Editorial Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Eleanor Skelton’s blog. It was originally published on October 26, 2015.
I spent my teenage years immersed in purity culture, in both evangelical and fundamentalist Christian circles.
If you were homeschooled, went to youth group, or wore a purity ring, you probably know what I’m talking about.
Purity culture was an ideology, a movement complete with books like Dannah Gresh’s Secret Keeper, promoted in concerts by Christian artists like Rebecca St. James and single women’s retreats, like the one I went to that was organized by Biblical Discipleship Ministries and hosted at Bill Gothard’s ALERT Academy in Big Sandy, Texas. (Note: Bill Gothard has been accused by at least 10 women of sexual abuse and the court case was featured in Amazon Prime’s docuseries Shiny Happy People in June 2023.)
A conservative Muslim man who added me on Facebook several months ago often posts religious memes or quotes from the Quran. This week, he shared a few memes that seemed oddly familiar, because they echoed many things that purity culture taught me.
Here they are, along with their Christian counterparts.
1. You will only find a partner as you grow closer to God.
Purity culture seemed to almost guarantee that we’d find The One (TM), if we obeyed all the rules. Following the formula would supposedly bring you closer to God and, by default, closer to that one person chosen to be your life partner from the beginning of time.
Eric and Leslie Ludy, authors of When God Writes your Love Story, said, “Girls, if you will learn to wait patiently and confidently for God to bring a Christlike man into your life, you will not be disappointed. And guys, learn to treat women like the Perfect Gentleman, Jesus Christ, If you do, you will not only be promoted out of ‘jerkhood,’ but you will then be worthy of a beautiful princess of purity who is saving herself just for you.”
Islamic teachings seem to be nearly identical, except you might be waiting for The One[s], depending on which sect you belong to.
2. Wives should obey and submit to their husbands.
This is basically complementarian theology, based on how evangelical and fundamentalist Christian churches interpret Ephesians 5:22-33.
According to this view, men and women are said to be equally valuable, but serve in different roles. Men are the leaders and women are their helpmeets. Those who believe in this claim that any attempt to live outside of these scripted gender roles will result in a failed marriage.
The most spiritual women, according to this teaching, submit to their husbands and obey them even when they disagree or even when their husbands are wrong or abusive.
3. Casual dating is bad because your goal should be to find someone to marry.
Purity culture teaches that kissing, holding hands, and sex outside of marriage is disrespectful to your future spouse and stealing intimacy from any potential relationships in the future.
A sexually active woman is used and no longer desirable, like damaged merchandise or a wilted rose.
Again, this idea isn’t unique to evangelical Christianity. It’s part of other high-control religions as well.
4. Specific instructions on what clothing is modest and pleasing / displeasing to God.
Basically the more covered your body is, the better, according to people who believe this.
Wear long sleeves and long skirts to demonstrate that we’re women, but you better not show your midriff or have a neckline. In fact, it’s better if you avoid any clothing even suggesting that you have curves. Shirts with V-necks are sketchy even if it doesn’t show cleavage, turtlenecks are your safest bet.
The goal is to become the least likely woman to “make your brother in Christ stumble,” which often ends up putting a lot of pressure on women in these religious communities, because it makes women responsible for men’s feelings and attraction to them.
Purity culture’s teachings have been used to blame women for their sexual assault or harassment when people ask “well, what were you wearing?”
These ideas aren’t unique or special.
Conservative Muslims say the exact same thing. Purity culture isn’t exclusive to Christianity. But in reality, we don’t have the inside track to something fabulous if we follow these teachings, and it’s not a magical life hack formula that will fix everything broken in our lives.
It’s more likely that we’re supporting an oppressive patriarchal system through these restrictive religious beliefs.
Most of this isn’t even in the Bible. Jesus doesn’t love you more if you wear the right clothing. I believe he lets you make your own adult choices.
Purity culture won’t make you a better person. It might just give you a superiority complex.
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Editorial Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Eleanor Skelton’s blog. It was originally published on May 18, 2019.
It only takes a few words to send me back. Certain phrases just set me off.
It can be something simple, so common that most average Christians wouldn’t even notice it. But those words meant something else in the fundamentalist cult I grew up in.
I go to a not-crazy church now because it’s helped me heal and find peace. Last week, I slipped into the service on my lunch break. I work two jobs and Sunday mornings are a time I get to stop and breathe.
