Sheila Wray Gregoire's Blog, page 16
January 5, 2022
10 Totally Life Changing Marriage Tips You Needed to Learn in 2021
Yesterday I shared the top 10 posts from 2021 that garnered the most comments and were the most talked about.
But there’s another category of posts I thought it would be important to share: the ones that I think are life changing, either because they teach something that can change everything, or they invite you to see something from a different perspective–and that different perspective can change everything.
The post I keep coming back to from 2020, that everyone refers to, is my emotional labor and mental load series. But there were ones from 2021 that I know I’ll be returning to again and again as well.
I’ll start with the practical ones that teach you a specific skill, and then move on to the ones that invite you to change your perspective:
2021 Practical Posts that Can Change Your Marriage#1
Why Direct Communication Can Be DifficultOur direct communication series struck a chord–why direct communication is difficult for people; specifically why direct communication is difficult for Christian women, and why it’s difficult for Christian men. The 6 markers of direct communication. And so much more!
The whole series was important, so start here and then follow the rabbit trails!
#2
What if Nagging Isn’t the Real Problem?Here’s a post that was also part of the direct communication series but deserves its own slot!
Often women get lambasted for nagging too much. But what if there’s another dynamic going on? And if THAT dynamic needs to be dealt with first?
#3
Are You Doing Marriage on Hard Mode?We’re often told that “marriage is hard work,” and to a certain extent that’s true. But it’s also true that our own choices can be making marriage much harder than it needs to be.
So we spent a month looking at some of the reasons that marriage may be more difficult. At the start of the year, it’s worth revisiting that series to ask if any of these things should be addressed this year–so that 2022 can be a lot easier!
#4
Does Your Vagina Need some TLC?You want a practical post? Here’s a super practical post! Did you know that your vagina goes through changes with childbirth, hormones, age, menopause, etc.? And what can we do to keep it elastic, lubricated, and more? Some ideas! (And seriously, sorry for the TMI, but the Femallay melts are amazing).
Posts that Challenge You to Change Perspective#5
Having a Difficult Marriage Doesn’t Make You HolierWe’re told that suffering brings holiness, and that we can learn through holiness. We’re told that the point of marriage isn’t happiness. But that doesn’t mean that having a difficult marriage brings you closer to God, or that it’s something that we shouldn’t try to change. Let’s take a look at how our skewed perspective on the point of marriage can make us overlook major problems.
#6
Do You Know what Arousal Non-Concordance Is?Arousal has two components: Mentally thinking, “I want the sexy time!”, and your body becoming lubricated and physiologically aroused. And the two do not always go together! That’s arousal non-concordance, and when you realize what this is, it can help relieve a lot of shame and guilt you may have with sex.
#7
5 Steps to Getting Over the Obligation Sex MessageIn our survey of 20,000 women for our book The Great Sex Rescue, we found that the obligation sex message was one of the most toxic. But if you’ve been taught it your whole life in church, it’s really hard to get over it. Here are 5 steps to ditching it–and don’t forget to listen in to our podcast on how duty sex isn’t sexy too!
#8
The Slippery Slope of Hierarchy TheologyWhat happens when we believe that men are supposed to be in charge, and women are supposed to follow? That’s the question that my husband asks in this blog post where he shows the slippery slope of giving men power over women–and why that’s not of Jesus. Tune in to the awesome podcast we did on hierarchy theology too. It had lots of fireworks!
#9
With Porn, We Need More than a Gospel of Sin AvoidanceWhy is porn so difficult to quit? Maybe because we don’t look at the problem in the right way. It’s not just about stopping doing something bad. It’s about total transformation and vulnerability. This is a huge shift that needs to happen in the church, and we’ll be revisiting this a lot in 2022!
#10
The 3 Markers of a Sexually Confident WomanWhat if what’s holding back your sex life is a misunderstanding of what you’re supposed to be aiming for? What if sexual confidence is less about sexual tricks and adventurousness and more about acceptance? I think this is a freeing message!
And now, some podcasts that I thought were also really informative!If you’re new to the blog and the Bare Marriage podcast, here are some great episodes to binge listen to that can teach something important:
The Power and Statistics PodcastHow to tell if authors are misusing statistics in their books–with some great examples! Because science shouldn’t be this hard.
Are There Really “Pink” Brains and “Blue” Brains?Rebecca and Connor recorded this one while Keith and I were on vacation, and they combed through the neuroscience peer reviewed literature to find out if male brains and female brains are really that different when it comes to sex.
A look at how evangelical authors have been misusing neuroscience–and what the neuroscience really says.
Your DIY Guide to How to Tell if a Marriage Book is HarmfulIn this podcast we invited listeners to get a marriage or parenting book off of their shelf, and then walk you through some steps to give some clues if that book is likely harmful or if it is instead evidence-based. It’s not foolproof, of course (you’d still have to read the whole book to be sure), but these steps are important ones to know and can be used to quickly screen the books you have!
How Vaginismus Affects MarriageNot everyone needs this podcast–but if you’re someone who does, it can be life changing! One of my goals on this blog is to raise awareness about vaginismus and tell people’s stories. Listen in as Rachel talks about her story with vaginsimus, and how she found healing.
That’s it–some of the best posts of 2021! If you’re newer to the blog and you haven’t read everything I’ve written, those give you a great place to start.
Thank you so much for joining me in 2021. We have a lot coming this year–The Good Guy’s Guide to Great Sex and the totally revamped Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex launch in March. I’m working on a mother-daughter book, and then Keith and I are writing a big marriage book. And we’re moving domains really soon!
We’re making a difference, and it’s because of you all who keep coming back and sharing my stuff. I’m grateful for you more than you can know. Happy New Year!
New to the Blog? Here are great places to start exploring!The Top 10 Most Talked about Posts from 2021The Most Debated Posts of 2020The Top Posts of 2019And, of course, pick up The Great Sex Rescue, the book everyone’s talking about. It launched in 2021, and it tells the story of what I’ve been trying to do here on the blog to transform marriages. It truly is life changing.
What’s the biggest thing you learned on the blog in 2021? Let’s talk in the comments!
Sheila Wray Gregoire Founder of To Love, Honor and Vacuum
Sheila is determined to help Christians find BIBLICAL, HEALTHY, EVIDENCE-BASED help for their marriage. And in doing so, she's turning the evangelical world on its head, challenging many of the toxic teachings, especially in her newest book The Great Sex Rescue. She’s an award-winning author of 8 books and a sought-after speaker. With her humorous, no-nonsense approach, Sheila works with her husband Keith and daughter Rebecca to create podcasts and courses to help couples find true intimacy. Plus she knits. All the time. ENTJ, straight 8 FacebookTwitter Related Posts On My 30th Anniversary: My Husband Is a Good ManDec 21, 2021 | 21 Comments
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January 4, 2022
10 Most Talked About Posts from 2021 on To Love, Honor and Vacuum!
What a year it was! The Great Sex Rescue was published in March. I had to wade through a lot of criticism and lawsuit threats and the discouragement that the Christian establishment didn’t seem to care about the harm they were doing.
But I also had such tremendous encouragement from everybody who read the book and said: This is what we need! This is so validating. I feel like someone sees me.
And I think the conversation about sex in the evangelical church actually is changing!
At the end of the year I often link to the 10 biggest posts on the blog in terms of traffic, but this year I thought I’d do something different. Sometimes Google sends me tons of traffic to posts that I think are kind of boring, so I thought this year I’d highlight the posts that garnered the most comments, both here and on social media. These were the most talked about posts of 2021!
So here we go! Let’s count out way to #1:
#10
10 Toxic Beliefs about Sex that Aren’t So FringeReaders send me links to interesting articles all the time, and one of the articles that was sent to me most often over the last year was one on a very fringe and toxic blog about sex. I didn’t want to link to the blog, because it is fringe and it’s just plain evil, but what got me about this particular post was that the toxic beliefs that he was spreading are actually not as fringe as we may think.
And in this post I show how each of his ten points are actually echoed in many of our evangelical bestsellers.
#9
Keith’s Disgusted with How Some “Christian” Men Talk about WomenTwo of our most talked about posts this year were actually written by my husband–and here’s the first! I’m so glad that he’s chiming in a lot more lately, and I love that you all find it interesting, too.
Keith’s been interacting a lot more on social media and seeing how actually misogynistic so many supposed “Christian” men are–or at least how many true misogynists use Bible verses to justify how they talk about women. And he was just utterly disgusted, and he wanted to write about it.
#8
Compassion for Anna Duggar–and How We Judge Success in MarriageI wrote this when the news of Josh Duggar’s arrest for possession of child sexual abuse material hit, but before the trial and the guilty verdict.
So often we feel a “successful” marriage is one that lasts no matter what. But is that the proper measure of success? What if what God really wants is people looking more and more like Jesus, and what if, by staying in a marriage, you could be enabling bad behavior? I’m afraid so much of the advice given to women about marriage, especially in very conservative church circles, actually works directly against people looking like Jesus. See what you think!
#7
4 Characteristics of Sexually Confident MenKeith joins us again to talk about what it means for a man to be sexually confident. Love this one!
