I remember purity culture for sure as I am 46. Purity rings, I Kiss Dating Goodbye, all of it. We were pretty conservative non denom Bible church Christians in So Cal at the time but we sort of thought the purity culture stuff was well meaning but a little too rules based. I remember pretty grounded, sensible, open discussions about sex and marriage with my parents and youth pastors, and especially some older youth ministry volunteer college student women. They were good discussions and I never felt shame from them, certainly not scarred. I did have sex before my marriage and it was sort of embarrassingly for all parties involved but it wasn’t purity culture that drove me to do it but old fashioned teen hormones and an empty house for the weekend.

Jen is going to try to paint this hellish picture of purity culture to sell books, I think. Create a bunch of straw men and set them ablaze.

Anonymous wrote:Didn’t Big Siss write posts about how nice it is to sit next to “ample” people on airplanes cause they’re like warm “human pillows”?

Not once but twice?

And now she’s the guru teacher of all
the things bodily health wise?

It seems to be some post about this incessantly. And while this makes me uncomfortable, I feel the gotcha moment on this doesn’t hold water.
She’s not shamed a single large seat mate but instead, enjoys the nestled comfort of physically being touched or tucked into her seat next to one.
It may be the reason she enjoys Tyler. Maybe she likes a larger man. I’m gonna give her the benefit of the doubt on this. And OGP, we get it. You think this disproves her body image arguments but I think she believes it proves it.

Anonymous wrote:A tell all about the supposed horrors of purity culture would have been interesting and fresh about 15 years ago.

But a 50 year old woman writing about it in 2024-2025?

If Jen was so scarred by purity culture is she going to put her own beloved father/pastor on blast or will he somehow totally get a pass?

Exactly! Wasn't her father her pastor? And apparently he can do no wrong? And neither can her mother, who I imagine had a lot to do with how sex was presented to her. How does she reconcile the two? I also have an evangelical background (from one of the largest megachurches in the nation, but not Baptist). I'm almost two years older than Jen but "purity culture" wasn't really a thing. We mostly just talked about saving sex for marriage. There was a little bit about dressing modestly (girls AND boys), acting modestly, and not living in sin. But it wasn't constantly drummed in our heads. And nothing about it made me feel shame about my body. I probably could have used more information about sex, but I wasn't taught that it made me dirty. My parents (mostly mom) supplemented that by telling me that there is nothing to be ashamed about by sex itself and it's great when shared between two loving, married, people. And that if I ever did get pregnant while unmarried, to please come to them and not hide. Just because SHE had a bad experience doesn't mean all evangelicals did.

And hasn't this topic been rehashed by many other authors?

Once again she has the pulse of the moment. From the year 2000.

A tell all about the supposed horrors of purity culture would have been interesting and fresh about 15 years ago.

But a 50 year old woman writing about it in 2024-2025?

If Jen was so scarred by purity culture is she going to put her own beloved father/pastor on blast or will he somehow totally get a pass?

Didn’t Big Siss write posts about how nice it is to sit next to “ample” people on airplanes cause they’re like warm “human pillows”?

Not once but twice?

And now she’s the guru teacher of all
the things bodily health wise?

So it’s another book about purity culture with her regurgitating what’s already been said by those probably more affected by it than she ever was. Make no mistake about it - for her to be a grown woman her age and to still continue to talk about people’s bodies in a negative way when they take up what she deems as her space - she’s queen of the mean girl’s committee and doesn’t have an ounce of the empathy needed to write a book such as this one. Darling, we’re gonna let the JH ship sink because we’ve all realized you were never going to get us to shore. Keep rowing chica. Maybe you’ll realize that you don’t have to actually let the ship sink but you learn to toss the crap and the BS overboard as you go. The strong women? We don’t sink our ships nor do we let anyone else sink us. We keep faithfully sailing that ship and throw out the crap and let THAT sink to the bottom. Thats how it’s done. “Darling”.

I would be interested in knowing what that "purity culture " world was like for her

Gird your loins. It'll be a doozy, I'm sure. It's Jen writing.

There is nothing new there, and my guess is that she is hitching her star to Oprah.

