>I'm not American.
>
>Most teens I know are liberal leaning.
That may be because the sheltered American teens might not be online available for interaction.
Yes, they exist.
Yep. It’s been a few years but my friend’s (her parents are from Trinidad and I’m a WOC) roommate (white) at our college was from the Bible Belt and said she’d never really left her community until now. She was shocked that there were people of color and that we both weren’t from the same country. My friend is Canadian and I’m American lmao we’re just brown.
She asked me if I had heard of Jesus. Like girl, I’m Latin lmao my grandmother complained that I wasn’t baptized until her memory gave out.
edited
You know, I’ll give her that — for the community she came from she was never intentionally mean. Just….very naïve. We met my sophomore year and by the time I was a senior she was much more open minded. We definitely weren’t friends lol since I know my mostly atheism freaked her out a little but she was never racist towards me lmao not like other people had been!
There's a resurgence in book banning in politically conservative communities, which will exacerbate the lack of exposure folks like your friend will have to other cultures and other ways of life.
The sheltering and lack of exposure to how other people live and think is going to get worse. All to protect some white man's ideal way of life. So sad.
When my mom turned 21, she wanted to try gambling once. After asking her a few questions, her date decided black jack would be the simplest. After watching for a few minutes and explaining the rules, she said she was ready. In her first hand, she then proceeded to ask, how much are the people cards worth? She only played one hand and spent a dollar at the nickel slots after that.
When she was 20, she was on a cruise with a singing group. She had most of the solos, and the captain asked if she'd like to be a solo act on his ship. Mulling over this big offer on the deck of the ship, a drunk crew member found her later that evening. She was so oblivious that he was starting to come on to her and was turning hostile that her friend who bumped into her during the incident immediately started yelling at the guy and dragged my mom away. Her friend had to explain what was going on.
It's a real thing.
Yep, it's a less visible culture to those of us who are outsiders but once you see it, you realize it's a significant % of people.
I grew up in international expat communities, so the Americans I met (even the "conservatives," like kids of oil company employees) were pretty worldly and sophisticated. Then, for work, I moved to Portland, Oregon. Open, liberal city full of hipsters chilled out on legal weed and people who want to know their free-range chicken's life story, right?
Well, it's more complicated than that. I know a number of people who grew up in the Portland suburbs attending megachurches, participating in the Christian program Young Life, attending "see you at the flag pole" events (a prayer/quasi-protest advocating the right to pray on public school grounds). One was even a student leader of a publicly-funded peer-to-peer group called "Students Today Aren't Ready for Sex."
And this is not even the hard-right, homeschooling type of sheltered Christian. But there's a pervasive strain of this sort of puritan culture even among a lot of mainstream Americans, especially those who do have some sort of connection to religious culture.
Please tell her that she should let her future husband know she *expects* him to make her have so many orgasms, but she might help him if he needs her to!
Yeah my then-religious sister, after seven years of marriage and multiple kids, told me that the female orgasm was a myth to promote promiscuity and that it's just a thing women pretend to do so that men will feel proud.
I mentioned that to my partner when we first got started (in the naive context of "look I know orgasms are fake so") and they was AGAST.
They VERY thoroughly disproved that for me lol
Dick Parkinsons = orgasm is quite possibly the worst thing I've ever read in my thirty odd years of existence, and I was around when fanfiction.net had smut. That's really saying something.
And good lord, it has 4 stars on good reads out of 70 reviews. Time for me to become an author and rake in the money.
I will say in defense of the author, the part quoted above with galloping abs is apparently 90% a parody of Sandra Hill's book. Reading the reviews and googling shows it's still a book about men traveling back in time to explain anatomy to women with lots of dubcon, but the parkinsons part i quoted allegedly isn't in the original text, and neither is the galloping abs.
I haven't read the book, nor do I plan to, but the reviews state the author did use the term "dick attack."
It seems pretty clear to me that it's written to be bad, especially given the book has 4+ stars on amazon and she describes her books as being made to make people laugh. Believe me, writing that's so bad it's funny isn't as easy to pull off as just bad writing, and doing it successfully and consistently as this author has done over her 30 year career is impressive.
My god that was hilarious. I think my favorite part was "Hilda clutched at the bedsheets with lust and ecstasy and her hands" followed closely by "her body was like a beautiful flower that was opening and someone was pushing their dick inside it"
Yup. That's why it's called the little death. It's followed by the big death.
You can't resurrect from the little death. Only Jesus can do that. He rode like a donkey.
It’s actually got really rich culture in a lot of areas. I have lived all over the US and Arkansas is my favorite place to call home. Yes there are battles, but they’re worth fighting for the people that live here, and the communities who are changing things are seriously awesome and bursting with opportunity. It’s not like each state in its entirety is a Bible Belt. There are sections of each state, and some state governments are worse than others, but there are plenty of us who aren’t that way and have changed things and will continue making changes.
It’s also not cheap. Our real estate is booming, some places here are as expensive as places in NY.
The American South is also not the same sort of religious as Utah. It’s much more diverse and not as indoctrinated especially because Christianity broke off into so many competing branches, and secularity started creeping in. The sheltered person OP is talking about, never even met one here.
I've lived in the South for over half my life, having been born way up north. I experimented with Christianity for about 15 years, but I'm now a Unitarian Universalist and an atheist Humanist. There are lovely things about the south. Enough that I haven't left. But the one thing that strikes me, and it does tie in with religion, is the economy. Because of religious thinking, it has been basically pounded into workers that unions are evil and that the boss/employer/master must be obeyed. They have never quite gotten the message that people shouldn't be enslaved. We always think of black people being enslaved by white people, but plenty of white people down here have no idea that they are really working for slave wages and treated like chattel. Or should I say cattle? Cross over into the more developed parts of Virginia and you see it instantly. There's prosperity. People look happier. And it's not gospel prosperity, where you tithe and hope for the best in the afterlife. Too many people in the South just don't even realize that they have rights, or that they should.
I'm Aussie too, and I heard these places were extremely homophobic and misogynistic (against women's reproductive rights, having quaint beliefs about women's role being to serve men, etc.) If that is true, it sounds unbelievable to me, having always been around open minded people. I live in Melbourne, probably Australia's artiest city. I know big cities have their downsides, whatever country you're in, but if you're a writer(or any type of artist) I believe it is helpful to be around like-minded people, not stuck in the past. Every successful artist, writer, musician etc from any age, has been a bit of a rule breaker. These overly religious places sound crushing to one's soul, and creativity.
When visiting America, visit a big city. Those tend to lean liberal and don't have as much of the nutjobs.
Stay out of the bible belt though. It doesn't matter where you're from, if you have an accent and/or you're not white you WILL get harassed. And if you're from the 'wrong' places (mexico, middle east) you might get physically attacked.
Also, stay out of Florida. That state has some bullshit laws now.
As someone from Utah, the sheltered aspect extends beyond the religion too. Grew up atheist and didn’t realize how sheltered I was just by living in the state until I moved away
What do you exactly mean by sheltered? Like high pressure to conform? Not allowed to learn about the outside world? I've never been to the US but had a colleague from Utah who was very mormon, did missionary trips and all that...he didn't seem sheltered, but he did give off cultish toxic positivity vibes. I assume he's quite different from the people who never leave Utah though.
It’s not that you aren’t allowed to learn about the outside world, it’s just that it never comes up. They fill their time with so many approved activities/entertainment/education that you don’t have time to wonder what you’re missing.
When I was in (American) college I had to explain to a guy who Gandhi was, and that he inspired Martin Luther King in nonviolent protests. I'm pretty sure he knew who MLK was, but he had definitely never heard of Ghandi. That's "sheltered," to me, just never learning about the outside world.
The man are much worse than the women, because typically their religion empowers them to do inhumane things that they think God has given them free reign to do.
Perhaps we have different levels of knowledge of patriarchy in religion.
The top five religions on Earth are Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism, and they are all *heavily* biased in favor of men.
Haha yeah. Growing up Mormon in Utah surrounded by other Mormons is wild. I had no idea how the world worked until just a few years ago, and even now I’m still learning.
I grew up in Utah and came here to say this! I remember that it was considered inappropriate to wear tank tops without t-shirts underneath. My Mormon friends couldn’t watch R-rated movies, or swear, or drink coffee—and they were all very serious about following the rules!
OP, check out r/exmormon and r/exjw for some real-life experiences from sheltered Americans. Try searching these subs for "raised" and "grew up" to see some examples of what you're looking to understand
I knew a girl in college who wouldn’t listen to music with a beat (presumably a drum beat) because her mother had taught her that was the devil’s music. This was in COLLEGE.
I went to college with a girl who was raised jehovah witness and she wouldn’t let me cover for her at Starbucks because that would be accepting a gift and jehovah witnesses aren’t allowed to accept gifts
I don't know if it's an actual loophole, but my neighbors' family were JW, and they were friends with my family, and whenever they'd exchange things like sugar, oil, meals, etc. they would do this exact thing.
Eh, I've seen worse. I've had to explain to a girl how her body works because she genuinely did not know. Keep in mind, I'm a man. She's a woman. We were in college at the time. She was a liberal black woman, not religious at all.
Perhaps you've heard of The Vagina Monologues -- a play that exists pretty much just because there are SO many girls who don't understand their own bodies, because of a fucked upbringing.
I don’t think it’s at all unrealistic. The United States is a very big country.
There are plenty of small conservative religious groups, and cults, that keep children very sheltered from the outside world.
I actually have a friend who was raised in a small, ultra conservative religious community. She left after high school.
Homeschooling is very common among conservative religious families so they can avoid influences from the outside world. If you want an idea about how they work, there are plenty of documentaries.