#6
My Take on the Josh Duggar Verdict: Amnon and Tamar ReplayedI wrote this one just last month when the Josh Duggar guilty verdict came down. To me, it seemed like the Amnon and Tamar story replayed from the Old Testament–a brother abuses a sister; he experiences few repercussions, while she isn’t defended; and it leads to catastrophe years later with ripples that affect so many.
We need to take sexual abuse seriously the first time it happens.
#5
How Do You Feel About Giving Sexual Favors Postpartum?So much of our Christian advice about sex focuses on making sure that our husbands get enough sex, rather than making sure that she feels comfortable and honored. Nowhere is this more evident than the advice given around postpartum sexual favors.
I wrote about this several times last year, and this one got the most comments! And our podcast that Rebecca and I actually recorded while she was postpartum (you can even hear little Vivian cooing a bit!) got a ton of comments too.
#4
Elisabeth Elliot’s Courtship Revisited–and Dating Men “Sold Out for Jesus”I didn’t realize what a firestorm this one would cause! We’re working on our mother-daughter book right now, and so I’ve been reading a bunch of evangelical books about dating aimed at young women, and one of those was Passion & Purity by Elisabeth Elliot. As I read it, I saw a lot of really scary things about her courtship. This was not a relationship that we should be holding up as an example. See what you think!
#3
Why I’m Not Trying to Cancel Other AuthorsOur next two big posts relate to some of the criticism that we’ve been getting after writing The Great Sex Rescue. I often get very similar critiques, and I thought writing a definitive post about it would be helpful, so that I could just send people to it. But I am not trying to cancel other authors; I simply feel that we have to call out that which is harmful if we are going to minister to those who are hurting and who feel pushed out of the church because of the way that we are talking about marriage and sex.
It’s important to understand, when we’re talking about some of these critiques, that the victim in this scenario is not the authors who are being critiqued; it’s not me who is being critiqued; it’s the people who have been harmed. They need to be the priority. So read all about this–and about Uncle Joe.
#2I was quite surprised that this post had the reaction it did–but also rather encouraged. The last few months of 2021 were harder for me than the first ones, even than the threats we got when The Great Sex Rescue was published. And a large part of why it was difficult was that someone I had considered a friend and ally proved himself to be neither. (and thanks for your support!)
#1
Emerson Eggerichs Gaslighting Abuse Victims in a Sermon SeriesFor several years my posts featuring Emerson Eggerichs have always been #1! In 2020 it was our Open Letter to Focus on the Family about Emerson Eggerichs and Love & Respect. In 2019 it was our post on how Love & Respect handled sex (the post that started us on the road to writing The Great Sex Rescue). And now this year it’s a post that my son-in-law Connor actually wrote, as he analyzed the two videos of a sermon series Emerson Eggerichs gave at Houston’s First Baptist Church.
Take a look at these video clips!
So that’s what you all were talking about and focusing on last year!I wrote a bunch of posts that I think actually taught some really useful things, about sexual confidence; direct communication; emotional maturity; and more. I’ll share those tomorrow to make sure you didn’t miss anything!
But the things that get talked about? They’re rarely the teaching posts, and they’re more often the cultural commentary and church commentary posts. I think I’ve largely become a place where people can go and feel safe when they want to talk about these issues and they feel that their church community is ignoring them. When I do write a commentary post, everything flows out!
So go through some rabbit trails and check out these posts–and be sure to read the comments, too! Often the best part is the comments section, and these ones all have great comments!
Are you having trouble commenting?I have heard from a few people who have been having a difficult time commenting, or the comment section just won’t load for them. We have tried everything to fix it, and we just can’t. But what we ARE doing is moving our domain! In the next few weeks we’ll be on a whole new domain, with a streamlined site with about 1/3 as many posts, so everything should work a lot better (and much easier!). So I’m sorry for the inconvenience, but big changes are coming that should fix it.
Let me know–which post was your favourite in 2021? Or was there something that I wrote that you thought should have made the list? Let’s talk in the comments!
Sheila Wray Gregoire Founder of To Love, Honor and Vacuum
Sheila is determined to help Christians find BIBLICAL, HEALTHY, EVIDENCE-BASED help for their marriage. And in doing so, she's turning the evangelical world on its head, challenging many of the toxic teachings, especially in her newest book The Great Sex Rescue. She’s an award-winning author of 8 books and a sought-after speaker. With her humorous, no-nonsense approach, Sheila works with her husband Keith and daughter Rebecca to create podcasts and courses to help couples find true intimacy. Plus she knits. All the time. ENTJ, straight 8 FacebookTwitter Related Posts Manger Theology: What Pregnancy and Birth Can Tell Us about JesusDec 20, 2021 | 20 Comments
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January 3, 2022
8 Signs the Evangelical Conversation about Sex and Marriage Changed in 2021
I ended 2021 with a personal post saying that I was very, very tired. And I really was!
I took the last two weeks almost completely off (we did record the audio versions of the upcoming The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex and The Good Guy’s Guide to Great Sex last week), and got some much needed perspective.
And I knit a ton! I’ve been knitting from vintage pattern books for my granddaughter, and it’s been super fun (the pictures in older pattern books aren’t always clear, so you’re not always sure what you’re making until it’s done!). Here’s a pair of leggings I finished yesterday!
And I’ve had some time to process 2021, and to think about what’s coming in 2022.
Even though I was discouraged at the end of 2021, when I took a bigger look at last year–it’s amazing how far we’ve come! I think we’re having a really effect, and things are definitely changing–for the better.
How Things Changed in 2021I started the year (or rather ended 2020) defending what I was doing against backlash, saying that you have to tear down before you can build up. I was talking about how I had spent years on the blog trying to give healthy advice, but I was realizing that you can’t really lead people towards health until you demolish the unhealthy foundation (which is what The Great Sex Rescue is all about!).
From We Can't Rebuild Without Tearing Down First: We will try to watch our tone this year. We aren’t trying to take glee in just breaking down.But break down we must. When women have been told they aren’t allowed to say no to sex; when instances of marital rape are recorded in Christian books without even being called rape; when women have been told they don’t need sex, don’t want sex like men do, and don’t have sex drives; when sex has been made entirely about a man’s orgasm–well, it’s hard not to get angry. And it needs to come down. In smithereens.
And then we want to build up. We want to get rid of the harmful stuff so that we can talk again about what a healthy sex life and healthy marriage look like. Our goal is that, at this time next year, we won’t have to tear down anything anymore. Our prayer is that the Christian world will see it and agree and scatter stones with us, so that we can build up again. We don’t want to keep doing this forever.
It is exhausting. It is demoralizing.
But it is also necessary.
And as I look back at 2021, we did a lot of tearing down. But we also saw a lot of fruit that things were changing!So today I’d like to take a little victory lap and show how the evangelical church is waking up to the harm that it has done to marriage and to gender relations.
1. The Great Sex Rescue was out in March–and continues to sell well!After our huge survey of 20,000 women, and writing the book far faster than we thought possible, we released it in March, and it has sold well since. In fact, it was on so many people’s “Top 10 List of Books I Read in 2021” last week that it had another post-Christmas bump!
Once people have read it, it’s hard to go back.
Last week Joanna was taking a deep dive on Reddit, and found a post in the really big Christian Marriage subreddit where the moderator said this:
In Sheila Wray Gregoire’s book, The Great Sex Rescue, she lays out the dark and horrifying truths about coercive sex. She describes the way that women have been taught that they must have sex with their husbands no matter what. She describes the threats held over their heads, that their husbands won’t love them, will fall into sin, or will be justified in withholding love if they don’t have sex. And she explains the ramifications of these beliefs, how some women struggle even to have sex because their body wants to protect itself from the trauma.
But she goes farther, laying out the evidence that this mindset comes primarily from Christian resources. Books like “Love and Respect” encourage women to have sex out of obligation lest their husbands look at porn or feel unloved. And reading it, I thought, well, I’m glad we don’t promote those ideas on r/ChristianMarriage.
But over the past few weeks, comments and posts here have made me reconsider that. As the top moderator for the past 2.5 years, I am responsible for the content of this subreddit, the culture surrounding it, and the lack of clear messaging around this issue.
I have failed, and I apologize.
Sex is not about orgasm. Sex is not about fulfilling the apetite. Sex is about mutual care, affection, and pleasure that reminds us of the way that our Lord cares and serves his bride, the church. In sex, as in the rest of life, we should have the mindset of Christ Jesus who gave up his throne to die a cursed death for the good of his bride. Do NOTHING from selfish ambition or vain conceit, especially not in the act that is supposed to point us to the way that Christ loved us.
If you disagree with this post, I invite you to send a modmail to discuss it–this will not be a discussion post. But I strongly encourage you to read The Great Sex Rescue, especially if you think this post is mistaken. I think many of you, like me, will be shocked at the messages women are receiving about sex, even from well-intentioned resources like our own subreddit.
ChristianMarriage SubredditAn Apology and a Message about Consent
This is a subreddit with 25,000 members, and the moderator actually apologized.
