This transcript has been edited for clarity.

Episode 019 – SeXploration with SeXvangelicals: Chad & Abigail – Sexuality After Escaping a Purity Cult (Part 2)

August 16, 2023

T: Hi, I’m Tracey.

S: And I’m Sharon, and we are Feet of Clay…

T: Confessions of the Cult Sisters. Last week we ended up having to cut our first episode short because we had so much to cover, and we started that intimate conversation with Chad & Abigail. They were so willing to join us to take a closer look at the challenging journey out of purity culture and the abuse that we’ve now become familiar with in the Bill Gothard IBLP cult. Blergh.

S: Yah Tracey, but you know, I always want to call him Bill GotHard. Bill GotHard.

T: And I always want to say, in all the wrong ways. Ohh.

S: Yes, yes.

T: So in part one they shared about their first sexual encounters coming out of the dysfunctional system, and if you haven’t heard it yet please go back and listen to that episode before continuing on with us.

S: Yes. So now, before we pick up that conversation we want to give a word of caution. We’re going to be discussing sexuality in very explicit terms, so this episode is not appropriate for kids. We’re also going to touch on aspects of ritualized childhood spankings, spiritual abuse, and more. So, use discretion, be careful if these things are kind of triggering to you, and please take good care of yourselves.

T: Yes, thank you Sharon. And now we’re going to pick up where we left off last week with Chad and Abigail, our new adopted cult brother and sister.

S: Here they come!

T: Oooh.

[laughter]

S: Oh oh, here they come!

[laughter]

T: You gotta really watch the innuendos with this episode.

S: Yeah well, you know with me it’s just straight out there, it’s not even innuendo.

T: It is. It is.

S: Alright, let’s start up again our conversation with Chad & Abigail.

….

T: Okay, so you both had your sexual experiences, and at some point it does seem like wow, I need to explore this more.

A: Yeah, I think for me – again with that same therapist – I just had no idea what I wanted. Or really, quite frankly, what I liked. Not just about sex; about anything. I didn’t know what I wanted in a partner; I didn’t know what I liked in a partner. I didn’t know what was important or not important, because as soon as you take a man of God and a helpmeet for his ministry out of it, I’d never thought about anything else. So I spent a lot of time – my schedule pretty much looked like this. It was the very beginning of Tinder; I had a lunch date and a dinner date every day, and often a late-night drink date, so often three dates a day.

T: Wow.

A: I did not sleep with very many people at all, because I very quickly realized I really liked to be chased, and I rarely liked to be caught. Still that way, by the way. Still kind of that way. Really love a good chase; super fun for me, my favorite part – getting caught is great, and it can be great especially with a person you have tons of chemistry with, but I’m really most compatible with somebody that even after the catching, goes right back to the chasing. It didn’t take me very long at all to figure out that piece was important to me. I didn’t spend a lot of time getting caught; I spent a lot of time fostering chasing relationships and then I went on a lot of first dates and very few second dates. I was also a pretty miserable person to date, because I was on this fact-finding mission. I wanted to learn about what I wanted, so there was no dinner where it was like, and what’s your favorite color. I was like, tell me about yourself. What kind of income do you make; do you have children; do you want to have children – and it wasn’t that I was dating to get married, because I wasn’t at all. I knew that wasn’t what I was doing, I was literally like, how many different kinds of people are there in the world? It was so bizarre; I just didn’t know. What kind of person is interesting to me? So I did that for a long time really, several years, and I like being in a relationship, I like that consistency, so I had people that I would date frequently, but I never went on a date with somebody two times in a row without somebody in between – I might date the same person several times, but I would always have a date in between and I was very open about that during that period of time.

S: Were you being physically intimate non-exclusively and telling these people that, or were you physically intimate with only one at a time?

A: They were told that I was going to do whatever the hell I wanted to do.

T: They were told by you.

A: Yeah, I was like I’m going to sleep with whoever I want whenever I want, and you don’t get to say anything about it, but in reality, functionally, I was pretty exclusive with one person at least for sexual intimacy, but I was making out with anybody. If you were attractive and we had a good date, and you didn’t have kids under the age of 15, I was probably going to make out with you. That was a pretty solid bet.

