Today, I’m over at No Shame Movement sharing my story about growing up in Christian purity culture. Check it out! Also, be sure to read the other stories at NSM, and follow No Shame Movement on Twitter!

“What would happen if I bought this shirt three sizes too small?” I joked to my sister, as we waited for my mom to finish up her shopping at the Christian bookstore. The shirt in question was a woman’s tee shirt with the words “Modest Is Hottest” across the front.

The sizes seemed to line up with tee shirts you might buy at Abercrombie or one of those other popular mall stores. They ran small, meaning I would have had to buy a large shirt in order to cover up my B cups enough to be “appropriate.” There were no plus size options.

My sister and I found this strange, even back then, when we were high school students at a Baptist school, still fully immersed in purity culture. I still wore a “True Love Waits” ring and used safety pins to alter any immodest clothing, and even then I was starting to learn that modesty—in the church culture I was raised in—isn’t simply about “covering up.” It’s about being a certain kind of woman, in order to serve the desires of certain kinds of men.

 Read the rest at No Shame Movement!