A Conversation About Purity Culture: Finding Healing After Sexual Pain

Dannah Gresh [introduction]: I know what it’s like to walk in that shame. I walked in that shame for about 10 years.

I got out of the relationship I was in as a teenager. I stood before God and said, forgive me and teach me to live a life of purity. But what I didn’t do was heal.

It was this unresolved hurt in my life that began to define me and limit me. That became such a heavy weight that I told my husband. And when he said, “I don’t know that I need to say this, but I think you need to hear it. I forgive you,” it felt like the voice of God in my life.

If you are locked in this prison of shame that I was, the key to your healing first is Jesus and confessing to him. But he has given you a second key and that key is to tell someone godly that loves you and that’s gonna say, I see you, I hear you, and I’m still here.

Ellen Krause: Welcome back to the Coffee And Bible Time podcast. I’m Ellen, your host. If you grew up in the church in the 90s or early 2000s, you probably heard a lot about purity. And for some, that brought amazing clarity. But for others, it left confusion or possibly even shame. So what do we do with that now? Do we throw it all out, or is there something worth holding onto?

Today we’re joined by author, Dannah Gresh, the founder of True Girl and co-host at Revive Our Hearts. She’s revisiting her bestselling book And The Bride Wore White, but with fresh perspective, humility, and a deeper understanding of God’s grace.

Today we’re talking about what went wrong, what’s still true, and how we can rediscover a beautiful biblical vision for our bodies, our relationships, and our identity in Christ. Dannah, welcome.

Dannah Gresh: I’m so excited for this conversation. I love how you said what went wrong, and what did we do right? That’s the tension right there, is figuring out both of those things.

Ellen Krause: Yes, absolutely. Why don’t you just start out by telling our listeners just a little bit about yourself, and maybe the history behind, you know, your heart behind wanting to share this message.

Dannah Gresh: Well, I honestly was driving down the highway listening to a program a lot like this. I was in my 20s. I had a brand new baby girl in the back seat of my car. She was maybe six months old.

And I heard the interviewer ask a woman, what is the number one question on a teenage girl’s mind when she’s talking to her daughter about sex? What’s the number one question that girl’s thinking? And without hesitation, I heard this woman’s voice answer: that girl’s number one question is, “Mom, did you wait?”

And I was like, what? I’m going to have to answer that for my children, or they’re going to be asking it, even if we don’t talk about it upfront.

It forced me to pull to the side of the road and begin to allow 10 years of grief and shame to engulf me, because I was sexually active when I was 15 years old. I look back and I realize, wow, I was a baby. I was so young. And I just didn’t tell anyone, because the church wasn’t talking about it—it just wasn’t.

Ellen Krause: Yeah.

Dannah Gresh: And so I just allowed the shame to fester. I was trying to outrun it. And I thought eventually I’d wake up one day and not think about it, but that never really happened until I was confronted in that car. And I realized, okay, the healing I wasn’t brave enough to do for my own heart, I’m gonna do it for my baby girl so that I can be equipped to disciple her.

And so the healing happened, and then God started putting teenage girls in my heart and in my life to disciple, And it just kind of snowballed 26 years later into this ministry where we try to help moms and daughters get closer to each other and closer to Jesus. And part of that encompasses having a really healthy conversation about sexual integrity and gender truth.

Ellen Krause: You know, having two girls myself and a son, I can completely relate to that—you know, that parent who is wanting that guidance and direction. So much has changed from when you and I were kids. What are some of the biggest challenges that girls are facing today that you and I didn’t face growing up?

Dannah Gresh: Well, definitely the gender confusion. If you go back to 2011, you can see that gender dysphoria was primarily a male diagnosis. And you very, very infrequently saw a female teenager or young adult college student struggling with their gender.

Starting in 2011, we saw an incredible uptick in females being the ones to struggle and something called late onset gender dysphoria. It wasn’t true gender dysphoria—generally something that you see in a child when they’re very, very little, five years old, for example. But suddenly we’re seeing teenage girls who seemed to be okay with being female, suddenly they aren’t.

And so while gender dysphoria is real, and there are some real physiological things like intersexuality that are very painful and difficult to navigate, a lot of what we are seeing—research is indicating—there’s a cultural contagion or a peer pressure associated with it.

