Sheila Wray Gregoire's Blog, page 33

Fixed It For You! Have You Seen These?

I’ve been fixing terrible quotations from some Christian marriage & sex books!

If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook, you’ve likely seen these. And I sent them out to my email subscribers last Friday, too! But if you just read the blog, you may have missed them.

But I’ve been having fun making them, and they’re doing quite well on social media! I want to help people recognize when something is harmful, and show what should have been said instead.

Today I’m sending in the edits for our new book The Good Guy’s Guide to Great Sex, which is coming out next March. So I’ve had a HUGE writing deadline for the last few weeks. So I thought that rather than write a big post today, I’d share these with you, plus share some links to some great podcasts I’ve been on lately!

Here’s the Fixed It For You that started it all:

 

Here’s my personal favorite (which was an Emerson Eggerichs one as well): Here’s the one that was shared and liked the most! And, hey, I’m even fixing myself!

I’ve done a few others, but that gives you a sense.

I’ve also been on a ton of podcasts lately (not just our own Bare Marriage podcast!).

I’ve been talking all about The Great Sex Rescue on about 5 or 6 podcasts a week, so it’s been really busy. I try to share most on social media, but I thought I’d give a quick cross-section of the types of things I’ve been doing today. And if I’ve been on your podcast, and I’m not mentioning it, I am trying to put them in rotation on social media!

A Wife Like Me

I spoke with Amanda Davidson in this two-part podcast about the things women typically feel in marriage with young kids. So we took this one entirely from the perspective of young moms! And it was a lot of fun. There’s also a follow-up episode which you can get to from the link!

Listen in! Everything is Okay Podcast

This one was very different–because I was talking with three guys! We talked about youth group, the “all men struggle with lust” message, and more! Interesting to talk more from the perspective of husbands about what our survey of 20,000 women showed us, and the insights from The Great Sex Rescue.

Listen in! Justin Khoe YouTube

Rebecca and I were on this one together–and it was a LONG conversation! But we were talking purity culture and Generation Z/young millennials on this podcast with Justin Khoe and his co-host Morgan. Great fun!

Watch and Listen! The Great Sex RescueNow Available! 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! So that can catch you up on what I’ve been doing OUTSIDE of the blog!

If you don’t want to miss anything, be sure you’re signed up for my emails, and, of course, follow me on social media.

FollowFollowFollowFollowFollowFollow

Have you heard me on a podcast lately that you liked? Let me know in the comments! Or do you have a quote you’d like me to fix? Let’s talk!

Sheila Wray Gregoire

Founder of To Love, Honor and Vacuum

Sheila has been married to Keith for 28 years, and happily married for 25! (It took a while to adjust). She’s also an award-winning author of 8 books, including The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex, and a sought-after speaker. With her humorous, no-nonsense approach, Sheila is passionate about changing the evangelical conversation about sex and marriage to line up with kingdom principles. ENTJ, straight 8 FacebookTwitter Related Posts Is Porn the New Purity Culture?

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Compassion for Anna Duggar–And How We Judge Success in Marriage

Josh Duggar has been arrested by the feds, and I’m so sad for Anna Duggar.

I wasn’t going to write about this today, but it actually intersects with a number of things I’ve been thinking about this week, and I thought I could put them all in one place.

For those of you who may not know, Josh Duggar is the oldest Duggar child, of the 19 Kids and Counting show. It was revealed a few years ago that he had sexually abused some of his sisters and another child when he was a young teenager, and then a few  years after that he was caught up in the Ashley Madison scandal. It was largely because of these scandals that the Duggars lost their TV show.

But through it all Anna stuck with her husband.

I have absolutely no idea what counsel Anna has been given, and whether she feels trapped or not.

I do know that she grew up in a religious tradition that thinks that the husband is the decision-maker and supreme leader of the home, and you are there to support him. And this tradition also sees divorce as one of the worst evils. She also married into a family that believes this, too. How much support she would have to leave Josh, I don’t know.

And now she is apparently pregnant with her seventh child as well.

Earlier this week, though, I read an article at the Above Rubies website that I found very disturbing with a scenario similar to Anna’s.

Basically, this woman had had a very rough year where she discovered she was pregnant with her fifth child four months after the fourth one was born. She also had to move, and she had little family support, and she was exhausted and feeling bitter at God.

Then, after her fifth baby was born, she discovered that her husband had passed an STD on to her, and she discovered that he had been watching porn.