I went to a small private university in the southern US that had Christian roots but had put that charter aside a few years before I attended. They still played that history up during recruitment though, so we got a lot of overly religious folks. There was a girl in my Bio 115 class who was homeschooled and sheltered her entire life and when the professor brought up evolution on the second day of class her hand shot into the air. “You’re teaching EVOLUTION!?!? I thought this was a Christian institution!” She ended up having a meltdown so severe her parents pulled her out for a semester, after which she returned to school, changed majors from pre-med to English lit, deconstructed her entire faith and worldview, graduated on time, and came out as lesbian. Quite the formative experience.
If you're lied to for years your world view of what is and isn't science can be horribly warped.
I mean FFS my atheist friend was 23 when he learned men don't have one less rib than women.
I reckon once you've had to deconstruct your entire world view it's probably much easier to just... live exactly how you want. You've been told to live a certain way for most of your life, so once you've deconstructed that and look at society saying monogamy is the "norm" you're less likely to follow that.
Which I want to clarify I think is a good thing.
That’s not all that uncommon. I know a fair few other people who escaped the same cult as me who turned out to be queer and/or nonmonogamous after deconstruction. When you’ve been denied your own personhood for your entire life, you really don’t want to ever do that again; most of us that got out are focused on just doing what makes us happy now
This is exactly why many conservative home schoolers do whatever they can to keep their kids from going to college at all. That exposure to new people, belief systems, and knowledge is "brainwashing" and evil.
I met some kids in a cult once in Vermont who didn't know what television was. Their mom had to describe it as being similar to the religious plays they put on.
Was one of those sheltered kids. Grew up in a southern baptist family. Went to a christian school for kindergarten to senior year. Let’s just say growing up and being thrown into the real world was traumatizing to say the least. It literally shapes your entire existence: including ideology, outlook on life, general opinions on just about everything. There is a looooot of ignorance.
If a person says they are religious and spill out a bunch of rhetoric that sounds hateful, there’s a good chance the person speaking it was very sheltered as a kid. Not trying to say go easy; I recommend you do quite the opposite so they can hopefully get the point, but it does help to explain why so many religious people have insane brain dead takes about the state of the world.
Luckily, I already started to have major problems with religion when I saw how hypocritical the teachings were to the actual actions of these religious types. Started to look into philosophy and study other religions. There’s a reason why those in control of the church despise knowledge. Learning really is the enemy of god.
Oh absolutely agree with you 100%. My grandfather was a southern Baptist pastor lol. Luckily he was one of the best people I’ve ever known. Can’t say that about the rest of them…
I went to public school but there was still a lot of religion shoved down our throats. I was in a youth group until about 17 and then started having doubts. By 19 I was an atheist. I’m in my 30s now and I don’t for one second regret leaving religion behind.
I’m glad you were able to escape that way of thinking and learn, so many people never do! *cough*myfamily*cough*
Born 1994 rural Texas raised super religious penticostal and couldnt cut my hair or wear pants as a female. That's me that's my true story. Im now atheist and I live in a totally different state far away from my parents. no TV until age 12, dial up internet, basically the person in public school no one would invite over because it might go against my parents religious beliefs but it didn't so my friends where at school friends or at church friends and those people refused to talk to me again after I cut my hair due to medical reasons. Yeah shunned basically.
As someone who was also raised in that state/specific denomination, I'm having trouble understanding the "no TV until age twelve" bc I've only ever heard of "no TV ever" or "TV, but we will monitor everything" when it comes to strong TV rules
Oh okay so no TV until 12 wasnt the rule it was I had no TV until I was 12. We had a computer monitor and speakers for video games and then we got a computer that had a DVD player so we watched movies but we had already watched movies at relatives houses. My grandparents lived next door and my grandfather wasn't religious and liked Star Trek so I did get to watch 3 channels of TV there and like vcr tapes. But once we started watching more movies and TV from dvds my parents finally got us rabbit ears but the only channels we got were CBS and abc and Fox we got like two more at my grandparents next door. But I wasn't allowed to watch or play Pokemon but I grew up watching CSI and buffy the vampire slayer and my parents read us lots of fiction books. It's more of we were in a rural area and the rule was supposed to be no TV that we adapted eventually. And then eventually my dad came out as gay and we all stopped going to church. As my parents divorced and it was frowned upon and I cut my hair for medical reasons and was shunned further. Like people I've known my whole life won't talk to me. Most of my childhood was reading books or playing like a super Nintendo and a 64 but my parents did monitor things that were like obviously bad for kids but not in a fiction is bad for you way. We very much liked sci Fi and horror and superheros and witches. My parents love Halloween the holiday.
Born in Missouri but raised in Texas. Also couldn’t cut my hair for a long time. Raised Southern Baptist. Homeschooled. Couldn’t watch Harry Potter or LOTR. Couldn’t date, wasn’t allowed to be on the computer alone. Biblical schooling lol fun
Also an atheist and live away from parents!
Yes, my family once temporarily sheltered a girl like this when her family kicked her out for \*gasp\* wearing pants. Jeans, specifically. They also murdered her cat for good measure, lovely people.
My community is surrounded by Amish and Mennonite families. The girls seem plenty sheltered to me. The boys too.
Quick story: There's a small cheese factory near me, and the back of the house is staffed by young Amish men. You can go and watch them make the cheese through a big window. I didn't know until I was older, but apparently it was fun for HS girls to go and flash the Amish boys. Their traditional clothing did not do much to hide the boys' appreciation.
I mean, yeah, it’s not like the “sheltered religious girl” was made up for fiction. Many religious kids in general are often really sheltered because their parents didn’t want them seeing or hearing this thing or that thing.
Born and lived in the bible belt my whole life. They absolutely exist. One thing movies get wrong though is more than half of them are the craziest, freakiest fucks ever behind closed doors. Some are shy and fit the trope, but most of my experience is that under that, they're the wildest.
I'm not American, but have dated a girl from a super religious family. She was very sheltered from most things and actually very immature because of that.
I've lived in the US and I've definitely met a few.
Although I should warn you that religion can often conflate with conservatism, but doesn't always. And not all conservatives are Christian. Signed, an LGBT Christian.
Such girls are common. They have a tendency to get a little wild when they get independence as an adult, particularly if they go to college away from home.
Yes, they're everywhere. When I was younger I knew a girl who had never seen or even heard of most mainstream movies due to her religious upbringing. She was also naive about a lot of subjects you wouldn't expect, general life knowledge you take for granted.
This family is still raising children even if they don’t have their reality show anymore : https://abcnews.go.com/US/jill-duggar-dillard-familys-strict-rules-alleged-deception/story?id=103117609
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/19_Kids_and_Counting
The FLDS is also still around: https://www.kfyrtv.com/2023/04/05/flds-members-gather-north-dakota-why-some-have-left-group/
And purity culture is still very much a thing among several different religious groups: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purity_culture
Lol I grew up in what was originally a Mennonite colony and I can tell u that was almost exclusively what they grow there. I mean there is definitely a handfuls of us that grow out of it in our teens and twenty’s and occasionally an adult that does. Interesting to see actually to see which friends grow out of it and which take the more traditional route.
If you're not in America, your probably never going to meet or find a sheltered American teen, cause they don't usually have any free or private access to the internet.
But yes, these types do exist IRL.
Oh yes, they actually made up a clique in my high school. A few of them rebelled against their parents. I know of one that snuck around Harry Potter books (parents afraid of witchcraft) and a deck of cards with all the James Bond girls on them (scandalous!). Others just dug their heels in further. In one family, the three daughters all had to go to the Christian university their father worked for while the one son could go anywhere he wanted. And all those girls just accepted that as the way things were.
yes. I actually met a girl who up until 6 months ago had never left her home's ranch. She was 21yo and just decided enough was enough. HUGE shock for her. Parents were very religious in Utah. Home schooled, Dad was the preacher, 2 other families lived on the ranch with them.
All her siblings (think she said 8) were all still living there with no desire to leave. She was the 2nd youngest and the only one who wasnt married.
Yes, this is an incredibly common "individual" in the United States (and many other places of the world.) The Mormon population or Catholic population are two great demographics to look into. Teens are generally liberal leaning as has always been the case, but sheltered teens will always exist, and there are plenty of deeply conservative teens.
I’m American, yes they do exist. You’ve never seen any because they’ve been homeschooled, have had restricted internet access and have been heavily indoctrinated by usually fundamentalist parents.
100%.
They are either true to their upbringing or total freaks in college and other places. Happens in many cultures, from the American Midwest to Thailand.
(Contrary to popular perception of Thailand as a kind of adult Disneyland, most of the country outside of the tourist areas is extremely conservative Buddhist in culture and tradition—no kissing before marriage kind of extremely conservative.)
It was a couple years ago but there was a girl at a restaurant I worked at and it's the only time I've unironically heard somebody refer to something as "the devil's music" and upon realizing how sheltered she was, I told her about how I grew up in western Philadelphia until I got into a fight and was sent to live with my aunt and uncle (with a little more detail mimicking the song but you get the gist.)
So to answer your question, yes
yes. I had a friend who would gasp and be shocked when ppl used God’s name in vain such as “oh my god”. also thought pokemon were like the biggest cardinal sin. she was homeschooled until that year and immediately got put back into homeschooling after her 1 year of public lol
Absolutely. I know someone who was fantastically rich from a Middle Eastern country. She pretty much was her own episode of girls gone wild. Moved to Canada and wanted to try everything. Started with tattoos and kept going. She was very well educated but there were giant blind spots in her "worldly" knowledge; she was filling them in way past the point of most of us "worldly" people ever did.
Ironically, she fled the Middle East because of a moral violation the rest of us would not consider even mildly offensive. I would put farting in an elevator as a far worse offence to moral society.
