A poignant memoir unveiling the unforeseen consequences of purity culture

Ryan and Cindy Clark were among the millions of adolescents who made “Purity Pledges” as part of the purity movement of the 1990s, where youth promised their church and God to abstain from premarital sex. A lifetime of blissful marital sex was the promised reward, but for too many couples, years of sexual dysfunction and shame proved to be the more likely outcome.

In Till Sex Do Us Part, Ryan Clark shares the tragic consequences purity culture had on his own marriage, consequences that have reverberated in marriages across the country but are too often hidden or unrecognized. Through his own story, readers are made aware of how the shame-based black-and-white thinking of the purity movement gaslighted a generation and demonized sexual development, attraction, and identity. Clark also reveals the key insights he learned from his own relationship and through counseling that helped save his marriage, in order to help others who find themselves struggling with similar shame and confusion.

Clark's moving memoir shows the very personal, intense toll the purity culture movement had on his marriage. But his story doesn't end in disaster. With raw honesty, Clark shows how he and his wife learned to build an authentic, vulnerable relationship based not on shame and punishment, but on honesty, openness, and trust.