Those are very real things. The pain is very, very real. But quickly diagnosing a girl in such a way that we start her on hormone therapy or things like that is a really dangerous pathway.

So we never had to navigate that. Girls today have to navigate that. And I also believe, though they’ve been the guinea pigs in this grand gender experiment, I believe they’re gonna be the ones to lead us out in truth. But we have to teach them truth, plant truth, and that includes compassion for when someone is struggling.

Ellen Krause: Absolutely. I think it’s interesting, too, the effect that social media has played into all of this, to the point where they’re so confused about what is the truth.

Dannah Gresh: I think that you bring up a good point, is that we’ve always struggled with our bodies and our body image issues, right? It’s as old as Eve, probably, with her fig leaves. But what we used to do is we would go to our mother, or we would go to the youth pastor’s wife, or a female adult in our church that we felt comfortable talking with. And they would be able to ascertain where we were maturity-wise, where we were spiritually, where we were emotionally and mental health-wise.

And from there, they’d be able to triage us and decide, I can help her. You know, she needs some Bible study and some prayer. She’s dealing with a good old-fashioned, same-as-I’ve-dealt-with kind of body image and beauty issues, right? Or, I think she needs more help than I can offer her.

Today, teenagers aren’t turning to those people. They’re turning to TikTok. And on TikTok, they’re not getting that triage at all. And the other thing they’re getting is a commiseration. Really, it’s almost like bonding over their trauma. Like, they get attention for the trauma, whatever that trauma may be, and they find other people who have that same trauma, and they just kind of commiserate together about it. They’re not moving forward into healing. And that’s what our goal needs to be.

Ellen Krause: Yeah, absolutely. Where do you think the purity conversation may have gone wrong initially? And what do you think we still need to hold on to?

Dannah Gresh: Well, it’s interesting because I’ve taken the last two years and I’ve examined the purity conversation to just see what was helpful, what was hurtful. And I should say that I entered the conversation in the year 2000 as a critic. I loved that the church was talking about sex more—that was a big win for us. I loved that we were having some honest conversations about boundaries and health.

But one of the things I thought that was missing was a conversation for those who needed God’s grace in this area. And I, of course, was one of those people who needed grace. At this point, I was a youth leader in my 20s, and it was about the time God was bringing that cataclysmic healing in my life in my van, as I realized I have to go to Jesus for my healing so that I can mentor my daughter.

And so I entered the conversation saying, we’ve forgotten the space at the table for the person who needed the redemption of Jesus Christ, who needed the do-over in their lives. And I didn’t really want to be that person because I was afraid of rejection, but I was very welcomed into the conversation. So the people that I was, in fact, talking back to said, you’re right, we forgot that part of the conversation—welcome to the table.

And that invited other people like me, who had a history of sexual pain in their past, sexual sin in their past, to be bolder in their conversation. Now, did we get it all right? No, I don’t think so.

One of the things that I’ve looked at is the history of how we even got to the word purity. And I found something really fascinating. This was, of course, the height when STDs were at an all-time high. HIV/AIDS—people were dying of it. We didn’t understand it yet, and it was really scary. And teen pregnancy was at a really dangerous all-time high, which needed to be addressed.

And so almost overnight, it seemed that the culture’s favorite word became abstinence. Politicians, teachers, parents—anybody with influence on kids—was encouraging them to abstain, to halt the sexually transmitted disease, the potential of death, and the early teen pregnancies.

I would like to say that, in respect to teen pregnancies, the movement was very successful. You can see a very gradual but consistent slope that is associated with the abstinence movement and the purity conversation.

But what kind of happened is that in youth groups, kids are saying, well, what does it mean to abstain? How far is too far? What can I do? What can I not do? And church leaders, rightfully so, became alarmed because they were like, this isn’t just about their bodies. This needs to be about their souls and their emotions, too. We need a different word from abstinence to define the Christian conversation so that they understand we’re talking about whole-life integrity and not just body.

Okay? So they came up—they decided to use the word purity. The reasoning and the logic that got them to that word, I think, is worthy of saying abstinence probably wasn’t the right word if you’re looking for more than just sexual health—physical sexual health. If you’re also looking for emotional and spiritual health, we do need a broader word.