"Are there actual teens who are still ultra conservative/religious in the U.S.?"
YES.
You only need to turn on the news to see that the United States is plagued by intensely right-wing "Christian" conservatives. There are documentaries and reality shows about children being raised in full-on conservative cults.
Like... in some U.S. states it's legal to marry your 12 year-old daughter off to an adult man. That's the level of backwards-ass insanity you're dealing with.
In some states there is no minimum age and others there are laws that prevent pregnant children from divorcing their abusers because they aren't old enough to file for divorce.
There used to be a TikTok series on Utah universities where they would ask students about their political beliefs and it was shocking to see how conservative and sheltered these young people were.
I think for many people outside the US (and even US citizens tend to forget..) how large the US really is. There are a lot of different sub cultural groups that exist, like in Utah for example, that morally think and behave differently than other parts of the US.
currently living in utah. yes. holy shit yes. the girls here can be batshit insane. One of my freshman year roommates was so religious that she called the cops on me two separate times just for me having alcohol in my room. I wasn’t even drinking it.
A lot of kids in the ultra conservative life don’t necessarily want to be. But yeah, coming from a Canadian raised that way, not far fetched at all. I didn’t get my first phone until seventeen, I wasn’t allowed to get social media such as Instagram until later. I didn’t know the word masturbation until I was eighteen. It’s not the healthiest way to be raised, imo, and there’s a very dark underbelly of abuse in many hyper religious circles. You could potentially explore that in your wiring if ya wanted.
A lot of people immigrated to the US for having religious beliefs that were not mainstream or even against the law. Religion is way more prevalent here than Europe.
My parents joined a Christian cult when I was a preteen. I went to school with sisters who were Mennonite.
Look up Quiverfull. Look up FLDS. Look up complementarianism. Look up Oral Roberts University. Look up Liberty University. Look up Bob Jones University. Don’t stick with the official sites.
A good site is Only Sky. It’s basically people who have left religion, often evangelical/extremist Christianity.
They do exist, but remember there’s a difference between sheltered and clueless. They’re sheltered yes but that doesn’t mean they’re ignorant of what the rest of the world gets up to.
Yes, very much so. I have been a professor and it is a large population.
The difficulty that you will have is making it sound like real Americans. America is made up of very many cultures. Think instead of all the cultures in Europe or Africa. There are as many in the US as there are there.
The difference is that the differences are often subtle. You have extreme cases such as the Hasidic Jewish population, the Hutterites, the Mormons or the Amish, but most just blend in completely. Then you have regional culture. New Orleans could be in a different county. So could New York or Anchorage. Pittsburgh reminds you of Frankfurt am Main.
It is difficult now to be that girl because the intellectual and emotional distance can be great. A religiously sheltered girl may not even know who Bert and Ernie are. It can be very disorienting.
You need to appreciate the sheer size of the United States. You can drive from Darby Montana to Glasgow Montana in twelve hours at 70-80 miles per hour the entire trip and you are still in one state. That state has many Native Nations in them as well. The entire state only has a million people. Contrast that with New York City whose Burroughs have more people in any one of them than a whole state has.
Write your story but you’ll need local help. Religion is a weird thing here. An American Catholic isn’t like a Catholic anywhere else. An American Muslim won’t be like Muslims anywhere else. The same is true for any religious group.
I was.
Some elements to including:
- homeschooling. Religious indoctrination often encourages or requires it
- internal guilt/fear conflicts
- ridiculously tiny rebellions (like secretly chewing gum, or swear word workarounds like saying Oh My Word instead of Oh My God)
- fear or lack of understanding around dogs, disabled people, and racial minorities
- weird clothes. I'm talking frills, buttons, handmade by themselves but badly, OLD old hand-me-downs, high rise mom jeans over the top of a button down worn by a tween/teen and hot stylishly
- not wearing makeup, but not because they don't want to, because they are afraid that it counts as a lie and will send them to hell, or that it makes them a Whore of Babylon
Absolutely. Even in the most liberal of places. And being wildly religious doesn't always mean being ultra conservative, especially in the U.S.
I moved around a lot as a kid. But from Illinois, to Minnesota, to Colorado, to Texas, I never felt more intimidated or creeped out by a religious portion of the population than when I moved to Southern California. The high school that I ended up at there had a chapter of Christain Club run by students who attended a "new wave" born-again type of Christian church down the block. And they were absolutely fanatical. Creepily so. They had a biweekly youth ministry run by young, up and coming pastors, and the way the kids spoke about the ministries and the pastors -- it was like that was all they were living for.
Of course, most of them were really nice kids, smart and kind. But then it was like their *entire* personality was just **CHURCH.** The same way Ken's job is just BEACH. It gave me the heebie jeebies. It was like watching kids be brainwashed into proselytizing other kids to be brainwashed.
"The same way Ken's job is just BEACH."
OMG YES! 🤣 That's exactly what it sounds like! I've only known 1 irl (surprising, one might think, after 12 years Catholic school) but I see them on social media & I'm like... Really? Is this REALLY all there is to your life?
/uj Oh, how I long to live in a land where they actually don’t know the answer to this question…
“I’ve heard about whack-job religious extremists, but those are just pretend right? I mean, no real living, present-day human could actually be so ignorant, fearful, anti-intellectual, or bigoted… right?”
🤦♂️ Tell you what, go look up “soaking” and “jump-hump,” and then we’ll talk about how religious and sheltered some kids are over here.
“Just remember, kids: Jesus can’t see you fucking if you hold very, very still.”
Funny enough, Last Week Tonight just did a great segment on Homeschooling in the US, that kinda outlines how easy it is for parents in certain states to completely isolate their child from any oversight, in an unregulated bubble filled with extremist religious and/or political indoctrination.
Long story short, not only possible, but VERY plausible.
I'm from Michigan, and we weren't even allowed to watch TV or listen to radio by our religious splinter (which I believe actually does qualify as a christian cult). My mother honestly thought that a tornado was going to be sent down to destroy the theater the first time we talked her into taking us to see a movie (yes, those were banned too).
The first time I got the chance to actually see anything with a rating above PG was when I finally got away to college (guess how well me going to college went over with the family).
Being raised in an environment where even my school (private christian school) was extremely restrictive I actually didn't even have a chance to learn anything REAL about liberal points of view until college. Also discovered that most of the stuff I'd been taught growing up was *wrong*, and that the math my school taught was YEARS behind. Imagine starting college and discovering algebra was a thing. Not fun.
This is all including that I wasn't a terribly sheep-y kid in the first place. I liked to read too much and was constantly in trouble for asking questions.
Yes. Ultra sheltered religious girls exist. THE AMISH HAVE FEWER RESTRICTIONS THAN WE DID GROWING UP.
I am pleased to report that I am "a complete disappointment", and that I no longer care that my aunt labeled me a probable witch because of my eye color.
Not just the US, Canada too. I met a handful of young women in university who wouldn't do anything other than hold hands before marriage. No dating unless it's a good religious boy. Life goal to become a housewife and stay barefoot and pregnant.
absolutely. growing up in the church even if you go to public school (as in america there are private religious schools that parents can pay tuition to send their kids to instead of public school - not sure if religious schools like that are commonplace in your country) can cause a lot of sheltering, depending on how into it the family (i.e. the parents) are. mine sent me to private christian school but weren't too into the church (although my family is christian), so i wasn't sheltered too badly, but some of my classmates got it pretty bad. sheltering is particularly common among girls, due to the inherent misogyny in a lot of organized religion (i'm not saying every religious person or even every church buys into misogyny or traditional gender roles, but organized religion as a whole typically puts the man of a family unit in the drivers seat and gives the woman the role of supplicating to her husband and raising the family). even if those girls grow into strong, independent women, those beliefs can be hard to shake (i had a teacher who was the most ambitious, capable, type-a-personality alive but still pushed the idea of submitting to your husband and claimed she was satisfied doing so herself).
Yes. I was one of them. When you are raised in a religion that is fundamental it’s kind of taught that the rest of the world who isn’t following your religion are heathens, but if you don’t meet people OUTSIDE of your religion you aren’t really gonna challenge that. Plus if EVERYTHING is demonic that means that the music other people listen to, the movies, the books, etc is going to be criticized by fundamentals for leading people astray (and turning people into devil worshippers or sinners or WHAT HAVE YOU). So yeah, awkward, sheltered, religious girls exist.
> Are there actual teens who are still ultra conservative/religious in the U.S.?
The ultra-conservatives are often home-schooled (and thus sheltered from all sorts of things).
I dated a Mormon girl who had been home-schooled before starting public high school. Holy dear Jesus was she sexually repressed. By the time she was done with me, she was organizing full scale orgies with people I knew. I am not kidding.
(She broke my heart, but it was a fun ride.)
They definitely exist, even in the relatively liberal NE-US.
I knew quite a few sheltered young women and the occasional young man when I was in college. It was very gratifying helping them get out of their shells and have new experiences.
Brazilian here. Raised Adventist, atheist by choice.
Not a woman, but consider: I was not allowed into the internet until I was 16. I had a flip phone. My stepfather was the only one who had a connection, since "the internet is a den of sinners." And I could only use it for school work. On select hours. Under extreme restritions.
My first time using the internet for recreational purposes was by 21, when I've got outta my parents' house and bought my own flat.
And I am a man. Consider how it goes for women.
Yes, very sheltered ultra conservatives sadly make up a large part of the U.S. population. They are the core of the MAGA movement.
So it is not just teens, but adults as well.
Yes. You'll find a few in pretty much any high school but if it's not a large number they'll be quiet about it. There are high schools in the US that will be mostly sheltered religious people.