The worship pastor was talking between the songs and he said something like “our joy is not based on the things of this world.”
My stomach dropped.
This is probably not what he meant, but this is what I felt. You’re not allowed to enjoy your life. Don’t be happy with the work you’re doing. You shouldn’t be proud of the awards you’ve won for journalism. The only thing that matters is heaven.
He didn’t say any of those things. If I asked him if he meant that, he probably would have looked at me bewildered.
This is all about context.
A catchphrase that means one thing in fundamentalist and even most evangelical churches doesn’t mean the same thing to mainstream, non-extremist Christian denominations.
Those who have been through spiritual abuse, especially growing up, are not going to hear what you are actually trying to say. I’ve had many conversations with my pastors about this, and they’ve been very understanding about translating for me. I’ll ask them, so this thing you said, did you mean this or something else? If you didn’t mean the legalistic interpretation I’m used to, what did you mean?
Some Bible verses were weaponized and used against me for my whole life. I have to work to reorient myself to their actual meaning. It’s a process of rewiring the connections in my brain, trying to find new associations.
I thought about that phrase again.
I’ve been going to yoga since not long after I was kicked out of my parents’ house. Yoga teachers usually ask you to take your mind off everything you feel like you have to do and just be, just for an hour. Just exist.
They tell you that your worth is not based on what you do, and it’s okay to just breathe. Their wording is different, so it doesn’t usually have a religious connotation for me.
I kept asking myself what a reasonable, healthy person would mean if they said our joy isn’t based on this world. They probably mean that your successes and failures at work or school don’t determine your worth as a person. That you’re more than your productivity. That life is made up of both tragedy and triumph and while it’s okay and necessary to grieve and feel all those emotions, you can reach out to hope beyond the exhaustion.
It would mean encouraging mindfulness, trying to lower stress.
Basically, the idea is don’t let temporary circumstances hinder you or define you. But that’s not what I first thought.
I still don’t like the phrase.
By definition, it plays into the evangelical “not being of this world but of another world” dynamic which brings up a host of other issues because of how it’s often interpreted, but it doesn’t have to mean what I was told as a child—that you couldn’t be an active part of your own life, that you couldn’t be present, you had to dissociate from your thoughts and feelings in your own mind because you were evil from birth, that enjoying ordinary experiences was a sin.
It’s been absolutely essential for me to parse out phrases like this to break free of the chains in my mind and find a deeper healing.
Maybe it will help someone else who is raw and healing too.
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For centuries, churches have used various mediums in attempts to recreate Biblical stories, to make them come to life.
But the crucifixion is the story most frequently reenacted, usually with vivid, graphic detail.
From medieval Passion plays to modern productions like New Life Church’s The Thorn to Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, we in the audience revisit the torture of Jesus over and over.
I have seen many forms of the story — theater, film, and dramatized radio theater. Although the same story is retold each time, the techniques employed by the scriptwriters, actors, and directors can potentially lend a new perspective, but with so many adaptations, it’s hard to tell the story in a new way.
Mars Hill Church, a megachurch based out of Seattle, made their own “Good Friday” film in 2010, and released it online in spring 2011. Since I was curious to see what the filmmakers did with the story, I watched the 30 minute short film last week.
The opening scene is chilling. A small child swings in the dust on a rope, then pauses to look at three empty crosses, which seems to embody lost innocence.
Mars Hill Church’s senior pastor Mark Driscoll gives a solemn introduction. He encourages viewers to continue “somberly, as if you were watching a funeral.”
Mars Hill produced “Good Friday” through partnerships with Universal Studios and a makeup artist from The Passion and No Country for Old Men, which was evident in some of the film techniques, such as close ups of Christ’s hand gripping dirt in Gethsemane and then releasing it and flash forwards to the impending scourging.
The gory detail is unflinching, especially the scene in which Jesus’ bloodied body falls into the mud after the beatings.
Yet despite attempts to draw the audience in with these graphic depictions, the acting falls short, rendering most of the special effects meaningless, particularly with the casting of the main character.
The actor portraying Jesus fluctuates between stoicism and bitterness, which feels like he is lacking love. He foretells his death and betrayal at the Last Supper without almost any emotion. He seems angry and disappointed with Judas and Peter, defensive with the high priests Annas and Caiaphas, enduring the torment with strength, but without love, which is the essence of the real Jesus.