You may think this is going to be a typical story–she told her church, and they told her to stay. But that’s not actually what happened at all.

 

Being a Christian, I decided that the right thing to do would be to go to my pastor for advice.When presented with the evidence, my pastor looked at me and said, “Do you need the name of a lawyer?”I stared at him in disbelief.He continued, “You have grounds, you know…”

I left the office. I believe my pastor meant well, but simply didn’t know how to respond. I also sought the advice of an older woman at the church, only to receive more of the same advice. Soon, however, it seemed like everyone knew about the situation, and most people treated me like a woman about to be divorced, pitying me, and offering jobs, welfare tips, apartment leads, and the like.And all of them said, “Oh, if only you didn’t have all those children.”The reaction of everyone about me being pregnant with Isobel was bad enough, but knowing that I was submitted to God in this area with “that” sort of husband made me look like a fool!

I went to a counselor who suggested my modest dress might have caused my husband to stray, and then told me that I was allowing myself to be blackmailed into accepting his bad behavior by being a stay-at-home mother with no means of financially supporting myself!

I went to a small group session for wives of men with this problem, where I discovered that a woman who views herself as her husband’s helpmeet is an “enabler”, and a woman who is too focused on her family is “co-dependent”.A woman who believes that her value and worth as a woman created by God is in fulfilling the high call of being a wife and mother has some “self esteem issues”.A woman who believes in self-sacrificing in order to see God’s will perfected in her family and neighborhood has a “boundaries crises”.

I felt betrayed by God. Here I was, with five small children, no job and no means to have a job that could pay for the daycare of all of my children, no car in my name, no credit history, and a husband who did this!I felt somehow that it was God’s duty to keep anything bad from happening to me, and I felt like God had turned His back on me completely.

I was standing in line at the grocery store when I noticed a young man with a bracelet that said WWJD.Good question, I thought.What would Jesus do?As soon as I asked myself what Jesus would do about personal boundaries, a verse popped into my mind.”Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, taking the form of a servant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.” (Philippians 2:5-8) What would Jesus do?I believe that question has already been settled.

I still was not in a right relationship with the Lord, and I was still very much out of fellowship with my family. On the outside I am sure I still looked like a “good Christian mother” but on the inside only the Lord and I know how filthy I had allowed myself to become.But I was making some efforts towards restoring my relationship with my husband, a relationship that I had neglected for some time.I began praying for the first time in a long time for the Lord to show me what to do.

Above Rubies

The Pornography Net

So she went to a pastor, to mentors, to friends, and most of them told her that it was okay to leave, and, in fact, she may be enabling bad behavior if she stayed.

But she didn’t want to hear that, even though multiple people had told her this. Instead, she waited until she “heard from God” what she wanted to hear–that her husband’s behavior was all her fault. Because, you see, if it was all  her fault, then it could be fixed. If she just changed, then the whole thing could be fixed! So she decided to accept the blame.

I prayed and fasted for a while and then went to my husband.I told him that I needed to talk to him about something serious. His face reflected horror. We had never actually addressed, face to face, this whole situation. He had become indignant and cold toward me, and I was afraid of the blowup we were going to have.

Instead, to his shock and surprise, I said,”Honey, I love you, and I want to submit to you and be your helpmeet.Please forgive me for being such a lousy wife these last few years…” We went on to discuss the pornography situation, and resolved that.

Martin was completely disarmed by my submissive attitude towards him. I believe that God softened his heart when I finally determined to do things God’s way, rather than my own way. As we prayed together, and discussed ways that I could help him fight this temptation and be a better helpmeet, Martin was restored in his relationship to me and to the Lord. He has become victorious in this area once again.

Above Rubies

The Pornography Net

So this guy had passed an STD along to his postpartum wife who also had four other children, including one who was just over a year old, and the conclusion they came to was that she had been selfish for being unavailable to him for the previous year, and for being preoccupied with herself.

And thus his sin was caused by her unsubmissiveness.

I cannot begin to tell you how toxic I believe this approach is–and i do not mean to assume that Anna Duggar is getting the same messages (although these messages are in the books, like Debi Pearl’s, that the Duggars tend to recommend). But I want to ask a bigger question:

What do we think constitutes success in the marriage department?

