The Space Between

Liminal Time within Purity Culture

April 2, 2024

Abstract: Formal induction to purity culture often begins with an event that mirrors the opening of a rite of passage and is expected to culminate in heterosexual marriage, a ceremony that acts as a reintegration ritual and completes the rite. The author employs her positionality as a biracial Indigenous woman raised in purity culture to bring an Indigenous perspective to this topic. She uses autoethnography and an ethnographic look at data from a large-scale qualitative research project about purity culture’s outcomes to argue that the intensity of the separation rite that introduced the participant to purity culture, the amount of time spent in a liminal purity culture space, the participants’ acceptance of the role of ‘ritual agent,’ and how purity culture ‘ends’ for a participant all significantly impact the way they experience purity culture.