I mean, I’m still waiting for apologies from the authors we called out, but the point is–people are seeing it. They are getting it!
And I’ve had sermons sent to me and podcasts sent to me where pastors mentioned our research and how things have to change. Counselors are loving the book. And just read the reviews on Amazon. We had more than 1,000 reviews on Amazon in 2021, and we maintained a 4.8 rating. Once people read The Great Sex Rescue, they’ll be immune to the harmful teachings. They’ll never be sucked in again, because they can see the harm and logical inconsistencies. We’re doing it!
2. We hit 1,000,000 downloads of our Bare Marriage podcast!On December 31, Katie sent me this screenshot:
And that’s only DOWNLOADS. That doesn’t measure listens or how many people watch on YouTube, so it’s likely several orders more than that.
We had 500,000 downloads in 2021 alone! So in only 3 years we got to 1,000,000. Imagine what we’ll do in 2022!
Thank you for all your support. Please tell more people about the Bare Marriage podcast. But once people listen, they won’t be sucked in anymore either.
3. When Gary Thomas tried to publish his book Married Sex that included the obligation sex message, people wouldn’t stand for it.The next “big” sex book to be published in the evangelical world after our book The Great Sex Rescue was out in March 2021 didn’t end up being so big after all–because it contained the harmful messages we’ve talked about. It contained the obligation sex message, said that women get aroused giving hand jobs postpartum, told women to flash their breasts to reset power imbalances (instead of saying that power imbalances are toxic and need to be dealt with), told women to send nude pictures so that neurologically he wouldn’t be tempted by porn, said that we should see having sex with our husbands in a similar way to how new moms see feeding the child in the middle of the night, and more.
And people spoke up, en masse, and the book did not launch well.
That was such an encouragement to me! And people started challenging this mindset on his social media as well. (more on that later).
4. When Matthew West tried to release a video for Father’s Day called “Modest is Hottest”, the outcry was so bad he had to take it down.You simply cannot blame boys’ lust on what girls wear anymore without people crying foul. Even if many still liked the song, and even if he has since said that he doesn’t feel there was anything wrong, the point is that the outcry was such that the message didn’t stand.
That’s awesome.
5. When The Gospel Coalition posted a bizarre video saying that men can’t risk reading the Bible unless their wives respect and trust them–people pushed back big time.I posted a Fixed It For You about this last week, but the comments on their initial reel were so encouraging to me. People aren’t standing for it anymore.
6. When Christianity Today told the story of the downfall of Mars Hill–the biggest critique they had was not getting at the root of misogyny and powerThe Rise and Fall of Mars Hill podcast was huge last year, diving into why Mars Hill, led by Mark Driscoll, imploded. But the biggest pushback they got was that they didn’t go far enough, because this wasn’t just Mark. Everything Mark Driscoll said about women was merely parrotting what was already being said in our evangelical best-sellers. It wasn’t just about a power-hungry abusive pastor; it was that the things that allowed him to succeed are present throughout evangelicalism.
Of course an entity like Christianity Today, which is beholden to evangelicalism’s powers that be, can’t give that radical a critique. But the fact that they gave one at all was really encouraging to me. We’re allowed to speak up and question now. We’re being invited to. The rocks are being turned over. The tide is turning!
7. Josh Duggar was convicted on possession of child sexual abuse material.No, the Christian culture itself didn’t have much to do with this one; it was pretty much all the criminal justice system.
But coming right at the end of 2021, I felt like it was a perfect nail in the coffin of a certain brand of Christianity that stressed rules and strict gender roles and put men in power over women. The whole thing was laid bare as completely and utterly a facade. We see the fruit, and the fruit is ugly beyond belief.
8. The term “Reconstruction” is becoming more commonI’ve been seeing this everywhere on social media in the last two weeks, and I love it. Deconstruction is necessary–we need to deconstruct what we have been taught about faith, about marriage, about gender roles, about everything, to see what is really of Jesus and what is not. That’s the tagline for our Bare Marriage podcast–we strip bare what isn’t of God.
But now what people are talking about is, “what do we build instead?” How and what do we rebuild once we’ve taken down that which isn’t of Jesus? How do we discover that which is?
Rebecca told me last week that the work I do is really reconstruction work, not just deconstruction work.
Healthy. Evidence-based. Biblical. That’s what we’re trying to give everybody–marriage thoughts and advice that bear good fruit, because Jesus said that by their fruits you will know them.
And I’m so thrilled that you all have joined me in this endeavour!
This year, I want to be a confident happy warrior.Last year I felt like I was engaged in a constant battle, because we were always being criticized and attacked.
But this year I feel like the tide has turned, and as we begin this year, I want to celebrate that. I’ll still point out where people are wrong, and we’ll still deconstruct so we can reconstruct, but I don’t think I have to prove myself as much anymore. I think people have seen that the Emperor Has No Clothes, (as I wrote at the beginning of 2020), and now we just have to march forward and reclaim ground.
We reclaim ground every time:
People speak up on social media and challenge posts (like The Gospel Coalition’s or like Matthew West’s song) that share toxic messages.People talk to their pastors, women’s ministry leaders, church librarians, or counselors about any harmful resources they’ve been recommending, and point out why it’s harmfulPeople tell their friends about healthier resources, and speak up in women’s Bible study or small groups or friend groups when someone tries to share a harmful message about marriage or sexI think we’ve been scared to speak up in the past because we don’t want to rock the boat or be seen as crazy or wrong. But we are right! Jesus does not want people hurt. Jesus wants people to thrive! And Jesus cares about both men and women. The more we see we’re not in the minority anymore, and things are changing, the more emboldened we will all be to speak up. And then it will be like a tidal wave.
This is how change happens in the church; a movement of God catches on, and washes away that which was not of Him. We’re seeing that tidal wave start. It will be exciting to see what 2022 will bring!
Is there something you need to speak up about?
Have you felt God prompting you to speak to someone about the resources they are using, the things they are teaching, the people they are recommending?
Lean into it. Pray about it. Ask for courage.
This could be God trying to change your part of the world through you!
And even if it’s not received well, you’ve been faithful. You’ve been courageous. And you’ve planted a seed.
So Happy 2022, everybody!
Let’s remember Philippians 1:6: “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”
He began a good work. He’s carrying it on. God will one day bring it to completion–and we’re closer to that day all the time!
The Great Sex RescueChanging the conversation about sex & marriage in the evangelical church.
What if you're NOT the problem with your sex life?What if the things that you've been taught have messed things up--and what if there's a way to escape these messages?
Welcome to the Great Sex Rescue. Order Now!
What signs have you seen that things are changing? Are more people speaking up around you? Have you seen pastors or churches change? Let’s talk in the comments!
Sheila Wray Gregoire Founder of To Love, Honor and Vacuum
Sheila is determined to help Christians find BIBLICAL, HEALTHY, EVIDENCE-BASED help for their marriage. And in doing so, she's turning the evangelical world on its head, challenging many of the toxic teachings, especially in her newest book The Great Sex Rescue. She’s an award-winning author of 8 books and a sought-after speaker. With her humorous, no-nonsense approach, Sheila works with her husband Keith and daughter Rebecca to create podcasts and courses to help couples find true intimacy. Plus she knits. All the time. ENTJ, straight 8 FacebookTwitter Related Posts On Bloopers, New Books, and Standing up to Creepy Guys at ChurchDec 17, 2021 | 30 Comments
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December 22, 2021
Just a Personal Christmas Check-In
We went down to a winery to celebrate our anniversary and we were just talking about the last year, and where we’re at now emotionally and where we think we’ll end up in five years and ten years.
Keith went through a lot of wrestling with God about fifteen years ago, mostly around the evolution/creation issue, since we were at a church and in a church community that didn’t believe that you could be a Christian and believe in an old earth. As a science person, Keith found that very difficult, and for a few years he was questioning a lot, but he ended up in a better place.
For me it hasn’t been around those sorts of debates but just the toll that our work has taken on me, this year especially.
To put it frankly, I am exhausted. I am emotionally spent. And I’m a little at a loss how to do everything I have to get done in the next year.I’m so excited about the projects that are coming up. I’m excited for the launch of The Good Guy’s Guide to Great Sex and the revamped Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex in March. Our mother/daughter book that’s due in at the publishers in April is going to be FIRE. It’s coming along well, but there’s still lots to write. The marriage book Keith and I are writing that’s due next fall is sketched out, and I’m excited about that one too.
But I’m also emotionally drained and simply exhausted.
I’ve been fighting all year, and it is a fight because I have to always have my guard up for attacks from the evangelical powers that be that don’t like The Great Sex Rescue.
But what’s been really demoralizing, and what has made me have this long, dark night of the soul, is something I talked about in last week’s podcast (the last podcast of 2021; I’m not doing one this week). I naively thought that when the evangelical powers that be actually saw the numbers about how harmful some of these teachings were, there would be some sort of a reckoning. At least someone would say something. One of the big marriage ministries. One of the big marriage podcasts. Focus on the Family. One of the big marriage authors.