S: Right. Did you discover ways you liked to be kissed and ways that you didn’t?

A: Yeah, I definitely figured out a lot of things that I liked, and I also figured out a lot of things I didn’t like. I figured out that if it’s a bad kiss after the first few minutes that you could just leave – which was super weird but so empowering to go oh, thanks so much, bye. I figured out – I’ll never forget the first time I was making out with somebody and things were heating up and we were at my place or his place – I think it was my place because we usually were, because that always felt safer to me. We were making out on the couch and it was under the clothes action, and then I realized I just really wasn’t that into it and I stopped and said well, I’m done, thanks so much. And I like, turned him out on the porch. And it was ah-MAZ-ing. It was the greatest high ever. I was just like oh my god, I just don’t want to.

T: I want the listeners to know because there’s been no sex education through key portions of our lives, you’re having to go back to ground zero and just learn. As Chad’s listening to that, I’m interested in hearing – he had talked about having to learn consent.

S: I want to interject something. There was a sort of sex education. The sex education was wives, submit to your husbands, whatever he wants to do to you whenever he wants to do it, your role is just take it. That was the education.

A: I do want to clarify right now because I think it might be important and seems really intuitive of me but probably isn’t – we were taught all these insane metaphors about sex, and the one I remember the most vividly, because my mother taught it to me and I think it was taught from the pulpit, I don’t really know. It’s like, sex is like a snowball on a hill. Once it gets started it will get bigger and bigger and bigger until no one can stop it.

T&S: Hmmm.

A: That was such a core teaching, so learning that I could stop it any time I wanted for any reason, valid or invalid, was huge. I don’t use this word lightly and I want to be clear about this, but it was rape culture. It was being taught that men get to a certain point and they cannot stop, and for you to then expect them to stop is your sin. To get that empowerment that I could, in fact, stop it any time I wanted for any reason – big, small, meaningful, not-meaningful – was a huge piece of this kind of sexual renaissance time of my life.

T: Which is so important. I guess as I started to say from Chad, having been raised under men have all this power over women to have to learn that message of consent, and when that would be put in front of you and somebody got the engine revving and all of a sudden they put the hand up and say stop; did that ever happen to you Chad, or as Abigail is sharing, what’s going through your head as far as you had to learn to be able to give her that power to be able to stop something?

C: Well, having been raised as such a people pleaser, in addition to the general masculinity caricatures they wanted you to be in IBLP (which I never fully bought into) it did happen when I was dating. We would get to a certain point making out, like Abigail said under the clothes action and everything and then she’d be like, okay, well, I don’t want to go any further tonight, and immediately my brain would switch into oh shit, I did something wrong, I am so sorry, are you okay, do you want me to get this water – blah blah. So you know, that was pretty much how I would react to it at first. I eventually had to come into myself and go no, hey, this is normal human interaction. Sometimes you’re just not into it; sometimes the feeling changes; sometimes things happen. It’s fine so long as you’re both on the same page and absolutely respect the no – you’re good.

S: Yeah. Abigail, in the earlier episodes with you and your story, at one point you talked about the sexual kink. Do you feel now is a good time to expound on that a little bit?

A: Yeah, so some of it’s still a blur. I think most of it I’ve worked out in my own head. I don’t think that it’s ever something that I’ll ever get total quite figured out. I realized pretty early on that I’d gotten pretty good at capturing thoughts and asking myself is this true, or is this not true. Coming out of the cult I spent a lot of time in therapy learning that skill – you would have a thought where you were like oh I’m sinful, or oh that’s wrong. And I would capture it and then I would just take a minute and ask myself is that true, is that not true? And if the answer was I didn’t know, I would ask somebody I trusted, or I would google it, or I would figure it out. But most of the time, if I slowed down enough to capture the thought is it true or is it not true, I knew the answer and I could say no I don’t believe that anymore; that’s not true. Or it was never true and we were just lied to. I’d gotten pretty good at that piece, but where it was really coming up consistently time and time again was in my sexual experiences and sex life, that I would feel guilty at inconsistent times. So it’s not like I was feeling guilty every time, because I wasn’t. but there were times when I would feel really guilty and it would come out of nothing I could quite identify, and I would have to capture the thought and slow down and break the moment that was romantic, or quite frankly, just straight lusty excitement, and it was getting really frustrating. I really couldn’t tell you exactly how or with what person I figured out that a little bit of bossiness went a long way for me.

