pure
pure.
(adjective): free of any contamination
back in summer of 1997, before you could instantly google anything, my mom was 21 years old, flipping through baby name books to find a name for her first baby girl (aka me). she and my dad settled on “cailin,” (obviously). they liked the uniqueness and loved the meaning, which they’ve always told me is “pure.” when i google the meaning of my name now, all the baby name websites tell me that cailin simply means “girl.” kind of ironic.
april is sexual assault awareness month. there is so so much to be said about this topic, and i do not have words to speak directly on the topic of sexual assault. however, i have a lot of thoughts about the surrounding culture that allows sexual assault to be consistently viewed as acceptable behavior. as I have had more time to ponder the world during this time, i have been thinking a lot about women’s bodies and this notion of what makes them “pure.” i grew up submerged in evangelical purity culture. i was told what I should and shouldn’t wear to save boys and men from “lusting.” i was given a purity ring when I turned 13 years old by my dad, and i was supposed to wear it to remind me to stay “pure” until my wedding day when i gave it to my husband. my purity was gifted to me by my dad and was to be passed to my husband on my wedding day. (side note: i tried to find that purity ring for photography reasons, and i have no idea where it is. i know i still have it somewhere, but i stopped wearing it shortly after i started secretly dating a girl-lol. a very small act of rebellion, but it gave me a lot of anxiety for a while because i genuinely thought that my parents would find out about my relationship simply because i stopped wearing the ring haha…but more about that another time.) in the months following that 13th birthday gift, i distinctly remember looking at that ring and genuinely wondering to myself if i would still be allowed to wear it if i was raped.
and that’s really what i’ve been thinking so much about this month. the extremely close relationship between purity culture and rape culture. one time when i was probably about 16, i walked down to our tv room to join my family for a movie night. i was wearing PJ pants and a spaghetti strap tank top. the tank top was pretty tight fitting and my bra straps showed, so i would have never been allowed to wear it out, but i don’t remember it being an uncommon thing for me to wear in my home. a minute or two after i came downstairs, my mom said, “come here, I need to talk to you,” in a serious tone. i quickly became very nervous and followed her into another room. she proceeded to tell me that i needed to go put a shirt on over my tank top, and i needed to be more aware of what i was wearing around my dad and my little brother. let me repeat that. my DAD and BROTHER. and let me reiterate that i was wearing a TANKTOP. now, i want to quickly follow this up by saying that my mom would never say anything like this today, and frequently apologizes for saying things like this to me when I was younger. but this conversation and other conversations like it did two things to me when i was growing up.
1-they made me afraid of men and boys. all of them. including my dad, brother, and all the rest i may have previously trusted. after that conversation with my mom, i listened to her. i was careful what i wore around the house, because i was scared how my dad would look at me if i didn’t. and that same fear is exactly why my mom told me to put a shirt on in the first place. i want to make it very clear that neither my dad or brother ever ever EVER gave me any reason to think this way about them. but society did. the way i viewed my own body did. the narrative i was taught about how men and boys can’t control themselves did. purity culture did. rape culture did.
2-they made me afraid of my own body. i think most (if not all) women in this country have had conflicting relationships with their bodies at some point in their life. we are told to cover up-but not too much, to be sexy-but leave some up to the imagination, to be skinny-but not too skinny, to have curves-but not fat, and i could go on and on and on. we are constantly criticized, objectified and hyper-sexualized in personal relationships, online, and mainstream media. and on top of all of this, we are sexually harassed and assaulted at astounding rates. i remember constantly being torn between wearing clothes I thought i looked good in and wearing something more modest and “safe.” because i was simultaneously responsible for making sure i looked cute and also for keeping the men around me from “stumbling” over my body. that’s a lot of pressure for a 16-year-old girl who doesn’t even know who she is yet. i am very thankful to be able to say that i have worked through a lot of this narrative, and i really do love my body most of the time. and i wear what I want to wear, and that’s it. but it took a lot to get there, and there are absolutely still times when i start nervously thinking about what the males around me are thinking about my body.
the worst part about this whole thing that i just wrote is that it’s not just some crazy idea or something someone just made up for no reason. it has merit. because we actually SHOULD be afraid to a certain extent. but we shouldn’t HAVE to be. we need a serious societal shift. because the way our culture responds to bodies and sexuality is seriously fucked up in pretty much every way…and so detrimental to people of every gender, not just women. women’s bodies are pure. always. no ifs, ands, or buts. no matter what they’ve done or what’s been done to them. no matter what clothes are covering them or what clothes aren’t. no matter what. and we all should start respecting them as such.
p.s. i focused on this experience for women, because that’s my experience, but i want to also bring attention to how much this is exacerbated for folks who don’t ascribe to our society’s traditional gender roles. these folks, as well as people of color, experience sexual assault and harassment at even higher and more dangerous rates.