Instead, someone like Gary Thomas, who was a personal friend and who I thought totally “got it” and understood how harmful so much of this was to women, doubled down on the idea that men need sex in a way that women will never, ever understand, and that women need to give sex so that men won’t sin.
That was the thing that just about killed me this year.
And then, as the year is over, I’ve been a victim of friendly fire, where a small number of abuse advocates have accused us of deliberately trying to hurt them by publishing our men’s study that found that only just shy of 50% of men use porn, rather than 70-90%. We’ve been told it’s a “personal betrayal”, that we are “pretending” things aren’t as they are (for what agenda? I can’t figure that out); that we’re “totally inaccurate”, that our methodology was simply wrong.
It’s just been hard.
And so I’m exhausted, and I posted about it on Facebook recently, and caused a bit of a panic that I thought I should clear up (which is really why I’m writing this post).
I said:
Over the last few weeks there’s been a hubbub on some other pages and beyond because of our most recent research finding that between 45 and 49% of married Christian men currently watch porn (and most watch it intermittently or rarely, not daily or weekly). Some people, especially in the advocacy community, were certain it was higher. In talking about this on social media, they used language that accused us, without basis, of doing our research wrong; implied we didn’t know what we were doing; and said that we were hurting abused women. That was very, very emotionally draining for our team, especially since for the last year we have had intense behind-the-scenes pressure from the powers-that-be in evangelicalism who aren’t happy about our research showing that most evangelical books actually hurt women’s marital and sexual satisfaction (as reported in The Great Sex Rescue). Much of the discussion around this porn stat got ugly, and I contributed to that. I’m sorry. It took a big emotional toll, but I know that in defending myself I also hurt others, and I regret that. I only want to seek truth, because the truth will never harm us. And I believe that when more people see the truth, more people will understand the harm that porn does (which is what our study definitively found). In the meantime, our team is still reeling, and making plans to step back from this job eventually because it is too emotionally draining, especially with the friendly fire. But I did want to apologize for contributing to pain.
Sheila Gregoire I realized once I started to see the comments coming in that I insinuated that I’m about to quit, which I’m not.So I don’t want anyone to panic!
I just meant that all of us are realizing what we’re doing is not sustainable long term, and we want to transition into something else EVENTUALLY. Rebecca wants to do that sooner than me. She’s raising kids, and she wants their childhood to be happy and stress-free as much as possible, and that’s simply not possible when we’re as stressed as we are these days. So she’ll be writing our mother-daughter book and hanging out on the podcast, but also looking at ways to build a business that doesn’t keep her as involved on a daily basis (and we’ve got some great ideas for that).
So what’s my plan long term?I’ve been thinking about how I’ve said all along that my goal is to change the evangelical conversation about sex.
I think we’re doing that. So now I’m wondering, over the next decade (or whatever time frame), how do I want to leave? And the answer that I keep coming up with is that I don’t want this to just be about me.
I never wrote to get rich and famous (I honestly don’t care that much, and it’s way too hard to get rich and famous doing this anyway). I only want influence that I can use to the better.
And now I’d like to use that influence to raise up other voices in the evangelical marriage conversation.I’ve said for a long time now that part of the problem in evangelical marriage and sex books is that they’re all written by the same small group of people who often tend to be the same age and gender (boomer men) and they’re written from the same perspective. There are exceptions, especially of people who have big marriage podcasts, but even there–it’s all the same perspective.
If we’re going to make a dent, we need to raise up the voices saying something different, so it’s not just a monolith. If we want people to understand that you can’t teach the obligation sex message, then we need to be raising up people who teach something different.
So I want to start introducing you all to new voices on my podcasts and even in this blog. I want to start elevating people in their 30s or 40s (or even 20s!) who are bright, sold out to Jesus, and doing this well. I want, at the point where I leave, for there to be so many people talking about this in a healthy way that there isn’t a monolithic evangelical view of marriage and sex anymore. There’s healthy as well. And it will become ever so apparent who is healthy and who is not.
Voices like:
Sarah McDugalNgina Otiende from Intentional TodayDr. Camden MorganteAndrew BaumanMeghan TschanzRachel Joy WelcherJonathan PuddleMatthew ShallenbergerAnd those are just the ones I’m thinking of off the top of my head! There are so many more.
I’ll know that I can retire when there are so many other voices that are getting attention in this sphere, and it’s no longer just the unhealthy ones.
I think together we can do that!
In the meantime, I will honestly try to get a handle on my emotions.I do want to give myself more time to myself. I do need some time to process and to rest. I don’t always want to be depressed when I talk to all of you, because in many ways the news is good! Just read the Amazon reviews for The Great Sex Rescue! I’m talking to a professor tomorrow at a university in California who was amazed at the reviews, and our dataset, and who I’m hoping will partner with us on some peer-reviewed papers. People are finding freedom, and that will continue.
And so many churches are using The Great Sex Rescue now! I talked to a military chaplain yesterday who just ordered 150 copies! This is amazing.
But I think I need some downtime, so this will be my last post of 2021. As I look into the Christmas season, I’m thinking a lot about the idea that when Truth and Light and Life come, they also often are met with disruption and pain. It doesn’t mean the Truth and LIght isn’t there; it’s just part of the world we live in.
Many have asked how they can encourage us and help.I so appreciate the question!
So here goes:
Join the Patreon GroupIf you want to encourage Joanna and Rebecca and keep the in this fight, join the Patreon group! We really need to write a bunch of papers for peer-reviewed journals (and several are coming along well) but there’s no money in that, and Rebecca and Joanna each have small children. We also want to get into some other social media channels that can’t be monetized, and I can’t pay them for that. So if you support them for as little as $5 a month, you get access to our Facebook group, some unfiltered podcasts, and more! And it’s an awesome bunch there.
Pick up The Great Sex Rescue!If you haven’t read The Great Sex Rescue, you need to. Seriously. I know it can seem like you’ve heard it all if you’ve followed the blog and listened to the podcast, but the gut punch of reading all of the terrible quotes in one place, and seeing the data of how much these teachings have hurt marriages and sex lives, is something that needs to be experienced.
Gift The Great Sex Rescue–and Review It!Give it to your pastor, your women’s ministry leader, your MOPS group leader–or your sister or best friend. We need to get this data into as many hands as possible, and especially the hands of people who decide on curriculum for women’s studies. And if you have read it, remember to leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads! That helps too. (and don’t forget we have a FREE video study that goes along with the book too!)
Leave comments on the blog–or anywhere else!I feel like I need 10 good comments to counteract every one that I get attacking me. 🙂 I’m not sure if that’s true, but it feels that way somehow. So just know that we read all your comments and emails, and we save so many of them in encouragement files, and we appreciate them. And I love seeing people comment for the first time on this blog too!
Pray for UsI’ve honestly never ended a year this tired. I know so many of us are feeling that with COVID, but I really need a boost. I think the big thing keeping my head above water is my new granddaughter who is adorable. But we are tired. And I’m hoping that some of that lifts this Christmas and I can feel the joy and wonder of the Incarnation again.
And I wish that for you all, too. Merry Christmas!
Sheila Wray Gregoire Founder of To Love, Honor and Vacuum
Sheila is determined to help Christians find BIBLICAL, HEALTHY, EVIDENCE-BASED help for their marriage. And in doing so, she's turning the evangelical world on its head, challenging many of the toxic teachings, especially in her newest book The Great Sex Rescue. She’s an award-winning author of 8 books and a sought-after speaker. With her humorous, no-nonsense approach, Sheila works with her husband Keith and daughter Rebecca to create podcasts and courses to help couples find true intimacy. Plus she knits. All the time. ENTJ, straight 8 FacebookTwitter Related Posts 3 Stories Podcast: A Vaginismus Story; A Christmas Story; and My StoryDec 16, 2021 | 13 Comments
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December 21, 2021
On My 30th Anniversary: My Husband Is a Good Man
I don’t know how a 21-year-old can truly realize how important the choice of mate is. It’s so easy to think that love is all you need–and I did love Keith. It’s so easy to think that life will always be an exciting adventure, and that you will always feel so desperate to be together the way you do when you are dating.
You don’t realize that’s actually not the powerful stuff.
The kind of love that lasts through decades, that adjusts to foibles, that shares the deepest memories and pains and joys–that’s the powerful stuff.
I honestly can’t imagine my life without Keith.In some ways we still grate on each other. I take his water bottle all the time, even though he likes cold water and he really hates it when it’s not in the fridge when he wants it. (I have two of my own, but I always leave them all over the house and can never find them). If he goes on errands, he will always forget at least one thing, even if he writes it down. He gets super grumpy when he’s driving and I’m supposed to be giving directions–because I get super grumpy when I’m trying to figure out where we are.
He’d rather go to bed earlier than me, and get up earlier, but we compromise. He hates fish, and I love it, so I rarely make it and I miss that. I absolutely adore ballroom dancing, and he tolerates it, but he does it for me anyway.
We had a rough first few years–not because we didn’t love each other, but because we had some major adjustments to make.
And then we had a huge tragedy when our son died.
