Purity culture shame and all that 

Shame isn’t really a thing. If you look it up it’s like biblical or something. 

The opposite? Honor. 

Which has me totally mind-bended in like every which way if I’m being totally honest. 

Here’s the thing— when you’re born, you don’t feel shame. You don’t understand what that even is. But, then you start to do things that make others happy. When they smile, you smile. 

And that feels good right? I feel like that’s a given. 

But when they frown— and you don’t know why? 

Is that shame? Where we learn what is right and wrong in the world based on our parents reactions?

I mean some of it is important right? Like— don’t take a dump on the table. That’s frowned upon. And there’s some things like that where we just use shame to teach kids to like— be decent humans. 

That’s the issue isn’t it? Who decides what a decent human is? The parents right? But then… if they think things are shameful that other parents might not find so shame-filled, well then, that means shame is completely up the beholder. Right? 

And this has me all sorts of messed up. Why? Because that means all the things women feel around sex and purity and all those other things are because of this shame. 

And if shame is just a construct, then that means purity is a construct. We knew that, right? but then why do we let it dominate our lives? 

Why are we still talking about virginity like it’s a flower and making women dress modestly because they’re supposed to keep their bodies hidden. 

And for what? Shame? Purity? Constructs invented by men so that women could be seen as objects? 

Is this why women were taken as concubines? 

I have questions.