S: Like, them being bossy to you?

A: Them being bossy like, hey, this is what we’re going to do, and I was like oh, that makes my mind go quiet. As I realized that was better and I didn’t have as much panic, and I’d also had several experiences where (particularly if the orgasm was really excellent) I would have a massive panic attack, and particularly if I was emotionally attracted to that person. That started to get really complicated and frustrating. Like I said, I’m not 100% sure how I figured it out – this was right about the time Fifty Shades of Gray was coming out (which, hear me say, horrible book about consent and about any kind of lifestyle), but that’s kind of what was happening in the world, is these things were being discussed in a much more easy to access way. I was dating almost exclusively older men that had a lot of money, because I figured out pretty quickly they were the most fun for me to date in that moment in my life, because I got to go lots of fun places, and they were available whenever I wanted them to be, which was super fun. So I was dating pretty experienced men, and I figured out pretty quickly that a little bit of kink really quieted out the parts of my anxiety and of that guilt over nothing that I was struggling to quiet out, and then I figured out quickly after that that there were other pieces of kink that would quiet things down – like, a little bit of bondage, a little bit of spanking would quiet things down for me in a way that was really incredibly helpful and much less problematic and much more fulfilling for me in that stage in processing through my trauma. I started to get kind of interested in why that was happening.

S: Abigail, let me repeat so I can understand this. You are exploring your sexuality; you are being with a variety of different people that you feel safe with, and you are still fighting this internal dialog that what you’re doing is wrong, or there’s some guilt or there’s some shame, or something like that, and then if you have a particularly wonderful orgasmic experienced, and especially if you have an emotional connection to that person, you are then thrown into a panic attack.

A: Mmhmm. Yeah. Orgasm panic attacks were so common for me in that time period. Super common.

S: And, as you’re describing the little bit of kink, the little bit of bondage or someone else sort of being in control but not in an unsafe way, but someone controlling and calling the shots helped ease your anxiety.

A: Mmhmm. Yeah, because it was like there was less decisions for me to make, which was helpful because I was not struggling with feeling guilting after the fact. Laying, hanging out, whatever, after – I felt fine. it was in the moment, pop up guilt that would just suck an impending orgasm right out of you.

T&S: Mmm.

S: Now, do you see then or did you eventually make some sort of connection with your experiences with the IBLP type sanctioned extreme child discipline?

A: Yeah, I think I figured out pretty quickly that control, particularly male control – I was in pretty exclusively cis het male relationships – so male control made things much easier for me as I was figuring out what my body liked and what felt good, and just exploring my sexuality, that adding in – I figured out also pretty quickly that there was this kind of concept of topping from the bottom, where…

S: Can you explain that, because I’m old and I don’t get that.

A: Sure. So where they were calling the shots and being bossy, but ultimately it was always my choice to say no, and if I did, everything stopped instantly. So it was really ultimately a huge amount of control for me that allowed me to feel less like I had to make so many decisions, which was very difficult for me, I think coming out of purity culture and hierarchical systems and needing to be like oh my god, am I pleasing, am I pleasing, and that little bit of kink was a huge piece of that they’re constantly telling you you’re pleasing – or that you’re not pleasing, that both worked for me.

S: So the control – I’m thinking about the psychological aspect of this, in that as a child, as a young virginal woman under her father’s authority, you became – well, you were conditioned and were comfortable with that whole time – the male authority figure has to tell you what to do; what’s right, what’s wrong, where you can go, where you can’t go, what’s permissible, what isn’t permissible – and that world (fucked up as it is) was the world you knew, and the world you made peace with in terms of what was safe psychologically emotionally for you. And then going outside of that to say I can be in charge of my own sexual self-determination was very, very scary, I would imagine.