In reading that article, I would say that they define success as:

Staying married no matter whatLearning to give up all of your needs and wants and surrendering yourself completely to someone elseNever allowing yourself to be swayed by your own needs and feelings, but emptying yourself of everything

I have written before why this approach is unbiblical, but I’ll point you to just two:

A Letter to the Woman with a Controlling HusbandOn Created To Be His Helpmeet and an Unbiblical View of Suffering

I do not think those things constitute success in marriage. Notice that while they may be all dressed up in Jesus language, they actually have very little to do with Jesus? After all, what did Jesus come to do? He came to set the captives free. He came to help us look more like Him and learn how to live. He came to transform the world into something where justice and mercy would reign. He came to go after the lost sheep and protect those who are being hurt.

I believe that we have made marriage an idol, and too often we’ve left Jesus out of it.

Sure, this woman is basing what she’s doing on Jesus’ attitude in Philippians 2, but she’s forgetting the bigger picture. Jesus did not become nothing and let others walk over Him for no reason. He did so to provide a way for people to live in right relationship with God. If, in becoming nothing and letting others walk all over us, we are pushing people even further away from right relationship with God, we are not doing what Jesus did whatsoever.

Staying married no matter what does not help people know Jesus, especially if there are no consequences for egregious behavior. It simply allows them to keep going down the road of sin and using others and realizing they can do that with impunity.

Are you GOOD or are you NICE?

Because the difference matters!

God calls us to be GOOD, yet too often we’re busy being nice. And sometimes, in marriage, that can actually cause problems to be even more entrenched.

What if there’s a better way?

Take me to it! The same day that someone sent me that horrible article from Above Rubies, another person sent me an article detailing Terry Crews’ recovery from porn.

He and his wife (who also have five children, just like the Above Rubies wife) decided to do a 90-day sex fast to rekindle intimacy and get rid of the residual effects of porn. In other words, when he was caught, clear boundaries were laid down and he decided to change. He explained:

“90 days — no sex, all relationship, all talk, all cuddle,” he recounted. “I found that at the end of that 90 days … I knew who she was, and it wasn’t about ‘Let’s go out because I know I’m gonna get some sex later.’ It was like, ‘Let’s go because I want to talk to you. I want to know you’.”

According to Crews, “every man has a desire for intimacy.” Unfortunately, that doesn’t always result in every man attempting to forge a lasting connection with his significant other. ‘

“You’re not looking for porn. You’re looking for someone to know you and love you at the same time,” he outlined. “That’s all you want — every man out there. But he’s scared sometimes. That’s why men put up big fronts.”

Huffington Post

How a 90 Day Sex Fast Changed Terry Crews' Marriage

This story, which was widely reported and praised in the secular press, shows a better route to recovery than many “Christian” pieces of advice.

I think it’s because the secular world is focused on what actually works, while too many Christians get distracted by weird ideas about marriage and gender roles and things that can cause us to feel like it’s a sin to draw boundaries. We need to remember that Jesus said you can judge by the fruit. If the fruit of the doctrine is destroyed marriages and destroyed women, then that’s a sign our particular doctrines about marriage aren’t centered in Jesus.

Terry Crews is a Christian, and I’m glad that he chose a route to recovery that involved true repentance, real counseling, and addressing his underlying need for intimacy, not just a route that blamed his wife for not having sex enough (yes, I’m looking at you, Every Man’s Battle). 

Again, I have no idea what’s going on in Anna Duggar’s marriage, nor what advice she is being given. But I hope she asks the bigger questions. A marriage is not a success simply because a divorce does not occur. And children need to be shown what it means to have boundaries, and how you should allow others to treat you. Children need to see their mother respecting herself, too. I pray some around Anna can tell her that, because this situation looks heartbreaking, and, unfortunately, there are far too many who will misuse the Bible to make women take responsibility for their husband’s sins.

UPDATE: News has now broken that Josh was arrested last night for possession of child sexual abuse material, more commonly called child porn (I think CSAM is a better word for it). Oh, my word. I pray that Anna has wise people who can help her and her children. And I now think that it is imperative that she separate for the safety of her children (although it’s likely that Josh will serve a long prison term anyway).

UPDATE 2: I edited this post because I learned that Terry Crews claims faith in Christ, too! (which is awesome)

What do you think? Have you seen women in Anna Duggar’s position pressured to stay with husbands? How should we better define success in marriage? Let’s talk in the comments!