But somehow working through those things just showed us that it’s so much easier together than it is apart, even with everyone’s foibles.
And yet I know that is not the case for every couple. And so I am grateful I have him.
We raised two girls together, and we truly loved it.When I think back to the happiest years of my life, I would hands down say it was when the girls were 3-10. We just had so much fun. We had fun friends. While Keith worked a ton, we weren’t too busy as a couple. We were homeschooling, and all the teenage drama hadn’t started yet, and I just truly enjoyed my daughters.
Now they are grown and they have each married good men, and I have more time to do the things I feel called to do, and it is draining. Life is not easy the way it was twenty years ago.
And yet Keith is still here and he has become my support. While I was his support when he was doing 10 calls a month, and not sleeping very much, because our hospital was so chronically understaffed; when he was called at Katie’s third birthday party because a shaken baby had been brought in and was actively dying (he later did; I will always remember little Tyler’s name); when he just could never relax because the pager could go off at any minute–I tried to keep everything running smoothly, and I did.
A few times I answered the pager; when he was just too exhausted and ready to collapse, and I would tell the person at the other end of the line that if they wanted him there tomorrow, they needed to leave him alone tonight. Not often, but when he was ready to break.
Today it is Keith who is keeping things running smoothly. Who runs interference for me. Who is helping me keep perspective when I’m down. Who is helping me talk through things as we go on walks at the end of a hard day. Who took on all the laundry!
Who is helping me not give up, even when I’m tired.
Who makes me laugh.
Sometimes I have a hard time talking about how awesome my husband is, because I know so many of my readers don’t have that.Even right now I’m embroiled in a controversy on social media because our newest study found that roughly half of Christian men use porn currently, and some abuse advocates feel that our study was a personal betrayal, because the number is higher and we’re distorting it.
I know the pain that so many feel because their husband isn’t a good man.
Why did I get a good man while others didn’t? That’s a hard one to answer. And I truly don’t know.
But he is a good man. And there are so many more good men that I know. Men who love their wives, who love their kids, who are responsible with their time, their money. Who want to honor their commitments. Who want to make the world a better place.
I am so grateful my husband is chief among those.
Thirty years is a long time. Sometimes we don’t have much to talk about. I already know it all. He already knows it all. There’s really nothing new. And so instead we dream about the next few years. We talk about our favourite memories. Where we’d like to go next (if we’re ever allowed to go anywhere again; three days ago we cancelled our thirtieth anniversary cruise).
We dream about watching our grandchildren grow up and the role that we will play in their lives. We talk about old friends and new ones; we think about our parents and our families and how things may look different in a decade or two.
And unspoken there’s always the question: I wonder how long we will have together?
I pray that it’s another thirty years, because I will never find another Keith.
And so today we’re going to hold each other close and remember a little boy who isn’t with us anymore, and celebrate a new little girl who is. We will think about the two kids who married in 1991 and didn’t have a clue about life–and how somehow we grew together and made each other better people.
I would not be who I am without Keith. He has healed so many wounds deep inside me, just by loving me. I hope I have done the same for him.
And I love him, dearly.
PS: Many have asked how they can support us at this time.And I really appreciate the question! And all the notes of encouragement I’ve been sent over the last week.
Of course, buy The Great Sex Rescue for everyone you know! Give one to your pastor, your seminary professor, your women’s ministry leader. Pre-order The Good Guy’s Guide to Great Sex (if you’re going to buy it anyway, pre-ordering helps us immensely!).
And you can also join our Patreon for as little as $5 a month. That money supports Joanna and Rebecca as they try to do more research and get into peer reviewed journals, and they’re both really tired right now.
And finally, pray for us for encouragement and rest! We’re going into a busy season, and we feel a little beaten up. But there is much to do, and together we are all making a difference and changing the conversation around sex and marriage in the evangelical church.
Sheila Wray Gregoire Founder of To Love, Honor and Vacuum
Sheila is determined to help Christians find BIBLICAL, HEALTHY, EVIDENCE-BASED help for their marriage. And in doing so, she's turning the evangelical world on its head, challenging many of the toxic teachings, especially in her newest book The Great Sex Rescue. She’s an award-winning author of 8 books and a sought-after speaker. With her humorous, no-nonsense approach, Sheila works with her husband Keith and daughter Rebecca to create podcasts and courses to help couples find true intimacy. Plus she knits. All the time. ENTJ, straight 8 FacebookTwitter Related Posts The Emotional Journey with VaginismusDec 15, 2021 | 21 Comments
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December 20, 2021
Manger Theology: What Pregnancy and Birth Can Tell Us about Jesus
Hi, everybody!
This month we’ve been talking about embodiment and mindfulness–how to understand the mind/body connection. I thought that theme fit in well with Christmas, because in Christmas our God actually took on bodily form. The incarnation shows us that our bodies matter.
One of the most illuminating books I’ve read in a long time is Christy Bauman’s Theology of the Womb. She showed how women’s bodies, and the rhythms of women’s bodies, the fears, discomfort, and pain women experience, and the grief that often comes with women’s bodies tell us something about God in a way that we often overlook. Women’s experiences are not secondary to the story of God; they are central to it.
Christy is the cofounder of The Christian Counseling Center for Sexual Health and Trauma, alongisde her husband Andrew Bauman, who has been a frequent guest on our podcast.
I asked Christy to share some thoughts on the incarnation and Advent with us today. I’m taking this week largely off because tomorrow is our 30th anniversary, and I wanted some down time. So I’m grateful that she sent me this post to run that I think will encourage you too!
Sheila Wray GregoireI remember exactly where I was the first time I heard Nikki Giovanni be interviewed by Krista Tippett on the On Being podcast. The left side of the plane, window seat, 17C, flying over Oregon. I was a young mother of young kids so taking a flight back home alone was a rarity. My pen scribbled frivolous notes as the plane began its descent, the women’s words in the interview were like gold coins falling from the sky and I couldn’t catch them fast enough. I was captivated by it all, but particularly, the concept of manger theology.
Tears spilled from my eyes when I heard Nikki talk about how, as Christians, we look to the cross all the time, yet don’t equally look to the birth in the manger. I was stunned at her words, because I had thought of that so many times when I was in the hospital birthing room waiting to bring a child into this world.
Advent was God’s birthing room.Every year lighting my Advent candles in preparation for Christ’s birth brought me right back to the memories of my womb.
Because we hesitate to over-glorify Mary, we fail to grasp the theological significance of the birth of Christ with as much fervor as we do the death of Christ.
What would it mean for us to study the months, the days, and the hours leading up to Jesus’ birth in the same way we observe Ash Wednesday, Lent, Easter week, and the via Dolorosa to the crucifixion?
This idea sparked something in me, something that I had been thinking and feeling for a long time. The loneliness in pregnancies and the birthing process was where I needed to start looking to understand Advent. All this time, I had been looking to friends who were pregnant at the same time for companionship, or a MOPS group that could understand what I was going through and help me wade through these waters of loneliness. It was really hard to find Jesus during that season, because in a sense, He hadn’t been born, and yet what I knew but couldn’t yet articulate was that I felt the Holy Spirit right there, so intimately growing a child in my womb.
I didn’t know how to connect to and access the relationship that I have learned from in church with my body in which I was experiencing motherhood.
I wanted to learn about the motherhood of God, because God was in my motherhood.
The Theology of the WombIf it is true that God is a male, then His Divinity or Deity is expressed in His masculinity. Yet I am a woman, and there are parts of my body; such as my breasts, my vagina, and my womb that are telling a story about God that I have never learned or understood.
This book is an exploration of the significance of a womb that must shed and bleed before it can create. How will we engage our body which cyclically bleeds most of our life and can build and birth a human soul? How will we honor the living womb, that lives and sometimes dies within us?
See it on Amazon!I didn’t know how to articulate it at that moment, but luckily, I was part of a church midrash that was open to this idea for our Advent season.
Our pastor taught the first Sunday of Advent on Zechariah being made deaf and mute due to his disbelief until John the Baptist was born, and that our church would observe only women teaching throughout Advent. I still have the recording of that night, four of the female midrash team members discussed for hours what we would teach for the Advent Sunday sermons. Thoughts and stories flowed out of us as we laughed and cried over deliberating Mary and Elizabeth’s pregnancy journeys in conjunction with our own.
What must it have been like for Mary to find out she is pregnant before marriage, or the desperation to travel with morning sickness to live with Elizabeth and midwife her older cousin giving birth, and to travel with swollen ankles on a donkey. We laughed about the fights we would have had with our husband should we have been in such a situation. Did they fear miscarriage, pain, stillbirth, or postpartum depression or anxiety?
Those hours turned into church services that invited our congregation to reflect on the complexities of pregnancy; seasons of infertility, the womb’s fragility and fierceness, and the breaking and bleeding of the female body to give birth to a child.
Universally women’s bodies have been carrying the story of Advent in their wombs for centuries.The Advent season is an invitation to connect with God fully through waiting and hoping.God was there in my own pregnancies every time I went to the bathroom fearing I might find blood, or every time I looked in the mirror at my expanding belly, or felt a kick of an alien-looking being inside of me.
