Purity Culture and Fascism Are Very Good Friends w/ Erica Smith
Release Date: 05/13/2026
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Join us LIVE AT FIVE (PT) on YouTube for the watch party every Wednesday: Joy Mamey is an actor, writer, comedian, cancer survivor, and improviser currently performing with Sunday Company at The Groundlings who grew up in Los Angeles where her sex ed teacher wouldn’t answer her questions so she thought sex was basically naked kissing and that penises had bones. In this episode we talk about the surprising overlap between improv and intimacy, why "yes and" can become a people-pleasing trap, and what happens when we're taught to ignore our instincts to make other people comfortable. Joy...
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Join us LIVE AT FIVE (PT) on YouTube for the watch party every Wednesday: Caitlin V is a sex and relationship coach, former sexuality researcher, author of Harder, Better, Longer, Stronger, and host of Good Sex on HBO Max from Michigan where her earliest sex education included a fifth-grade period lesson, a graphic STI scare slide in health class, and years of curiosity about pleasure that she had already discovered on her own. In this episode we talk about what men actually want help with in their sex lives, why performance goals like “lasting longer” rarely solve the real problem, and...
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Join us for the watch party on YouTube LIVE AT FIVE (PT) on episode release day: Phil Morris is an actor best known as Jackie Chiles on Seinfeld and John Jones on Smallville who grew up in Los Angeles and Beverly Hills, where the closest thing to sex education was basic health class, a little anatomy, and figuring out the rest through growing up in Hollywood. In this episode we talk about Good Vibes Breakfast Club, the beautiful way community can create space for men to be vulnerable, and why real connection so often happens when people drop the performance and just show up as...
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Join the live watch party on YouTube today, episode release day, at 5p PT / 8p ET: Nicole Jardim is a certified women’s health coach, author of Fix Your Period, and founder of the Institute for Menstrual Health originally from Antigua where the closest thing to sex education was mostly silence… leaving her to figure out hormones, cycles, and menstrual health the hard way before eventually dedicating her career to helping other women do the same. In this episode we talk about Nicole and I’s shared history working in television production, how burnout and health challenges led her to...
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Purity Culture and Fascism Are Very Good Friends w/ Erica Smith
Birds And Bees Don't Fck
Erica Smith is an award-winning sexuality educator, advocate, and author from rural Pennsylvania, where she grew up casually Christian, went to public school, learned sex ed from a gym teacher, and somehow became the most responsible teenage sexual health nerd with birth control, condoms, spermicide, and library books before having sex for the first time. In this episode we talk about purity culture, religious sexual shame, high-control groups, Christian nationalism, marital consent, “duty sex,” the pressure placed on both women and men in evangelical purity teachings, and why healing from...
info_outlineErica Smith is an award-winning sexuality educator, advocate, and author from rural Pennsylvania, where she grew up casually Christian, went to public school, learned sex ed from a gym teacher, and somehow became the most responsible teenage sexual health nerd with birth control, condoms, spermicide, and library books before having sex for the first time.
In this episode we talk about purity culture, religious sexual shame, high-control groups, Christian nationalism, marital consent, “duty sex,” the pressure placed on both women and men in evangelical purity teachings, and why healing from purity culture is not just about learning sex ed, but reconnecting to your body, your signals, your autonomy, and your right to desire without fear.
Join the live watch party on YouTube today, episode release day, at 5p PT / 8p ET:
https://www.youtube.com/@birdsandbeesdontfck
Want to hear Reddit stories? Join the afterparty over on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/cw/birdsandbeesdontfck
Where to find Erica:
Website: https://www.purityculturedropout.com
Instagram / Threads: @ericasmitheducates
Book: The Purity Culture Recovery Guide: Shame-Free Sex Ed You Deserve
Where to find Arielle:
Instagram: @birdsandbeesdontfck
TikTok: @birdsandbeesdontfck
Patreon:https://www.patreon.com/cw/birdsandbeesdontfck
Like my cuffs AND my vibrator necklace? Me too. Get $15 Off Crave Pleasure Jewelry Here: https://lovecrave.com/arielle
Episode Cheat Sheet
00:37 Why purity culture impacts everyone regardless of religious upbringing
02:01 Reclaiming spiritual language, God, universe, source, and finding meaning outside of shame
03:35 Erica's rural Pennsylvania upbringing and not coming from purity culture or evangelical Christianity
06:52 Conservative Judaism, kosher, Shabbat, fear of God, and the god of religious sexual shame
10:13 Why controlling sex is the central power tool in high-control groups and cults 13:15 Twin Flames, New Age purity culture, divine feminine and masculine, and forced relationship roles
15:11 Non-monogamy, the one-person mythology, and not knowing ethical non-monogamy was an option
18:22 The pressure on children to save souls and why evangelical recruitment causes anxiety
20:15 AIDS education, high school sex ed, birth control, Cosmo handouts, and a raw egg as a fake baby
23:35 Family planning at 16, condoms, spermicide, Planned Parenthood, teen pregnancy, and pre-internet sex ed
26:03 Curiosity as the common thread among sex educators and talking explicitly with friends about sex
30:26 From women's studies to abortion clinic counselor, September 11th, anti-abortion terrorism, and fake anthrax
33:46 Seventeen years doing sex ed and HIV prevention with incarcerated youth in Philadelphia juvenile detention
35:09 Exvangelicals, deconstruction, the 2016 election, and the mass exodus from evangelical Christianity
39:28 Wedding night trauma, the flip-the-switch expectation, marital rape, duty sex, and long-term sexual dysfunction
43:09 Consent in marriage, the every-72-hours myth, Christian patriarchy, and denying women the right to say no
46:14 Rape culture, dissociation, blaming wives for husbands cheating, and the harm purity culture does to men
48:41 Duty sex, maintenance sex, intimacy dates, responsive desire, and why sex should never be expected
50:06 Men in purity culture, being taught you are a sex demon, bounce your eyes, and associating desire with disrespect
53:01 How purity culture silences body signals around consent, danger, hunger, and attraction — and somatic healing
56:08 Why purity culture is not a thing of the past, Christian nationalism, fascism, voting, and bodily autonomy
01:01:07 Where to find Erica Smith, The Purity Culture Recovery Guide, and purity culture recovery support groups