The gruesome beating in a torch-lit underground dungeon reminds the audience of a sinister horror film, in stark contrast to the scourging scene in The Passion where Jesus whispers to his Father that his “heart is ready” even as the torture begins.
Also, the actor playing Jesus looks like just any guy off the street randomly wearing a tunic. Even though I have my own conception of what Jesus looked like, I can accept an actor of any description playing Christ if he is rooted in the role. But this Jesus doesn’t have the passion to adopt the part.
Perhaps this lack of love is partly due to the focus of the film.
In both the film’s introduction and the church’s blog post about the film, Driscoll said he wants viewers to realize that “the cross is something done by us: we murdered God. Then on Easter Sunday, we remember that the cross is something done for us: God died in our place to forgive our sins.”
While that idea is a central part of penal substitutionary atonement, which is also the dominant theological view of salvation in American Christian evangelicalism, I think we need to not divide what we did to God and what God did for us into separate events—the two are concurrent and inseparable.
The Mars Hill film also attempts to distinguish itself from its predecessors by focusing more on theology than history.
“Whereas The Passion may have tried to tell the story with chronological and historical accuracy, we’re trying to make the theological weight of the event—the substitutionary death of the Son of God in our place for our sins—as vivid as possible,” Mars Hill Church media relations director Nick Borgardus said in an 2010 interview with the Christian Post.
But theology is not a cold, hard exercise. Theology may be based on logic and philosophy, but because of its focus on spirituality, it should also be inherently emotional.
When love is removed from sacrifice, the sacrifice becomes a nauseating, guilt-ridden experience. As the apostle Paul wrote, “Without love, I am nothing.”
When the central theme is removed from a central event of a religious worldview, only dead men’s bones are left.
The Biblical Jesus knew pain in its deepest forms, but he never lost love. The Mars Hill Church Jesus seems to have lost the meaning behind his sacrifice.
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Editorial Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Eleanor Skelton’s blog. It was originally published on March 9, 2015 as part of a series.
Editorial Note: Although Ashley is a survivor of a Christian fundamentalist cult, unfortunately she became abusive herself. She has been reported to several law enforcement agencies for human trafficking others from 2017-2019. She is the abusive partner mentioned in this post from 2022.
I keep Ashley’s story on the blog as a reminder that those who do not heal from their own trauma can and often do end up harming others. If you see online fundraisers for Ashley or her current partners, please know that anything you donate may enable her to continue to cause harm, and we would caution anyone against donating to her. If you know where she is, please report her to the authorities since she has been avoiding speaking to investigators for several years.
Ashley grew up attending the First United Pentecostal Church of Colorado Springs, now known as Heritage Pentecostal Church. This is Ashley’s story, told in her own words.
Do you know what it’s like when You’re scared to see yourself? Do you know what it’s like when You wish it were someone else Who didn’t need your help to get by? Do you know what it’s like To wanna surrender? I don’t wanna feel like this tomorrow I don’t wanna live like this today Make me feel better, I wanna feel better Stay with me here now and never surrender Never surrender. – Surrender, Skillet
“Mama! Mama! Look at the butterfly!” I squealed in delight at the wonder perched on my shoulder.
“Don’t move, Lovey! It’ll fly away.”
I stood as still as possible as my mom snapped a picture of this beautiful creature, and watched as it flew away. I remember thinking as I watched the butterfly float into a beautiful, summer day, how amazing it would be to be able to just whisk yourself away whenever you chose.
I had no idea how much I would pine for that fantasy to become a reality.
I always remember my parents being there, no matter what the occasion was. Pajama day at school, grown-up day, job day, doctor’s appointments, they were always present. I can’t remember an important event they were not there for.
I went to them with everything, no matter how strange, and they were always brutally honest with me. I liked it that way. Being a straightforward person, I needed that to grow. Things were always so comfortable — and then 2001 came and everything changed. Drastically.
My mom had gotten involved with a church when she was 15, and the experience had always stayed with her. She had visited a Pentecostal holiness church and had received what they call the Holy Ghost, which to them is the basis of salvation. You cannot attain Heaven without it, and once you have received it, even if you walk away from God, you are marked and you will be a target for Satan.
My dad, on the other hand, is Irish/German and was raised Catholic. He was actually an altar boy growing up and wanted to become a priest. However, he grew out of that sometime in high school.
