00:00:00 Mattie Jo: I felt I had no value. Deep inside, I hated myself and I was super insecure because I believed that the reason I was still single, that I wasn't getting chosen to be anyone's wife, that I was doing bad in auditions, was all because I was being punished because I was no longer pure. And so then, if you have no self trust, you have no identity, how can you have any self esteem? And then what do you do? You get in relationships with men who treat you poorly because you don't believe that you deserve anything better?

00:00:34 Jeromy: If purity culture was supposed to protect us, why did it leave so many of us carrying shame and wounds today? Mattie Jo Kolstad and I talked about what purity culture actually did to our bodies, our relationships and our understanding of God, and we don't tiptoe around it. Just a heads up, this conversation includes sexual content. Hey everyone, I am excited today to have Mattie Jo Cowsert on the podcast. She is the author of God, sex and Rich people, I guess in that order, right?

00:01:12 Mattie Jo: Always.

00:01:14 Jeromy: It was funny. My teenage daughter saw the book sitting on the table and she's like, good sex and rich people are so close. So close. There's one less.

00:01:28 Mattie Jo: Oh, but it's like, dad, what are you reading?

00:01:33 Jeromy: Seriously? Good sex with rich people. What? And then the, uh, the subtitle is a Recovering Evangelical Testimony. We want to dive a little bit into your story, but a lot of what we're going to be looking at is the purity culture.

00:01:49 Mattie Jo: Yeah, there's a lot there. Yeah.

00:01:51 Jeromy: Well, let's start where you start. You open your book without pulling any punches. You're losing your virginity in New York while still literally wearing your purity ring that your dad gave you, right?

00:02:04 Mattie Jo: Um.

00:02:05 Jeromy: That is a very powerful image. So can you take us back there? Like what's happening inside of you at that moment? Okay, let me rephrase that.

00:02:13 Mattie Jo: I was going to say, well, not a lot. No spoilers.

00:02:19 Jeromy: What's happening in that moment? Uh, spiritually, emotionally, psychologically, because that's that's a lot that's going on right there.

00:02:26 Mattie Jo: Yeah.

00:02:27 Mattie Jo: You know what's so crazy is that, and I talk about this in my book, there's so much sex that I had that I actually don't remember. So to your, to your, uh, teenage daughter's point of like good sex and rich people. I certainly was not having good sex. Like, let's be clear, I, I was having a lot of sex, but I didn't remember a lot of the sex I was having because for various reasons, uh, sort of like, I think a trauma response of disassociating and this fear of intimacy, um, which I think is a lot of people do, which is why they use alcohol to solve and like dissociate with the alcohol. And I was also doing that and I was just so uncomfortable with all of it. Um, and it's so weird because it's like I say, I wanted to be having sex, but in like the abstract, like I was certainly excited to be having sex, but also not an active participant, which is a very interesting.

00:03:20 Mattie Jo: Dichotomy, right?

00:03:22 Mattie Jo: But contrastingly, when I was losing my virginity or having penetrative straight sex for the first time is probably a better way to put it. I, I remember everything, every detail, like I did not miss a thing. So I think it's because I didn't think I was gonna have sex that night, so I was just okay, fully present and ready to party. Yeah, where I was emotionally, spiritually at that time, I hadn't moved to New York yet. That was actually like six months before I moved to New York, but I was preparing to move to New York, and I had this low key, hadn't even really admitted it to myself, definitely hadn't told anybody else. I was considering it. A piece of my move to New York checklist, which was like, maybe I don't want to be a virgin when I move to New York. Once it kind of clicked that maybe I'm not gonna be married. You know, at that point I was like, I might not be married for like three more years, you know? And I'm like twenty two. And I'm like, it might take a while. Um, you know, but I knew that I wasn't gonna be getting married by the time I was twenty three. So I was like, maybe I just don't want this to be something that comes up every time I go on a date with guys. Like, I just kind of want to get it out of the way, you know?

00:04:35 Jeromy: Uh, the fact that you're a virgin coming up every time you go on a date with a guy. Yeah. Gotcha.

00:04:39 Mattie Jo: Because Basically what I realized is that, you know, I had this college boyfriend who I for sure thought we would get married because that's just what you do. You married your college sweetheart. You know, the boyfriends, the better. That's all part of purity culture as well. It was kind of like a competition to see, like, how few boyfriends you could have before one of them becomes your husband. And so.

00:05:00 Jeromy: Interesting.

00:05:01 Mattie Jo: The whole date to marry thing, like, you don't want to have too many dates. Like you wouldn't ever go out with someone unless they were marriage material. So I didn't date until college because I was like, well, there's no way I'm going to marry any of these guys from high school. Um, I mean, I did have like one boyfriend in high school, but I, I don't think I really thought we would get married.

00:05:23 Jeromy: I just like you weren't sure if he was husband material. Yeah.

00:05:26 Mattie Jo: No, actually, he was like, definitely husband material because I wouldn't have dated him if he wasn't.

00:05:31 Jeromy: That's true, that's true. My bad.

00:05:32 Mattie Jo: I didn't, uh. Yeah. Don't insult me. Uh, no. Um, but I didn't, I think like, I didn't really think I knew we'd probably like I'd go to college. He was a year younger than me and that like, it probably would end there. He also lived really far away. So there was like, probably isn't gonna work out. But I definitely thought I was gonna marry my college boyfriend. And then when we broke up late into my junior year of college, I was like, oh, now what do I do? I definitely didn't ever see a world where I wasn't married by very quickly after college. And so.

00:06:08 Jeromy: Yeah.

00:06:08 Mattie Jo: And then I realized, well, that's one of the big reasons I agreed to this whole no sex until marriage thing, because I was pretty sure I had a strong exit strategy, right? Like it was only a commitment for a time. But then once you surpassed that age where you're like, ah, how long is too long to be a virgin? Right? You get into like forty year old virgin territory, and I don't want to shame anyone for any sexual decisions they make around celibacy. But I will say consistently across the board, perhaps this is anecdotal, but I would I would be interested to see studies that maybe back this up. Uh, the age appropriate, developmentally appropriate, all of these things, sort of like ladder of sexual experiences. When you don't have any of those, you are a bit awkward. Like I just think that it makes you as a person. It makes you a little bit awkward. Like there's a, there's an aspect of your maturation that hasn't been able to evolve, that informs so much of who you are as a person and so much of your interpersonal connections that if you've like, siphoned off that entire part of yourself, you sort of become a little stunted in other parts of your life. That's what I've observed. And so anyways, I just didn't want to be that. I was like, I don't want to be in my thirties, still obsessed with sex because I've never had it. Yeah. And so anyways, this is a really, really long winded way to say I was still very much in the belief system, but I knew that I was about to sort of take this leap from Christian Midwestern culture to New York.

00:07:54 Jeromy: Secular.

00:07:55 Mattie Jo: Culture. And I had a hunch that this aspect of my devotion to the Lord was gonna have some pun intended friction. And so I was like, well, maybe if I just quietly do it, get it out of the way. I don't have to have sex again with someone until we are boyfriend girlfriend, like until I am in a committed relationship.

