Hi I'm Kerry!

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I grew up in the Catholic church, faithfully attending church, memorizing all the prayers,  being an altar server, years before my local Bishop and the Pope approved girls to be altar servers (I happened to have a renegade priest :), and attending weekly Sunday school. I was the "Good Girl," trying to follow all the rules the church set before me. 

 

Early on I received the messaging that sex was something to wait until marriage to engage in, and that as a female, my sexuality was something that was dangerous, & I needed to hold the boundaries with men/boys because they couldn't. The message was loud and clear, “ABSTINENCE ONLY.”

 

Nevermind, that in 8th grade, when the school finally remembered my class needed the state mandatory health class, they included sex education with the video of a man putting a condom on a banana. This led to many dinner conversations at home talking about penises and vaginas jokingly, while simultaneously having my parents reinforce the church abstinence messaging. 

 

Fast forward to graduating high school and heading off to a Catholic college, where the dorm that I lived in was nicknamed the “Virgin Vault,” yet, like most college-age women at other schools, the women were exploring their sexuality away from mom & dad. I found myself curious about my sexuality then and began to open my mind to other possibilities.

 

Away at college, at the age of 19, I had a mental crisis, which ultimately led to me getting involved with an Evangelical college group at a local college. It was here that I was introduced to Purity Culture, which was an amped up version of the abstinence only messaging I had already been receiving.

 

I was hungry for boundaries, safety, and someone to tell me what I ‘should’ do when it came to dating, sex, and relationships. Purity Culture was very alluring and made itself at home in my mind, body, and soul. 

 

I could have been the poster girl for Purity Culture having read all of the latest titles around dating and relationships; Passion and Purity, I Kissed Dating Goodbye, Quest for Love, Lady in Waiting, Date or Soul Mate, and Knight in Shining Armor, to name a few. I was quick to have conversations with Christian peers about the benefit of purity and holding true to that. It didn’t take me long to adopt the mentality of the “No kissing before marriage” vow and “Courtship” just like the way that a well known author of the latest purity book explained.

 

Whether it was at church, college groups, or young adult groups, the messaging of Purity Culture remained the same, “no sex before marriage,” & “women need to be responsible and hide their sexuality because men can’t control theirs, and you wouldn’t want to cause your brother in Christ to fall (sin).” I ‘thought’ I was doing everything right and this would usher in the perfect marriage. I was the epitome of the "Good Girl." 

 

Unfortunately, all those vows and following the messaging of Purity Culture, only led me to be closed off from dating, relationships, and my own sexuality. As the years of my 20’s went by, I began to connect more with my desire for love, started the journey of some trauma healing, which only left me desiring more and feeling more disappointment about dating. I felt that it was if God was dangling a carrot in front of me that was constantly out of reach. Somehow, I continued to remain true to that Purity Culture messaging, even as it evolved in my 30’s to throw out the ‘no kissing before marriage’ and ‘courtship’ messaging.

 

Dating and relationships continued to remain one sided, disappointing, and I never quite found a man who wasn’t looking for someone to heal him. I continued to give off that warm "Good Girl" energy, which does not connect well to finding attraction & allurement. 

 

It wasn’t until years later, after leaving the church, yet continuing to explore my spirituality, that I truly began to connect with and know my sexuality. While I was a licensed mental health therapist at that time, had received lots of education around sexuality and trauma, and even would have discussions with clients about getting to know their sexuality, I did not truly know mine.

 

It was in doing deeper soul work with a coach, that I first felt seen that there was more to explore about my sexuality.  This led me to work with a sexual empowerment coach, who supported me in connecting to my authentic (sovereign) expression of my sexuality.

 

While for years prior, I had done the deep work of healing childhood sexual trauma, and grown in loving embodiment of my body being good, embodying my sexuality hadn’t occurred.

 

I knew who I was attracted to, but something in me still held back, and was afraid of my sexuality. I did not know how to fully embrace all the nuances, depth, and beauty of my sexuality.

 

It took me fully opening up, embracing, and learning to express my sexuality to embody it. I needed to let go of the "Good Girl," once and for all, in order to embody my