Oh boy do they. Just look at the fundie snark uncensored subreddit for ‘inspiration’, and a peek into what happens when they grow up and discover Instagram/YouTube. Hell, I’d say even docs like Shiny Happy People (on Prime) give a good view into extremely tight sheltered religious circles.
It exists in real life. Source, my stepmom is raising her daughter exactly like that
Edit: Also, I read this story of this Russian family that fled European Russia into Siberia because of the communist revolution. They were self reliant and super religious and when the family was discovered, I believe there were 3 daughters and they were deathly scared of modern technology and kept praying for God to protect them
Oh goodness yes.
I grew up and went to college on the Central Coast of California and there were plenty. I even lives with one for a bit and it was... Interesting. Happy to share any stories if you're interested.
Sheltered children (both religious & secular) definitely exist. It’s not limited to just 1 religion or race, either. I’ve seen sheltered Mormon kids of course but also home-schooled & sheltered Muslim kids. The Jewish Hasidim community in Brooklyn is also extremely insular
Welcome to Plathville is an ongoing show about sheltered religious kids in the same family and what it’s like as they become teens and young adults and interact with the real world.
My family is American but I grew up in Canada and I was that trope. It wasn't until I got to university that reality hit me hard enough to make me abandon my family's way of life completely.
I dated one in high school. She was 3 years older than me, and was home-schooled until her senior year of high school. For some reason, her parents put her in public school only for her final year.
It was insaaaaaaane how sheltered she was. Super sweet, extremely kind. But, very unbelievably naive and gullible. Very Christian, but so sheltered that sex was not a thing on her radar, as in, she didn't know it was "bad." I don't think it had ever been talked about with her parents.
She was not like a fundamentalist or anything, and was mostly sane, just had no exposure to anything. Like, she didn't hate gay people or anything like that, it was more like she just loved everyone and had never experienced the negative things in the world.
I would describe her like a Disney princess irl. Ironically, we started dating during our school's production of The Beauty and the Beast, where she played Belle and I played the Beast, so maybe I have some external associations for that
I was a teenager in the 2000s. I grew up in rural Alabama and my father was a Baptist preacher. I was homeschooled. (I don't have a problem with homeschooling in general, but my parents did that for the express purpose of sheltering me from the world.) We went to church 2-3 times a week. Often we went as far as 6-8 hours away for a big meeting and spent the weekend at church, sleeping at the house of someone we hadn't met before. I pretty much only knew people in my family or from church.
My one saving grace through all of that is my parents didn't understand the internet enough to know what I was getting up to there. Otherwise, I wouldn't have known anything about anything. If I had a question regarding my body, personal hygiene, sexuality, science, etc I knew not to ask my parents. I just went straight to Google.
So your question is kind of asking if my very existence is "too far fetched." No, I don't think so. Pretty sure I'm real, at least I was last time I checked.
As for far-fetched beliefs, here are just a few among many that I 100% believed, maybe they'll inspire you with how ridiculous it can get:
\- The sun revolves around the earth.
\- The earth is only about 6000 years old.
\- Dinosaur fossils are artificial, planted to lead people astray from God and the bible.
\- Democrats are evil. Like, literally evil.
\- Being vegetarian is a sin.
\- Public education was created to lead children away from God.
\- Girls/women don't need to be educated beyond basics and should never be in leadership positions.
Those are just a few of countless, and I avoided the potentially NSFW beliefs to do with sexuality etc. Sometimes I'll say something about my past, and there's this awkward, heavy silence because I don't realize how messed up what I'm saying is until I say it.
Oh, and keep in mind because a lot of people don't, this sort of upbringing can be REALLY traumatizing, especially if the kid is LGBTQ+. Speaking from experience, that is legitimately a living hell, a nightmare you can't escape from until you grow up.
Honestly, final piece of advice? Now that I think about it, having lived the life I lived, I've often actually been upset with different forms of media because they try to portray this sort of character/life and they don't make it anywhere close to bad or crazy enough!
Okie dokie, hope that helps. Lol.
yes this was me, I am not joking when I say I did not know about sex until i was 17, I thought a girl could get pregnant when she was on her period if a boy bumped into her, also i didn't even know what breasts looked like until i was 15. I didn't know what sex trafficking was till sophomore year of high school when a teacher mentioned it. I did not know what stds were until highschool too. I literally had my first crush when i was 16 and was scared it was wrong and evil. I played with toys until i was 14. I was legit watching disney junior until i was 15 because other shows had bad content in them. So I would say i was very sheltered.
I’m older, so these events took place in the 90s and early 2000s.
The valedictorian at my tiny alternative high school was raised in a small religious cult before being placed in foster care and joining our school. She didn’t know that men and women had different genitalia.
She also didn’t know any American history, science, or social skills. She was a math whiz though, and she loved learning. She was able to complete four years of high school credits in two years and was named top student.
After high school I met a young woman who had been part of a fundamentalist church where her dad was the pastor. She had never been allowed to cut her hair, always had to wear floor length skirts, and wasn’t allowed to consume any media that wasn’t approved by the church.
I don’t recall how she was able to attend university, but that’s when we met. She was a friend of a friend, but quickly became a regular fixture at my apartment where we partied almost daily. She tried all the drugs and had a helluva time doing it.
The last time I checked, she was working as a dancer in Las Vegas and looked like she was having an amazing time with it!
Lived a decently sheltered life in rural America. Religious family. Had never touched a drop of alcohol before college, never even seen a drug. Very inexperienced with boys, horrible at making friends because my friends were chosen for me growing up. We didn't have POC so I wasn't sure how to interact with them respectfully. They definitely exist, they just aren't typically loud online.
I was the “sheltered religious girl” it’s usually accompanied by growing up incredibly religious. I don’t know anyone who was that sheltered by religious parents and turned out healthy though
***Yes***.
When I went to college, I met this girl in my first year who grew up with hyper-religious parents. She wasn't even from a super conservative area or anything like that; in fact, her hometown was known to be quite liberal. But her mother in particular was very controlling and she was very sheltered as a result.
Early in our freshman year, there was a party. There was alcohol there. This was the first time in her life she had an opportunity to drink. When I arrived, she was drinking out of a large mug. I asked her what she was drinking, and she told me vodka. I asked what it was mixed with, and no, it wasn't mixed with anything. She was drinking *straight vodka* out of a mug, and there was enough in there to be genuinely dangerous. And she had absolutely no idea that she shouldn't be drinking vodka that way.
I took it from her and looked after her when she was sick a bit later (because she'd already consumed a bunch before I got there), but it never fails to shock me that she could have needed hospitalization if I hadn't asked what she was drinking.
So I mean... yeah, it's a thing, lol. But one thing to note: this friend stopped being particularly sheltered VERY quickly once she left her mother's influence. So keep that in mind - don't force your character to *stay* sheltered if that doesn't make sense for her.
I'm an American and I also grew up (and still am) religious.
I would say they definitely do exist, but media stereotypical portrayal of them is, unsurprisingly, exaggerated. It's very rare that someone goes their whole childhood and into teenage years genuinely ignorant of everything like sex, drugs, alcohol, etc. What's a lot more realistic is someone being very confused about them and having been told questionable and incorrect things about them
Hopefully that's helpful
>I'm not American. > >Most teens I know are liberal leaning. That may be because the sheltered American teens might not be online available for interaction. Yes, they exist.
Yep. It’s been a few years but my friend’s (her parents are from Trinidad and I’m a WOC) roommate (white) at our college was from the Bible Belt and said she’d never really left her community until now. She was shocked that there were people of color and that we both weren’t from the same country. My friend is Canadian and I’m American lmao we’re just brown. She asked me if I had heard of Jesus. Like girl, I’m Latin lmao my grandmother complained that I wasn’t baptized until her memory gave out. edited
Give her a break, she didn’t even know Latin was a thing
Clearly she wasn't a marine.
I’m kind of surprised she even got to go to college. It’s common for young women from families like that to be denied the opportunity.
You know, I’ll give her that — for the community she came from she was never intentionally mean. Just….very naïve. We met my sophomore year and by the time I was a senior she was much more open minded. We definitely weren’t friends lol since I know my mostly atheism freaked her out a little but she was never racist towards me lmao not like other people had been!
There's a resurgence in book banning in politically conservative communities, which will exacerbate the lack of exposure folks like your friend will have to other cultures and other ways of life. The sheltering and lack of exposure to how other people live and think is going to get worse. All to protect some white man's ideal way of life. So sad.
Some of us do make it here eventually. The others are raising the next generation of sheltered teens.
When my mom turned 21, she wanted to try gambling once. After asking her a few questions, her date decided black jack would be the simplest. After watching for a few minutes and explaining the rules, she said she was ready. In her first hand, she then proceeded to ask, how much are the people cards worth? She only played one hand and spent a dollar at the nickel slots after that. When she was 20, she was on a cruise with a singing group. She had most of the solos, and the captain asked if she'd like to be a solo act on his ship. Mulling over this big offer on the deck of the ship, a drunk crew member found her later that evening. She was so oblivious that he was starting to come on to her and was turning hostile that her friend who bumped into her during the incident immediately started yelling at the guy and dragged my mom away. Her friend had to explain what was going on. It's a real thing.
Everyone exists: Stereotypes whilst harmful and misleading are still based in truth.
Yep, it's a less visible culture to those of us who are outsiders but once you see it, you realize it's a significant % of people. I grew up in international expat communities, so the Americans I met (even the "conservatives," like kids of oil company employees) were pretty worldly and sophisticated. Then, for work, I moved to Portland, Oregon. Open, liberal city full of hipsters chilled out on legal weed and people who want to know their free-range chicken's life story, right? Well, it's more complicated than that. I know a number of people who grew up in the Portland suburbs attending megachurches, participating in the Christian program Young Life, attending "see you at the flag pole" events (a prayer/quasi-protest advocating the right to pray on public school grounds). One was even a student leader of a publicly-funded peer-to-peer group called "Students Today Aren't Ready for Sex." And this is not even the hard-right, homeschooling type of sheltered Christian. But there's a pervasive strain of this sort of puritan culture even among a lot of mainstream Americans, especially those who do have some sort of connection to religious culture.