00:08:18 Jeromy: I gotcha, so it just kind of like, just check that box of the question comes up. It's like, oh yeah, of course I'm not pregnant, but you're still you still have that ethos of, I'm still going to save the most of myself for when I get married.

00:08:31 Mattie Jo: That was.

00:08:31 Jeromy: The extent. And you bring up you bring up the age thing. I was never spoken. But like, there's this unspoken expectation that, yeah, you graduate college and right around your early twenties. Definitely before twenty five as a good, strong, pure Christian, like you're married and you're starting to get on with life, which means kids, marriage, having kids. You had that too?

00:08:52 Mattie Jo: Yes. And I don't even think my parents considered that any of us would not be married by the time we're twenty five. Not that they were putting that pressure on us, necessarily. No, they just didn't know anybody who prioritized their career and didn't prioritize marriage. Like that wasn't part of one their culture. But also there, I think like their generational cohort just didn't do that. Even people who did prioritize their career, they were still married, like in or right after college. So I think that was just the expectation that my parents had for their kids. And, uh, yeah, and there was a big emphasis on marriage in my family. So I did not think that by moving to New York and becoming an actor, that I was there for making a choice away from that life, which is marriage. Kids. I'm never, not, never. It started. The wheels started to turn. But when I made the choice to like, move to New York and that was the path I was going to take, I didn't actually think these things were going to be in that much conflict with one another.

00:10:02 Jeromy: Yeah, yeah, no, that totally makes sense. And so you grew up in the Midwest, right?

00:10:08 Mattie Jo: Yeah. In Missouri. Yeah.

00:10:10 Jeromy: Take us back there a little bit of just growing up. Youngest of four pastor's kids, purity culture.

00:10:15 Mattie Jo: Yeah. So it's really interesting. My mom and dad, I say in my book, my roots in evangelicalism or as roots is my deep or as deep as my roots in America. Both of my great grandfathers were Baptist pastors. Both of my grandfathers were Baptist pastors. My parents met at a Baptist summer camp. They then went to Baptist College together, and then my dad became a Baptist pastor.

00:10:38 Jeromy: So safe to say Baptist?

00:10:40 Mattie Jo: Yes. Very Baptist. You know, I was sort of on the tail end of my dad's Baptist tour. I will say being the youngest, my older siblings would for sure have a different story to regale. Okay. But for me, my younger years were spent in sort of traditional churches. So we spent a lot of time, you know, playing in the sanctuary, pretending we're swimming in the baptismal, you know? Um, but, but definitely by junior high, we had moved out of that world and into the non denom world.

00:11:14 Jeromy: Gotcha.

00:11:15 Mattie Jo: Very novel. And so contemporary and modern and exciting. You know, we hadn't been to churches like this. So that was really exciting. My dad took a bit of a hiatus from lead pastoral positions, but definitely really big in the, in the community, like everybody knows who Mark Hazzard is still to this day. And so there were pressures for sure. But I think actually more of the pressure came from the culture. It was like it was the cool thing to do to be a Christian. But there was this pressure in that it was a small town. So everybody sort of always watching you. And since it was like the cool thing to do, to be pure and to be really active in your church, it kind of gave you status to do that. Um, and so it wasn't hard for me to fall into that. I mean, I don't think that kids develop moral compasses by accident. I do think it is something that like parents really have to be intentional about. And in my family, I really do feel like we learned a lot about a God of love and compassion. And so I was getting it a lot at home around the pillars that ultimately caused me to deconstruct. And so, you know, empathy. Showing up for the vulnerable. Standing up for those who can't stand up for themselves. Don't gossip. The faith I learned at home was more based in like, Proverbs than it really was like evangelical Christianity. But then the culture at large, I was definitely getting evangelical Christianity. Like there's all of this, like Christians are so persecuted. Oh, like that line in Super Chick. Like it's never popular to be pure. I'm like, it was where I grew up. Yeah. Like, so it wasn't it wasn't that wasn't difficult.

00:13:02 Jeromy: Yeah. It was just the water you guys swam in. It was the, the fishbowl. You don't even realize it until you leave.

00:13:08 Mattie Jo: Yeah, until you go to an aquarium.

00:13:11 Jeromy: Yeah.

00:13:11 Mattie Jo: And you're like, whoa.

00:13:13 Jeromy: There's like, sharks and tuna and octopi. Yeah, exactly.

00:13:18 Mattie Jo: Yeah, exactly. There are things other than goldfish in the world. Yeah.

00:13:23 Jeromy: I know you mentioned in your book part of the reason why you kind of gave your life to Jesus, which I think the reason why a lot of people do is because you're afraid of choking on a gummy bear and going to hell. Yeah.

00:13:34 Mattie Jo: Which is the anxiety.

00:13:36 Jeromy: Such an honest, like, it's like, that's really what it's thinking about. Like there's this gummy bear doesn't go down all the way. I don't want to go there, but it doesn't sound like much of your faith was rooted in fear. It sounds like, especially with your parents, it was more rooted in love. Would that be accurate?

00:13:51 Mattie Jo: You know, that's the thing is like. Yes. And because certainly the impetus for me becoming saved, saved in the minivan, which is where I got saved.

00:14:02 Jeromy: Awesome.

00:14:03 Mattie Jo: I was just like, oh, my grandma died and I don't want to die and go to hell. And so can I get saved so I can go to heaven with Grandma Jojo. Like that's really where my brain was. And yes, choke on a gummy bear. Or like I, you know, every time I lied about brushing my teeth and things like this, you know, I was like, you know, I say like, my image was literally that once I got saved, Jesus would come and live in my heart. Rent free. Chillin. Watching soap operas. Until I sinned. At which case he would like. Jump to his feet. Do his Holy Spirit magic powers to make me like feel bad. Yeah. And then I'll stop sinning. Cause I feel bad. Because Jesus is in my heart. That is how I pictured it. And so if Jesus is in my heart, I'll sin less.

00:14:44 Jeromy: Gotcha.

00:14:45 Mattie Jo: If I sin less, I won't go to hell. So.

00:14:48 Jeromy: So it's almost like he was watching you from your heart. Like a like a jail guard.

00:14:53 Mattie Jo: Yeah. But like then you. But then all you hear is like Jesus died for you. Because he loves you. Because he loves you. Because he loves you. And they like, you know, make the the smiley white Jesus with the mullet. And he's so beautiful. And he looks very disarming, you know, so it's like very confusing messages looking back. Yeah. But I would say the, the, the faith that like, I felt I really chose was sort of social justice warrior Jesus. He was the Jesus who was for the vulnerable, who was for those who couldn't help themselves. There's a huge focus on service in my church.

00:15:28 Jeromy: Um, good, good.

00:15:29 Mattie Jo: But like, there was all of that and all of this good stuff that I was getting at home and all the other stuff too, about purity, culture and this idea of like earning blessings and like, oh, he's, he's unconditionally loving. He's unconditionally loving. Uh, but if you're not a Christian, he's going to send you to hell, you know? So I did have this moment where when I was deconstructing where I was like, you know, I thought my faith was founded in love, but actually all of it is, is founded on fear. If I can really. Yeah, really like zoom out. The ultimate fear I have in all of this is going to hell.

