In today's world, it is all too easy for a young woman to fool herself with lies about love. What does she tell herself? "Guys don't want a pure girl." "Nobody's getting hurt." "It's all fun and games." "It's my body. It's my choice." "If I say no, I might lose him." "I can't be alone." "It's too late for me." "What good guy would want me?" "It's impossible to stay pure." Every woman longs for love, but many have given up. In Pure Womanhood, Crystalina Evert restores a woman's hope. By her powerful testimony and blunt words of wisdom, she shows that real love is possible, regardless of the past.

In today’s world, it is all too easy for a young woman to fool herself with lies about love. What does she tell herself? “Guys don’t want a pure girl.”“Nobody’s getting hurt.”“It’s all fun and games.”“It’s my body. It’s my choice.”“If I say no, I might lose him.”“I can’t be alone.”“It’s too late for me.”“What good guy would want me?”“It’s impossible to stay pure.” Every woman longs for love, but many have given up. In Pure Womanhood, Crystalina Evert restores a woman’s hope. By her powerful testimony and blunt words of wisdom, she shows that real love is possible, regardless of the past.

Young men deserve straight answers to tough questions about women, dating, sexuality, and authentic masculinity, including… What do girls want? How far is too far? What’s wrong with just thinking about it? What’s wrong with porn? You’re not hurting anyone. What if it’s just a swimsuit magazine? If she’s willing to do it, why is it wrong? What about safe sex? Shouldn’t I be free to do whatever I want? How do I stay pure Pure Manhood answers these questions and more, while offering practical strategies to help young men to grow in the virtue of chastity.

In Pure, Linda Kay Klein uses a potent combination of journalism, cultural commentary, and memoir to take us “inside religious purity culture as only one who grew up in it can” (Gloria Steinem) and reveals the devastating effects evangelical Christianity’s views on female sexuality has had on a generation of young women. In the 1990s, a “purity industry” emerged out of the white evangelical Christian culture. Purity rings, purity pledges, and purity balls came with a dangerous message: girls are potential sexual “stumbling blocks” for boys and men, and any expression of a girl’s sexuality could reflect the corruption of her character. This message traumatized many girls—resulting in anxiety, fear, and experiences that mimicked the symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder—and trapped them in a cycle of shame. This is the sex education Linda Kay Klein grew up with. Fearing being marked a Jezebel, Klein broke up with her high school boyfriend because she thought God told her to and took pregnancy tests despite being a virgin, terrified that any sexual activity would be punished with an out-of-wedlock pregnancy. When the youth pastor of her church was convicted of sexual enticement of a twelve-year-old girl, Klein began to question purity-based sexual ethics. She contacted young women she knew, asking if they were coping with the same shame-induced issues she was. These intimate conversations developed into a twelve-year quest that took her across the country and into the lives of women raised in similar religious communities—a journey that facilitated her own healing and led her to churches that are seeking a new way to reconcile sexuality and spirituality. Pure is “a revelation... Part memoir and part journalism, Pure is a horrendous, granular, relentless, emotionally true account" (The Cut) of society’s larger subjugation of women and the role the purity industry played in maintaining it. Offering a prevailing message of resounding hope and encouragement, “Pure emboldens us to escape toxic misogyny and experience a fresh breath of freedom” (Glennon Doyle, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Love Warrior and founder of Together Rising).

The United States is obsessed with virginity - from the media to schools to government agencies. This panic is ensuring that young women's ability to be moral agents is absolutely dependent on their sexuality. Jessica Valenti, executive editor of Feministing.com and author of Full Frontal Feminism and Yes Means Yes, addresses this poignant issue in her latest book, The Purity Myth. Valenti argues that the country's intense focus on chastity is extremely damaging to young women. Through in depth analysis of cultural stereotypes and media messages, Valenti reveals that powerful messages - ranging from abstinence curriculum to ''Girls Gone Wild'' commercials - place a young woman's worth entirely on her sexuality. Morals are therefore linked purely to sexual behavior, as opposed to values like honesty, kindness, and altruism. Valenti approaches the topic head-on, shedding light on chastity in a historical context, abstinence-only education, pornography, and public punishments for those who dare to have sex, among other critical issues. She also offers solutions that pave the way for a future without a damaging emphasis on virginity, including a call to rethink male sexuality and reframing the idea of ''losing it.'' With Valenti's usual balance of intelligence and wit, The Purity Myth presents a powerful and revolutionary argument that girls and women, even in this day and age, are overly valued for their sexuality, and that this needs to stop.