But here’s what happened: the word got pigeonholed to mean or equate virginity. And so for women like me who were not virgins on their wedding night, there was some pain associated with that.

Now, I was one of those people who experienced the pain and said, I’m gonna go find the healing of Jesus for me. I’m not gonna let the word purity and the word virgin be pain words for me. And I took it to God’s Word, and I took it to adult women in my life, and I found great healing.

But I recognized, even then, back then, that there were women who were not. They were still just holding that pain and not talking to anyone about it. And that snowballed.

Now, I think that conversation right now is being—there are kind of two groups having that conversation about the pain of the purity movement. One is a group that holds the Scriptures in high esteem, and they believe that it’s the authoritative Word of God, and it has authority in their lives.

And then there’s another group who doesn’t have that same motivation to be like the Bereans and make sure we’re using God’s Word accurately. Their motivation is more to just deconstruct the conversation and discredit the conversation rather than fix it. And I think a lot of times, whether they mean to or not, they are leading people to walk away from and deconstruct their faith.

So I think one of the reasons I’ve rewritten my book and I’m re-releasing it is to invite people who believe in the authority of Scripture, and who believe that marriage, according to those Scriptures, and sex is to be between one man and one woman in the confines of a covenant relationship—I want those people to speak up.

Because if we speak up, we’re gonna correct the conversation. We’re going to hold to account the things that weren’t done well, but we’re not going to leave people in their woundedness. We’re going to heal them as we correct the conversation. And we’re going to heal them because we take them to the healer, Jesus Christ.

Ellen Krause: Yes, absolutely. And as I was reading your book, I really felt that sort of grounding that you did, as far as explaining what Scripture does say about it, as you mentioned, but also at the same time providing the grace and the honesty, though, of what it looks like—things that can happen.

So I think that you do put this conversation now in a place to have a healthy conversation with the people that need to be talking about it. What do you think the role of our identity in Christ plays in shaping this young person’s view of our body and these relationships?

Because we also have a lot of young women maybe who know about God, but they just don’t really understand what that identity looks like. Help us understand, you know, what does the importance of that play into things?

Dannah Gresh: It’s huge. One reason it’s huge is because God says it’s huge. And He tells us in Genesis 1:26 and 27 that we’re in the image of God—we’re image bearers of God. That’s our identity. I am an image bearer of God, period.

Now, I happen to be a female image bearer of God, and my husband is a male image bearer of God. Scripture tells us that since He created them male and female, those two pieces of our image-bearing ability are really important.

You know, there are so many things about us that are God-like, right, that have the fingerprint of God on them. Our language proficiency, our ability to be creative, compose sonnets, create masterpieces—very God-like. The fact that we figured out gravity, defied it, and we fly around in these aircrafts, right? Every time I’m on an airplane, I’m like, how did someone figure this out? That’s God-like, right? That’s ingenuity and reason.

But in Scripture, it tells us what matters most about our image-bearingness is our femaleness and our maleness. And so those two distinct differences, and yet when they complement one another and come together in unity, you are something like the distinct differences of the Trinity—God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit.

The word echad is used to describe the oneness of God. “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is echad”—E-C-H-A-D. And that same word is used to describe a man will leave his father and his wife, and the two will become echad.

So this oneness, this image-bearingness, is critical for us to understand even who we are. But the other reason it matters a lot is because the world’s conversation right now is revolving around finding your identity, discovering your identity, establishing your identity—your identity is fluid. No, it’s not.

Your identity was established before the foundations of the world. God thought of you and created you before He created the world, and He has established your identity in Him. It’s not fluid—it’s fixed. And it’s a beautiful, wonderful thing to understand.

And we need to understand it for two reasons: so we understand our worth and our value, and so that we don’t fall prey to some of these very, very confusing conversations that are happening in our world today.

Ellen Krause: Yeah. That’s something that I feel like I wish I would have done a better job of as a mom. And so that’s why I love that you’re having those conversations, and in your book, providing opportunities to journal about what that looks like, what that means. I think it lends itself towards people internalizing that more.

Let’s talk a little bit about practical wisdom. What does it look like to set healthy, God-honoring boundaries today without falling into legalism?

