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In the name of Purity what lies are told! What queer morality it has engendered. For fear of it you dare not tell your own children the truth about their birth; the most sacred of all functions, the creation of a human being, is a subject for the most miserable falsehood. When they come to you with a simple, straightforward question, which they have a right to ask, you say, 'Don't ask such questions,' or tell some silly hollowlog story; or you explain the incomprehensibility by another - God! You say 'God made you.' You know you are lying when you say it. You know, or you ought to know, that the source of inquiry will not be dammed up so. You know that what you Could explain purely, reverently, rightly (if you have any purity in you), will be learned through many blind gropings, and that around it will be cast the shadowthought of wrong, embryo'd by your denial and nurtured by this social opinion everywhere prevalent. If you do not know this, then you are blind to facts and deaf to Experience.

Voltairine de Cleyre#22

HypocrisyEducationPurityReligionSexualityTruth

About this quote

What does it mean?
Society hides the truth about sex and birth using falsehoods like God's creation, harming children's understanding.
In plain terms
We lie to kids about where they come from because we're afraid of talking about sex openly.
What can you take from it?
Honesty about human origins prevents shame and confusion.

Where it applies

  • discussing reproduction with children
  • religious teaching
  • moral debates

Putting it to work

  • sex education
  • parenting
  • challenging dogma

Questions to consider

  • Why do we hide biological truths?
  • How does shame affect learning?

Another view

Some argue privacy or age-appropriateness limits full transparency.

More from Voltairine de Cleyre

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  2. Look how your children grow up. Taught from their earliest infancy to curb their love natures - restrained at every turn! Your blasting lies would even blacken…

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  3. Who thinks a dog is impure or obscene because its body is not covered with suffocating and annoying clothes? What would you think of the meanness of a man who …

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