I was born into a fundamentalist evangelical church. My earliest memories of this time are rooted in rules that the church governed for how I was expected to be in the world, for the church. There were many rigid rules we were expected to know and live by. And the fear of judgement and shame hung heavy all around us.
While I left that word in my teenage years, today I have a hard time distinguishing between the rules I was taught to live by and what values are truly mine. I’m constantly trying to catch this early programming that still runs in the background.
In my 30’s I came out as queer, that was the start of my unmasking process. It soon led to me getting a diagnosis of ADHD and Autism (AuDHD). It helped me start to question those early values as I began to understand the concept of masking, an unconscious way of hiding ourselves away. Hiding what we truly want, need and feel.
Early on in that journey I found the work of author and educator Erica Smith. I began understanding the concepts of deconstruction and purity culture. I started to gain a better understanding of those riding rules that were baked in at such an early age.
If you were raised in a similar way to me, then you too deserve to understand yourself. You deserve to unmask in a safe way where you can understand your sexuality and experience joy without shame.
Erica writes that purity culture has created messages about sex that were rooted in fear, silence, and control. Many of us were shamed for just who we are and who we love.
In The Purity Culture Recovery Guide, sex educator Erica Smith-who is also the founder of the Purity Culture Dropout(R) program-offers the comprehensive, inclusive, and trauma-informed sex education many never received. Drawing on more than two decades of professional experience, Erica replaces shame with empathy, self-compassion, and empowerment. She provides medically accurate information about bodies, birth control, pleasure, communication, consent, and abortion, alongside affirming discussions of gender, sexuality, and relationships.
The subtitle of the book is The Shame Free Sex Education you deserve.
Masking For The Church
Before I ever had the language of “autistic masking,” I knew what it felt like to perform. Neurodivergent Insights describes autistic masking as the conscious or unconscious effort to change your outward behavior to blend in—suppressing stims, studying and imitating social behavior, scripting conversations, and over‑accommodating others so you pass as “typical.” Embrace Autism talks about masking as hiding autistic traits so other people see a version of you that feels more acceptable or familiar to them.
That description fits what I’d been doing for years. I learned early on to hide my own wants, needs, and oddities in order to be the “good” kid—obedient, compliant, low‑maintenance. The performance became so automatic that I mistook it for my personality.
Purity culture layered perfectly on top of that. It handed me a black‑and‑white set of rules around sex and gender and told me that deviating from them would have spiritual and relational consequences. Desire became dangerous. Curiosity became suspicious. My body became something to monitor and manage rather than inhabit.
Even after I left the church, those messages showed up in how I dated, how I related to my own body, and how I thought about intimacy. I could feel myself making decisions from fear: fear of being “impure,” fear of messing up, fear of proving that deep down I really was as bad as I’d been told.
Finding Erica Smith’s Work
Early in my unmasking process, I found Erica’s work. She’s a sex educator with decades of experience and the creator of the Purity Culture Dropout Program. Her book, The Purity Culture Recovery Guide, offers the sex education so many of us never got: clear, shame‑free information about bodies, pleasure, fantasy, masturbation, sexual healthcare, consent, gender, and sexuality.
One of the things I appreciate most about the book is how accessible it is. You don’t have to read it front‑to‑back. You can open to “Bodies,” or “Pleasure,” or “What is Sex,” or “Sexual Healthcare,” and get grounded, straightforward information on the questions you were too scared—or too restricted—to ask when you were younger.
In our conversation, Erica explicitly gives people permission to move at their own pace. If you already know purity culture from the inside, and reading about it in detail is going to be triggering, you’re invited to skip the early chapters and go straight to the sections that speak to where you are now. Nothing in her work is a new rulebook. It’s information and context that you get to use to build your own values.
“Is It Too Late for Me?”
One question that keeps coming up in my own life is: “Did I miss my window?” When you’re deconstructing in your 30s, 40s, 50s or beyond, coming out queer later in life, or exploring sexuality after years of shutting it down, it’s easy to feel like you’re “late to the party.”
Erica’s answer is simple and generous: it is never too late to move toward what feels good and right for you. She works with people in their 40s, 50s, 60s—many of whom are divorced, or leaving long‑term religious communities—who are exploring their sexuality in ways they never could have imagined in their teens or twenties. In many ways, they’re better equipped now: they know themselves more clearly, they have better relational skills, and they have more tools for navigating discomfort and conflict.
For those of us who discovered our queer identities later in life, there’s an added layer of grief and disbelief. There can be this sense of, “How did I not know?” What Erica points out is that for many of us, it wasn’t just that the door to queerness was closed—it was hidden. It never appeared as an option. The door was covered over with bookcases and furniture, and we were walking around blindfolded on top of that. It makes sense that it took time to even realize there was a door.
Building Values After Purity Culture
One of the most important pieces of Erica’s perspective, for me, is that she refuses to replace one rigid system with another. Many people come to her saying, “I’m done with purity culture. Just tell me what the new rules are so I don’t mess this up.”
Instead, she invites people to sit with questions like:
- What were the purity culture rules I grew up with?
- What do I actually believe about each one now?
- Who did those rules serve? Did they ever really serve me?
- If I stop following them, what’s the worst that could happen—and how would I handle that?
- What could be the best thing that happens if I let them go?
Similarly, when we go through the process of unmasking we’re also invite to sit with the question of what do we value? What are our needs and our wants. This work can be done in tandem.
For Those in a “Second Adolescence”
If you’re a late‑diagnosed autistic or ADHD person who grew up in high‑control religion, you might be experiencing what a lot of people call a second adolescence: coming out, experimenting, renegotiating boundaries, and letting yourself ask questions you never could before.
There’s grief in that. There’s awkwardness. There’s also a lot of possibility.
You are not behind. You are not broken for needing to learn these things now. You’re doing the work at the first moment in your life when you have enough information, enough safety, and enough support to do it.
If any of this sounds like your story, I’d encourage you to watch my conversation with Erica and to spend time with The Purity Culture Recovery Guide as a companion. You get to decide what you take in, what you leave, and what you build next.