Dannah Gresh: Yeah, that’s the key—not falling into legalism. There’s kind of a spectrum, I think, on how we teach sexuality in the world as well as in church.

But one end of the spectrum is legalism, and I think there’s a lot of damage and a lot of hearts that have been hurt through that. And then the other end of that spectrum is license, where we don’t set up any boundaries. And we just say, well, if our kids just love God, they’re gonna make good decisions.

But that’s—I mean, Adam and Eve seemed to have a loving relationship with God, and God still said, here’s my boundary for you. I want to communicate it to you so you understand that if you don’t observe this boundary, there’s gonna be pain for you. And they didn’t observe the boundary, and there was pain.

And God then went on to choose His special people, the Israelites, and said, hey, let’s talk about boundaries. Here’s 10 really important ones that I want you to observe. And why? So that you will love Me and so that you’ll love people.

Ellen Krause: Mm-hmm. Yep.

Dannah Gresh: I mean, Jesus said it. He was asked, what are the biggest rules? And He said two rules. One rule is love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul.  And the other one is like it: love your neighbor as yourself. So love God, love people. And boundaries help us do that.

Boundaries help me honor you, respect you, protect you. It gives decision in how you enter into relationship with me. And they’re safe and they’re good. And so we should teach our children the beauty of boundaries, and we should teach them boundaries in all areas, whether it’s food or relationships. And that does also include sex.

And for some reason, we understand the value of teaching our children boundaries when it comes to how they handle food or their bodies and their health, right? But we are very opposed to teaching them sexual boundaries for some reason. Why is that?

Well, I believe that it’s because it’s such a beautiful, sacred thing, according to God’s Word—something that portrays the intimacy of God with humanity. That’s what it’s meant to be.

So boundaries need to be taught. That’s not a very popular position, even inside the church anymore. But I think if we don’t teach those boundaries, grace, and redemption—and showing kids where the reset button is for when they mess up—we do veer towards legalism, and we can really hurt their hearts.

So I think the first thing is for you to understand God’s boundaries. Get into God’s Word as a mom, as a grandma, as a dad, and know what God’s boundaries are. Take inventory of your own heart. Where have you offended those boundaries and been hurt because you’ve offended those boundaries?

And then enter into God’s healing. Out of that healing and that wholeness—that pure freedom, I call it—you’ll be able to communicate boundaries to the people that God’s entrusted to you in a healthy and safe way.

Ellen Krause: What would a conversation that a mom might have with her daughter look like when it comes to this?

Dannah Gresh: So often I find that the conversations aren’t initiated by our girls. They’re initiated by a response they have to something or a face they make at something.

I know for one of my children, it was just straight up God’s Spirit letting me see her recoil at something. That made me just kind of follow up and say, hey, I noticed you seemed a little uncomfortable with—and I told her what I had witnessed.

And then out of that flowed, yeah, this is what I was exposed to, and this is what I saw. And I was able—God gave me the gift of being able to mentor and heal her heart in an area where she had been exposed to something too soon.

And so I think the reason I’m saying that is that our kids don’t usually sit down and say, “okay, Mom, I’m ready to hear about the birds and the bees. It’s time for the talk”, right? 

Ellen Krause: Yeah. 

Dannah Gresh: It’s us reading the signs and the emotions and the readiness.

The other thing I would say to that is that generally, if we haven’t had a conversation about the mechanics of sex by about their ninth birthday, we’re probably too late.

They’ve probably figured that out somewhere else, or they have questions about it that are just kind of laying there unanswered. That is developmentally a real age-appropriate place to lay that foundation down so that it can then be an ongoing conversation.

But even before that—you know, going back to the gender conversation—I have three granddaughters, four years old and seven years old. Two of them are twins. And I started when the twins were about three to just say, it’s great to be a girl.

“Do you know how awesome it is to be a girl? Do you know who chose for you to be a girl? God chose for you to be a girl. And He chose for me to be a girl, and I think that’s awesome.”

And just saying “it’s great to be a girl” to a three-year-old is a really huge theological conversation, right? And if she says, I don’t really like being a girl, I wish I was a boy—then you enter into that conversation. Why do you feel that way? Well, don’t boys get to play football? Well, girls can play football. You want to go outside and play football right now?