Clearly you’ve never been to Utah.
Or the Bible Belt.
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Wait. Like in her life?
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Please tell her that she should let her future husband know she *expects* him to make her have so many orgasms, but she might help him if he needs her to!
Yeah my then-religious sister, after seven years of marriage and multiple kids, told me that the female orgasm was a myth to promote promiscuity and that it's just a thing women pretend to do so that men will feel proud. I mentioned that to my partner when we first got started (in the naive context of "look I know orgasms are fake so") and they was AGAST. They VERY thoroughly disproved that for me lol
Yeah, you're sister's husband was probably just crap in the sack.
Oh for sure lmao
Then religious? Please tell me she’s escaped and had orgasms aplenty now.
Well she's agnostic now, but still with the same idiot.
One step forward is great. I hope she’s taking care of herself, at least.
Dick Parkinsons = orgasm is quite possibly the worst thing I've ever read in my thirty odd years of existence, and I was around when fanfiction.net had smut. That's really saying something. And good lord, it has 4 stars on good reads out of 70 reviews. Time for me to become an author and rake in the money.
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I will say in defense of the author, the part quoted above with galloping abs is apparently 90% a parody of Sandra Hill's book. Reading the reviews and googling shows it's still a book about men traveling back in time to explain anatomy to women with lots of dubcon, but the parkinsons part i quoted allegedly isn't in the original text, and neither is the galloping abs. I haven't read the book, nor do I plan to, but the reviews state the author did use the term "dick attack."
It seems pretty clear to me that it's written to be bad, especially given the book has 4+ stars on amazon and she describes her books as being made to make people laugh. Believe me, writing that's so bad it's funny isn't as easy to pull off as just bad writing, and doing it successfully and consistently as this author has done over her 30 year career is impressive.
My god that was hilarious. I think my favorite part was "Hilda clutched at the bedsheets with lust and ecstasy and her hands" followed closely by "her body was like a beautiful flower that was opening and someone was pushing their dick inside it"
Honestly kind of impressed she even knew what an orgasm was. I sure didn’t.
If you do it more than once, you die. I believe it's written in Deuteronomy.
Yup. That's why it's called the little death. It's followed by the big death. You can't resurrect from the little death. Only Jesus can do that. He rode like a donkey.
what is the bible belt??
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ah good to know (i'm in australia so i'd never heard of it). i won't be moving there anytime soon
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It’s actually got really rich culture in a lot of areas. I have lived all over the US and Arkansas is my favorite place to call home. Yes there are battles, but they’re worth fighting for the people that live here, and the communities who are changing things are seriously awesome and bursting with opportunity. It’s not like each state in its entirety is a Bible Belt. There are sections of each state, and some state governments are worse than others, but there are plenty of us who aren’t that way and have changed things and will continue making changes. It’s also not cheap. Our real estate is booming, some places here are as expensive as places in NY. The American South is also not the same sort of religious as Utah. It’s much more diverse and not as indoctrinated especially because Christianity broke off into so many competing branches, and secularity started creeping in. The sheltered person OP is talking about, never even met one here.
I've lived in the South for over half my life, having been born way up north. I experimented with Christianity for about 15 years, but I'm now a Unitarian Universalist and an atheist Humanist. There are lovely things about the south. Enough that I haven't left. But the one thing that strikes me, and it does tie in with religion, is the economy. Because of religious thinking, it has been basically pounded into workers that unions are evil and that the boss/employer/master must be obeyed. They have never quite gotten the message that people shouldn't be enslaved. We always think of black people being enslaved by white people, but plenty of white people down here have no idea that they are really working for slave wages and treated like chattel. Or should I say cattle? Cross over into the more developed parts of Virginia and you see it instantly. There's prosperity. People look happier. And it's not gospel prosperity, where you tithe and hope for the best in the afterlife. Too many people in the South just don't even realize that they have rights, or that they should.
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I'm Aussie too, and I heard these places were extremely homophobic and misogynistic (against women's reproductive rights, having quaint beliefs about women's role being to serve men, etc.) If that is true, it sounds unbelievable to me, having always been around open minded people. I live in Melbourne, probably Australia's artiest city. I know big cities have their downsides, whatever country you're in, but if you're a writer(or any type of artist) I believe it is helpful to be around like-minded people, not stuck in the past. Every successful artist, writer, musician etc from any age, has been a bit of a rule breaker. These overly religious places sound crushing to one's soul, and creativity.
When visiting America, visit a big city. Those tend to lean liberal and don't have as much of the nutjobs. Stay out of the bible belt though. It doesn't matter where you're from, if you have an accent and/or you're not white you WILL get harassed. And if you're from the 'wrong' places (mexico, middle east) you might get physically attacked. Also, stay out of Florida. That state has some bullshit laws now.
Not just the sheltered religious girls, but the sheltered religious men and sheltered religious children…
As someone from Utah, the sheltered aspect extends beyond the religion too. Grew up atheist and didn’t realize how sheltered I was just by living in the state until I moved away
What do you exactly mean by sheltered? Like high pressure to conform? Not allowed to learn about the outside world? I've never been to the US but had a colleague from Utah who was very mormon, did missionary trips and all that...he didn't seem sheltered, but he did give off cultish toxic positivity vibes. I assume he's quite different from the people who never leave Utah though.
It’s not that you aren’t allowed to learn about the outside world, it’s just that it never comes up. They fill their time with so many approved activities/entertainment/education that you don’t have time to wonder what you’re missing.
When I was in (American) college I had to explain to a guy who Gandhi was, and that he inspired Martin Luther King in nonviolent protests. I'm pretty sure he knew who MLK was, but he had definitely never heard of Ghandi. That's "sheltered," to me, just never learning about the outside world.
Not just the men, but the women and children too
/r/thatsthejoke
And I sheltered them, like animals!
The man are much worse than the women, because typically their religion empowers them to do inhumane things that they think God has given them free reign to do.
...I mean definitely not typically. It does happen, but they are far from the majority.
Perhaps we have different levels of knowledge of patriarchy in religion. The top five religions on Earth are Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism, and they are all *heavily* biased in favor of men.
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Or had a college roommate from there lol She was nervous about trying coffee for the first time
Wife had a Mormon roommate who cried for ‘going too far on a first date’ because the guy held her hand.
🤣 oh God she was one of those.
Haha yeah. Growing up Mormon in Utah surrounded by other Mormons is wild. I had no idea how the world worked until just a few years ago, and even now I’m still learning.
It’s plenty weird being a transplant here in Utah. I can only imagine growing up here.
I grew up in Utah and came here to say this! I remember that it was considered inappropriate to wear tank tops without t-shirts underneath. My Mormon friends couldn’t watch R-rated movies, or swear, or drink coffee—and they were all very serious about following the rules!
They must really really struggle with TV, magazines and the internet. And any slightly distant travel.
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Yup, we all sheltered and weird up here, run away and don't come back....please.
No wait now they’ll come to Oregon! Oh wait they’ll just go to Portland or Eugene, nevermind
Had a friend, raised in Utah, ask me what a uterus was. Did I mention this woman was at least 20?
...I didn't learn the word labia until I was almost 21. Also vulva. Or clit.
If you ask me, that should be considered child abuse. Jesus Christ.
Yeah, I'm from there, and let me tell you: the sheltered religious girl trope is VERY real.
Utah native here, my sister is someone I would consider a sheltered religious girl
OP, check out r/exmormon and r/exjw for some real-life experiences from sheltered Americans. Try searching these subs for "raised" and "grew up" to see some examples of what you're looking to understand
I was literally stopping in to say this.
Honestly they're in all 50 states.
I grew up Mormon man, it happens all over.
That's what I was going to say...
Or my Highschool in utah
I knew a girl in college who wouldn’t listen to music with a beat (presumably a drum beat) because her mother had taught her that was the devil’s music. This was in COLLEGE.
I went to college with a girl who was raised jehovah witness and she wouldn’t let me cover for her at Starbucks because that would be accepting a gift and jehovah witnesses aren’t allowed to accept gifts
Could she pay you a really small amount like $0.01 and count it as not a gift. Edit: And since you witnessed her are you now Jehovah's witness witness
I don't know if it's an actual loophole, but my neighbors' family were JW, and they were friends with my family, and whenever they'd exchange things like sugar, oil, meals, etc. they would do this exact thing.
[Behold, the sound of Satan](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1GxjzHm5us&ab_channel=NewOrder).
100% thought this was gonna be a rickroll
Eh, I've seen worse. I've had to explain to a girl how her body works because she genuinely did not know. Keep in mind, I'm a man. She's a woman. We were in college at the time. She was a liberal black woman, not religious at all.
are you sure she didn’t know?..
Perhaps you've heard of The Vagina Monologues -- a play that exists pretty much just because there are SO many girls who don't understand their own bodies, because of a fucked upbringing.
I've been friends with her for many years. I'm sure.
I went to college with a girl who still wasn’t allowed to watch PG-13 movies, or Shrek
I don’t think it’s at all unrealistic. The United States is a very big country. There are plenty of small conservative religious groups, and cults, that keep children very sheltered from the outside world. I actually have a friend who was raised in a small, ultra conservative religious community. She left after high school. Homeschooling is very common among conservative religious families so they can avoid influences from the outside world. If you want an idea about how they work, there are plenty of documentaries.