00:16:08 Jeromy: Yeah.

00:16:09 Mattie Jo: Yeah. Very effective marketing tool.

00:16:12 Jeromy: I mean, yeah, yeah.

00:16:14 Mattie Jo: Right. You're definitely gonna. I think Brian Rucker says in his book hellbent where if you, you know, if you don't do all of this, the punishment is, is eternal suffering. Those are pretty high stakes, right? And we just want to like, especially contemporary Christianity wants to just like brush over that wants to just, you know, kind of like brush over it. Oh, yeah. But like, like, I remember my church used to say, um, it's not about eternal suffering burning, it's the absence of God and how painful that will be. That's what it is, the God. So God is going to just extract himself from you as punishment for not choosing him on earth. Like, I don't know, it was all just very. The stakes are, at the end of the day, the stakes are very high for not being a Christian and not following the teachings of Christianity.

00:17:06 Jeromy: Do you ever see that cartoon? It shows Jesus like knocking at a door, and it's kind of like a pun on a real cartoon strip. Jesus, knock on the door and this guy, like cracks the door open and Jesus is like, let me in. And the guy's like, well, why? So I can save you. Save me from what? From what I'm going to do to you if you don't let me in, right?

00:17:27 Mattie Jo: Exactly.

00:17:28 Jeromy: That was the gospel message. In fact, we were talking before we got on the whole bridge analogy. For those of you guys who aren't familiar with this, it's there's this cliff on one side, a cliff on the other side a chasm. And I would draw the flames down.

00:17:43 Mattie Jo: The chasm.

00:17:43 Jeromy: Because it was the depth of.

00:17:45 Mattie Jo: Your sin.

00:17:46 Jeromy: The depths of your sins are gonna burn. And then you would draw a cross that would fit right in between those two cliffs. And you would say, This is Jesus. And we would write on napkins. You said someone, right?

00:17:59 Mattie Jo: I said, like, you got it was it was like a competition of who's most committed to Christ, of like, what are the most obscure objects you've used to demonstrate the bridge analogy? And one girl said she used a lip liner on a napkin. And I was like, oh, commitment.

00:18:16 Jeromy: Totally. Like you are. So yeah, you're so pure. But wait. But when you're in it, it does feel like love. It does feel like purity. It does feel like you're giving yourself to this, this thing that's very pure. In fact, you wrote you not only wore your ring while you were losing your virginity, but you also wore it proudly and you meant it. So did purity culture. It felt sincere and meaningful at the time.

00:18:38 Mattie Jo: Yeah. And ultimate and it was, I think ultimately, you know, I, I do say this, I'm glad I waited, I until I did, I'm glad I didn't wait until marriage, but, um.

00:18:50 Jeromy: Yeah.

00:18:51 Mattie Jo: But I'm really glad I waited until I was twenty two. I was old enough, I was emotionally mature enough. I knew like my frontal lobe was almost developed, you know, like, oh, so close, so close. Yeah. I was, I was a young adult on my own. So I could do things like go to Planned Parenthood and ask questions. And I just think if I would have been, you know, fifteen, Sixteen. Doing that, I don't know that that is the right time to be having sex. I always say like, I'm glad I really lived such a wholesome high school experience. Me and my friends had so much fun together and we didn't drink. We did other illegal shit like breaking, breaking and entering because.

00:19:36 Jeromy: Cool.

00:19:37 Mattie Jo: Um, yeah. You know?

00:19:38 Jeromy: Yeah.

00:19:39 Mattie Jo: Yeah. Branson had a lot of hotels and a lot of theaters. So like, we tried to break into the theaters when they were like off season or we'd like go to the pools at the hotels and we weren't supposed to.

00:19:49 Jeromy: Okay. So, you know, so what would you do in the theater during off season? Like what kind of shenanigans redoing in an off season theater? Yeah, just.

00:19:58 Mattie Jo: Just, you know, the, the, the, I don't know, the excitement of being somewhere you're not supposed to be, right? Like, yeah, we would break into, um, Branson had a theme park called Celebration City. We'd break into celebration city off season. And like, it was so dangerous too. Looking back, I'm like, we were like walking on the roller coasters.

00:20:20 Jeromy: Oh, geez.

00:20:21 Mattie Jo: What? I know, but no drinking and driving. We weren't doing that. And no one protected sex. We weren't doing that, but we were doing other dangerous shit. But we did have a lot of fun. Yeah.

00:20:31 Jeromy: Okay. You know, you're a great theater kid. If you're breaking it to just a theater for your kicks. Yeah, look at the stage like.

00:20:40 Mattie Jo: Well, there was also a water park called White Water, and we got these, like, giant cubes of ice, like from a gas station or something. And we sat on them and went down like the giant water slides. Like, where did we come up with this stuff?

00:20:56 Jeromy: Nothing could go wrong there.

00:20:57 Mattie Jo: Nothing. Absolutely nothing. But we did a lot of fun. We did.

00:21:02 Jeromy: We were bored.

00:21:03 Mattie Jo: We didn't have.

00:21:04 Jeromy: iPhones to just sit there and we had to go do stuff. I know, awesome.

00:21:10 Mattie Jo: Oh, and it was also like, you know, the height of jackass. So I think all of.

00:21:14 Jeromy: Us were.

00:21:14 Mattie Jo: Just like ready to hurt ourselves for the thrill of it. But yeah, so I really am grateful that I, I was a kid when I was supposed to be a kid. Yeah. And I really did mean the commitment in that it was important to me to like, only connect sexually with guys who meant something to me emotionally. Like I think that was at the core of it. Right. But obviously it was so much. Well, maybe not. Obviously it wasn't obvious to me. It was so much more because it was so much of my identity. Was the girl with the purity ring who's a virgin? Yeah. And then if I'm not those things, what does it I don't even know who I am outside of those things. And it's just kind of a domino effect.

00:21:57 Jeromy: What did what did the purity culture quietly take from you? Oh.

00:22:02 Mattie Jo: Self-esteem.

00:22:03 Jeromy: HMM. Tell me more about that.

00:22:05 Mattie Jo: Big.

00:22:05 Jeromy: one.

00:22:06 Mattie Jo: In evangelicalism. Right. There are just all of these rules and you're sort of just always outsourcing your self-trust to something else. And for example, you can't trust yourself to make your own sexual ethics. So you have to do what God says. And if you don't do what God says, here are all of these dangerous things that can happen to you. And it sort of becomes like a self-fulfilling prophecy because purity culture doesn't equip you with like education around sexuality. They don't.

00:22:38 Jeromy: Know.