I felt intimate with God not as a man, but with all the feminine qualities of God, the femaleness of God.
The manger story is about the greatest birth, a birth of our Savior. The manger story is also about women’s collective story to be creators.
Manger theology invites us to know God through the holy gift of the womb, which grows, waits, and births.It is the woman’s body that is invited to break open to learn the ways of our Creator. The birthing room is a place where women breathe deep, mother pain, coach their bodies, bleed and tear open to show us the story of God’s love for creation, just as a mother loves her child.
Advent is the story of a woman who learns to become a mother.Advent is the story of Christ dwelling within us. Christy Bauman, Ph.D., MDFT, & LMHC is committed to helping women come into their true voice. She has a podcast entitled Womaneeringand she offers storywork consulting, womaneering weekends, and marriage intensives with her husband Andrew Bauman through their organization, Christian Counseling Center for Sexual Health and Trauma. Andrew and Christy host Therapy Shorts podcast for couples. She is the author and producer of her works: Theology of the Womb, Womaneering Perpetual Calendar, A Brave Lament, and the award-winning Documentary: A Brave Lament. She is a psychotherapist, supervisor, part-time professor who focuses on the female body, sexuality, and theology. Christy’s work can be found at christybauman.com or IG @womaneering, she works between her Asheville, NC and Seattle, WA locations.
Why do we have a hard time understanding Manger Theology, as Christy calls it? Why does it seem so awkward to talk about? Is this concept freeing to you? Let’s talk in the comments!
Our Embodiment SeriesArousal Non-Concordance: What it is and why you need to know about itOur Mind/Body Connection PodcastAn Emotional Journey with VaginismusManger Theology: What Pregnancy and Birth can Tell Us about JesusAnd check out:
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December 17, 2021
On Bloopers, New Books, and Standing up to Creepy Guys at Church
I shared a little bit about this in yesterday’s podcast at the end (my little devotional, or whatever you want to call it), but this was a very emotionally draining week.
To explain, let me share this reel from Instagram, where Keith opened the advance reader copies of our new book The Good Guy’s Guide to Great Sex!
(On Fridays, I like to share round-ups from social media, so here goes with the story!)
View this post on Instagram
It will be here on March 15, along with the new and completely revised Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex!
By the way, when you preorder…You help us tremendously! Amazon places its orders based on preorder numbers. It helps us move up the rankings, which means other people see the book. Amazon puts it on sale the more people pre-order, anywhere from 10-40% off (the more the better). And bookstores often buy books based on Amazon rankings, and magazines decide which books to review based on rankings. So pre-ordering helps!
Plus when you pre-order, you’re guaranteed the lowest price. And you get the chance to join our launch team (more on that in late January!)
So here’s the Guy’s Guide and here’s the Girl’s Guide!
Anyway, about that controversy…
I’ve been talking on podcasts about how our survey found that not every man lusts. In fact, only about half really struggle with porn and lust. We found that 49% of married men use porn right now, with most of them using it in intermittent binges or rarely.
I had thought that was good news and bad news. Bad news that it was that high (half is still really high!), but good news in that it’s not 70-80% like we often hear.
But some members of the abuse community are very upset at us, telling us we’re going to hurt that community if we advertise numbers that low. (Many in the abuse community have also been rallying to our side and have been very encouraging). We believe that our study aligns with peer reviewed research like Samuel Perry’s, and we’re fairly confident in the numbers. Most studies that say 70-80% are not peer reviewed, or they’re not of married Christian men, or they look at lifetime porn use, or they look at exposure to porn versus seeking out porn. Those will all yield different results.
Nevertheless, we spent much of the week trying to deal with a lot of anger from some people, and I’ve been sent some DMs and emails that are quite harsh (and some that are just warning us not to publish), and it’s been demoralizing.
it feels like people will latch on to our research when it supports what they believe, but then they start saying on social media that we don’t know what we’re doing and we don’t know how to do research when it doesn’t support what they say. That’s been hard for Joanna and Rebecca especially. We’re really trying to do this well.
So that’s what’s been happening. I do believe that in The Good Guy’s Guide to Great Sex we give an accurate, nuanced view of porn use. it’s always wrong. It has disastrous consequences (we proved this definitively). It makes you a selfish lover. It means you’re more likely to feel sexually entitled. It puts marital satisfaction in the drain. But at the same time, it has a dose response effect. The more you use it, the younger you were when you started, and the longer you use it for, the worse the effects are. We did find many men used it for a time and quit, and were able to move on with their lives. That is good news.
I know our numbers won’t make everyone happy, and we’re always happy to answer questions about them. But that was what we found. I hope we can continue to talk about this in a healthy way. It’s a vital conversation because porn is so destructive. But we can’t go against what our survey found.
And now for something funny…the bloopers.I don’t know why, but I just think this is so funny.
Here’s a blooper reel that Katie made from last week’s podcast. (Again, we filmed this on Rebecca’s due date last month).
View this post on Instagram
(If anyone’s wondering, the reason my tab said “oral sex” was because I was listening to Gary Thomas and Deb Fileta’s podcast on oral sex. After listening, I wrote this post on why we actually need a lopsided discussion on oral sex).
Are pastors telling on themselves?Here’s my latest graphic that went huge!
As I said on Instagram:
Yes, many people struggle with lust. But not ALL.
.
And saying “all” normalizes it. Excuses it. Makes it sound like it’s really not that big a deal.
.
God made men this way. So the objectification of women and masculinity become one and the same.
.
But they’re not. The Bible says that we can expect those who have the Holy Spirit to put lust to death.
.
This should be the expectation.
.
And we women are seriously sick of not feeling safe in church.
.
Pastors and authors, when you tell us that “all men lust”, you’re saying YOU DO. That makes us feel very uncomfortable around you.
.
Women would just simply like to feel safe in church–instead of feeling that everyone, INCLUDING THE PASTOR, is undressing us in his mind.
.
We have the right to feel safe. And if male pastors and authors keep putting the burden for men defeating lust on women changing, I think you’ll find women fleeing church even faster than we already are.
.
Because even if we didn’t fight for better for ourselves…we will fight for it for our daughters.
(For more on how the “all men struggle with lust” message affects women and couples, please see The Great Sex Rescue, with the results of our survey of 20,000 women! HINT: It’s not pretty.)
Sheila GregoireThat opened up a bunch more conversations on Facebook, including one about men saying you were being a stumbling block if you breastfed in public. And it led to the last thing I want to share!
I shared all over social media that results of my quick poll that more women have felt sexually harassed at church than at work.I talked about this in Tuesday’s post, and there was much discussion everywhere.
But someone shared this one anecdote that I just have to leave here, because it’s so great.
My sister old me about a creepy guy at her church and to not let him hug you because he would squeeze your boob. Mind you hed been doing this for weeks. Months. Who knows. So instead of the church saying to him KNOCK IT OFF YOU CREEPY PERV, all the women were warning each other and trying to stay “meek and quiet”. So I took one for the team when I was visiting – when he tried to half hug me I stopped and loudly but not yelling held my hand into his chest and said, “Usually I love hugs but you are known to grab all the women’s breasts when you give hugs so I need you to keep your pervie hands to yourself.” Literally everyone within ten pews in a circle around us could hear us – I used my theatre projection voice. He flopped his mouth around like a fish a little bit, stammered a “nice to meet you” His wife said “um is there a problem here?” And I said “No because I stopped him before he squeezed my breast otherwise I would have called the police to report his sexual assault. “ Thej I turned to him to make direct eye contact with him “You do realize that when you do that to women it IS sexual assault right? Maybe you didn’t know. Or did you just not CARE that you were sexually assaulting women at church every week? I suggest you find new hunting grounds before you die and answer to God for hunting his sheep.” Then I turned to my sister and in a super sweet voice was like “when does music service start?” Completely ignoring every one else. No one else introduced themselves. The pastor didn’t. My sister said the man never hugged another woman at church again. We need to start standing up to these predators and calling it what it is. Angela E.Can you imagine a world where we all just said, “no more”? Wow!
I’m having my family Christmas this Sunday, and then on Tuesday is my 30th anniversary.I’ve got my posts planned for next week, but it’s hopefully going to be a lovely family week, when I can rest from some of the controversy online.
Just wanted to say that I appreciate all of you so much! And may you all find rest and relaxation this Christmas season too.
Sheila Wray Gregoire Founder of To Love, Honor and Vacuum
Sheila is determined to help Christians find BIBLICAL, HEALTHY, EVIDENCE-BASED help for their marriage. And in doing so, she's turning the evangelical world on its head, challenging many of the toxic teachings, especially in her newest book The Great Sex Rescue. She’s an award-winning author of 8 books and a sought-after speaker. With her humorous, no-nonsense approach, Sheila works with her husband Keith and daughter Rebecca to create podcasts and courses to help couples find true intimacy. Plus she knits. All the time. ENTJ, straight 8 FacebookTwitter Related Posts Why Is Most Marriage Advice Given to Women? Our Podcast!Dec 13, 2021 | 7 Comments
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December 16, 2021
3 Stories Podcast: A Vaginismus Story; A Christmas Story; and My Story
And thank you for joining us this year! Today on the podcast we hear Rachel Perry’s story of vaginismus, and then I get cozy in my yellow chair where I work and just tell you how I see the Christmas story interacting with our own (and yours!).
