Most recently this came up when I was hooking up with a guy and especially bc he knows my past with being r*ped and having a difficult time saying no, he kept asking me to initiate things/ask for what I wanted at least for the first time of us hooking up so that he knew I wanted it and wasn’t crossing any boundaries. For the life of me I couldn’t do it. It’s confusing bc I’m very used to being used and letting men do what they want with me so being encouraged to take charge seems like it would make me more comfortable but I could not express what I wanted at all.

I think there’s two issues going on here: I’m generally just a people pleaser and have trouble taking up space and asking for what I want.

But also, growing up in Islam and purity culture you’re taught that sex is sinful and taught to be ashamed for wanting sex especially as a woman. I think I still carry a lot of that shame with me which hinders my ability to fully express my sexuality. It’s stupid bc obviously this guy wouldn’t judge me for wanting to fuck him or expressing that but I still felt too embarrassed to do anything except follow his lead.

I think it also affects my sexuality in the sense that I’m afraid to explore my sexuality with women bc I’ve been conditioned so hard to believe it’s wrong and shameful. There’s a lot of other smaller examples but this one was new and carried more weight tbh. It’s definitely by far not the worst ramification of purity culture but I figured some of you might relate. I also wonder how you guys dealt with it? I have no idea where to start with unpacking this. I do have a therapist and I’ll be bringing this up to her but I wanted to hear your experiences.