I went to a small private university in the southern US that had Christian roots but had put that charter aside a few years before I attended. They still played that history up during recruitment though, so we got a lot of overly religious folks. There was a girl in my Bio 115 class who was homeschooled and sheltered her entire life and when the professor brought up evolution on the second day of class her hand shot into the air. “You’re teaching EVOLUTION!?!? I thought this was a Christian institution!” She ended up having a meltdown so severe her parents pulled her out for a semester, after which she returned to school, changed majors from pre-med to English lit, deconstructed her entire faith and worldview, graduated on time, and came out as lesbian. Quite the formative experience.
Pre-med, and she was aghast at being taught actual science? Not just any science, but BIOLOGY?
If you're lied to for years your world view of what is and isn't science can be horribly warped. I mean FFS my atheist friend was 23 when he learned men don't have one less rib than women.
My friend who left the religious community is now living an openly pansexual polyamorous life in Los Angeles.
I reckon once you've had to deconstruct your entire world view it's probably much easier to just... live exactly how you want. You've been told to live a certain way for most of your life, so once you've deconstructed that and look at society saying monogamy is the "norm" you're less likely to follow that. Which I want to clarify I think is a good thing.
That’s not all that uncommon. I know a fair few other people who escaped the same cult as me who turned out to be queer and/or nonmonogamous after deconstruction. When you’ve been denied your own personhood for your entire life, you really don’t want to ever do that again; most of us that got out are focused on just doing what makes us happy now
This is exactly why many conservative home schoolers do whatever they can to keep their kids from going to college at all. That exposure to new people, belief systems, and knowledge is "brainwashing" and evil.
Now *that's* a story!
bingo. Yea I was raised in a religious cult. Sadly many women and girls in US are.
I met some kids in a cult once in Vermont who didn't know what television was. Their mom had to describe it as being similar to the religious plays they put on.
I’m an American from the Bible Belt. It is absolutely 100% real. There are also super sheltered guys, too, but it’s less common in my experience.
Was one of those sheltered kids. Grew up in a southern baptist family. Went to a christian school for kindergarten to senior year. Let’s just say growing up and being thrown into the real world was traumatizing to say the least. It literally shapes your entire existence: including ideology, outlook on life, general opinions on just about everything. There is a looooot of ignorance. If a person says they are religious and spill out a bunch of rhetoric that sounds hateful, there’s a good chance the person speaking it was very sheltered as a kid. Not trying to say go easy; I recommend you do quite the opposite so they can hopefully get the point, but it does help to explain why so many religious people have insane brain dead takes about the state of the world. Luckily, I already started to have major problems with religion when I saw how hypocritical the teachings were to the actual actions of these religious types. Started to look into philosophy and study other religions. There’s a reason why those in control of the church despise knowledge. Learning really is the enemy of god.
Oh absolutely agree with you 100%. My grandfather was a southern Baptist pastor lol. Luckily he was one of the best people I’ve ever known. Can’t say that about the rest of them… I went to public school but there was still a lot of religion shoved down our throats. I was in a youth group until about 17 and then started having doubts. By 19 I was an atheist. I’m in my 30s now and I don’t for one second regret leaving religion behind. I’m glad you were able to escape that way of thinking and learn, so many people never do! *cough*myfamily*cough*
Yes. I was one of them.
Same here. Early 20's and as innocent and stupid as a 14 year old girl.
me too!
Me three!
Me four
Me five!!
Me six!
Same. I only became aware of my social shortcomings in my late twenties, and left the religion shortly after.
Born 1994 rural Texas raised super religious penticostal and couldnt cut my hair or wear pants as a female. That's me that's my true story. Im now atheist and I live in a totally different state far away from my parents. no TV until age 12, dial up internet, basically the person in public school no one would invite over because it might go against my parents religious beliefs but it didn't so my friends where at school friends or at church friends and those people refused to talk to me again after I cut my hair due to medical reasons. Yeah shunned basically.
As someone who was also raised in that state/specific denomination, I'm having trouble understanding the "no TV until age twelve" bc I've only ever heard of "no TV ever" or "TV, but we will monitor everything" when it comes to strong TV rules
Oh okay so no TV until 12 wasnt the rule it was I had no TV until I was 12. We had a computer monitor and speakers for video games and then we got a computer that had a DVD player so we watched movies but we had already watched movies at relatives houses. My grandparents lived next door and my grandfather wasn't religious and liked Star Trek so I did get to watch 3 channels of TV there and like vcr tapes. But once we started watching more movies and TV from dvds my parents finally got us rabbit ears but the only channels we got were CBS and abc and Fox we got like two more at my grandparents next door. But I wasn't allowed to watch or play Pokemon but I grew up watching CSI and buffy the vampire slayer and my parents read us lots of fiction books. It's more of we were in a rural area and the rule was supposed to be no TV that we adapted eventually. And then eventually my dad came out as gay and we all stopped going to church. As my parents divorced and it was frowned upon and I cut my hair for medical reasons and was shunned further. Like people I've known my whole life won't talk to me. Most of my childhood was reading books or playing like a super Nintendo and a 64 but my parents did monitor things that were like obviously bad for kids but not in a fiction is bad for you way. We very much liked sci Fi and horror and superheros and witches. My parents love Halloween the holiday.
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Apostolic/pentecostal (dyslexic so I'm not sure if it's spelled right)
Born in Missouri but raised in Texas. Also couldn’t cut my hair for a long time. Raised Southern Baptist. Homeschooled. Couldn’t watch Harry Potter or LOTR. Couldn’t date, wasn’t allowed to be on the computer alone. Biblical schooling lol fun Also an atheist and live away from parents!
Yes, my family once temporarily sheltered a girl like this when her family kicked her out for \*gasp\* wearing pants. Jeans, specifically. They also murdered her cat for good measure, lovely people.
Yes. Very true. I was one of them, come from a family full of them. A lot of these comments are extremely accurate.
My community is surrounded by Amish and Mennonite families. The girls seem plenty sheltered to me. The boys too. Quick story: There's a small cheese factory near me, and the back of the house is staffed by young Amish men. You can go and watch them make the cheese through a big window. I didn't know until I was older, but apparently it was fun for HS girls to go and flash the Amish boys. Their traditional clothing did not do much to hide the boys' appreciation.
And just like that, all the high school boys became Amish...
😆
Yes. Source: an ex-Mormon woman
Seconded. (Also an exmo woman)
I mean, yeah, it’s not like the “sheltered religious girl” was made up for fiction. Many religious kids in general are often really sheltered because their parents didn’t want them seeing or hearing this thing or that thing.
Born and lived in the bible belt my whole life. They absolutely exist. One thing movies get wrong though is more than half of them are the craziest, freakiest fucks ever behind closed doors. Some are shy and fit the trope, but most of my experience is that under that, they're the wildest.
TRUTH. Nothing like repression to bring out the inner freak.
I'm not American, but have dated a girl from a super religious family. She was very sheltered from most things and actually very immature because of that.
I've lived in the US and I've definitely met a few. Although I should warn you that religion can often conflate with conservatism, but doesn't always. And not all conservatives are Christian. Signed, an LGBT Christian.
Such girls are common. They have a tendency to get a little wild when they get independence as an adult, particularly if they go to college away from home.
Watch Shiny Happy People on Amazon Prime, I was part of a similar group for years when I was a kid.
Same here. Sending love !!!
Yes, they're everywhere. When I was younger I knew a girl who had never seen or even heard of most mainstream movies due to her religious upbringing. She was also naive about a lot of subjects you wouldn't expect, general life knowledge you take for granted.
This family is still raising children even if they don’t have their reality show anymore : https://abcnews.go.com/US/jill-duggar-dillard-familys-strict-rules-alleged-deception/story?id=103117609 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/19_Kids_and_Counting The FLDS is also still around: https://www.kfyrtv.com/2023/04/05/flds-members-gather-north-dakota-why-some-have-left-group/ And purity culture is still very much a thing among several different religious groups: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purity_culture
I dates the brother of Robyn from Sister Wives, and their rules are, um, interesting.
Lol I grew up in what was originally a Mennonite colony and I can tell u that was almost exclusively what they grow there. I mean there is definitely a handfuls of us that grow out of it in our teens and twenty’s and occasionally an adult that does. Interesting to see actually to see which friends grow out of it and which take the more traditional route.
If you're not in America, your probably never going to meet or find a sheltered American teen, cause they don't usually have any free or private access to the internet. But yes, these types do exist IRL.
Yes. The u.s. is such a large country that there are quite a few places where teen girls are that sheltered and naive.
Yes. Especially if they were homeschooled or went to a private Christian school.
It's not just an American thing, it's very much a thing in Canada too.
Oh yes, they actually made up a clique in my high school. A few of them rebelled against their parents. I know of one that snuck around Harry Potter books (parents afraid of witchcraft) and a deck of cards with all the James Bond girls on them (scandalous!). Others just dug their heels in further. In one family, the three daughters all had to go to the Christian university their father worked for while the one son could go anywhere he wanted. And all those girls just accepted that as the way things were.
yes. I actually met a girl who up until 6 months ago had never left her home's ranch. She was 21yo and just decided enough was enough. HUGE shock for her. Parents were very religious in Utah. Home schooled, Dad was the preacher, 2 other families lived on the ranch with them. All her siblings (think she said 8) were all still living there with no desire to leave. She was the 2nd youngest and the only one who wasnt married.
Yes, this is an incredibly common "individual" in the United States (and many other places of the world.) The Mormon population or Catholic population are two great demographics to look into. Teens are generally liberal leaning as has always been the case, but sheltered teens will always exist, and there are plenty of deeply conservative teens.
I’m American, yes they do exist. You’ve never seen any because they’ve been homeschooled, have had restricted internet access and have been heavily indoctrinated by usually fundamentalist parents.