Listen in:
Browse all the Different Podcasts
See the Last “Start Your Engines” (Men’s) Podcast
Or, as always, you can watch on YouTube:
Timeline of the Podcast
1:30 Rachel Joins!
2:45 Growing up in purity culture
6:30 Experiences within the medical field
17:00 Some of the ‘whys’
24:45 Her husband’s journey through it
30:30 Rachel’s experience with TGSR
34:40 Sheila shares her heart from 2021, and her hopes for 2022
Main Segment: The Disease that Must Be Named
Yesterday I shared a bit of my story of vaginismus, and introduced you to Rachel’s story. I invite you to read Rachel’s whole story of vaginismus; she’s written it up beautifully.
She talks here about discovering she had vaginismus and her search for a cure–which took several years. And now, as she looks back, she’s starting to connect the dots as to why she suffered as she did.
Let’s share this and talk about it more. We need to normalize the word “vaginismus”, so that next time a young woman experiences this, she won’t feel like a freak, like she’s the only one or that there’s no name for what she’s going through. We found an incidence rate of 22.6% in the evangelical population, which is HUGE for a condition no one knows about. It’s far more common than erectile dysfunction in couples under the age of 40. And in The Great Sex Rescue, we show you some of the reasons why it’s so much more common in Christian circles than in other ones (and it all stems to our toxic teaching on sex).
When Light and Truth Come, So Does DisruptionI then end the year looking back at some of the things we’ve experienced since The Great Sex Rescue released, and also inviting you to ponder the story of Mary and Joseph anew. Light and Grace and Truth was coming into the world, and yet it created great disruption in their lives. They had to leave their comfort zone. They left their families. They likely felt abandoned by those they knew best. They couldn’t stay in one place, and kept having to find a new home.
Isn’t that what it’s like with us? When God does big things and reveals good things, it often disrupts our relationships; our community; our comfort zone.
That’s what we’ve experienced this year, and I talk about those who have discouraged us and those who have encouraged us, and how we are forging new communities. But it’s been hard–and the encouragement that so many of you have given us has gotten us through it, so thank you.
And check out our amazing merch before it’s too late for Christmas!
“Be A Biblical Woman” Unisex Jersey Short Sleeve Tee $20.00 – $22.00 
“Biblical Womanhood” Accent Coffee Mug, 11oz $10.00 
“The Great Sex Rescue” Unisex Heavy Cotton Tee $20.00 – $22.00 
“I Stand With Aunt Matilda” Accent Coffee Mug, 11oz $10.00 Things Mentioned in This Podcast:Our Patreon! You can help support our research and getting it into peer reviewed journals (Plus we have an awesome Facebook group and unfiltered podcasts!)The Great Sex Rescue, and our FREE video book study that goes along with itYesterday’s article on vaginismus and Rachel’s story of vaginismusThe Women’s Therapy Center in Plainview, New York for treating vaginismusLast year’s podcast on church homelessnessThe obligation sex message and how it interacts with sexual pain rates
Have you ever experienced disruption when you leaned more towards light and truth? Have you had a homeless year? Or what’s your experience with vaginismus? Let’s talk in the comments!
Sheila Wray Gregoire Founder of To Love, Honor and Vacuum
Sheila is determined to help Christians find BIBLICAL, HEALTHY, EVIDENCE-BASED help for their marriage. And in doing so, she's turning the evangelical world on its head, challenging many of the toxic teachings, especially in her newest book The Great Sex Rescue. She’s an award-winning author of 8 books and a sought-after speaker. With her humorous, no-nonsense approach, Sheila works with her husband Keith and daughter Rebecca to create podcasts and courses to help couples find true intimacy. Plus she knits. All the time. ENTJ, straight 8 FacebookTwitter Related Posts My Take on Josh Duggar’s Guilty Verdict: Amnon and Tamar ReplayedDec 9, 2021 | 102 Comments
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December 15, 2021
The Emotional Journey with Vaginismus
We were greeted on our wedding night by an inability to have intercourse because it hurt too much. I was expecting sex to hurt a little bit, but not like that.
It caused so many hurt feelings on both sides. We were both devastated.
But what made the whole thing worse was that we didn’t have a word for what we were experiencing. We thought I was the only one. We had never heard of someone who hadn’t been able to achieve penetration before. And so we both thought that at some level I was rejecting Keith (even though I certainly didn’t feel like I wanted to).
It took me several months to get the courage to talk to friends–who weren’t helpful. Then we eventually talked to family (who were physicians) who took me to another physician, who wanted to put me naked in stirrups and have me touch myself while naming body parts, because then I wouldn’t feel shame.
I literally ran out of the room hyperventilating and never went back.
(Here’s a picture of Keith and me from around that time):
In hindsight, I know what caused my vaginismus: the obligation sex message, that my body was not my own and that I no longer had a choice in anything, combined with the improper way I was breathing and holding my abdominal wall after years of ballet. When that doctor wanted to put me on display against my will, it just exacerbated everything.
What I needed was physiotherapy and permission to wait on intercourse, but I got neither. I pushed myself because I felt so guilty, and likely made the problem worse.
As Keith and I worked on our marriage, and after a few children, the problem eventually resolved itself. I also learned how to control those muscles and learned how to breathe differently, and that helped tremendously.
But I have such sympathy for little 21-year-old Sheila, completely blindsided by this and having absolutely no idea where to go for help.
We want to make the word vaginismus as well known as the words erectile dysfunction.After all, of couples under the age of 40, vaginismus is about three times as common, at least in evangelical circles. In many ways it’s more devastating–because often she can have sex, she just can’t do so without pain. So she feels like, to give him pleasure, she has to accept pain. That’s a terrible, toxic thing to believe–that his pleasure is worth the price of your pain.
So few marriage and sex books even talk about vaginismus. This was one thing that Kevin Leman’s book Sheet Music does well, but even Married Sex by Gary Thomas and Debra Fileta doesn’t handle it well, because they call it a psychological disorder, and say the first line of defence is counseling. But it’s not a psychological disorder. It is a physiological issue that can, and often does, have some psychological roots, and that often causes relationship issues as well. But there can be physical roots too (like my breathing), and for many people it’s multi-faceted.
The best route is to see a physical therapist who is trained in this, learn about accessing the mind body connection, and then start seeing a counselor if needed.
One of the reasons that we wanted as many people as possible for our survey for The Great Sex Rescue was to have enough women with vaginismus that we could probe root causes.And thankfully we were able to do that (and we’ll be presenting our findings at the American Physical Therapy Association convention in February!). It’s been known for fifty years that conservative religious women (like evangelicals) suffer from vaginismus at roughly twice the rate of the general population, and we wanted to figure out why. We found that a number of common teachings are correlated with vaginismus (like the obligation sex message), and often the way we do our honeymoon (more on that in the upcoming Good Guy’s Guide to Great Sex, and the totally revamped Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex! And you can pre-order them now!).
Because I talk so much about it, I often have people emailing me about their vaginismus stories.
One such women is Rachel Perry. She told me her story, and I was blown away by it. She’s coming on the podcast tomorrow to talk about it, since I felt that it fit so well with our series on mind-body connection. She had read The Great Sex Rescue, and from reading it she started to answer some of the questions about “why” this had happened to her. Even though she found healing a few years ago, she’s still peeling back layers, and the Great Sex Rescue was part of that process.
Before she talks with us tomorrow, though, I’d like to share her story with you. She’s written it up on her website: Vaginismus: My Nightmare, My Cure. I encourage you all to read it before you listen to the podcast! But I want to share a bit with you today:
“Anticipatory pain”, as my parents would call it, marked me from childhood. Whether it was me crying before Mom had even touched the hairbrush to my curly mop or trying my best to avoid every mistake or uncontrolled variable that could destabilize me, I was driven by fear to avoid surprise or disappointment.
Little did I know, this would turn out to be more than just the personality quirk of a cautious child. I had accumulated and repressed anxiety which had been burrowing its way into my psyche throughout my entire youth, creating neurological maps. In adulthood, this would manifest loudly. My body would make itself heard. That anxiety was not an innocuous personality quirk or a sin to be prayed away, but a powerful storm that had been whipping up steadily out of both nature and nurture, now swirling out of control ready to do some real damage.
I discovered that I had vaginismus on my wedding night.
I can not bring myself to share with you graphic details of the evening, but it is all crystal clear in my memory. It was beautiful, it was full of trust and love, and it was also confusing. It is heart-wrenching to remember now, but only because I know now what lay ahead.
Rachel PerryVaginismus: My Nightmare, My Cure
She goes on to talk about her journey: How she sought out medical attention for years and nothing worked. Multiple medical professionals thought the case was hopeless.
And then, after six years, she found real help at The Women’s Therapy Center in Plainview, New York.
