Smiths approach to unraveling the harms of purity culture offers significant relief from a collection of post-purity resources that fail to fully detach from patriarchy, homophobia, and misogyny. As a trained and experienced sex educator, Smith provides the anatomy, social-emotional, and ethical lessons many adults who were raised in American evangelical communities never received. She is not interested in universal truths about human sexuality, but in helping people find a set of practices that allow each of us to cultivate a genuine relationship with our bodies and desires, regardless of our religious or spiritual leanings. Unlike current and former evangelicals whose work deconstructing purity culture is over-shadowed by their own projects in personal reclamation, Smith provides grounded expertise dedicated to the virtues of sexual pleasure and bodily autonomy. -- Sara Moslener * author of After Purity: Race, Sex, and Religion in White Christian America * The Purity Culture Recovery Guide is the warm, empowering resource that readers escaping religious sexual shame have been waiting for. For anyone raised with silence, fear, and negative messaging about sex, this book offers the antidote: comprehensive, compassionate, and inclusive sexuality education. Creator of the Purity Culture Dropout Program, Erica draws on decades of expertise as a sexuality educator serving the people most impacted by authoritarian upbringing and fear-based religions. This book will provide you with the accurate, science-backed guidance your body and heart have been craving. Nurture, heal, and liberate yourself with this important book, and step into the life you so richly deserve. -- Tina Schermer Sellers * PhD, LMFT, CST. CST-S, Author of Sex, God, & the Conservative Church * Ive been waiting for someone to write a book like this for years and Erica Smith was the exact right person to do it. To those of us who grew up entrenched in purity culture: Reading this book feels like coming up for air. Free of shame, full of life and pleasure, if youre looking to step into a new way of being, The Purity Culture Recovery Guide will help you do just that. -- Matthias Roberts * Therapist and Author of Beyond Shame: Creating a Healthy Sex Life on Your Own Terms * Purity culture distorts one of the core aspects of being humanour sexualityand addressing these distortions takes nuance and compassion that can be overlooked in other guides. Erica Smith has written a useful primer, blending kindness, humor, and truth-telling, tailored for those recovering from purity culture. -- Blake Chastain * author of Exvangelical & Beyond *
