the process run smack into its mirror world: the tantric workshop land of divine masculine and feminine stereotypes plus fascinations with semen retention.
Interview:

https://www.conspirituality.net/episodes/218-meet-the-sexvangelicals

Opinion | The Politics of Delusion Have Taken Hold - The New York Times

A separate paper published last year, "Christian Nationalism and Political Violence: Victimhood, Racial Identity, Conspiracy and Support for the Capitol Attacks," by Miles T. Armaly, David T. Buckley and Adam M. Enders, showed that support for political violence correlated with a combination of white identity, belief in extreme religions and conspiracy thinking. 

"Perceived victimhood, reinforcing racial and religious identities and support for conspiratorial information," they wrote, "are positively related to each other and support for the Capitol riot."…

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/31/opinion/politics-partisanship-delusion.html