While living in Louisiana, my mom met a girl named Billie Jo, and they went to a Pentecostal church together. My mom converted all the way this time (lost the pants, threw away the jewelry, chucked the TV and music) and as soon as my dad joined, we essentially became Amish with microwaves.
Ashley (center) at a church outreach and evangelism event called Youth with Truth at Acacia Park in downtown Colorado Springs on June 29, 2013. | Photo: First United Pentecostal Church of Colorado Springs
But even then, my parents broke me in slowly.
As an only child, I had practically every Disney movie known to man, and they allowed me to hand over my Disney movies in exchange for Veggie Tales. From there, it was my Veggie Tales traded in for either a trampoline or a puppy. My daddy bought me both.
They introduced me into that world slowly, and with ease. I appreciated that, even then. I knew they could have completely ripped everything away from me and made the transition harder than it already was. But they didn’t.
I never thanked them for that. I guess it kind of got buried under everything other emotion that surfaced after.
At first, things weren’t so bad. The family environment was great. Having no family in Colorado, the church appeared to be exactly what we needed. I started going to the church school which consisted of about 50 kids. I made friends quickly, and it seemed so easy at first. We were accepted as new converts and everything was cool.
My parents also made friends, and were treated like family by the pastor. They were like their kids.
I believe this is what started the depth of my parents’ relationship with the ministry. Around 2006, the pastor decided he wanted to evangelize and ended up electing a man from Mississippi to pastor the church.
I’ve never seen a man so hell bent on changing people for the worst.
Brother and Sister Burgess at Ashley’s high school graduation. | Photo: Ashley Kavanaugh
To my parents, this couple took the place of God. I have literally heard my dad say that if John Burgess asked him to stand on his head for 6 hours a day, in the middle of Interstate 25, that he would do it without hesitation.
They believe that he is the voice of God, that even if he is wrong, and they sin because of his advice, that God would honor their obedience and look past their own wrongdoing.
The church services are filled with hype and the sermons are mostly guilt, especially directed at young people. They warn us of the wrath of God if we choose to walk away and almost every service we are reminded of the horrors that have happened to backsliders all through Pentecostal history, including those from our own youth group.
One of the stories of backsliders was one of my close friends Sharonda.
She grew up with me, my mom babysat her and her older sister, and I looked up to this girl. She was my idol for a long time. She was my piano inspiration, she was cool, and she loved people.
I’ve never met a heart as big as Sharonda’s.
She was shot and killed late summer 2012. The case was never solved, and the Burgesses made not only her death, but also her funeral, an omen and message to all of us, that we should not run from God, for he is a jealous God, and his vengeance is strong.
She is seldom mentioned among the young people. It just hurts too much.
Brother John Burgess leading prayer during church outreach event called Youth With Truth at Acacia Park in downtown Colorado Springs on June 29, 2013. | Photo: First United Pentecostal Church of Colorado Springs
The Burgesses continued to push their way into the minds of the church, and more and more young people have been driven away from God.
Most of the “backsliders” that I know don’t even believe in a benevolent God anymore.
This started to become my opinion very young. I couldn’t see how any of this made sense. I thought the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was just and honorable? Not malicious and manipulative.
After my parents began to blindly follow the pastor, I started to lose control. I shut off all emotions because I just couldn’t handle them anymore. I began to get more and more reclusive, and eventually began to blame myself for the guilt and pain that my parents were dealing with due to the controlling ways of the church.
I didn’t know how to get help, and I began to fall into a deeper depression. I began to self-harm. This was done in so many ways, I can’t even begin to explain it all. Eventually, the self-harm wasn’t enough. I attempted suicide six times, starting at the age of 11.
I tried everything. Nothing worked.
My mom caught me cutting once and literally dragged me in to Shanna Burgess (the pastor’s wife), who promptly told me as I lay on the floor, bleeding, that it was all in my head, and I needed to stop being so angry at God.
She told me I was the one to blame.
After coming to her weeks before with my heart wide open and breaking in pieces, I explained one reason why I felt so alone. I was sexually assaulted when I was 6 years old and had no way to express my feelings. She, of course, immediately took this information to my mother, who denied it.
My parents have never believed me. Sister Burgess told me I needed to stop feeling sorry for myself because come on, it never happened!
I hated them before but after this? I could never forgive them.
Brother and Sister Burgess had and still have a hold on my parents like nothing I’ve ever seen.
