Christian woman speaks out against purity culture and explains how it shames and damages women

April Ajoy, a Christian, is "detoxing American Christianity" one step at a time and people on the internet are loving it. Being a former evangelist, she's very well aware of the purity culture ingrained in evangelists and most other churches. Shaming people for having sexual thoughts and acting on them ranks pretty high up when it comes to sinful behavior. Ajoy knows only too well, having been told her whole life that masturbating was a sin. Over the years, she has fought the shame and shone a light on these archaic practices in the hope of helping many others like her ditch purity culture and live fulfilled lives. Ajoy has more than 288,000 followers on TikTok and regularly posts funny videos about "detoxing American Christianity."

One particular video that has gone viral is her takedown of a thread on men being insecure about women riding horses, bikes and motorcycles. The Twitter thread, posted by an account ironically named "Alpha masculinity," wrote about women who were supposedly aroused by riding horses and bikes. Ajoy's takedown of the post has been viewed nearly a million times. "The thread starts off with some basic purity culture, but then it says, 'Sexual arousal and stimulation not for or from her husband makes a woman filthy,'" she said, pointing to the thread.

"It is weird and disgusting because women are sexually aroused and stimulated by these activities," the thread read. "Most of them have multiple 'o's in these sessions... The horse is also very large, strong, muscled, powerful, and yes—packing. It acts as a sort of masculine figure women fall in love with, and are attracted to. A man who allows his wife to ride a horse is a man who shares his wife with an animal," the thread continued. "But it's OK for women to ride horses sitting in front of their husband with their legs together." Ajoy commented, "How can I even do satire when tweets like this are real?"

She then posted a satirical video using a filter role-playing a bearded man. "These women are having multiple 'o's by riding horses but we got to take it to the next level and forbid our wives from using washers and dryers. Did you know that they vibrrrrate?" she said dramatically. "These agitations are too strong. These machines are large and yes, packing! Tonnes of clothes fit inside of them and when it finishes, it ceases to vibrate and the clothes ejaculate out of the machine. And it's warm and the woman wraps it around her. Any man who lets his wife do the laundry shares his woman with a machine. Come on, alpha males, we can no longer let the women do the laundry. We have to do it to keep them pure!"  One user wrote in the comments, "The vacuum vibrates too. Maybe the stove can? Men, are you going to let her cook and clean or do your manly duty?" Ajoy responded, "Oooo so many things to forbid."

She spoke to BuzzFeed after the video went viral and explained how men feel entitled to women's bodies, especially evangelical men. “When men speak about women’s bodies, it’s all about control so men can stay in power. As someone who was raised in the church and purity culture, I was taught from a young age that girls' bodies were a constant temptation for boys. Women were ‘stumbling blocks’ for ‘men of God.’” she said. "I remember being told in youth group that a girl is like ‘a chewed-up piece of gum’ if she has sex before marriage, yet there was more than sufficient grace for boys due to their ‘uncontrollable urges.’" She explained that such teachings encouraged boys to objectify women, shamed women and forced them to develop an unhealthy idea about sex. Ajoy said she had to seek therapy "to finally get my marriage and sex life to a healthy place thanks to the damage caused by purity culture." In one video, she shows herself fighting the shame of masturbation that has long been ingrained in her. She posts a hilarious conversation of herself holding a vibrator while looking into a mirror while her past self tries to shame her for masturbating. Spoiler alert: The vibrator wins.

You can watch the video of Ajoy dragging "alpha masculinity" off their high horse here: