#81: Sex. Shame. Spirituality. We’re going there today.
In this conversation with sex therapist and researcher Dr. Tina Schermer Sellers, we unpack the toxic effects of purity culture and how the shame we were taught about sex, bodies, and desire continues to shape us as adults, parents, and partners.
Tina doesn’t hold back. She breaks down how abstinence-only education fueled a generation of disconnection, the difference between modesty and moral panic, and why so many of us feel broken when it comes to intimacy.
We also talk about her books Sex, God & the Conservative Church and Shameless Parenting—including the real reasons parents struggle to talk to their kids about sex, and how we can raise emotionally aware, sexually healthy humans (even if we’re still healing ourselves).
This one cracks open the conversations most people avoid, but we need to be having anyway. Play it. Sit with it. And maybe finally let go of some of the shame you’ve been carrying.
FIND WHAT YOU NEED FROM THIS EPISODE:
00:00 – Meet Dr. Tina Schermer Sellers (and why her work is so needed)
04:12 – What purity culture really taught us and what it cost
08:37 – How shame gets passed down through generations
12:51 – The wild gap between sex education and spiritual upbringing
18:20 – Healing from religious trauma without ditching your faith
24:05 – Sex positivity, parenting, and not being weird about it
31:33 – Why “the talk” needs a total rebrand
37:50 – What consent actually looks like in real life
42:15 – On porn, filters, and raising kids in the digital age
47:28 – The problem with only teaching anatomy and abstinence
53:14 – Why Tina wrote Sex, God, and the Conservative Church
58:29 – What “shameless parenting” really means
01:03:20 – A reminder: You’re allowed to reparent yourself, too
01:06:49 – The one thing Tina wants every listener to remember
CONNECT WITH DR. TINA:
On Instagram @drtinashameless
Buy the books: Shameless Parenting and Sex, God, and the Conservative Church: Erasing Shame from Sexual Intimacy
STAY CONNECTED:
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