Sheila Wray Gregoire

Founder of To Love, Honor and Vacuum

Sheila has been married to Keith for 28 years, and happily married for 25! (It took a while to adjust). She’s also an award-winning author of 8 books, including The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex, and a sought-after speaker. With her humorous, no-nonsense approach, Sheila is passionate about changing the evangelical conversation about sex and marriage to line up with kingdom principles. ENTJ, straight 8 FacebookTwitter Related Posts What Youth Group Was Like Before Purity Culture

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Women buy 74% of self-help relationship books. So what have they heard about sex?

On the last Thursday of the month I like to direct our podcasts a little bit more at men (though women will still find them interesting!). And in today’s Bare Marriage podcast, I’m going to read some passages from best-selling evangelical books, and let Keith react, trying to guess at how a woman might take that.

Listen to the Podcast Here

Browse all the Different Podcasts

Listen to the Last Women’s Podcast

Or, as always, you can watch on YouTube:

 

Timeline of the Podcast

1:00 Men usually HAVEN’T heard these same things
3:20 Reading text from real books that your wife has probably heard
5:45 “Women DO NOT have a need for sex, but they MUST always meet their husband’s needs.”
11: “Sex is ONLY physical for men, and ONLY emotional for women.”
14:15 “You can NEVER say no to sex, even if you would rather shove him off (which is a normal feeling cause you’re a woman and don’t want sex)”
19:10 “Don’t bother aiming for her pleasure if it becomes too complicated or difficult.”
25:50 “Wives MUST tell their husbands they are great lovers…even if they’re not.”
29:00 “Your husband will lust after every woman he ever sees.”
37:30 RESEARCH. Just because someone is ‘lower status’ doesn’t mean they are always complaining
40:10 One woman’s interesting experience with the problematic men’s teachings on lust
44:30 Ending with some encouragement!

Main Segment: What Have Women Been Taught about Sex?

One of the pushbacks we’ve received about our survey that finds that certain evangelical teachings harm sex for women is men saying, “well, I was never taught that!” And the thing is–we agree! Men may very well have not been taught most of this stuff. When we ask women where they’ve been taught it, the biggest answer they give is from books or ministries, not from the pulpit. And women are more likely to attend Bible studies where these books are studied. They’re more likely to buy them and read them. They’re more likely to attend women’s conferences where these things are taught.

In short, these messages are aimed at women far more than they are at men.

So it is completely plausible that men have not been taught this toxic stuff. But that doesn’t mean that women weren’t! So we want to let men in on what women have heard about sex from various bestsellers, and in today’s podcast I read excerpts to Keith from:

When God Writes Your Love Story, p. 223Love & Respect, p. 249, 252, 257Power of a Praying Wife pp. 62-63Sheet Music pp. 202-203Meaning of Marriage, the sex chapter (I don’t have the page number because the Kindle version is messed up!)For Women Only pp. 102-103Through a Man’s Eyes pp. 3-7

Keith did his best to think like a woman, but doesn’t think he did a good job. You decide!

New Research Segment: We tend to think the lower-status person is complaining too much

I brought Rebecca on to look at a study that found that, when people hear identical complaints from different individuals, we tend to assume that the lower-status person is complaining or blowing things out of proportion more than the upper status person.

Interesting ramifications for how the church views issues that women bring up!

Reader Question: Why the “Every Man Lusts” Message Made Me Think All Guys SHOULD Want Me

We read an interesting email from a woman who said that the “all men struggle with lust” message didn’t just mess up men; it messed her up, too, because it made her sexualize all relationships with guys. I wrote about her letter yesterday because I thought it was so insightful!

Encouraging Reviews

We shared two assume reviews on the podcast; I’ll leave one of them hear from Sam Powell, a pastor who has been posting about The Great Sex Rescue on Facebook and left this review on Amazon:

For years, I have been doing marriage and pre-marriage counseling. The lack of knowledge about sexuality or the outright lies that people have been taught have appalled me.

Christians writing on the subject are normally hopelessly naive, or have never met or talked to an actual woman, or have been so focused on abstinence that they fail completely.

Whenever I did counseling, I wished that I had a book like this one.

The authors do an excellent job undoing the lies of the “purity culture”, the allure of porn and how poorly the church does in combatting it, unfulfilling sex lives in marriages, and lack of love and intimacy in so many Christian marriages.

This book will be my go-to for all future marriage and pre-marriage counseling. I cannot recommend it enough.

For those who I have already counseled, remember when I said, “I wish I had a book to recommend, but I don’t” – THIS is the one we needed.