00:22:38 Mattie Jo: It doesn't with how to, to how to trust your in fact, it teaches you the opposite. Like don't trust your impulses. So even if you feel like you are in danger or if someone's giving you the ick, you don't trust that you stuff it down because a lot of times, like they want women in particular, not. And no, I won't just say it's women, it's men to particularly young boys, people in vulnerable positions. They want them to not feel as though they have a voice. So I feel like I didn't know how to trust myself at all. And then when I moved to New York. So I didn't have that skill set. Um, so if you can't trust yourself, then you don't really, why even bother getting to know yourself? And why even bother getting to know yourself when you were born bad and you need God to save you and anything that is for fun or of you, of like your personal desires is probably wrong. So you need to replace that with whatever God says is right and particularly in purity culture. Um, for me, once I moved to New York and I didn't really know if I identified as a Christian and I was definitely having sex before marriage and I was doing all of these things that were like big, big, no nos. Well, since that was the only barometer in which I could gauge my value and I no longer had those things, I felt I had no value.

00:24:11 Jeromy: Interesting.

00:24:11 Mattie Jo: And so I really hated myself. I was this really strange combination of like, so excitable and elated for all of this newness, while also also like deep inside, I hated myself and I was super insecure because I believed that the reason I was still single, that I wasn't getting chosen to be anyone's wife, that I was doing bad in auditions, was all because I was being punished because I was no longer pure.

00:24:37 Jeromy: Gosh.

00:24:38 Mattie Jo: And so then, if you have no self-trust, you have no identity. How can you have any self esteem?

00:24:45 Jeromy: Yeah.

00:24:46 Mattie Jo: And then what do you do? You get in relationships with men who treat you poorly because you don't believe that you deserve anything better?

00:24:55 Jeromy: Gosh, what a domino effect. Yeah, yeah. You don't think about it because you're you're raised not to trust your intuition. You're raised not to trust your voice. You're raised that you are evil and wicked and vile. But there's one thing that you have going for you is your purity. And then that's gone. So now you have nothing.

00:25:15 Mattie Jo: Really quickly, what people who didn't grow up in it don't realize is it's not just about the P and the V, it's not about that. I say in my book, this extends past your hymen.

00:25:24 Jeromy: The penis and the vagina.

00:25:25 Mattie Jo: Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. Clarity. The penis and the vagina. It's not just about intercourse. It's not like once I had intercourse, I thought everything about me was gone. No, it was the. It was all of it because it extends past your hymen to your heart. To your head. What are you thinking? What are you feeling? How are you living your life? And once I took a hard left away from purity culture, and I was in fact doing the polar opposite of a lot of that, I was drinking with my friends, I was partying, I was living it up in New York City, going on Tinder dates. I was doing all the things with non-Christians. Oh my God. Well then, yeah, I was definitely not pure. I was the opposite. And so then you. How do you have any self esteem?

00:26:09 Jeromy: Which makes sense if you're not feeling great about yourself, if you don't have a self esteem because it's kind of been not developed. If you don't trust your voice. Yeah, it kind of leads to that. So almost the thing that the church feared the most, it creates because this is not a story that is unique. I imagine we can get woman after woman after woman and man after man after man on this podcast and share stories almost exactly like this. You did have strict boundaries, didn't you say? Like there was no masturbation, there was no crop tops?

00:26:43 Mattie Jo: Um, yeah. No.

00:26:44 Jeromy: No dating without marriage.

00:26:46 Speaker 5: Belly button exposure.

00:26:48 Jeromy: Or spaghetti straps?

00:26:49 Speaker 5: Yeah, definitely not too much.

00:26:50 Jeromy: Of your your shoulder showing. I guess.

00:26:53 Speaker 5: I'm.

00:26:54 Mattie Jo: Rebelling.

00:26:55 Jeromy: No, but I remember my youth group, uh, we had a very serious talk. I remember we were outside. It was in a small groups because in youth groups you have small groups. So you have the guys and girls separated. We're having a little sex talk, right?

00:27:08 Speaker 5: Of course, I remember.

00:27:09 Jeromy: Um, my small group leader saying masturbation is evil. It is bad. So now you're you're these young kids, you're teenagers. You have all these urges, all these desires, right? Just physically, biologically speaking. But you can't do a single thing with it. You can't masturbate, you can't have sex. You can't you can't do anything. That's the framework that helped you understand your body, your sexuality and desire. How did that shape you? And like when you finally stepped out of the rules, did you feel liberated or or lost? I think you were saying you felt a little bit like you lost yourself.

00:27:45 Mattie Jo: Yeah, that's what's crazy is I think I felt both like I, I felt both simultaneously. I felt all of it, you know, I remember leaving, losing my virginity. You're supposed to leave that and feel deeply ashamed and feel like.

00:28:01 Speaker 5: You.

00:28:02 Mattie Jo: Have just done the worst possible thing. You have ruined your life. What is your future husband gonna think of you, you nasty slut? And I left that experience and I was like, I am so glad I did that. And we're just talking strictly anatomy, okay? Something they don't tell you in purity culture is that some bodies just don't go together. Basically, the message we got about bodies working together was like, if you love the Lord, um, particularly if you were me, if you both love the Lord and woman, if you've saved yourself, you're going to be like super tight. So everything is going to feel good. That's essentially what they told us.

00:28:43 Jeromy: Okay.

00:28:44 Speaker 5: Um.

00:28:45 Mattie Jo: Yeah, great. Great for the men. Right. Um. All men's. Amen. It'll it'll just feel amazing.

00:28:50 Speaker 5: Um, yeah, because.

00:28:51 Jeromy: They go like, don't worry about it. You'll be compatible. She has a vagina. You have a penis. You're compatible. That's literally the message I got. Like, don't worry about it.

00:28:57 Mattie Jo: All it takes. Well, even just in that first time having sex, I was like, That wasn't true. I thought I was gonna bleed all over the place. I thought I was gonna, and I didn't feel anything not to, like, you know, dick shame this guy, but I was just like, what if I'd married that? What if I had no idea if our bodies work together or not? Yeah. And that. And I and I had never even heard that. Maybe they wouldn't. Maybe. And then you just go, what? Your whole marriage gaslighting yourself being like, yeah, I our bodies are not compatible in marriage.

00:29:35 Jeromy: In that marriage, you probably would just think, well, this is just how sex feels because you don't have any other comparison. Yeah. Like, oh, well, I thought it was gonna be more than this.

00:29:42 Mattie Jo: Yeah. And also, just like, you have no comparison. And that was the same for me, you know, with this guy, there was no run up. It was just kind of like, let's French kiss and then have sex. And I was like, wait, where's where's the foreplay? Like, is aren't there a few other steps here I walked away from that experience thinking, I'm so glad I did that because I felt like it. It taught me so much truth that I had been lied to about sex just by doing it. One the the incompatibilities to the process. Like I do think a lot of guys in their twenties have sex exactly that way. And I was like, well, that didn't feel good for me. I would like sex to go differently. And then also I didn't feel different. I didn't feel like a new person. I didn't feel dirty. I didn't feel used. They also would say like, you know, every person you have sex with, you are going to be emotionally attached to for the rest of your life. I was like, I could literally never see this guy ever again. And I would not give two shits.

00:30:46 Jeromy: Like the ghosts. Like the ghosts of all your sex past would show up in your. The sex ghosts show up in your bed every single time. So like, what are all these twenty guys doing surrounding me or whatever?

00:30:59 Speaker 6: Oh my gosh. So that's not.