(Left to right) Brother John Burgess, Ashley Kavanaugh, and Kevin Kavanaugh at Heritage Christian Academy’s 2012 high school graduation. Heritage Christian Academy is a private, unaccredited school operated by the First United Pentecostal Church of Colorado Springs. | Photo: Ashley Kavanaugh
When I turned 18, things started to look up. I was finally allowed to have a phone because I had turned 18 (pastor’s rules for youth), I was finally granted rights to a car (that I bought, of course), and everything was going good.
I had been in good graces with the Burgesses and my family. I was following the rules to perfection.
And then after a falling out with my best friend at the time, I started to become close friends with a girl named Racquel. We began to grow closer and closer as the months went on, and before you knew it, we were opening up to each other. I told her things I had never told anyone ever.
Eventually, our concerns about the church and their doctrines, the Burgesses and all sorts of other questions came to the forefront of our conversations and we began to discuss them.
We grew even closer after learning about some of the abuse that the other one had endured.
We got caught discussing these topics, and we were separated and forbidden to speak to one another. This happened four times.
Each time we grew closer and closer and eventually, we started to go to extreme lengths to see each other. My parents and the Burgesses resorted to lying to both of us, trying to force us to hate each other.
After another six months of not speaking, we once again rebelled and talked about what had happened. We realized they had lied to both of us, obtaining information by hacking email and bank accounts. My parents forced me to stop attending my college classes because Racquel might try to visit me there.
We communicated to each other through Eleanor for about three weeks, and then we started to sneak out again.
We had contemplated running away many times before, but something was different this time.
When two adults aren’t allowed to talk because they get caught listening to One Direction, there’s some serious malfunction going on. It had reached an all-time idiocy and we had enough.
We both left home, and the night I did that was the hardest decision of my life.
Three days later, my dad was going to throw my stuff on the sidewalk. My mom, who was out of town at the time, convinced him to let me come pack my stuff, so he left for a few hours.
Racquel and Eleanor went with me. The first thing I noticed when I came in was that all my pictures were taken off the walls and lay facing down. Some sat in piles on the floor. I almost lost it then.
I just remember feeling like my parents died, and I was cleaning out their house.
A little later, Cynthia Jeub and another friend also came over. I’ll never forget the look on Cynthia’s face when I saw her. I walked outside to greet them, and she just looked so disturbed. But there was also pride in her eyes.
She hugged me for a good ten minutes. I’ve never expressed how much that hug meant to me.
They helped me pack up, and I decided last minute to check my mom’s car. I went to look for any remaining items, and when I opened the door, I saw that the inside of the car was destroyed.
I can only assume my dad went crazy and trashed the car. It was really scary.
Everyone was panicking because we didn’t know when he was coming back, and he had guns, so people were starting to freak out. We left not long after.
It didn’t really hit me until then, how drastic the change was going to be.
Since then, I have gone through a lot. I’ve put myself through an abusive relationship, made myself be something I wasn’t, lost connection with my family for months at a time because of “religious differences,” moved around a lot, found out I was adopted by my dad, been through a ton of counseling, self-harmed, ran from my home state, even shut my humanity off a few times.
But one thing I can say I haven’t, nor will I ever do, is forget who I am and where I came from.
I can’t express how hard it has been. The sleepless nights, the thousands of times I’ve cried myself to sleep, and woke up screaming. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone.
But you know what? I don’t regret it. I can’t. I’ve invested too much into this decision to fault it.
To those of you trying to escape, it’s not impossible. It’s not easy, but I promise its worth it.
We have helped more people come out since my decision to leave, and the feeling is so liberating, knowing you are a voice and a model for them.
To those of you who have siblings that are still in captivity, don’t give up hope. They will make it. YOU are their light, no matter how dark you feel sometimes.Because sometimes the darkest shadows have been cast by the brightest lights.
And no matter what bad choices you make long the way, I’ve found that I don’t have to be ashamed of them. Because they are finally my decisions.
So while wading through your red river of screams just as we have, remember you do not fight alone. You can make it.
And never surrender…. the battle will be worth it, and we will win the war. I don’t wanna feel like this tomorrow I don’t wanna live like this today Make me feel better, I wanna feel better Stay with me here now and never surrender Never surrender
Ashley Kavanaugh attended public school during her elementary school years, but her parents later chose to homeschool her online when they joined the First United Pentecostal Church of Colorado Springs. She finished her senior year of high school at Heritage Christian Academy, the private school operated by that church. Her adopted father is an attorney, but she was the first person on her mother’s side of the family to finish high school and attend college. She is interested in studying psychology, forensics, and criminal justice.