A: Mmhmm, very much so. I think also I was – there were other things going on in my life that I think contributed to this need, that I was owning my own business; I was becoming more and more successful; I was very, very independent, I had my own money, my own car, my own stuff. I needed nothing from someone else physically – structurally physically. So like, I had a car, I had a house, I had all those things, I owned a business, I had my own career. And there was an enormous amount of fatigue coming out of the IBLP systems into so much independence. I was exhausted from being in control and in command of myself all the time. It was like a muscle that was really under-developed, and I was so tired of making decisions and so tired of being so possessive of my control, because once I had it I sure as hell wasn’t ever going to let it go. So it was a really interesting way to work some of those pieces out that I had glossed over for survival, and for me to work them out in that way, in one scenario, just in bed, was really a wonderful experience for me. I had a great therapist, and I had a lot of great advice about being smart and safe, and all of those things. It was incredibly helpful, and it also can’t be left out that there were some sexually thrilling things about spanking and control and being told no – and I don’t know right, this is my own experience. I don’t know if that’s normal for any person from any background – for me personally, I have to think there’s some connection there.

T: Yeah, and I think this is so powerful, because what I’m hearing is that our own sexual development is very personal, and we didn’t start out with really good skills, but when you condition a child in what we have termed the spanking ritual (and I definitely want to hear from Chad) but what I can see from being a female is that there is a requirement of pulling down the pants, raising the dress, and striking with an instrument on that bare bottom area that then mingles pain and love, you’re naughty and accepted, you’ve got to accept this, you’ve got to thank the abuser, and all that conditioned over and over has got to twist stuff inside of you that absolutely needs to then get worked out. It is very complex, we do want to say none of us are sexual therapists, but what I love about this story is you saw the need to go to a sexual therapist, someone who is trained, someone you can open up and feel safe and kind of explore all those elements. And that’s very, very powerful.

A: I had really great experiences working that out. I had – first of all, tons of fun. I had a handful of longer term, multiple month or close to a year relationships where that was a huge dynamic. Lots of situations where it was just fun; it was just sex play and those were things that we did, it was more of a friends with benefits situation. I had a couple of those – I had one friend with benefits to work this stuff out that was more than two years and it was fantastic and amazing. It served a season in our lives for both of us that I think we are both very grateful for. Lives move on, and it’s easier with spouses to just not do that thing anymore, and so I think for me it was a really sex positive experience. I know that’s not everybody’s story, but for my story it was extremely sex positive,  I was very grateful I had a therapist that was very knowledgeable in that area during that time period. And for a long time it was – I don’t want to say it was the only way I could feel attachment after sex, but I think that’s very close to true. For a long time that was true. It had to have that element of kink in order for me to not dissociate after sex. There was a lot of truth to that.

T: Mmm, yeah very complex. And I want to state – not a sexual therapist at all, but what I’m hearing is it’s a chance to reconnect those connections that got so broken beforehand, and it’s the being able to get back in touch. I can totally see how powerful and freeing that would be.

S: And I think too, there’s a – it’s not just in sex, but in so many aspects of our lives, if as children we are forced into an unhealthy situation where we’ve just gotta go along with it to survive. We learn these ways of thinking about things and these coping strategies that are familiar. They may not be fun, they may not feel good, but they’re familiar. And because they feel familiar, in some ways it feels safer to continue that same thing into our adult lives, even if it isn’t necessarily the happiest thing for us. I know that with me growing up in an alcoholic family, one of the things that happened was I would feel blamed and I had done something bad, so I would take the blame for things that I should never have, that wasn’t my fault, but I became comfortable in that role because it brought about – I won’t say peace, but it’s what stopped the conflict. Then I took that into my first marriage where no it doesn’t feel good to be blamed for something you’re not guilty of, but I was familiar with that role, I played it well, and I felt uncomfortable in a different role. So as you’re talking about it Tracey that’s what I’m thinking about – this whole mix up of the spanking ritual, which is on private parts of our body, and the mixing it up with the affirmation of love and all that stuff – I can totally see how this could really twist within and get intertwined in a way that later in life, stuff has to get figured out.

T: Yeah, and I’m really interested in hearing Chad’s version. I know at one point in Shiny Happy People when referencing Josh Duggar, they talk about him being a monster and somebody says yes, but monsters are made. I love that throughout Chad’s story I get this beautiful little boy who seems to have such a sensitive heart and a love for people, but not everybody has this beautiful, sensitive, sweet little heart. Then seeing these methodologies applied with a different kind of mix and how that can really twist and pervert development – I can’t imagine Chad, you as a little boy – I just want to reach in and hug you and hold you, and say you shouldn’t have to go through any of that. But how did that impact you?