And, you know, steering that conversation as we break down their unbiblical boundaries and barriers and affirm the places where already their hearts are lining up with Scripture.

That conversation happens between the ages of three, and I don’t think I’m finished with my young adult kids. But it’s an ongoing conversation, and you’re always reading it, and you’re always initiating it. Very infrequently do they come to us and say, I have a question—occasionally, but not usually.

Ellen Krause: Yeah, right, right. No, I think that’s a beautiful approach—to just really be aware, like you said, of their own emotions and reactions.

And like the verse in Deuteronomy that says, if we can continually keep God’s Word in our homes and on our tongues and when we go to bed—then it doesn’t feel like an affront or something big you’re trying to push on them. Like, this is just the way we live a God-honoring life. So it feels natural, just part of who we are.

Dannah Gresh: Yes, I love that. Yeah, that whole idea in Deuteronomy 6 of talk to them about it when you lay down, when you stand up, when you sit down—it’s this all-encompassing, moment-by-moment quantity of time, not quality time.

And it’s a consuming life responsibility to disciple our children and our grandchildren too, who are assigned that task. And we’ve got to step into that.

Ellen Krause: Yeah, absolutely. I want to talk just briefly before we start to wrap things up about the woman, let’s say, who’s listening to this, who really is feeling shame from her past—whether it’s because of her own choices or even things that could have been done to her.

Tell us about what freedom in Christ looks like.

Dannah Gresh: So good. Well, I know what it’s like to walk in that shame. I walked in that shame for about 10 years. I got out of the relationship I was in as a teenager. I stood before God and said, forgive me and teach me to live a life of purity.

But what I didn’t do was heal the shame and the pain. I never told anyone. And I remember so many days waking up and still feeling—I’d be like, I hear the birds singing, I see the sun shining through the window, but something’s not right.

Yeah, that—like it was this unresolved hurt in my life that really was, I believe, at some point…the shame was useful. And let me define what I mean by that.

If we don’t have some element of shame in us, we are labeled psychotic, because shame keeps me from doing things to you that are hurtful and dangerous. I should feel embarrassed and ashamed if I hurt you. And if I don’t, I am psychotic, right? And I can morph into some very evil things without a little bit of something that says that behavior was wrong.

And so I believe that there was a point in my journey where the shame was pushing me to God and to people in my life that could mentor me and help me heal. But then, because I sat on it for so long, it became toxic, and it began to define me and limit me instead of correcting me.

That became such a heavy weight that I told my husband. And it took me three hours in a dark bedroom, because he thought he had married just this woman who had very high boundaries and integrity—not knowing that those boundaries and that integrity came out of a place of knowing not having them can be painful.

And so when he wrapped his arms around me, I felt such healing. When he said, I don’t know that I need to say this, but I think you need to hear it—I forgive you—it felt like and sounded like the voice of God and the presence of God in my life. And it was beautiful.

And James 5:16 says, confess your sins one to another and then you’ll be healed. It’s a biblical concept that when we confess our sins, when we tell people, Satan doesn’t have that blackmail power over us anymore.

Kurt Thompson is a Christian writer who writes a lot about shame, and he says shame is erased when we say the thing that we’re most scared to say, and someone looks us in the eye and says, I hear it, I understand it, and I’m still here. Right?

Ellen Krause: Mm-hmm.

Dannah Gresh: And so I would say that if you are locked in this prison of shame that I was, the key to your healing first is Jesus and confessing to Him. But He has given you a second key, and that key is to unlock the door of hiding from that closet that you’re in, and to tell someone godly that loves you and that’s gonna say, I see you, I hear you, and I’m still here.

Ellen Krause: Yeah. If you’re listening to this, I hope that you can take a step forward and perhaps even do that today and see the freedom that Christ has to offer. Because we don’t want people feeling locked into shame, and I love how you addressed that in the book as well.

I want you to tell people just a little bit about this new updated version that you’ve come out with, And the Bride Wore White, and how people can find it.

Dannah Gresh: Yeah, the new version is very highly revised, as I’ve taken into account different pieces of feedback, as I’ve taken into account cultural conversation changing so dramatically, as I’ve taken into account the church maturing in how it approaches this conversation. And I’ve matured as I’ve learned how to navigate it with more wisdom.