If you struggle, know someone who struggles, or simply desire a deeper, more intimate, more fulfilling sex life with your spouse, please get this book.

Pastors, get this book. We have a problem with sexuality in our churches and need to know how to address it. Get this book. Use it. Get sexuality back on a biblical foundation and put the joy and intimacy back into the lives of those under your care.

Sam Powell

Amazon Review

The Great Sex RescueNow Available! 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! Things Mentioned in This Podcast:The Great Sex Rescue: Our new book, that looks at how harmful some of these messages have beenSupport our research by joining our Patreon group! Even for as  little as $5 or $8 a month!Our “Do All Men Struggle with Lust” podcastOur open letter to Focus on the Family about Love & Respect (at the bottom of this post is links to all of the other things we’ve said about this book)The study on complaining and maladaptive worry and status

What do you think? Do men and women hear different messages in church? What’s your experience been about the difference? Let’s talk in the comments!

Sheila Wray Gregoire

Founder of To Love, Honor and Vacuum

Sheila has been married to Keith for 28 years, and happily married for 25! (It took a while to adjust). She’s also an award-winning author of 8 books, including The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex, and a sought-after speaker. With her humorous, no-nonsense approach, Sheila is passionate about changing the evangelical conversation about sex and marriage to line up with kingdom principles. ENTJ, straight 8 FacebookTwitter Related Posts How to Help Your Kids Have Healthy Relationships with Opposite Sex

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We’ve been talking a lot about youth group lately–what youth group was like before purity culture infiltrated it; how porn may be the new purity culture. We talked last week about how to help kids have healthy relationships with the opposite sex.

Lately I’ve talked a lot about how the message that “all men struggle with lust; it’s every man’s battle” can really mess up guys especially by making them feel they can never win this battle. Plus we often conflate sexual attraction and lust, and we make guys feel shame when they were never meant to.

Recently, a listener of the Bare Marriage podcast was listening to the episode where we talked about how men DON’T necessarily all struggle with lust, and she had a bit of an epiphany on how that message had also affected her. I thought it was interesting, and I shared it on this week’s podcast that goes live tomorrow, but I thought it might be worth talking about on its own today.

She wrote:

 

We talk about how women end up used and abused as a result of purity culture etc. But as I hear you discuss how toxic the thought process is for men to be afraid of women, I’m realizing I was raised to think ALL men wanted me. And that greatly inhibited the ability to just be friends with men. It also made me think of myself sexually all the time. I’m not even a sexual person. I have a lower drive. I always have. But this topic is unearthing some things for me.

I can see how I viewed every man as someone who was interested in me and then when they weren’t, it made me wonder why and I’d pursue them or flirt with them even if I wasn’t interested in them because THEY’RE SUPPOSED TO WANT ME. I hope this doesn’t make me sound nuts. But my mom also put a lot emphasis on finding a husband (and one looks) so my eye and my brain were trained to always assess each man as potentially someone of interest.

This mindset didn’t just stop when I got married so it made staying faithful difficult because I always wanted to flirt and have attention. I thought all my husbands friends wanted me too. I know this is sounding like I was a lunatic but I assure you I am not. As I mentioned, I did end up in a pretty crappy marriage with all the covert sexual pressure for obligation sex, marital rape and all of that. But until today, it hadn’t clicked that purity culture also attributed to my inability to choose a good man and affected so many relationships with male friends. I hope that makes sense. I’m going to sit with this and try to unpack it more but I feel like you’ll get it!

It’s interesting, isn’t it?

Men worry that they’re lusting all the time, but at the same time women can feel like he should be lusting after me. And if he’s not, what does that say about my desirability?

So we can end up flirting even when we don’t want to because we have to reassure ourselves.

The one thing we can’t seem to do is have healthy male-female friendships.

I think male-female friendships are a good thing.

I’m not talking about hanging out with someone of the opposite gender one-on-one and going places with them, but I know a lot of men that I consider my friends and that I can have deep conversations with, and it is entirely platonic. It is possible to have platonic relationships.

Paul entrusted Phoebe, a deacon, with the letter to the Romans. Seven out of the ten women he mentions in Romans 16 he talks about in terms of their ministry–a higher percentage than the men. Women and men worked alongside each other for the gospel, and this was expected and normal in the early church.

It wasn’t normal in the world; this was one of the way that the gospel upended human relationships. It broke down the walls that had separated the sexes, and it allowed us to see each other as whole people.