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Editorial Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Eleanor Skelton’s blog. It was originally published on March 8, 2015 as part of a series.
Liz was part of our network that helped Racquel and Ashley as they left the cult environment of the First United Pentecostal Church of Colorado Springs. Here is her perspective.
Photo: Wil C. Fry, creative commons license.
Nearly two years ago, I received text messages from Eleanor about a friendship between two girls that had been recently forbidden by their religious leader.
I was asked to attempt to sneak a cheap TracFone to one of the girls at her school because I would not be recognizable to her parents, who had confiscated all her means of communication. Unfortunately, she wasn’t in class that day.
Eventually, they acquired their freedom by leaving their church behind and living with friends.
Most people assume their own community has only good intentions in mind for members. Why would we believe otherwise if an overwhelming majority of us were taught that strangers are the ones who seek to hurt us?
In reality, data suggests that most cases of violent crime and sexual assault occur between people who are at least acquainted with each other or in regular physical proximity.
In spite of statistical and factual realities, we teach our children to fear strangers. We teach them to avoid the rare anomalies but fail to teach them to look for warning signs in the mundane. This contributes to the denial in identifying abusive communities when people are a part of one.
Instead, people taught to fear the outside world might think that to leave would be worse.
The philosopher Hannah Arendt says that evil is banal. It is predictable, common, and is generally perpetuated by unremarkable people motivated by their own, typically material needs.
An intense, outward adherence to a particular ideology or manifestation of a psychological condition might be present in the situation, but neither are enough to explain why communities as a whole behave a certain way.
In other words, abusers are regular people and not the monstrous caricatures we see on TV or evil stepmothers in children’s fairy tales. There might be a few narcissists and sociopaths at the upper echelons dictating the orders, but several people who are afraid of seeking out other dissenters within the group.
With hierarchy and scale, diffusion of guilt and responsibility is inevitable. Diffusion of guilt is generally paired with resistance to collective guilt that should logically follow the diffusion.
The lower end claim to be following orders, the higher ups claim they didn’t personally do it.
It’s the same garbage that makes none guilty for abuse that many participated in. It is as if people hope that with sufficient diffusion, the amount of culpability per person is rendered insignificant. Dilution of active ingredients in homeopathic “remedies” operates this way.
Abuse as a phenomena doesn’t become significant simply because the perception of responsibility among abusers is thinly spread out because there is always someone else to blame in the eyes of the guilty such that their victims somehow become responsible for their own abuse.
What I’ve gleaned from my studies in history and politics is that there is a tendency to conceal or otherwise diminish the significance of abuses as a means of trying to protect the legitimacy and reputation of an organization such as the Catholic church, many American universities, collegiate and professional sports teams, the entertainment industry, among many other examples.
When an organization cares more about protecting its own reputation than removing abusers or helping victims, there is a reason to question the validity and value of such an institution and the complicity of people within afflicted organizations.
Even if an individual abuser recognizes the harm they cause, to reject the cultural norms is to risk being socially ostracized and possibly, their standard of living. Obedience experiments by Milgram and replicated by others show that people are generally submissive to figures of authority up to a certain point.
It is likely that people from more isolated communities would escalate punishments further when commanded by members of their community than people from the general population being instructed by a stranger because of a greater sense of obligation and desire to belong in the former.
Defection is complicated. It comes with a high price tag in both an absolute and perceived sense.
People in deliberately isolated communities are generally taught that outsiders are evil, that its their own fault for being mistreated or that victims deserve it, and that the victims aren’t being treated badly in the first place. If maltreatment is believed to be normative and benevolent it tends to make victims attempt to justify what is going on as a means of internalizing conflicting messages.
The more isolated people are, the harder it is for them to recognize their own condition and the more complex the logistics of leaving becomes.
Liz received training at a local college in her hometown so that she could teach freshmen at her high school about how to avoid and recognize dating violence, local resources for victims, and statistics regarding the frequency of rape and lack of conviction. She was also a student teacher who assisted with evening adult education courses in sexual assault escape and self-defense offered by her school to the community.
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Basically the more covered your body is, the better, according to people who believe this.
Do you know what it’s like when