But in my heart I could not look ahead into a long life dragging this body along that I despised, that had failed me. I needed to believe I could be cured. It was not primarily about sex, or exams, or tampons, or even children, as people had long since begun to assume. It was about feeling like a defective human. The church we were attending at the time was led by dear friends who were among the very few who knew about my condition. The church was in the family of a fairly charismatic tradition, and when they offered to anoint my head with oil and pray for healing I was extremely reticent. Since the unwelcome arrival of vaginismus in my life, I had found passages in scripture about healing upsetting. I should ask God for healing? The God to whom I had given my devotion and for whom I had guarded my purity – only to have the rug ripped out from under me after we made our covenant before him? He had removed His hand of blessing from me and I was going to ask for healing? My complaint was fraught, because I was not certain whether He had not come through for me or I had not come through for Him, or whether this was a test and if I begged for healing I might fail it? But I eventually said yes. We prayed for God to heal me, in His mercy and in His time. 5 months later I stumbled upon the online presence of The Women’s Therapy Center in Plainview, NY. Rachel PerryVaginismus: My Nightmare, My Cure
Her story is riveting, raw, and real, and if you’ve ever wanted to understand what vaginismus does to a person–and how healing can be found–please read it. It’s lovely.
Tomorrow Rachel will share her story with us on the podcast.But for today, I’d like to encourage all of us to use the word vaginismus more. Let young people know it can happen–though it likely won’t. But let’s not let another woman be blindsided on her honeymoon, feeling as if her body has failed her and that she’s defective.
Let’s not let more women give up hope because they think they’re the only one.
Twenty-two pecent of us experience this in some way, 7% to the extent that penetration is impossible.
Healing can come. But it comes first when we start talking about it.
The Great Sex RescueChanging the conversation about sex & marriage in the evangelical church. What if you're NOT the problem with your sex life?What if the things that you've been taught have messed things up--and what if there's a way to escape these messages?
Welcome to the Great Sex Rescue. Order Now!
Do you have a story with vaginismus? Or do you know how we can educate more people about it? Let’s talk in the comments!
Our Embodiment SeriesArousal Non-Concordance: What it is and why you need to know about itOur Mind/Body Connection PodcastAn Emotional Journey with VaginismusWhat the Incarnation Means for Us (coming soon!)And check out:
The Great Sex RescueThe revamped Good Girl's Guide to Great SexStay tuned for the revamped Boost Your Libido course! Sheila Wray Gregoire Founder of To Love, Honor and Vacuum
Sheila is determined to help Christians find BIBLICAL, HEALTHY, EVIDENCE-BASED help for their marriage. And in doing so, she's turning the evangelical world on its head, challenging many of the toxic teachings, especially in her newest book The Great Sex Rescue. She’s an award-winning author of 8 books and a sought-after speaker. With her humorous, no-nonsense approach, Sheila works with her husband Keith and daughter Rebecca to create podcasts and courses to help couples find true intimacy. Plus she knits. All the time. ENTJ, straight 8 FacebookTwitter Related Posts Lust Revisited, Just Done with It, and More! Our Weekly Round UpDec 9, 2021 | 33 Comments
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December 14, 2021
Poll: Women More Likely to Be Sexually Harrassed at Church than at Work
Over the last few weeks the “lust” debate, for lack of a better word, has been heating up on Facebook and Instagram. I’ve been sharing that presenting the idea that lust is every man’s battle is defeatist towards men but is also a very threatening message for women. When pastors talk about how all men lust, for instance, then they’re telling on themselves. They’re admitting they lust and have trouble respecting women and seeing them as whole human beings. That’s not a safe thing from someone who is supposed to help shepherd you.
So last week I decided to just do a quick unscientific poll on Twitter and Instagram and ask, “where did you feel more sexually objectified or harassed? At work or at church?
Here were the answers on Twitter:
On Instagram I had about ten times as many people take the poll (about 3000), but I could only give two options:
So many people messaged me and said, “I chose work, but I work in a Christian environment/for a parachurch organization/at a Christian school.” And it was awful.
So by roughly a 2:1 margin, women say they feel more unsafe at church than they do at work. And that’s not even mentioning the real sexual assault that so many women and girls experience at church.
The issue is that at church it is normal to blame women for men’s lust.We police women’s clothing, give sermons on modesty so as not to be stumbling blocks, have different clothing stipulations in youth group for girls vs. boys. And it’s all done in the guise of helping our brothers in Christ not lust.
And this is perfectly normal.
But when this is normal, then women feel as if our bodies are always being judged, and that there is something inherently wrong with them. I remember when my daughters were on praise team and they were told not to wear skirts, because then men in the front row could look up them.
The only men who ever sat in the front row were the elders when serving communion.
Think about how unsafe that makes a girl feel.
Interestingly, I had a talk about this with a big-name marriage author.I explained that our survey for our book The Great Sex Rescue found that spreading the message “all men struggle with lust, it’s every man’s battle” decreases a woman’s libido; hurts marital satisfaction; makes it more likely she’ll have sex only because she feels she has to.
His reply? It’s still important for women to understand men’s struggle, and to make sure men don’t feel shame.
So it’s more important for men not to feel shame than it is for women to have a positive relationship with our bodies and to experience the full sexuality God meant for us and to feel safe in church.
Here’s what we said about that argument in The Great Sex Rescue:
From The Great Sex Rescue Maybe the fact that women feel so upset by this “every man struggles with lust” message isn’t because women simply need to understand men better; maybe it’s because women are being asked to accept something that reflects the kingdom of darkness rather than Christ. Maybe women can’t accept being seen as objects and do not feel safe in a society that does not treat them as human beings—and maybe women are right to feel that way. The Great Sex RescueChanging the conversation about sex & marriage in the evangelical church. What if you're NOT the problem with your sex life?What if the things that you've been taught have messed things up--and what if there's a way to escape these messages?
Welcome to the Great Sex Rescue. Order Now! Every now and then a story hits the news about girls or women being shamed for what they wore to work or school.And often the issue is that they were told to cover up so they wouldn’t be a distraction to the men.
And when this happens–it hits the news big time. In the secular world, this is seen as ridiculous.
Dress codes? For sure. It’s perfectly fine and good to have standards of professional dress or school dress codes. But when those dress codes are heavily gendered, something goes haywire.
And when they’re phrased in terms of “protecting men”? Then the news blows up.
But the thing is, in church women hear this all the time. It never makes the news. It’s just normal.
I think this is one of those huge, glaring dichotomies that is making women flee the evangelical church.I hope pastors and leaders are listening, because women are telling us that they feel safer and treated with more respect in the secular world than in the church.
And it’s largely because of how we talk about lust.
This month, as we’re talking about being fully embodied, and inhabiting our bodies and learning mindfulness, we need to understand that one of the big reasons that this is difficult for women is that we have been taught our whole lives at church that our bodies are dangerous. We have been made to hate them.
This was wrong. And to that big name marriage pastor: You were wrong to say that to me. You were wrong to write what you did. And the big reason is this one:
Lust has a victim. And it is not the one who is lusting.We think of lust as a victimless crime–or, as Every Man’s Battle portrays it, it’s a sin against men’s purity.
No, lust is a sin against women. It’s not seeing them as whole people. It’s not being able to respect them. It’s objectifying them.
Lust has victims. And women experience this. And this should matter to us.
(And listen in to our lust and stumbling block podcast for more!)
To the one who struggles with lustThis is not meant to be an indictment against you, but against the system that enables this and even causes this.
Please know first that noticing is not lusting. Many people have felt that feeling attracted to the opposite sex means that you’ve already lusted and you’ve already lost the battle, and you feel hopeless. But attraction is not lust. We need to stop demonizing attraction.
Also, when you grow up hearing that every man lusts, it actually does much to create the problem. Hyper vigilance often leads to lust. So you were done a disservice.
You also were not given the right tools to fight it. The way to fight lust is not to actually fight lust. It’s not to “bounce your eyes”. Instead of fighting lust, try practising respect. Put your energy towards respecting everyone and concentrating on them as whole people.
And get The Great Sex Rescue! Many men have said that reading chapter 5 finally helped free them of the shame they’ve felt, and gave them a much healthier way of seeing lust.
What has your experience been? Have you felt objectified and harassed more at church than at work? Or what about other Christian contexts? What can we do about this? Let’s talk in the comments!
Sheila Wray Gregoire Founder of To Love, Honor and Vacuum
Sheila is determined to help Christians find BIBLICAL, HEALTHY, EVIDENCE-BASED help for their marriage. And in doing so, she's turning the evangelical world on its head, challenging many of the toxic teachings, especially in her newest book The Great Sex Rescue. She’s an award-winning author of 8 books and a sought-after speaker. With her humorous, no-nonsense approach, Sheila works with her husband Keith and daughter Rebecca to create podcasts and courses to help couples find true intimacy. Plus she knits. All the time. ENTJ, straight 8 FacebookTwitter Related Posts Unique Period Care Products that Can Revolutionize Your LifeDec 8, 2021 | 2 Comments
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