Beyond America: Transnationalizing Purity Culture Logics

To look at the current political moment in the US and try to extract orientation from the logics of purity culture is essential. Yet, if many only focus on America, they're missing a vital aspect of purity culture's project--imperialism. They must ask: What does the transnationalizing of purity culture have to teach about what they are experiencing? McGrath spent the last decade as a licensed mental health counselor working with primarily White, cisgender women who grew up in purity culture, many of whom spent time as missionaries. She herself grew up in purity culture, and she was a missionary involved in Uganda for seven years. She began to dissect her experience that seemed to so strongly correlate with many of her clients' experiences--that of martyrdom. They were so ready, willing, even titillated, to sacrifice their bodies on behalf of the call they felt. Certainly not all felt the same call to be missionaries in other nations; nevertheless, similar motivations show up in various roles of service coming from an ethos of self-sacrifice glorified in White womanhood.

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https://doi.org/10.2979/jfs.00077

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