C: I mean, it was odd, and I think my experience was probably not the typical male experience in ATI and IBLP because of that reason – I never really bought into the whole having to be this controlling lord of the household type thing, it just never fit me. But I will say a lot of my abuse was meant to keep me compliant, and meant to keep me under the control of some authority figure, and navigating my life without an authority figure was one of the hardest things of my deconstruction. So as that translated to the bedroom, as I went on my journey of self-exploration, exploring sex and what have you, I noticed that I was more of a go with the flow person for a long time, until I started seeing people who were more into that hey, why don’t you take charge, or why don’t you be the dominant and I’ll be the submissive, and being a people pleaser I was like oh, okay, sure I’ll be the dominant. At first it was a bit awkward because I had a hard time going there sometimes. If they wanted me to call them a slut or something like that when we’re having sex – really talk dirty to them – I’d really have a hard time, because this goes against everything that I hold to, because I’m not here to hurt people. But I remember reading one article – when things like that happened I immediately start researching and I have some very sex-positive and kink-friendly friends, and I’m like hey, okay, I’m really struggling with this. I want to make my partner happy, but I also want to do so in a way that doesn’t make me feel terrible doing it.

S: Yeah.

C: Someone said well, to me it’s like, if you’re on stage and you’re playing the snidely whiplash character, with the big twirly mustache and the black coat, tying women to railroad tracks – that’s not you, that’s a character you’re playing. So it’s a role play type thing. If you can step into that role and make it your own, and think of it as a performance that makes people happy, then why not try that. And I was like, I do like performing. That is interesting. I do improv and everything as well, so I was like, okay. I started approaching it from that aspect, and of course obviously with safety in mind, safe words and boundaries talked about beforehand, I started going into that role as required. I do consider myself something of a switch; I am good in both the dominant and submissive role, but for whatever reason I tend to be requested to be more dominant than not. And that’s fine, but whenever I get into that headspace, into that mind space, I’m able to reconcile that with being hey, this is something that’s making my partner really happy, and it’s making me happy as well, because one thing I have learned – and this may have something to do with my upbringing – I gain pleasure from my partner’s pleasure and as long as they are having a wonderful time, I am happy. So, yeah. If they want me to apply physical force, or do a little choking out, or use really dirty talk and everything, I am all there for it. And I’m all for receiving it on the other end too, because I really want to experience what that’s like. I recently had a sexual experience where she was on top, and started choking me out. Again, this vibes with how comfortable you are with each other; I was really trusting of this partner, and I loved it. I was just like, holy shit yes, more of that please. So it was learning how to really develop that side of myself, and learning what I liked. I have also – it hasn’t all been sunshine and roses; there have been things I’ve learned that I don’t like too, for example electric cock rings. Not even once for me.

[laughter]

C: Those units don’t go there guys, for me. If that’s your thing I’m not here to shame it, but ouch. But yeah, things like that – it’s been a lot of fun and one thing I really took away from when I was first learning how to give and receive pleasure and make sex more about fun for me, because that’s how I love to approach it. I remember hearing Nina Hartley, who is not just a porn star herself, but also a certified sex educator – she said a lot of times we forget that sex can be adult play.

T&S: Mmhmm.

C: If you take that approach to it you can have a lot of fun. Don’t be so serious all the time, doing it. I’ve taken that approach and it’s just really translated and felt well to me, and it’s so different to how I was raised where sex was this taboo monster that was never discussed.

S: Right.

A: I really love that idea of sex being play. That’s something that my therapist at the time when I was sorting all this out talked about a lot. They likened it to when kids play house, they’re just practising rituals of different things. Sharon you and I both do animal behavior professionally, right?

S: Mmhmm.

A: What is play between horses and dogs, other than playing house? They’re practising rituals that may or may not be used later. I think when she made that analogy for me where sex can be playful and you can try something and go oh well that was horrible, and it’s no harm no foul. It was just yep, don’t like that. And sometimes you do something and it’s just awkward or it just doesn’t go the way you planned and it can be funny, like you use too much lube and slip right off the bed – things happen. And it can be fun and funny, and I think Chad said, so healing to realize it’s just not so serious.