I know it's been mentioned here before, but is Oprah still a draw for anyone? I watched her show when I was in college in the 90s and then up until she ended it. Read a few issues of her magazine but that's it. Haven't thought of her much in the last 10 years, and I am probably her target audience (middle-aged, suburban college grad)

Read the small excerpt on her IG and I don't think I can read any more. She is trying so hard to write her own Handmaid's Tale.

I don't want to hear a word about bodies from a woman who publicly shames an overweight person on a plane.

I am a couple of years older than Jen, and spent plenty of time in Southern Baptist youth group (Nashville, no less.) Purity culture was about sex being important enough, and special enough, to wait until marriage. It had plenty of flaws, but I think this was its main message- that sex was a gift from God, who made our bodies wonderfully.

I was raised in a mostly non-churchgoing household, but went to youth group on Wednesdays with a friend and her family. The church message was a relief from everything else that I was reading and watching at home, which was Cosmo and HBO and Cinemax. I just get frustrated with Jen so much because she just maligns everything to do with her church background (that her father was a big, positive part of).

Anonymous wrote:I guess I just don’t see her as this uber rich person with tons of money at her disposal to give anyone a big payday to stay quiet. She seems upper middle class at best. Also, I don’t remember her plugging Beth Moore’s book. In fact, I thought it was the opposite, that she didn’t plug it while everyone else in her circle did. Let me know if I’m wrong on that. I’m not sure how she’s going to write an entire book without making herself the victim in every single scenario.

Millions

Anonymous wrote:I guess I just don’t see her as this uber rich person with tons of money at her disposal to give anyone a big payday to stay quiet. She seems upper middle class at best. Also, I don’t remember her plugging Beth Moore’s book. In fact, I thought it was the opposite, that she didn’t plug it while everyone else in her circle did. Let me know if I’m wrong on that. I’m not sure how she’s going to write an entire book without making herself the victim in every single scenario.

😎🤦🏼‍♂️

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I agree about Jen. She has such warmth about her and was a great story teller. She also seemed much more humble and self-aware. I recall she had friends then too, but there wasn't this obsessive need to brag about all her friends and post girlie photos like a middle school girl who wants you to know she's popular.

In her earlier books, she wrote about her friends being very supportive to her in various, normal ways, and how they would band together and pool resources to help folks in their community, like single moms who were quietly having food insecurity or general needs, like dishes, etc. No fanfare, but just friends doing good work in the name of Jesus. Even her anecdotes about Tray and his pager were actually funny. But these were Interrupted and 7 stories- so I wonder if she changed editors after them?
What bits I read of subsequent books were just family stories and increasing braggy content, without much warmth or relatability or much of a point, really.

Except even that was BS. I posted this before but I had an ANC Meal Train when my family really needed support and surprise surprise I was ghosted by Jen. No call, no sorry I forgot. Nothing. She signed up because it looked good and left us high and dry.

She had no problem dropping her kids with any of us at any time or taking our tithes and our book sales.

After the whole affirming LGBT incident at church they even had the congregation (what was left) hand make them greeting cards because their lives were so hard.

If I read this forum because I’m still mad it’s because I am.

No doubt you're mad. And delusional.

Anonymous wrote:I guess I just don’t see her as this uber rich person with tons of money at her disposal to give anyone a big payday to stay quiet. She seems upper middle class at best. Also, I don’t remember her plugging Beth Moore’s book. In fact, I thought it was the opposite, that she didn’t plug it while everyone else in her circle did. Let me know if I’m wrong on that. I’m not sure how she’s going to write an entire book without making herself the victim in every single scenario.

I agree with all the above posts about the hypocrisy in Jen's post of the excerpt from her upcoming memoir. There was a part of me actually hoping she was going to transcend all the crazy that she's been in: the handbags, gummies, smiling at the camera in such joy at seeing her own self there.

The topic from the excerpt could be extremely interesting, if she could drop down and talk about it from within her own body, ironically. But she takes an immediate shortcut to shouting from a podium. I would be interested in knowing what that "purity culture " world was like for her. But she is completely opaque. There is nothing new there, and my guess is that she is hitching her star to Oprah. That someone advised her that being outraged and talking about sex and body image would get Oprah's attention, and therefore sell the book. I would actually bet money on this.