00:31:01 Jeromy: True is what you're saying?

00:31:02 Mattie Jo: Yeah, that what I'm saying is that's not true. Like I. I was so I remember thinking like. I didn't even have sex with my college boyfriend in the, you know, straight people, penis, vagina intercourse. But like, I feel so much more emotionally tied to him. And I was emotionally tied to him for years and we never had intercourse. So this is not true. Intercourse alone does not, uh, attach you to someone for forever. Like it's just not true. And so I was really, really happy and I was, I felt liberated every time I had an experience that my church told me was going to go another way. And it went different. I was like, glad I did that. And, but I also felt like lost and afraid and scared of going to hell. And like I was disappointing God and everything in my life up until that point. Going back to like having to outsource everything. Everything in my life was a system of reward and punishment. So if you behave a certain way, you'll get a reward. If you behave another way, you get a punishment. So I really thought everything bad that was happening in my life was a result of me not choosing to live a Christ like life.

00:32:16 Jeromy: Yeah, well, obviously it was correct.

00:32:20 Speaker 6: I say. I'm like, I've.

00:32:22 Mattie Jo: Still never been in a Broadway show and I'm not married, so maybe I was on to something.

00:32:26 Jeromy: So I mean, there it is. Okay. Hey, everyone. Thanks for listening. Mattie. Jo. Awesome. We have now established that punishment is equal to behavior.

00:32:36 Speaker 6: Although I will say like, I mean, I know you're.

00:32:38 Mattie Jo: Just kidding, but those aren't even like, those were also just sort of like packaged rewards that someone had given me. They weren't things I necessarily chose. So.

00:32:52 Jeromy: And all these and all these things that you said you were feeling right, like you were starting to feel the shame or God punish me, or those weren't just natural feelings. Those were externally imposed feelings that people had put on you your entire life. I think that was one of the things with my deconstruction journey was, you know, because a big part in deconstruction, a lot of what you believe just crumbles and you feel like the entire foundation of your faith and your belief in God, in your life, it's just being disintegrated. And what I found was God was still there, just so much bigger and more beautiful and better than I ever could have imagined. But you're told that that foundation that they have been, that they have given you is everything.

00:33:40 Speaker 6: Mhm. Mhm.

00:33:41 Jeromy: It's everything. And so once you start losing that, you realize, gosh, so many of the things that they said simply are not true.

00:33:50 Mattie Jo: Yeah. Yeah.

00:33:51 Jeromy: So if this is not true, what else is not true.

00:33:55 Mattie Jo: Right? Yeah, I think that's for a lot of acting.

00:33:59 Jeromy: Trope.

00:33:59 Mattie Jo: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. The. Yes.

00:34:01 Jeromy: And what else is true? Yeah. Yes. And so what are some things that you did because you said you mentioned deconstruction. You mentioned that you kind of went through that. It wasn't just obviously sexually deconstruction, but it was faith. And what were some of the things that that you did to help heal and recover, not only from growing up in purity culture, but also just from religion? And then maybe what advice would you give listeners that grew up in that purity culture?

00:34:28 Mattie Jo: Yeah. So it's funny because, um, I have people in my DMs a lot that ask me questions along these lines. And I had someone recently, um, ask me about this, uh, idea of being equally yoked and if I could direct her to Scripture that to an extent goes against that like is in like doesn't support this idea of the equally yoked that we were. And for listeners who don't know what that means, it basically just means you have to be the exact same kind of Christian or your marriage will be doomed. Um, and so she was telling me, you know, I'm dating a guy who's agnostic and my family's kind of giving me a hard time about it, but we've been together for a while and he wants to propose. What do you think about this? And is there a scripture you could refer me to? What I tell people who ask me questions along those lines, and also this one is that it's not about what does Scripture say? It's how do you read Scripture? And, you know, it's not as easy as they taught us, which is what the Scripture say about this. It is like going into an old ass house that now has black mold. You have to go in and just burn it all down into the foundation and start anew and relearn every single part of, of the foundation. And, that was what I had to do. Because again, if this isn't true, what else isn't true? And because I was taught to Revere scripture and hold it in such high esteem, I was like, okay, then let's lean all the way in. I am going to take Scripture seriously. And so I really started studying it. I say I got really didactic about it, like I was buying textbooks that I knew like Union Divinity Columbias Divinity school was using. Um, and I just started educating myself on textual criticism, history of the Bible outside of church. Like what, what is just like straight up history? And what I found is that this is an incredibly vast topic, which is why people spend their entire lives committed to studying it and they learn Greek and, you know, all of the ancient texts so that they can read the original scrolls that they can. You know, there's so much there. And to think that like from the local community college is like leading churches. I mean, no hate on community colleges, but you know what I mean? Like, there are people who have their masters and their PhDs and have committed their whole lives to learning ancient languages so that they can understand this stuff. And then you've just got the flippancy of whatever. Mark Driscoll and it's like, so gross. Um, and so I had to relearn how to understand scripture and how to read scripture. And, um, that was a big one for me because once I learned that talk about liberation, I was like, so I don't have to believe any of this shit. It's like, how much of it could actually, you know, like, it just is not true that you have to be a Christian to go to heaven. Like that is just not true. Um, but what can the Bible teach us? Just because parts of it are fiction doesn't mean that there isn't truth in it. So like, like mind for the truth. But again, you have to change the lens in which you read scripture. So that was a big one for me. And then.

00:37:56 Jeromy: That's huge.

00:37:56 Mattie Jo: Educating myself just straight up brass taxes on sex education. Um, I went to Planned Parenthood and I just asked a lot of questions because I didn't know anything. And I remember one of the nurses told me.

00:38:10 Jeromy: So they just told you just just have abortions.

00:38:13 Mattie Jo: Yeah, right.

00:38:14 Jeromy: That's definitely that's all they say. That's all they talk about is right.

00:38:18 Mattie Jo: Oh my.

00:38:18 Jeromy: Abortions.

00:38:19 Mattie Jo: I could go on and on about how amazing Planned Parenthood is and how it saved my life. And I even have a, a blog series because this part didn't make it into my book because I just felt like it was going to be a whole book entirely. But about when I was sexually assaulted and I went to Planned Parenthood because I was like, where's the one safe place in New York City that I can get tested and ended? And I went to get tested. And instead they sent me up with a doctor, a social worker, a therapist. They gave me all of the medications that I needed. They set me up with HIV testing for the following year. Like I still see the therapist they link me with to this day. He's the he's the quote on the back of my book. Um.

00:39:05 Jeromy: That's cool.

00:39:06 Mattie Jo: That's Planned Parenthood and but no, no, it's that abortion place. Um, yeah. And yeah, and I remember.

00:39:12 Jeromy: Because what would a church have done had you gone to them with, hey, I just got sexually abused.

00:39:16 Mattie Jo: They'd be like, why were you in his apartment? Why were you drinking? Um, why, why were you even kissing someone who's wasn't your husband? What did you do to make that happen?

00:39:28 Jeromy: What were you wearing?