I think this should be the aim again. Obviously we need to be wise, and I know that this is nuanced. But the sexualization of all relationships–either the assumption that the sexes are dangerous to each other, or the inability to see beyond one’s gender–hurts us.

I’m doing huge edits on The Good Guy’s Guide to Great Sex right now (it’s due in at the publishers on Friday), so I won’t make this a long post. But I’d love to know what you think.

Can we go back to platonic relationships? Do you relate to what this woman says about sexualizing every relationship? How do we move forward? Let’s talk in the comments!

 

 

Books That Help with Platonic Relationships Beyond Awkward Side Hugs by Bronwyn Lea Why Can’t We Be Friends? by Aimee Byrd Sheila Wray Gregoire

Founder of To Love, Honor and Vacuum

Sheila has been married to Keith for 28 years, and happily married for 25! (It took a while to adjust). She’s also an award-winning author of 8 books, including The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex, and a sought-after speaker. With her humorous, no-nonsense approach, Sheila is passionate about changing the evangelical conversation about sex and marriage to line up with kingdom principles. ENTJ, straight 8 FacebookTwitter Related Posts Podcast: Christian Sex Books & the Backlash Against the Sexual Revolution

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Is Porn the New Purity Culture?

Is the next thing that’s going to damage sex in evangelical circles the way that we’re treating porn?

Now, please understand: I think there is no excuse for watching porn. Porn is the biggest driver of sex trafficking. Even if the porn you’re watching is “consensual” (as if you could really know), when you watch you feed the demand for those types of things, and the things that you watch will eventually be forced on children and those who aren’t consenting. It’s a huge evil.

And porn does mess up the way that the user sees sex, changing the arousal patterns to respond to dehumanizing and objectifying behavior rather than to intimacy, and causing someone to need to emotionally distance themselves in order to even get aroused.

It’s a big mess, too.

This post is not about whether or not porn is bad–it certainly is. This post is asking the question: what are we going to do about it?

Are we treating porn for boys especially the way we treated sex for girls in the 1990s and 2000s?

Yesterday Keith and I recorded our podcast that’s coming out on Thursday, and we were reading from different books to help guys understand the messages their wives have been hearing about sex for years. One of the passages I read was from the book When God Writes Your Love Story by Eric and Leslie Ludy, two speakers/authors who were heavily involved in the purity culture movement.

In the passage I read, Karly and Todd, a couple who loved God and who had been dating in college with the aim to marry, found themselves overcome by passion and ended up in bed together. Afterwards they both felt guilty, and Todd got distant towards Karly.

But then listen to how they describe the implications for Karly:

As for Karly, she was hurt and confused by Todd’s behavior. She had thought he loved her. She had made the mistake of giving him her most precious gift–her virginity–but now he was distant and cold toward her. She was full of guilt. When she thought of all her childhood dreams of walking down the aisle in a white wedding gown, symbolizing her purity, she felt sick. She could never hope to have a beautiful love story with Todd now. She had ruined her chance. (p. 223)

Eric and Leslie Ludy, When God Writes Your Love Story

So Karly had given up her most precious gift. Her dreams were ruined. Her purity was gone.

But hold on a second. Todd had ALSO had sex. Why wasn’t HIS most precious gift gone? Why wasn’t his loss of purity a subject for discussion? Why was it only the girl who had lost something?

That’s the purity culture message that severely messed up a whole generation of primarily millennial women.

Your worth is in your virginity. It is the greatest gift you have to give. Once you are no longer a virgin, your identity is gone. If that virginity is stolen from you, you will never get it back. You will always be tainted.

And you will be all used up if you sleep with other guys. No one will want you. You will never be able to have the sex life or the marriage that you dreamed of and that you wanted, because that is reserved for only people who do things right.

Everything is lost.

Can you see a similarity between the way we talked–or even still talk–about virginity for women and the way we talk about porn for guys?

If you watch porn your brain will be rewired and you will never be able to understand real intimacy. You will ruin your chances of having great sex because you have wrecked your sexuality. God reserves great sex for those who have done everything right; you have used porn, and so great sex will always be out of reach. 

That’s a very hopeless message. You are ruined. You have lost something you can never get back. You will never enjoy the marriage and sex life you wanted.

