What Do “Certificates of Purity” Communicate to Sexual Assault Survivors?

IT SETS UP AUTOMATIC FAILURE AND CONDEMNATION TO ANY WHO WERE VICTIMS AND NOW HAVE LITTLE RECOURSE TO BE MADE WHOLE AGAIN. FRANKLY–THIS IS NOT ACTING IN LOVE TOWAD OTHERS!

Homeschoolers Anonymous

By R.L. Stollar, HA Community Coordinator

Content warning: discussion of child sexual abuse.

By now you have likely heard about the increasingly viral story of Brelyn Bowman and her father, Pastor Mike Freeman. Pastor Freeman glowingly shared on social media the fact that his daughter presented to him, on her wedding day, a “Certificate of Purity.” Brelyn wrote on Instagram that she “present[ed] a certificate of purity to [my father] signed by my doctor that my hymen was still intact.” This fact — that Brelyn has an intact hymen — is the evidence used to demonstrate that she preserved her “purity” until her wedding day.

There are problems with this scenario, which many internet commentators have addressed. For example, there are plenty of non-sexual activities one can engage in that can break a person’s hymen — riding a bike, gymnastics, even performing a worship dance in your church. There are also plenty of sexual 

View original post 719 more words