00:39:29 Mattie Jo: What were you wearing? Yeah. Well, what did you think was gonna happen? You were in his apartment and you guys had been drinking. I'm like, I don't know, people take shits in apartments. A lot of things happen in apartments that aren't rape all the time, you know? But until you're in that situation, you don't even know. And that was pre me too. That was pre all of that. So I didn't even have like again, like the language that I have for it. Now. I didn't have that at the time, but I had Planned Parenthood.

00:39:56 Jeromy: And you just knew like they gave you what you needed. They gave you. Yeah. Like actual, I mean, you just listed four or five things that were tremendously helpful. And from what I hear, they built trust in you. Like you learned to trust them to the point where like, that's going to be your go to.

00:40:12 Mattie Jo: And I used them as like my care for gynecological needs for years up until like two years ago. Um, because I just knew I could go there and get taken care of and I wasn't going to get the runaround. Yeah. So I, it was, it was scripture, it was educating myself by asking questions. And then it was a lot of baptism by fire. It was a lot of trial and error.

00:40:36 Jeromy: Yeah. For sure. For sure. Yeah. And giving yourself to, like you said, giving yourself permission to ask those questions. What is hell? And why did three hundred dudes that were called together by the Emperor at his palace choose the Bible that we have? And then here we have. So you start unfurling all those things which they do teach you in.

00:40:55 Mattie Jo: Seminary.

00:40:56 Jeromy: But you never hear. Well, I'm not saying never. It's rare that you will hear a pastor talk about those things from a pulpit, because that's not the goal.

00:41:05 Mattie Jo: That's so funny you say that because that was one of the biggest, um, disagreements that my dad and I had. I don't know if he would still. Yeah. I don't know if he would still say this. He would probably have a different answer now. But I remember learning just about the Trinity. Okay. Have this bit in my book where I'm like, there's texts that support Jesus as fully human. There's texts that support Jesus as fully spirit, and then, you know, some. And so they're kind of talking about like, what do we want the Catholic Church as a whole? What's our stance going to be? Some guy in the back is like, can we just throw it all together and break for lunch? Seriously, that's how we got the Trinity, you know, and like, because Jesus was not fully human and fully God in a lot of the texts, particularly the Gnostics, right? They didn't the Gnostics didn't even believe he was human.

00:41:52 Jeromy: Um, yeah, some.

00:41:53 Mattie Jo: Felt.

00:41:54 Jeromy: Like. Yeah, yeah.

00:41:55 Mattie Jo: So I was like, yeah, dad, that's kind of important information for a congregation to know. I was like, didn't you learn that in school? And he was like, yeah, it's like, no, you didn't think that was something to talk about or.

00:42:09 Jeromy: Or how homosexual was translated later on. And that's not even a word in the Bible or like all the different words of hell and their different meaning. And you don't think that's important to talk about and to share, but.

00:42:21 Mattie Jo: For all the matriarchal, um, uh, texts that didn't make it and you know, what are the contemporaries of the contemporary texts of the Bible that didn't make it in and why? And they do this whole like, you know, what the, the scripture we have is God breathed. And I'm like, the Catholics have a different Bible. It can't all be God breathed. But I didn't even know that. I didn't know the Catholics had a different Bible. I learned that once I started to like, I dated a Catholic, but it was stuff like that. That.

00:42:49 Jeromy: Is that your next book?

00:42:50 Mattie Jo: Inconsistent?

00:42:52 Jeromy: Yeah, I dated a Catholic.

00:42:53 Mattie Jo: I dated a Catholic. Here's what happened. Um, yeah, so it's it's stuff like that that like, I, I don't know, I think you have to get through, you have to get through some of that stuff that's like really ongoing and kind of a spiral. And then it's just a process. It's not overnight because deconstruction involves your nervous system. You know, it's cellular. So, so much of it just needs time to kind of percolate and permeate. And that can't be forced. You're just kind of kind of have it. I mean, I remember the first time I like woke up and I wasn't afraid or didn't feel guilt about not reading my Bible first thing in the morning. And I was like, man. And that probably took me like two years in New York at least to get to that point.

00:43:45 Jeromy: Or not going to church.

00:43:46 Mattie Jo: Or not going to church. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Now I don't feel guilty at all for not going to church, but like it was a long time before I didn't feel guilty about that. Yeah.

00:43:56 Jeromy: So what do you still hold on to?

00:44:01 Mattie Jo: Ah, I like I said, I think I, I'm like a, a Christian of the Proverbs more than anything. Like I read it back and I'm like, yeah, I think that is like a lot of these are really good fundamentals. There's so much in the proverbs about helping the needy. There's so much in Proverbs about good leadership that I read now. And I'm like, have the Christians not been reading their proverbs? Um, and what it means to like, don't gossip, you know, like things like this. And I read the proverbs every day growing up because there are thirty one so it's a really easy like daily.

00:44:36 Jeromy: Uh, I heard that.

00:44:37 Mattie Jo: To read and I.

00:44:38 Jeromy: Can see that was clever. Yeah. Yeah.

00:44:41 Mattie Jo: Right. So every day, no matter what you can, you can read a proverb. You know, that's what I was taught. And not for nothing. That was that was a good thing for me to be absorbing. And, you know, it took me a long time to even call myself a Christian again. But there are these aspects of the Christian faith that maybe it's just because of how I was raised, but there is an element of spirituality that is tied to Jesus for me, because the Jesus that I grew to know is a Jesus that speaks to the tendencies of the human experience that are the most healing and the most harmful. So if you want to look through the framework of sin and sanctification, this is not a new idea. Yin and yang is literally as ancient as it gets, and we all contain it. We contain all of it. Just baseline Jesus saying, love your enemies. Like that gets to the biggest flaw of the human condition, which is our tribalism.

00:45:47 Jeromy: Yeah. Seriously.

00:45:49 Mattie Jo: If you can disrupt our tribalism, what else is possible? And that's what leads into the healing, right? And he again, how he dealt with the Pharisees and the Sadducees and how he was saying, you guys are weaponizing your influence to hurt. And I'm going to call it out these things. Um, how he treated women, how he treated the marginalized, how he, he was, he knew the human condition were obsessed with status. He was always disrupting status. Right? It's like when I look at Jesus, I'm like, he's doing all of the things that every human across history struggles with. Yeah. That is what is appealing to me about Jesus. You know, when I use this example a lot. When Charlie Kirk was shot, I did not have a very Christ like response. And I thought to myself, this is why I want to be like Jesus. I want to be the kind of person who, while understanding that Charlie Kirk inflicted a lot of pain and a lot of harm on like a huge level, he is still a human who didn't deserve to die at the hand of gun violence. Um, and I didn't have that response. I was like, poetic justice, motherfucker. And that is horrible. But that's why I think that's what we should be striving for. Um, and yeah, and also just the, the relationality, I guess, of how Jesus really poured into his community and his people. I think that really speaks hugely to the human condition as well in terms of what hurts and what heals us. So these are the things I aspire to, and I am honest enough to say I'm not always the best out there. I'm not there. But that's why. That's why that's a God that I Revere because I'm not that. But I also don't believe that like Jesus is the Messiah. So it's confusing.

00:47:58 Jeromy: Yeah. But he doesn't have to be right necessarily to, to be influential, right? I love how you put it like it's three words love your enemy.

00:48:08 Mattie Jo: Yeah.

00:48:10 Jeromy: If those three words saturated our culture in the world in a way that actually, like everyone just lived by those.

00:48:18 Mattie Jo: Yeah.

00:48:19 Jeromy: Done. Like what problems are there? I feel like there's none anymore because everything is now just like we're just humans. Let's just love our enemies. Yeah, with Charlie Kirk. And in our view, our enemies are hurting people. Our enemies are causing destruction. Our enemies are ruining things. So it doesn't matter what your enemy is. Because no matter what side you're on, those things are all true in your mind about your enemy.

00:48:47 Mattie Jo: Mhm.

00:48:48 Jeromy: Exactly how do we love them? But it's so hard and so hard in practice.

00:48:55 Mattie Jo: Love your enemies. Anything. It kind of fixes it to your point. It's not easy. You know, the saying and acting is, um. It's simple, but it isn't easy. Um, acting is just being human. But that's really hard to do with a script in hand and, you know, and learning a script and when they're not words that you would speak and all right, it's simple, but it isn't easy. I think it's the same with with love your enemies.

00:49:21 Jeromy: Gosh. So true. So Jesus and Proverbs, that's, that's where.

00:49:24 Mattie Jo: Jesus in Proverbs. Yeah. And Jesus.

00:49:27 Jeromy: And Proverbs.

00:49:27 Mattie Jo: I think even, even Jesus, I like want to do a deeper dive on that because I know Jesus, it isn't like flawless, he said. You know, there are things that he people claim, he said, that I'm kind of like, what? But I want to dig a little bit more into that because we do get, especially in progressive Christianity, we get the social justice warrior Jesus. And, um, but he was other things too. Uh, and I'd like to read into those.

00:49:54 Jeromy: And I don't think we'll, you know, and we'll never fully know like who Jesus actually was. Like, I just think that's an impossible thing. Um, I don't think we'll ever get to like who he is, but I think that there's enough there that that can really inspire us.

00:50:09 Mattie Jo: The sacrifice of Jesus and, and the resurrection always had this focus on, you know, again, God loved you so much that he sacrificed his only son. Like that's the ultimate form of love killing your child.

00:50:25 Jeromy: Yeah. And this is what your wickedness deserved.

00:50:28 Mattie Jo: And now I look at it and I'm like, first of all, that's so fucked up. I don't know how any no parent in the congregation was like, yeah, I guess I don't love anyone that much. I'd never kill my kid, you know? Like what? It's so bizarre. But that was the message. And now I look at it and I'm like, no, Jesus literally got murdered, brutally murdered for calling out systems of abuse and oppression. That is what is at risk when you stand for what is right.

00:50:59 Jeromy: Yeah. And having two slutty grace. Two slutty of grace.

00:51:03 Mattie Jo: Yeah. He's a little too universal. He it.

00:51:06 Jeromy: Yeah, a little too like giving it to people who don't deserve it.

00:51:10 Mattie Jo: Deserve it. Right. Even though we were told grace is for everyone, it's unconditional. That's the that's literally the definition of grace. And yet there were so many conditions.

00:51:19 Jeromy: Oh, and it's not by works.

00:51:20 Mattie Jo: Yeah. Definitely not.

00:51:21 Jeromy: It's not by anything that you can do. Not except for that prayer and your belief. But that's not.

00:51:27 Mattie Jo: And claiming Christianity and not having sex until you're married and not being gay. And is that all you do?

00:51:34 Jeromy: Yeah. Not being. Yeah, especially. Don't even get started on gay sex and how wicked and vile that is. Although it's funny because now, like when you have this, this mad rule of just like no sex, right? Then people get super creative.

00:51:48 Mattie Jo: Yeah.

00:51:49 Jeromy: Okay, well, sex is penis and vagina, so everything else flies. And you have, you know, was it back door sex now? It's like.

00:51:57 Mattie Jo: Yeah, back door. Virgin back door was never one of those. But a lot of.

00:52:01 Jeromy: And then, uh, what are the Mormons do? Are they just like, get some friends to bounce on a bed?

00:52:07 Mattie Jo: Yes. What is that? Soaking?

00:52:09 Jeromy: Soaking?

00:52:10 Mattie Jo: Because that's what it's called.

00:52:13 Jeromy: I don't know, I guess there's things like as long as you don't physically move your own muscles, then that doesn't count. But anyhow, and maybe that's maybe that's not even true. I guess we have to ask some Mormons to see.

00:52:25 Mattie Jo: So much effort to cook. Like just cook. Yeah, just have a cook chair. Uh, it's just so, so much effort for a workaround like that, I think.

00:52:34 Jeromy: But that's like when everything's based on rules and you're like, okay, well, I can get around the rules. I mean, look at our president, right? Like, we'll get around the rules. That's fine. We can do whatever we want and it doesn't matter.

00:52:43 Mattie Jo: I think that's why for me, I never felt I could really escape because it was always about my heart. It wasn't about, oh, it was always about like, what are you thinking? What are you feeling? It's not just about the actual doing. So like if you're lusting in your heart, you know, like, I never felt like I was never one of those Christians who was like, well, this is okay. Like, oh, it's if it's just about P and the V, then like, this is okay, this is okay. It was like every single thing I did, which now I would know it's because I have a personality trait of high conscientiousness. That's what my therapist said when I took the five personality test. Anyway, um, it's like everything I did, I had to examine it and decide, why am I doing this? Why do I think it's okay? Is it okay? Where's my heart? Behind it. Like everything had to have that sort of justification. And so I never felt like I could just do something simply because, like, oh, that hadn't been the one thing they said was off limits.

00:53:43 Jeromy: And that's what made you such a great Christian. Yeah, yeah.

00:53:47 Mattie Jo: Such a good Christian.

00:53:49 Jeromy: So fifteen year old Maddie.

00:53:52 Mattie Jo: Mhm.

00:53:53 Jeromy: Oh, she's wearing her purity ring. She meets you. The woman you are now. What would she misunderstand about you? And what would you say to her?

00:54:06 Mattie Jo: Yeah, I think she would misunderstand what a lot of Christians misunderstand about people who have deconstructed. And she would probably think like you have just abandoned your faith because you want to live in sin. Like she would look at my book, how free I am with my body. She'd look at me living in sin with a partner who I'm not married to. She'd be, you know, and she would just be like, you abandoned everything because you just wanted an excuse to sin and not feel guilty. To which I would say, yeah, don't you? Don't you want to sin and also not feel guilty? Like isn't that doesn't that sound like a very free way to live? But I think that she would vilify my freedom, and I would have to explain to her that freedom is what they're afraid of, because you will actually be so much happier, and you will experience a God that is so much bigger than what they are telling you. Yeah, they. And they don't want you to know that because they want to keep you and this God very small and confined. But that is not the God of the universe. And, um, and I would also just give her really, really, really big hugs because I feel for that version of myself. She was, she was going through a lot.