Let’s look at four big ways that message fails:

You may also enjoy:My Soul Ties Series: can you really get soul ties by having sex with someone?Our Porn series: how porn affects the brain and how to get over porn1. It makes people feel as if they are irreparably damaged even when the initial porn use wasn’t consensual

One of the most hurtful messages of the purity culture is that you could be “no longer pure” if you were the victim of sexual assault. It was sexual activity that tainted you, and even if that sexual activity was non-consensual, you would no longer be pure because you weren’t a virgin.

But think of all the children who see porn for the first time in a non-consensual way! If a friend shows you porn on his or her phone when you are 11, you haven’t consented, because you don’t understand at 11 the repercussions for seeing porn. You don’t understand how it can be traumatizing and arousing at the same time, and how the trauma of some of what you see can actually cause you to want to watch again and suck you in.

Just as we don’t say that 11-year-olds can consent to sexual activity, so we should not say that 11 or 12 year olds have truly decided to watch porn. They’re curious; they’ve often seen snippets from friends; and if they then seek it out, is that truly consensual? I’m not so sure that it is.

And in many cases I’m quite sure it isn’t. In many jurisdictions, showing porn to a minor is actually an offence and counts as sexual assault.

How many young people in their twenties–both men and women–who struggle with porn today started with porn in their preteen or early teen years before they had the maturity to understand what they were seeing? And once the habit starts, it’s hard to stop, because of what we know porn does to the brain.

2. It ignores the healing and transforming power of God

To say that once you’ve done something you’re damaged forever is, quite frankly, heresy. That’s exactly the opposite of what the Bible says. Jesus said, “if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” The old is gone. We are reconciled. We are redeemed. And we are transformed by the Spirit. We are no longer a slave to sin.

Now, recovery does take work still. But to insinuate that God will withhold the blessing of a great sex life and a great marriage because someone watched porn is just not the way God works.

3. It ignores what we know about porn recovery

A lot of people watch porn. A lot. In fact, the majority of those who came of age after the internet revolution have at least dabbled with porn.

But do you know what else we know? Most people enjoy their marriages. Most married people enjoy their sex lives. So that tells me that porn use does not have to doom anybody.

We also know from our survey of men that we finished a few months ago that when you quit porn completely, your marital and sexual satisfaction can be very similar to those who never use it. We’ll say a lot more about that in The Good Guy’s Guide to Great Sex, but this idea that you can never get over it and you’re tainted forever is not an accurate picture of reality.

4. It encourages black-and-white, defeatist thinking

What happens, though, when we believe that we are doomed if we watch porn? That we can never get over it? That this is every man’s battle, and we’ll always be struggling, and this is just the way things are?

Then it’s much harder to fight against. You start to believe there’s no point, because your sex life is ruined anyway.

We put a lot of shame on millennial women, and I fear we’re doing the same thing for Generation Z men.

(yes, I know women watch porn, too, but the defeatist messages are often aimed at men).

We need to get back to a gospel-centred view of sexuality. Yes, life can get messy. Yes, we can make mistakes. Yes, bad things can be done to us, and we can find ourselves in situations we can’t handle when we’re far too young.

But Jesus is the God who redeems, and His power can help us overcome the things that hold us back, and we do not have to let these things become our identity, determine our worth, or determine our future or current marriages.

If you’re dating or engaged, please deal with the porn use NOW. Nothing that I’m saying means that I don’t think you should take this seriously. But just know that if you do take it seriously, it is very, very likely that you will emerge on the other side, a healthy, whole person.

Need help with dealing with or defeating porn?

My favorite books for guys are: The Sexually Healthy Man by Andrew Bauman and Surfing for God by Michael John Cusick.

I also highly recommend Good Pictures, Bad Pictures for talking to your kids about porn, and Covenant Eyes to help protect your kids as much as possible.

Good Pictures, Bad Pictures Good Pictures, Bad Pictures Jr. Covenant Eyes Screen Accountability

We need a far more nuanced conversation about all of this stuff in the church, rather than just scaring people into doing what we want them to do.

That may get messier. But it’s closer to the truth. And you know what? People can handle the truth.

What do you think? Are we being too defeatist about porn use? Or do we not talk about it enough? Let’s talk in the comments!