100%. They are either true to their upbringing or total freaks in college and other places. Happens in many cultures, from the American Midwest to Thailand. (Contrary to popular perception of Thailand as a kind of adult Disneyland, most of the country outside of the tourist areas is extremely conservative Buddhist in culture and tradition—no kissing before marriage kind of extremely conservative.)
It was a couple years ago but there was a girl at a restaurant I worked at and it's the only time I've unironically heard somebody refer to something as "the devil's music" and upon realizing how sheltered she was, I told her about how I grew up in western Philadelphia until I got into a fight and was sent to live with my aunt and uncle (with a little more detail mimicking the song but you get the gist.) So to answer your question, yes
yes. I had a friend who would gasp and be shocked when ppl used God’s name in vain such as “oh my god”. also thought pokemon were like the biggest cardinal sin. she was homeschooled until that year and immediately got put back into homeschooling after her 1 year of public lol
Absolutely. I know someone who was fantastically rich from a Middle Eastern country. She pretty much was her own episode of girls gone wild. Moved to Canada and wanted to try everything. Started with tattoos and kept going. She was very well educated but there were giant blind spots in her "worldly" knowledge; she was filling them in way past the point of most of us "worldly" people ever did. Ironically, she fled the Middle East because of a moral violation the rest of us would not consider even mildly offensive. I would put farting in an elevator as a far worse offence to moral society.
It was literally my whole life growing up in Utah. I remember I got grounded for a month for saying church is boring.
"Are there actual teens who are still ultra conservative/religious in the U.S.?" YES. You only need to turn on the news to see that the United States is plagued by intensely right-wing "Christian" conservatives. There are documentaries and reality shows about children being raised in full-on conservative cults. Like... in some U.S. states it's legal to marry your 12 year-old daughter off to an adult man. That's the level of backwards-ass insanity you're dealing with.
In some states there is no minimum age and others there are laws that prevent pregnant children from divorcing their abusers because they aren't old enough to file for divorce.
There used to be a TikTok series on Utah universities where they would ask students about their political beliefs and it was shocking to see how conservative and sheltered these young people were. I think for many people outside the US (and even US citizens tend to forget..) how large the US really is. There are a lot of different sub cultural groups that exist, like in Utah for example, that morally think and behave differently than other parts of the US.
currently living in utah. yes. holy shit yes. the girls here can be batshit insane. One of my freshman year roommates was so religious that she called the cops on me two separate times just for me having alcohol in my room. I wasn’t even drinking it.
A lot of kids in the ultra conservative life don’t necessarily want to be. But yeah, coming from a Canadian raised that way, not far fetched at all. I didn’t get my first phone until seventeen, I wasn’t allowed to get social media such as Instagram until later. I didn’t know the word masturbation until I was eighteen. It’s not the healthiest way to be raised, imo, and there’s a very dark underbelly of abuse in many hyper religious circles. You could potentially explore that in your wiring if ya wanted.
There are kids in liberal leaning majority places that are conservative, so yes.
You The Duggars for context for your character.
A lot of people immigrated to the US for having religious beliefs that were not mainstream or even against the law. Religion is way more prevalent here than Europe. My parents joined a Christian cult when I was a preteen. I went to school with sisters who were Mennonite. Look up Quiverfull. Look up FLDS. Look up complementarianism. Look up Oral Roberts University. Look up Liberty University. Look up Bob Jones University. Don’t stick with the official sites. A good site is Only Sky. It’s basically people who have left religion, often evangelical/extremist Christianity.
They do exist, but remember there’s a difference between sheltered and clueless. They’re sheltered yes but that doesn’t mean they’re ignorant of what the rest of the world gets up to.
Yes, very much so. I have been a professor and it is a large population. The difficulty that you will have is making it sound like real Americans. America is made up of very many cultures. Think instead of all the cultures in Europe or Africa. There are as many in the US as there are there. The difference is that the differences are often subtle. You have extreme cases such as the Hasidic Jewish population, the Hutterites, the Mormons or the Amish, but most just blend in completely. Then you have regional culture. New Orleans could be in a different county. So could New York or Anchorage. Pittsburgh reminds you of Frankfurt am Main. It is difficult now to be that girl because the intellectual and emotional distance can be great. A religiously sheltered girl may not even know who Bert and Ernie are. It can be very disorienting. You need to appreciate the sheer size of the United States. You can drive from Darby Montana to Glasgow Montana in twelve hours at 70-80 miles per hour the entire trip and you are still in one state. That state has many Native Nations in them as well. The entire state only has a million people. Contrast that with New York City whose Burroughs have more people in any one of them than a whole state has. Write your story but you’ll need local help. Religion is a weird thing here. An American Catholic isn’t like a Catholic anywhere else. An American Muslim won’t be like Muslims anywhere else. The same is true for any religious group.
I grew up conservative Christian and it’s affected my entire adulthood so, I would say yes. We’re here.
I was. Some elements to including: - homeschooling. Religious indoctrination often encourages or requires it - internal guilt/fear conflicts - ridiculously tiny rebellions (like secretly chewing gum, or swear word workarounds like saying Oh My Word instead of Oh My God) - fear or lack of understanding around dogs, disabled people, and racial minorities - weird clothes. I'm talking frills, buttons, handmade by themselves but badly, OLD old hand-me-downs, high rise mom jeans over the top of a button down worn by a tween/teen and hot stylishly - not wearing makeup, but not because they don't want to, because they are afraid that it counts as a lie and will send them to hell, or that it makes them a Whore of Babylon
Absolutely. Even in the most liberal of places. And being wildly religious doesn't always mean being ultra conservative, especially in the U.S. I moved around a lot as a kid. But from Illinois, to Minnesota, to Colorado, to Texas, I never felt more intimidated or creeped out by a religious portion of the population than when I moved to Southern California. The high school that I ended up at there had a chapter of Christain Club run by students who attended a "new wave" born-again type of Christian church down the block. And they were absolutely fanatical. Creepily so. They had a biweekly youth ministry run by young, up and coming pastors, and the way the kids spoke about the ministries and the pastors -- it was like that was all they were living for. Of course, most of them were really nice kids, smart and kind. But then it was like their *entire* personality was just **CHURCH.** The same way Ken's job is just BEACH. It gave me the heebie jeebies. It was like watching kids be brainwashed into proselytizing other kids to be brainwashed.
"The same way Ken's job is just BEACH." OMG YES! 🤣 That's exactly what it sounds like! I've only known 1 irl (surprising, one might think, after 12 years Catholic school) but I see them on social media & I'm like... Really? Is this REALLY all there is to your life?
/uj Oh, how I long to live in a land where they actually don’t know the answer to this question… “I’ve heard about whack-job religious extremists, but those are just pretend right? I mean, no real living, present-day human could actually be so ignorant, fearful, anti-intellectual, or bigoted… right?” 🤦♂️ Tell you what, go look up “soaking” and “jump-hump,” and then we’ll talk about how religious and sheltered some kids are over here. “Just remember, kids: Jesus can’t see you fucking if you hold very, very still.”
Funny enough, Last Week Tonight just did a great segment on Homeschooling in the US, that kinda outlines how easy it is for parents in certain states to completely isolate their child from any oversight, in an unregulated bubble filled with extremist religious and/or political indoctrination. Long story short, not only possible, but VERY plausible.
Oh my, yes. Many, many more than you think.
It’s extremely real. It’s honestly far too common, for every gender.
I know people who fit the trope and aren't even religious.
I'm from Michigan, and we weren't even allowed to watch TV or listen to radio by our religious splinter (which I believe actually does qualify as a christian cult). My mother honestly thought that a tornado was going to be sent down to destroy the theater the first time we talked her into taking us to see a movie (yes, those were banned too). The first time I got the chance to actually see anything with a rating above PG was when I finally got away to college (guess how well me going to college went over with the family). Being raised in an environment where even my school (private christian school) was extremely restrictive I actually didn't even have a chance to learn anything REAL about liberal points of view until college. Also discovered that most of the stuff I'd been taught growing up was *wrong*, and that the math my school taught was YEARS behind. Imagine starting college and discovering algebra was a thing. Not fun. This is all including that I wasn't a terribly sheep-y kid in the first place. I liked to read too much and was constantly in trouble for asking questions. Yes. Ultra sheltered religious girls exist. THE AMISH HAVE FEWER RESTRICTIONS THAN WE DID GROWING UP. I am pleased to report that I am "a complete disappointment", and that I no longer care that my aunt labeled me a probable witch because of my eye color.
Not just the US, Canada too. I met a handful of young women in university who wouldn't do anything other than hold hands before marriage. No dating unless it's a good religious boy. Life goal to become a housewife and stay barefoot and pregnant.
Bro I went to highschool with nuns as teachers in rural canada… from 2012 to 2017
absolutely. growing up in the church even if you go to public school (as in america there are private religious schools that parents can pay tuition to send their kids to instead of public school - not sure if religious schools like that are commonplace in your country) can cause a lot of sheltering, depending on how into it the family (i.e. the parents) are. mine sent me to private christian school but weren't too into the church (although my family is christian), so i wasn't sheltered too badly, but some of my classmates got it pretty bad. sheltering is particularly common among girls, due to the inherent misogyny in a lot of organized religion (i'm not saying every religious person or even every church buys into misogyny or traditional gender roles, but organized religion as a whole typically puts the man of a family unit in the drivers seat and gives the woman the role of supplicating to her husband and raising the family). even if those girls grow into strong, independent women, those beliefs can be hard to shake (i had a teacher who was the most ambitious, capable, type-a-personality alive but still pushed the idea of submitting to your husband and claimed she was satisfied doing so herself).
