Purity culture needs to die in a fire

If you've missed this week's bookish drama… At least one author has publicly disavowed her former books. She's re-writing them all to remove the smut content. An audiobook narrator has announced he'll no longer read any spicy books because they don't align with his beliefs. And a facebook group has blown up for promoting "clean" romance.

Ick.

I'm side-eyeing at my screen so hard right now that I can't actually read what I'm writing.

Look, everyone should be free to write, read, narrate, or work on whatever stories they want. But we have to ask ourselves what's really going on. Is this just one author changing direction?

Believe me, as an author who's changed direction before and who's doing it again right now – there's nothing wrong with that. But is that all that's happening here?

The same author who's removing spicy content from her previous books is being heavily promoted by a group called "Protect Clean Fiction". Their motto is "Changing the Culture 1 Great Book at a Time / Make Smut Unthinkable / Make Literature Christian Again / Fight against Degeneracy".

This group promotes authors who adhere to purity culture. But they don't stop there. They publicly name and "shame" authors who violate their beliefs. Because religious freedom means you're free to follow the dictates of my religion, don't you know.

Purity culture teaches that your body is not your own. It tells people – mostly girls and women – that their worth derives from their sexual purity. It teaches that women aren't suitable to hold power because they're too fragile and emotional. Yet, at the same time, it teaches girls that men are incapable of controlling themselves and so girls must shoulder the burden of not attracting them. But also, it's a girl's responsibility to attract a husband because her own only worth comes from him.

Purity culture teaches girls that if they're violated, they need to seek forgiveness. But it teaches them that the men who violate people aren't to blame.

Purity culture is why teen pregnancies happen. It's why sexual abuse runs rampant. It's why people don't report rape. It's why people stay in abusive relationships. It's why we see so many people coming to the late-in-life realisation that they're some flavour of queer – and why it's terrifying when it happens to you.

It's toxic. It's harmful. It can be deadly. It leaves people with lifelong trauma.

So while these authors are out there seeking to rid the world of "sinful", smutty books, I'm going the opposite direction. Now's the time to write sweary, spicy books about queer people recovering from purity culture.

One problem: due to a combination of leftover hangups from purity culture and autistic sensory issues, I can't actually write smut. Whatever. It's fine. I'll figure it out. 

Write whatever you want to write. Read whatever you want to read. But remember that your choices are not morally better than anyone else's choices based on how much sex anyone is or isn't having in those books.