From Purity Rings to Pleasure Rings

ivykimmi
Oct 2
3 min read

“I was told to keep my hands off my body. Now my body is my altar, my joy, my playground. Purity demanded silence — pleasure teaches me to sing again.”

The Ring That Wasn’t Jewellery, It Was a Cage.

At fourteen, I slipped on a shiny little silver ring and promised God (and apparently some future husband I hadn’t even met yet) that I’d stay “pure.” Cute, right? Except it wasn’t.

That little ring wasn’t an accessory. It was a leash. Every time I felt desire, shame snapped back like a whip. Every time I longed for touch, the “good girl” programming screamed louder.

Purity culture didn’t protect me. It disconnected me.

Dreams That Wouldn’t Let Me Go

In August 2023, I started dreaming of my childhood home being demolished. Night after night, the walls came down in my sleep. When I finally drove by, there it was — halfway torn apart.

The dreams didn’t stop. Something in me knew I needed to go back, but I didn’t know why. Then my dad asked a strange question:“Why? What did you leave there?”

It rattled me. I started asking myself the same thing. What did I leave there?

A Storm and a Revelation

That night I dug through old home videos, and what I saw disturbed me. My body flooded with grief and horror. I tried to meditate, but just then my phone erupted with an emergency weather alert.

A massive storm was barreling through. I sat by the glass doors and watched hurricane-like winds whip the desert. And suddenly, I knew: the storm was her. My inner child. The rage of the 6-year-old and 14-year-old versions of me I had abandoned in that house when I didn’t know how to cope.

I didn’t need to go back for belongings. I needed to go back for them.

The House in Ruins

The next morning, I drove back. The house was gone. Flattened.

This was my childhood home. Torn apart, piece by piece — just like purity culture had done to me.

But there, unbelievably, was my childhood bedroom. Detached. Still standing, barely. Waiting.

The room where I first learned to abandon myself — now left behind, just like the girl who once lived there.

The Sign in the Dirt

As I walked away, something caught my eye. A picture of Jesus, face up in the rubble, staring into the sky.

It didn’t feel like comfort — it felt like clarity. To me, that image wasn’t God. It was religion. The very system that had pressed shame into my body and told me purity was worth more than pleasure, more than presence, more than me.

August 2023. In the ruins of my childhood home, religion lay face up. Watching. Waiting. Ready to take back what never belonged to me.

I knew what to do. I walked back to my car, pulled out my old purity ring, and placed it on that image.

Here. You can have it back. This shame was never mine to hold.

And in that moment, the trade was complete. I had once left six-year-old me and fourteen-year-old me behind in that house, abandoned in their pain. But now, I took them back into my arms. I reclaimed them. I carried them with me as I walked away.

What I left behind instead was religion. I gave it back its purity ring, its shame, its silence. I no longer belonged to it.

Pleasure Is the New Promise

That was the day I understood: I was never broken. Desire was never dangerous. Pleasure was never the enemy.

Purity demanded my silence.Pleasure invited me to sing.

A pleasure ring isn’t jewelry — it’s a vow to myself:

To honor my body as an altar.
To celebrate my joy as sacred.
To treat desire as holy ground.

And now, I invite you to choose your own pleasure ring.

Your First Pleasure Ritual

Start here: [Download The Forbidden Feast] — a printable ritual to reclaim your body, your breath, and your joy.

It’s my gift to you, your first step in saying: no more cages, only altars.