00:55:39 Jeromy: And for her to understand that you're not out there like seeking sin.

00:55:43 Mattie Jo: Yeah. Right.

00:55:44 Jeromy: But we're gonna do it and it's gonna happen. And then also, two of the things that we thought were sins were squishy for sure.

00:55:51 Mattie Jo: But yeah, I was gonna say that I actually feel like I sinned significantly less now that I've very much narrowed what I consider sin, you know?

00:55:59 Jeromy: Yeah, yeah. But then when you do like there's, there's not that guilt and shame. Yeah. You're just like, ah, I could have.

00:56:06 Mattie Jo: Done.

00:56:06 Jeromy: Better people.

00:56:07 Mattie Jo: And I want to do.

00:56:08 Jeromy: Better. Yeah, that hurt me. There's gonna be some consequences with this. Mhm. Right. I'm gonna have to dance with for a bit, but.

00:56:17 Mattie Jo: Yeah.

00:56:17 Jeromy: You're not going to hell.

00:56:18 Mattie Jo: Right? Right? And that's what I say. Like the things that make me feel like a sinner now are definitely not like sex. It's like, you know, I was running really, really late for work and it was my fault. I was running late and I was trying to park my city bike. And there was this guy who needed my help figuring out how to use the city bike. And I was like, I'm so sorry, I'm really late. I can't help you. That's the kind of stuff I feel bad about now. I'm like, it's my fault I'm late, and now I can't help this poor old man who doesn't know how to use the city bike app like I. That I felt so bad about that. Oh man, that's the kind of stuff I feel guilty about now.

00:57:02 Jeromy: I mean, but that's cool because that's the stuff that like, it's just the small things. I feel like that's what Jesus showed us. Like it's just these small things. And that's what Proverbs kind of shows us. It's like these small things that make a difference. Like we, you know, what's one good thing I can do today? Or how do you pay it forward or karma, right? All these things about just these little tiny things. It's gone from these big, giant, grandiose things of heaven and hell and damnation and sex to just these little tiny, uh, shall we say, mustard seeds.

00:57:33 Mattie Jo: Yeah. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. My boyfriend, uh, gets on. I also hate calling him my boyfriend. It sounds so juvenile.

00:57:42 Jeromy: Okay, what do we want to call him?

00:57:43 Mattie Jo: Whatever he is. Ken. Um, well, we've just been together for a while. Yeah, my Ken.

00:57:48 Jeromy: Sounds like you're like no. And Barbie.

00:57:50 Mattie Jo: World. Yeah, exactly. Um, no, we we've just been together for a long time, and boyfriend sounds so juvenile, but partner also sounds weird sometimes and, like, political. But we can say partner. Um, anyway, he he thinks I'm, like, so annoying because I'm like, we have to compost and we have to recycle our clothes. We can't just throw them in the trash because they're going to go in a landfill. And you know, I was vegan for a long time because of the environment. And like I am so like I do not like to waste. I'm like, we're not wasting, we're not contributing to like the global crisis of waste. And I feel like that's a big part of my deconstruction is like, take care of the earth because I do care about what happens on earth because I'm not just living for the afterlife. I care about like caring about our creation. And I, I think it's so fucked up that like, we make all of this fast fashion and then it goes in like rots in on the shores of Ghana. Like, that's so messed up. And I can't live with myself if I'm contributing to that.

00:58:55 Jeromy: Remember the days when like, we would just wear clothes so they wore out?

00:58:58 Mattie Jo: Yes. But yeah, I do agree that like my deconstruction, what I feel is sin is very different than what it used to be.

00:59:07 Jeromy: Remember those n o t w bumper stickers?

00:59:10 Mattie Jo: I forgot about those. Not what does it stand for?

00:59:15 Jeromy: Not of this world.

00:59:17 Mattie Jo: Not of this world. That's right. Oh, my.

00:59:20 Jeromy: And like.

00:59:20 Mattie Jo: That. Yes. No accountability.

00:59:24 Jeromy: Final words.

00:59:25 Mattie Jo: Final words.

00:59:26 Jeromy: What would you want to say to our audience as you as you leave them?

00:59:31 Mattie Jo: Um, well, read my book because I think you'll really like it. That's the first one. Um, don't download a PDF illegally buy it. Support artists.

00:59:43 Jeromy: Um, it's a good book. It's worth.

00:59:45 Mattie Jo: The read. Thank you. And the audiobook will be out soon. It will be out soon. I'm hoping in the next month that is.

00:59:53 Jeromy: Are you reading it yourself?

00:59:54 Mattie Jo: It was really important for me for the audiobook to be done a particular way. And so, uh, it took a little longer than I wanted it to. And, um, literally write out your questions and then read books that will help you understand scripture in a, in a much more expansive way. And then read books that and and, and get resources that will help you. Um, help educate you on sexuality and how to be safe, but also explore, go have experiences, go date, go, be, go, be of the world and take notes. Just take notes. How did that make you like? I would you know. Survey. Survey myself. I started doing that to create more self-awareness around my experiences and my preferences. How did that go for me? What did I like? What did I, what did I not like? And when it comes to your friends and family who are on a different journey than you, just live and let live. It's really hard. But like old habits die hard and you don't have to proselytize everything you firmly believe in, especially as evangelicals, um, evangelicals. So just let them be on their own journey and allow yourself to be the autonomous being that you are.

01:01:11 Jeromy: Um. That's cool. That's cool. Well, thank you so much for sharing your heart and your story and your experience. And I think the light and the joy that you have comes across very well.

01:01:24 Mattie Jo: Thank you.

01:01:25 Jeromy: Wish you all the best. I do hope you get on Broadway and that your sins will stop. Stop punishing you.

01:01:30 Mattie Jo: My sins will keep me well, we'll stop keeping me from stardom.

01:01:36 Jeromy: Exactly. So. So I know, like, if I ever hear you on Broadway.

01:01:39 Mattie Jo: Like I finally helped that guy with his bike. Thank you. Bye.

01:01:46 Jeromy: Let me leave you with this. If a system taught you to distrust your body, to fear your desire, and to see yourself as a problem, it's maybe worth asking whether that system actually reflected God. Because shame has never been a reliable guide to truth, and whatever healing looks like for you, it probably won't come from going back to who you were before. It will come from becoming someone freer. So take your time. You you don't have to resolve it today. You don't have to fix it. Just be honest about it and be gentle with yourself. Trust that whatever is true and good inside of you was never lost and nor was grace. So walk in that grace. And if you can share that grace with someone else today. Last thing. How do you pronounce it?

01:02:39 Mattie Jo: Cao Cao sir.

01:02:40 Jeromy: Yes, sir. Okay, perfect.

01:02:42 Mattie Jo: People are, like, afraid to say it because they're like Cao Cao. I'm like, no Cao in it. That's my last name. And actually, fun fact, my sister had this painting gave me this painting because when I was little and I was in a show in Branson, they asked me to introduce myself and I was like, I'm Maddy, Joe cowgirl. So my family has been like, you've been big Maddy, Joe cowgirl energy for a long time. So this is my Maddy Joe cowgirl energy.