Moving Beyond Purity Culture - with Meg Cowan

10/17/22 • 55 min

Episode 71: This is the 2nd part of a conversation with Meg Cowan - sex and relationships coach. In this episode we talk about understanding our own sexuality, and how to find healthy ways of moving forward beyond the binaries of purity culture. We discuss the five circles of sexuality - intimacy, identity, sensuality, health & reproduction, and sexualisation. And we talk through some of the big issues in processing through and healing from purity culture, including attachments and soul ties, finding agency, cultivating a new sexual ethic, getting connected to our embodiment, somatics as a pathway to healing, and finding health in our relationships.

You can find Meg's work at www.megcowan.com or follow her on instagram.

Get in touch with In the Shift: [email protected]

Support In the Shift: www.patreon.com/intheshift

You can find Meg's work at www.megcowan.com or follow her on instagram.

Get in touch with In the Shift: [email protected]

Support In the Shift: www.patreon.com/intheshift

Previous Episode

The Impact of Purity Culture - with Meg Cowan

Episode 70: Meg Cowan is a sex and relationships coach who specialises in helping people process through the impact of purity culture. In this conversation we talk about how purity culture (understood as the cultural movement in Evangelical/Pentecostal Christianity that emerges in reaction to the rapid social and moral changes that took place in the 1960s and 1970s) has impacted views on and experiences of sex, embodiment and relationships in the church. We discuss the ways in which men and women have experienced this differently, and the disproportionate impact of purity culture on women in particular. We dive into the detail on gender norms, sexual desire, the nature of arousal, power imbalances between men and women, the orgasm gap, and debunk some of the myths of purity culture. This is the first part of two conversations with Meg - and in an upcoming episode we talk about how to heal and move forward from purity culture and its impact on sex and relationships. [see below for some resource recommendations from Meg]

Get in touch via email: [email protected]

You can find Meg at: https://www.megcowan.com/ including info about her 'Shame Free Sex' course.

Recommended Resources from Meg:

Debunking the myth that men are more visual than women with regards to sex. Meta Analysis: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1904975116
BOOK MENTIONS
> Pure, by Linda Kay Klein

Pure: Inside the Evangelical Movement that Shamed a Generation of Young Women and How I Broke Free
https://lindakayklein.com/pure/

> The Great Sex Rescue, by Sheila Wray Gregorie.

If you identify as a Christian, this is one of the better books out there on changing the narrative about sex and christian marriage.
https://baremarriage.com/great-sex-rescue/
> Come as you are, by Emily Nagowski

Essential reading on how desire and arousal actually work.
https://www.emilynagoski.com/home
Love and Respect (on the Do NOT read list!) A lot of the teaching around these concepts of Love and Respect is spread in church, due to the bestselling (but truly terrible) book on Christian Marriage called ‘Love and Respect’ by Emerson Eggerich. Read more about why it’s so awful on Sheila Wray Gregoire’s platforms: https://baremarriage.com/2019/01/love-and-respect-why-unconditional-respect-cant-work/

Next Episode

Megachurch Madness - with David Farrier

Episode 72: David Farrier is a journalist, documentary maker, podcaster, and the author of online newsletter Webworm. Throughout 2022, David’s investigative work on Arise Church - one of New Zealand’s largest megachurches - brought to light a toxic culture that included numerous allegations of burn out, abuse of power, toxicity and the covering up of claims of sexual harassment and assault. David’s work also opened up a larger public conversation about megachurches (and toxic church cultures in general), and the narcissism, ego and systemic abuse of power that is often present in these spaces.

In this conversation we talk with David about his own experience of Christianity as a child and young adult, why he started Webworm, the attention to bullies and narcissists in so much of his work, and why he focused in on a New Zealand megachurch. We talk through the unfolding of this story, the perspective he brings as an outsider to megachurch culture, and how hard it seems to be to get people within the church to take these claims seriously.

You can subscribe to David’s newsletter at www.webworm.co

Email us: [email protected]

Support In the Shift: www.patreon.com/intheshift