T: Mmm. It’s just not so serious. I love that.

S: I think that there are folks out there who are listening who have no fundy evangelical background, maybe not even a Christian background, no religious stuff, and I’m sure they’re scratching their heads going, what the hell is wrong with you people? Why was this such a big deal? And yeah, it was a big deal for all of us, because of that suppression and repression and shame and all this other stuff. But I just want to echo that whole play thing – the time for me, having my wrist tied to a headboard a couple of times, that was kind of fun. I think it’s a fantasy like what you were talking about Abigail, of not being in control. Someone else is in control, but of course someone safe that you trust and you can stop at any time, because it is a game. Yeah.

A: And in control for one tiny sliver of your life and that is not to discount people that choose this as a lifestyle – that is equally valid. Please don’t hear me say that that is not, but for me, and I think what I’m hearing from you Sharon, is to relinquish control for a set amount of time in this one scenario I found to be a really great way to begin to work out how to have control and release control when it was my choice.

T: Yes.

S: Yeah. For me there was this aspect also, of needing to beg for it. My hands were tied up, and you’re stopping and no, don’t stop, don’t stop. The fun of that whole rollercoaster ride. Would average society call that kink? I don’t know, I don’t know if they would just say yeah, that’s regular sex play or somebody who’s just coming out of this whole purity culture thing would probably hear this and go oh my god, oh my god, what is that.

T: I think that’s what makes this so challenging, because as you guys are talking about coming into your freedom, what none of us were taught was, what do you like? Pleasure. Where can you concentrate on your own pleasure? Then it gets tied to truly abusive memories that now this game is not fun because it’s triggering other things inside of us that we have to get healing from, so we bring all that shit that we have to untie and unpack, and work through so that we can discover who we are and what we like, and what our partners like and being able to really grow and blossom in that way. It takes us all that much longer because we’ve been so conditioned with the head trip stuff and again applaud you both, just for being that one, Chad, that gets out the encyclopedia and starts to look things up; that starts to go research, okay what is this all about, so it allows you to do that growing which is amazing and I’ll add this – so when they were talking in that documentary about monsters being made, it’s when that conditioning is so deep and so full that there is no outlet for anything healthy, and then it hides itself in darkness and becomes very dangerous, which we’re seeing in multiple issues of sexual abuse cases and things that are done in darkness and in hiding because of the repression and oppression in this area.

A: Yeah, and I think that’s a really important point; learning to play with your sex life, that is the opposite of perversion. That is learning how to share and be shared; how to commune and be in community with people. I think when the documentary was talking about creating predators, it is creating people with the absence of that ability to play and be played with, and to commune and be in community and I think that’s where this can get very complex, about creating little predators, because it really is about human connection, and it really is about being connected to another human being. I think, for me at least, exploring this side of myself, especially in the early years, getting out of such a high control group, straight vanilla intimate I love you sex was almost off the table. It was so hard for me; it was so raw; it was so too much. I didn’t know quite how to do that piece. But this playful piece I could do much more easily. I talked to my spouse obviously before I did this podcast – I was like, surprize! One thing that I do feel very comfortable saying without blathering our whole personal life all over the internet, which I promised I would not do, is that it took a long time when I met him, for me to learn to have straight vanilla sex. That was much harder for me than this kink play sex. it created a safety for me of playfulness vs intimacy that was so valuable and so cherished, and really I don’t think I could have gotten to where I am today without it, I really don’t.

T: Do you think that also has to do with that being venerated for so long as this holy demonstration – this is what this is created for, this weird, holy demonstration of what we would call vanilla sex now, and we just need to distance ourselves from that.

A: I think – I’m probably really interested in Chad’s answer to this. For me, there is a hearkening back to I love you, I’m in love with you lovemaking that can bring up a lot of trauma to this day. That joining of souls that comes from that kind of missionary staring into your eyes saying I love you sex, that is still very, very difficult for me. Much better than it used to be but it can still be very challenging for me sometimes. Chad?

