Linda Kay Klein

This week’s radical is Linda Kay Klein, author of the memoir Pure: Inside the Evangelical Movement That Shamed a Generation of Young Women and How I Broke Free, and founder of the nonprofit Break Free Together, which helps people who have left the purity movement to find closure and a sense of community by sharing their stories with others.Over the course of our conversation, we discuss what purity is, how it impacted a generation of women (and men), the path that led Linda to a new understanding of the world, and how she’s worked to help others find the same healing she has.Some Questions I Ask:What was the spark for your book, Pure? (1:21)What does it mean to be expected to go from no sexual contact whatsoever, to being hypersexual? (13:32)Tell me about your nonprofit, Break Free Together (16:44)What brought your family into the Evangelical church? (27:41)What led to you leaving the church? (34:15)What was the path that led you to New York? (41:29)How did your parents handle your shift away from the purity movement? (44:14)In This Episode, You Will Learn:The rise and fall (and transformation) of the purity movement (4:12)What purity culture entails (6:17)How pornography (poorly) fills the void left by the absence of meaningful sex education (16:04)How the everyday practice of purity culture is traumatizing to those who experience it (20:44)The factors that made the purity movement so successful (32:54)The events that started to chip away at the narrative of purity for Linda (36:36)How Linda coped with her mother’s fear that she would go to Hell (45:38)How the language around purity is shifting and becoming more insidious (48:47)Resources:Linda’s WebsiteBuy PureBreak Free TogetherFollow Linda on Twitter and Instagram Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.