But what’s the same about it is that it’s very transparent, it’s conversational, it guides a teen or college-age young woman through some of the most important conversations. I think there are seven truths that she needs to know if she wants to really walk in sexual integrity. And I believe she’s invited to that conversation no matter what her past is. And so I hope everyone feels welcome at that table.

I also wrote it, though, to kind of write a permission slip for moms and spiritual moms to tell their freedom stories—whether it’s a story that came out of a purity culture because they were in a healthy environment, not a legalistic environment, but they were in a healthy environment and they made good choices and they were shepherded by somebody really wise in their life.

And they have this beautiful testimony of really, by God’s grace, purity—not sexual purity, but total life purity: purity of mind, purity of heart, purity of body.

But I also want to invite women to the table whose stories are like mine, and there’s a freedom story of God’s redemption. They’re all worthy of being told. And as we start telling them together, we are going to find the healing that we all need in Christ.

Ellen Krause: Yes, absolutely. And people can find it on Amazon, everywhere?

Dannah Gresh: Anywhere books are sold—anywhere. dannahgresh.com, mytruegirl.com—those are my two main ministry sites—or anywhere you like to buy books.

Ellen Krause: Perfect. We will make sure we include those links in our show notes. Before I let you go, I have to ask our favorite questions here.

Dannah, what is your go-to Bible, and what translation is it?

Dannah Gresh: Thank you. Wow—so I just developed the Wonder app for teen girls, and it is a Bible reading app just for 12- to 18-year-olds. And we use the CSB version in that, which is a newer translation.

I have really fallen in love with it. And I’ve never been a digital girl. I’ve always been like, I want paper in hands and I like markers in hands—and I still love that. But I have really enjoyed my reading experience in the Wonder app this year.

The whole Bible’s in there, you can highlight and squiggle, and I’ve really, really loved the CSB version because it’s very trusted in terms of the accurate translation, but it’s real up-to-date and understandable.

Ellen Krause: Awesome, very good. Okay, do you have any favorite Bible journaling supplies that you like to use?

Dannah Gresh: I like me a good—what are these called?—Paper Mate Flair. I love Paper Mate Flairs. Okay, that’s crazy and geeky, but I love a Paper Mate Flair. 

Ellen Krause: Me too. 

 Dannah Gresh: They write nicely in your Bible without bleeding through.

And I have a Bible that I really love where the whole left side is blank—it is a note-taking Bible on steroids.

And I like to be able to just write my whole sermon notes right in there—not in another book, not in another journal, but just write in the Bible. I will write my Sunday sermon notes in there.

Any Bible study I’m in, the most important things I learned are gonna be right in there. And I’m loving filling up that Bible with all kinds of good stuff for me to remember how God’s met me in His Word.

Ellen Krause: How fun. Do you know which Bible that is? Because I know someone’s going to ask.

Dannah Gresh: That’s an ESV note-taking Bible—ESV, but it’s a note-taking Bible.

Ellen Krause: Awesome. Lastly, what’s your favorite app or website for Bible study tools?

Dannah Gresh: Yeah, I probably sort of answered that with the Wonder one, but I also would say that I really love Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth’s Revive Our Hearts website. It’s so rich with either podcasts—and all of them are transcribed—or articles, blogs, that almost any scripture I go to type in…it’s not a concordance or a study Bible per se, but if you go there, you’re gonna find there’s not many scriptures Nancy hasn’t taught on or had someone else teach on or write on. So ReviveOurHearts.com.

Ellen Krause: Hey, I love that. All right, well, awesome. Thank you so much, Dannah. It’s been such a joy to have you here with us today. Thank you so much for just being your authentic self and giving people hope that if they’re feeling that shame, there is freedom in Christ. So thank you.

Dannah Gresh: There truly is—you bet. Thank you, friend.

Ellen Krause: All right, and to our listeners, I hope this conversation is just the beginning of this journey for you—one where you’re not defined by past mistakes or even cultural expectations, but by the truth of who you are in Christ.

Our prayer is that you would walk today, resting in His grace and encouraged to pursue Him with your whole body, mind, and soul. Thank you so much for joining us on this episode of the Coffee And Bible Time podcast. We will see you next time.