C: Yeah, I hear that. I’m not in a position at the moment where I have any partners where you can have that I love you, straight, missionary, soul connecting type sex. I have had it; right now I’m between those kind of relationships, but I can say that one thing that has been really healing for me is bringing the topic of sex into a more balanced portion of my life, because when it was taboo, when it was not spoken about it was all I could think about, just about.

S: Yeah!

C: We can’t talk about sex, so you’re going to think about sex, you’re going to think about sex a lot – don’t think or talk about sex, because that’s the thing. So that was – especially in my teen years – that was almost an obsession with wanting to know more and thinking about okay, well what is this forbidden thing going to feel like when it happens, but now that it’s just such a more normalized part of my life, it really has helped me become a healthier person to put it in its place, and to have frank, open, honest conversations with friends. Every friend I have I don’t immediately go round and go well, okay, what kind of sexy sex did you sex today?

[laughter]

C: Hey, who here FUUCKSS?? I don’t do that, but there are those friendships and those conversations that I have with people that I trust, I can just be like hey, so thing about sex, that’s weird huh, or especially people who’ve recovered, I can say hey remember when we used to obsess about this particular thing. I think I was actually telling you Abigail, the other day, one of the biggest revelations I’ve had from getting out and talking to people who have left the cult, is that I wasn’t the only horny one out there. Everybody else was and we just didn’t talk about it. I felt like the only pervert for so long but it turns out no, we were all thinking it and it’s nice to have that normal talk. By the way I love what y’all said earlier too, about people listening in from the outside who have never been through a cult and never been through fundamentalism thinking what’s the big deal here? I have gotten that reaction from people, saying hey isn’t it weird how sex doesn’t come up in conversation as much as we thought it would? I say the opposite of that. As repressed as we were, any amount of talking about it frankly and openly and just as a matter of fact, feels like a lot when you first get out of the cult. But knowing that this is now a normal thing that human beings talk about, especially among friends, as far as normalizing it as part of the human experience; it’s just been a real amazing thing and more of a healing part of my journey than I ever thought it would be.

A: I completely agree with that. Just learning to talk about it like a normal part of human life – because it is – and learning to create a relationship with friends or with a partner where that is just a normal topic is just the best.

S: And, cos sometimes – like the brilliant radish said – it’s just sex.

A: Yeah. It’s just sex.

T: But we started so far from square one of normal sexual development – I would say that our American culture is still tinged very much with Puritan culture so I don’t know that there is super healthy pockets of sex happening throughout America. There are more, I think thanks to your generation and the generation behind you that are coming out and starting to have more normal conversations, but that’s the beauty of what you just said, Chad – I wasn’t the only horny teenager. Most people would say of course not, but that normal development got so repressed in our environments.

S: So before we start drawing to a close here, I just want to revisit some fun things we were talking about before we started this whole thing, and that is you guys remember VeggieTales.

C: Yeaah.

S: Right? So who was the cucumber. Was he Larry?

T: Wait, wait, I have to ask. I’m ashamed to say as parents – obviously we didn’t grow up with VeggieTales as kids, because we’re old, but our kids watched VeggieTales.

S: Of course!

T: Were you guys allowed to watch VeggieTales? Because you didn’t have TVs but I know there was VCRs, so…

C: There was a point in my cult journey we were allowed to watch some of them until they got too worldly in their music, as we said. But my older brother was very interested in animation, so those did slide for a little bit. And Larry was the cucumber. Sorry, go ahead.

A: Yeah, we were allowed to watch them until they got too worldly in their music, and then sometimes you’d see them at Christian-adjacent events, like if my mom was in a bible study and I was babysitting the children, sometimes the VeggieTales would be on. I did watch a fair amount of them, and I’m just saying, repurposing the Where is my Hair Brush song for boys coming out of the cult into their sexual experience would change the lives of us forever. For the better.

[laughter]

T: It could! It so could. We could have a whole sex education for cult people.

S: I want the four of us to go in together and invest – we’re going to put a little bit of money together and we’re going to create VeggieTale inspired dildos and butt plugs and fun stuff like that. I think we’d have a hit.

T: It’s our play line. It goes with sexual play – I mean, how much fun would that be?

A: Every person in the world  should know where is my … fill in the blank, and everyone’s lives would be for the better.