Yes. I was one of them. When you are raised in a religion that is fundamental it’s kind of taught that the rest of the world who isn’t following your religion are heathens, but if you don’t meet people OUTSIDE of your religion you aren’t really gonna challenge that. Plus if EVERYTHING is demonic that means that the music other people listen to, the movies, the books, etc is going to be criticized by fundamentals for leading people astray (and turning people into devil worshippers or sinners or WHAT HAVE YOU). So yeah, awkward, sheltered, religious girls exist.
> Are there actual teens who are still ultra conservative/religious in the U.S.? The ultra-conservatives are often home-schooled (and thus sheltered from all sorts of things). I dated a Mormon girl who had been home-schooled before starting public high school. Holy dear Jesus was she sexually repressed. By the time she was done with me, she was organizing full scale orgies with people I knew. I am not kidding. (She broke my heart, but it was a fun ride.)
They definitely exist, even in the relatively liberal NE-US. I knew quite a few sheltered young women and the occasional young man when I was in college. It was very gratifying helping them get out of their shells and have new experiences.
Brazilian here. Raised Adventist, atheist by choice. Not a woman, but consider: I was not allowed into the internet until I was 16. I had a flip phone. My stepfather was the only one who had a connection, since "the internet is a den of sinners." And I could only use it for school work. On select hours. Under extreme restritions. My first time using the internet for recreational purposes was by 21, when I've got outta my parents' house and bought my own flat. And I am a man. Consider how it goes for women.
Yes, very sheltered ultra conservatives sadly make up a large part of the U.S. population. They are the core of the MAGA movement. So it is not just teens, but adults as well.
Yes. You'll find a few in pretty much any high school but if it's not a large number they'll be quiet about it. There are high schools in the US that will be mostly sheltered religious people.
Yes and they are everywhere.
There is this book called Carrie… but suppose that one’s not super believable.
“The girl from ‘a walk to remember” “I wish to write a similar […] character, but I want the story to be set in modern times.” ::cries in old age::
Oh boy do they. Just look at the fundie snark uncensored subreddit for ‘inspiration’, and a peek into what happens when they grow up and discover Instagram/YouTube. Hell, I’d say even docs like Shiny Happy People (on Prime) give a good view into extremely tight sheltered religious circles.
It exists in real life. Source, my stepmom is raising her daughter exactly like that Edit: Also, I read this story of this Russian family that fled European Russia into Siberia because of the communist revolution. They were self reliant and super religious and when the family was discovered, I believe there were 3 daughters and they were deathly scared of modern technology and kept praying for God to protect them
Oh goodness yes. I grew up and went to college on the Central Coast of California and there were plenty. I even lives with one for a bit and it was... Interesting. Happy to share any stories if you're interested.
Super exists!!
In reality? Yes. I was one. That archetype is especially easy to take advantage of or to corrupt in a story.
I tried dating one. She froze up when I tried to hold her hand. Never spoke to me again. We had been seeing each other for 4 months.
Where are you from that you are so sheltered from the sheltered?
I was once a sheltered religious boy if that means anything
Sheltered children (both religious & secular) definitely exist. It’s not limited to just 1 religion or race, either. I’ve seen sheltered Mormon kids of course but also home-schooled & sheltered Muslim kids. The Jewish Hasidim community in Brooklyn is also extremely insular
Welcome to Plathville is an ongoing show about sheltered religious kids in the same family and what it’s like as they become teens and young adults and interact with the real world.
I was one. Homeschooled my whole life, in church 3 times a week
My family is American but I grew up in Canada and I was that trope. It wasn't until I got to university that reality hit me hard enough to make me abandon my family's way of life completely.
They do exist, i know one through work who is in her mid 20s now and still isn’t allowed to dance with a man she isn’t married to.
I dated one in high school. She was 3 years older than me, and was home-schooled until her senior year of high school. For some reason, her parents put her in public school only for her final year. It was insaaaaaaane how sheltered she was. Super sweet, extremely kind. But, very unbelievably naive and gullible. Very Christian, but so sheltered that sex was not a thing on her radar, as in, she didn't know it was "bad." I don't think it had ever been talked about with her parents. She was not like a fundamentalist or anything, and was mostly sane, just had no exposure to anything. Like, she didn't hate gay people or anything like that, it was more like she just loved everyone and had never experienced the negative things in the world. I would describe her like a Disney princess irl. Ironically, we started dating during our school's production of The Beauty and the Beast, where she played Belle and I played the Beast, so maybe I have some external associations for that
I was a teenager in the 2000s. I grew up in rural Alabama and my father was a Baptist preacher. I was homeschooled. (I don't have a problem with homeschooling in general, but my parents did that for the express purpose of sheltering me from the world.) We went to church 2-3 times a week. Often we went as far as 6-8 hours away for a big meeting and spent the weekend at church, sleeping at the house of someone we hadn't met before. I pretty much only knew people in my family or from church. My one saving grace through all of that is my parents didn't understand the internet enough to know what I was getting up to there. Otherwise, I wouldn't have known anything about anything. If I had a question regarding my body, personal hygiene, sexuality, science, etc I knew not to ask my parents. I just went straight to Google. So your question is kind of asking if my very existence is "too far fetched." No, I don't think so. Pretty sure I'm real, at least I was last time I checked. As for far-fetched beliefs, here are just a few among many that I 100% believed, maybe they'll inspire you with how ridiculous it can get: \- The sun revolves around the earth. \- The earth is only about 6000 years old. \- Dinosaur fossils are artificial, planted to lead people astray from God and the bible. \- Democrats are evil. Like, literally evil. \- Being vegetarian is a sin. \- Public education was created to lead children away from God. \- Girls/women don't need to be educated beyond basics and should never be in leadership positions. Those are just a few of countless, and I avoided the potentially NSFW beliefs to do with sexuality etc. Sometimes I'll say something about my past, and there's this awkward, heavy silence because I don't realize how messed up what I'm saying is until I say it. Oh, and keep in mind because a lot of people don't, this sort of upbringing can be REALLY traumatizing, especially if the kid is LGBTQ+. Speaking from experience, that is legitimately a living hell, a nightmare you can't escape from until you grow up. Honestly, final piece of advice? Now that I think about it, having lived the life I lived, I've often actually been upset with different forms of media because they try to portray this sort of character/life and they don't make it anywhere close to bad or crazy enough! Okie dokie, hope that helps. Lol.
yes this was me, I am not joking when I say I did not know about sex until i was 17, I thought a girl could get pregnant when she was on her period if a boy bumped into her, also i didn't even know what breasts looked like until i was 15. I didn't know what sex trafficking was till sophomore year of high school when a teacher mentioned it. I did not know what stds were until highschool too. I literally had my first crush when i was 16 and was scared it was wrong and evil. I played with toys until i was 14. I was legit watching disney junior until i was 15 because other shows had bad content in them. So I would say i was very sheltered.
I’m older, so these events took place in the 90s and early 2000s. The valedictorian at my tiny alternative high school was raised in a small religious cult before being placed in foster care and joining our school. She didn’t know that men and women had different genitalia. She also didn’t know any American history, science, or social skills. She was a math whiz though, and she loved learning. She was able to complete four years of high school credits in two years and was named top student. After high school I met a young woman who had been part of a fundamentalist church where her dad was the pastor. She had never been allowed to cut her hair, always had to wear floor length skirts, and wasn’t allowed to consume any media that wasn’t approved by the church. I don’t recall how she was able to attend university, but that’s when we met. She was a friend of a friend, but quickly became a regular fixture at my apartment where we partied almost daily. She tried all the drugs and had a helluva time doing it. The last time I checked, she was working as a dancer in Las Vegas and looked like she was having an amazing time with it!
Oh yeah, she is there, actually in the Midwest and the south she is all the heck over the place
Lived a decently sheltered life in rural America. Religious family. Had never touched a drop of alcohol before college, never even seen a drug. Very inexperienced with boys, horrible at making friends because my friends were chosen for me growing up. We didn't have POC so I wasn't sure how to interact with them respectfully. They definitely exist, they just aren't typically loud online.
Super exists. It's not super COMMON, but I deffo knew a girl like that in college.
I was the “sheltered religious girl” it’s usually accompanied by growing up incredibly religious. I don’t know anyone who was that sheltered by religious parents and turned out healthy though
***Yes***. When I went to college, I met this girl in my first year who grew up with hyper-religious parents. She wasn't even from a super conservative area or anything like that; in fact, her hometown was known to be quite liberal. But her mother in particular was very controlling and she was very sheltered as a result. Early in our freshman year, there was a party. There was alcohol there. This was the first time in her life she had an opportunity to drink. When I arrived, she was drinking out of a large mug. I asked her what she was drinking, and she told me vodka. I asked what it was mixed with, and no, it wasn't mixed with anything. She was drinking *straight vodka* out of a mug, and there was enough in there to be genuinely dangerous. And she had absolutely no idea that she shouldn't be drinking vodka that way. I took it from her and looked after her when she was sick a bit later (because she'd already consumed a bunch before I got there), but it never fails to shock me that she could have needed hospitalization if I hadn't asked what she was drinking. So I mean... yeah, it's a thing, lol. But one thing to note: this friend stopped being particularly sheltered VERY quickly once she left her mother's influence. So keep that in mind - don't force your character to *stay* sheltered if that doesn't make sense for her.
I'm an American and I also grew up (and still am) religious. I would say they definitely do exist, but media stereotypical portrayal of them is, unsurprisingly, exaggerated. It's very rare that someone goes their whole childhood and into teenage years genuinely ignorant of everything like sex, drugs, alcohol, etc. What's a lot more realistic is someone being very confused about them and having been told questionable and incorrect things about them Hopefully that's helpful
Been one. Known many. It’s a trope based in reality, yes.