ClosetEd Interview Series: Mattie Jo Cowsert, ex-vangelical author of God, Sex, and Rich People

I am tha-rilled to bring you my looooong, super-chatty, unfiltered conversation with Mattie Jo Cowsert, an actor and author based in New York City. Mattie Jo wrote a memoir called God, Sex, and Rich People, in which she documents her deconstruction from evangelical Christianity and purity culture to become the most wholesome sex-positive activist you've ever encountered. Her pitch of a TV show version of her book won the Audience Choice Award at the Yale Innovation Summit (!!!) and she's now developing it into a one-woman theater piece as an artist in residence at Collective Connecticut. This woman is a powerhouse! And damn funny to boot!

In this episode, we discuss:

1. Mattie Jo's origin story as a born theater kid with a pastor dad in a heavily evangelical community.
2. How her sex education consisted mostly of scare tactics but her parents were a little looser about it than the community around them.
3. How making gay friends at theater camp made her question the existence of Hell.
4. Her move to New York City, and why having Jewish and Muslim friends blew open her worldview and made her leave evangelicalism for good.
5. Her "Rubble Years" and the bad experiences she had when she finally made her sexual debut without any idea of how to handle things.
6. How she eventually developed her own sexual ethic and value system around sex and relationships and wrote an amazing dang book about all this! I just love her.

Buy God, Sex, and Rich People and learn more about Mattie Jo here: www.mattiejocowsert.com

Subscribe to Mattie Jo's Substack: https://mattiejocowsert.substack.com/

Follow MJ on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattiejocowsert/

Follow MJ on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@mattiejocowsquirt

That's it for this week! Love ya, pinecones!

xoxo,

Samia

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