[laughter]

A: And I agree, a Larry the Cucumber dildo would be in my drawer today, if it was available.

C: I’m thinking that Jerry and Jimmy Gourd also because they’re flanged – I mean, safety first. They’ve got natural shape to them and there’s a lot you can do with that as well. So don’t sleep on them – they may be B list, but yeah.

[laughter]

S: Ohhh, you’re right.

A: Less embarrassing ER visits, always a good choice.

[laughter]

T: Oh my gosh, yes. That could be a whole follow up episode after we release these toys.

[laughter]

S: We’ll start a Patreon or GoFundMe, right? Just kidding people, just kidding.

A: It would get funded instantly.

C: And that’s just for the legal fees.

T: Yah, for the copyright infringement.

S: Oh man. Okay Tracey, you’re the wrap up girl in this.

T: Well, I think what’s so important here and where we have wanted to bring this is to open up those conversations. We are all sexual beings and we want to be able to have a safe place, especially if you’re coming out of a cult mentality where this was so repressed and oppressed for so long, that you can open up, explore your sexuality; play; learn about who you are and what you want, and if you need to do what Abigail has done and reach out to a sex therapist to do that, we highly encourage that.

S: So Chad, and/or Abigail, any final parting thoughts you’d like to share?

A: I don’t think I have any particular parting thoughts, other than to just encourage you to listen to this podcast with your friends and discuss, because you’ll be surprized at how much that will help, and maybe Chad has some resources and parting thoughts more wisdomatic than mine.

[laughter]

C: What I can say is there are resources out there and there are very safe sex positive resources on the internet, so if there is something you want to know more about safely, I don’t have them in front of me but I can vouch they are out there, they are available, and if you want to safely look for them I encourage anyone to do so. Don’t be ashamed; it’s okay to ask questions and that goes for questioning any high controlling religious groups you came out of, all the way to questioning what you like, and what sexual things mean. So don’t hesitate to look for them. Play safe, play for your pleasure, play responsibly, play with consent, and maybe steer clear of the electric cock rings.

[laughter]

C: Feel free to try them and everything, but I’m here to tell you there is pain. Okay. That’s all I have to say about that.

[laughter]

S: I’m going to put in a plug for edibles.

[laughter]

S: I’m going to put in a pitch for edibles can be fun and enhancing. Okay, enough of that.

T: But Sharon did end up in an emergency room one time because of edibles. Yes.

S: Oh, no I did not. I did not end up in an emergency room because of edibles. What are you talking about?

T: Okay, well it was a fruit that was inserted in a certain place…

S: That was mangoes. Okay. Be careful when you play, that’s why our VeggieTales toys, because they’d be silicone or whatever and they’d be safe…

A: They would definitely be latex free.

S: Okay, so real mangoes, just here’s a little tip for you kiddies out there – the skin of mangoes apparently has a component that is related to poison ivy.

C: Yep.

S: And insertion of mangoes in certain sensitive places, while very fun and very delicious, can later cause severe itching. So be warned.

A: Sharon, I know this for a fact, and that just is hilarious to me.

[laughter]

T: So know your fruits and veggies, folks!

S: Yes Chad?

C: Can I add something to that for people who like me, or are first starting out at some point – be careful with hot sauce, y’all, especially after eating it, and that’s all I have to say about that.

[laughter]

A: Those are some straight facts, Chad.

T: Such good facts!

S: Alright, we’ve been having way too much fun here people. I hope you like what we’re doing; if you do, follow us, rate us, give a review – more people can find us that way. Tracey will tell you, you can find us on Instagram, with fun pictures. We might put up VeggieTales pictures but there’s some things we won’t do.

T: Well, I’m in control of the Instagram account, so we’ll see what I put up there. And other things that we referenced, we’ll try to put as many references in our show notes as possible, but do find us on Instagram Feet of Clay.cultsisters for more updates. We just cannot thank Chad and Abigail enough for laughing with us, crying with us, opening up the really personal parts of your life, and joining us today.

S: Yep. Say goodbye Chad!

C: Bye everybody, thanks so much for having us on, it’s been a blast.

S: Say goodbye Abigail!

A: Bye everybody, thanks so much.

S: Alright everybody, we’ll see you next time.

T: See you next time!