It protected the men who harmed me. That’s what “Not Your Object” is about. That’s what purity culture is actually for.
Purity culture doesn’t protect girls. It makes girls responsible for men’s behavior. It tells you that if you dress a certain way, speak a certain way, exist a certain way, you invite harm. And then when harm comes anyway, you are the one who broke the rules. You. Not them.
What It Actually Does
it creates a system where the victim carries the shame and the perpetrator carries the prayers. I watched it happen. I lived inside it. The men who hurt girls in that church were prayed over and restored. The girls were counseled to forgive quickly and quietly.
I am not interested in quiet. I am not interested in quick. I wrote “Not Your Object” because I needed somewhere to put the weight of watching the system protect itself instead of the people inside it, and that weight is heavy, it turns out.
The ring doesn’t make you safe. The rule doesn’t make you safe. The idea that your behavior controls whether you get hurt is the lie. And it’s a lie designed to keep you manageable, not to keep you whole.
I belong to myself. That’s the line. That’s the whole song.