Sex Throughout the Ages Series8 Weird Facts about Sex in Roman Times (April 6)The Significance of 1 Corinthians 6-7 in light of Roman culture (April 7)A Romp Through Medieval Times and Sex (April 13)10 Weird Pieces of Victorian Sex Advice (April 14)The Contagion Theory of Sexuality--and How to Change It (April 19)12 Pieces of Advice from a 1970s Sex Manual (April 20)12 Ways the Christian 1970s Culture Tried to Be Sex Positive--While Also Fighting Back against the Sexual Revolution (April 21)A Look at Christianity's Response to the Sexual Revolution: Kinsey, the 1970s, and the Early Christian Sex Books (our April 22 Podcast)How Youth Group Changed After Generation X (and what it was like before purity culture) (April 26)Is Porn the New Purity Culture? (April 27)A Liturgy of Lament for the Teaching We Received about Sex and a Prayer for Healing (April 30) Sheila Wray Gregoire

Founder of To Love, Honor and Vacuum

Sheila has been married to Keith for 28 years, and happily married for 25! (It took a while to adjust). She’s also an award-winning author of 8 books, including The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex, and a sought-after speaker. With her humorous, no-nonsense approach, Sheila is passionate about changing the evangelical conversation about sex and marriage to line up with kingdom principles. ENTJ, straight 8 FacebookTwitter Related Posts Podcast: Christian Sex Books & the Backlash Against the Sexual Revolution

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What Youth Group Was Like Before Purity Culture

I remember a conversation with my husband around 1992 about how the church was totally on the right track!

We had dealt with some weird televangelism scandals and they were largely behind us. Women’s gifts were being used. A lot of the things that culture made fun of Christians for was really a caricature, and no longer applicable. We were going in a good direction. Things were healthy. We were excited.

If you had told me then that my children would one day hear messages in their youth group that my mother hadn’t even heard, I wouldn’t have believed you.

One of the benefits of being a little older (I’m Generation X; 50 years old) is that you can look back and see how things have changed.

We tend to believe that history has always moved in one direction–growing more and more liberal, opening up more and more, towards more and more freedom for people. At the same time, we often assume that personal morals are worse with each successive generation.

Both of those things are demonstrably false, especially in the church.

And so, for the benefit of my millennial and generation Z readers, and for the nostalgic opportunity for my older ones, I’d like to take you through my youth group days.

What Generation X experienced in youth group

I was 16-years-old, in one of the back pews of church at a youth conference, flanked on either side by boys I was interested in. I hadn’t really settled on which one to crush on yet, but they were both possibilities.

The topic that day was on marriage, and the importance of choosing a good mate. But he went on a tangent about sex, and then I heard this sentence, “God created a body part for women whose purpose is only pleasure.” He talked about the clitoris. I wanted to crawl under my pew and hide.

I don’t remember much more about that talk, but I do remember that: the speaker wanted us to know that sex was meant to be something special; that it was supposed to feel good for women; and that we shouldn’t cheapen it by having sex outside of marriage.

As far as I can remember, that’s the only real message I ever really got about premarital sex.

That’s not to say we didn’t talk about or didn’t think it was wrong; we were always obsessing about “how far is too far” and when should you stop in a make out situation. But that just wasn’t the focus of our youth group conferences or talks.

Mostly we talked about two things: Personal evangelism and living 100% sold out for Jesus

On the youth group wall in my church was a map of the 10/40 window–that part of the world between the 10th and 40th latitude that was the most unreached. It covered China and the Middle East and Indonesia and all those countries that still had to hear about Jesus. There were prayer calendars for the unreached people groups. We kept track of what Bible translations were being completed and in what languages.

We often role played “how to talk about your faith without being super creepy.” We read books like Becky Pippert’s Out of the Salt Shaker and into The World, about how to make evangelism natural. “How to share your faith” was the most popular workshop topic at any convention or conference I went to. And, of course, apologetics fit in with that, too. Everybody had a dog eared copy of Evidence That Demands a Verdict.

Serving ice cream at a church social.

Remember that, in the 1980s, teenage alcohol use and pregnancy rate were worse than they are today

Every generation thinks they had pressure that their parents never went through, and for today’s generation, that’s true when it comes to social media (which upended everything). But in terms of the actual rates of bad-stuff-parents-don’t-want-kids-to-do, it was worse when I was a teenager by most measures.

And yet we just didn’t talk about it that much at youth conferences. Instead, we focused on what life looked like if you were sold out for Jesus. We talked about money. We talked about career plans and missionary plans. We certainly talked about marriage, but it was more in the context of “be careful who you marry, because that choice will largely dictate how effective you can be for Jesus over your lifetime.”

I remember in youth group going through the book of Mark for Bible study one year. Another year we did the parables, I believe. We didn’t study books or themes; we actually studied scripture.

You know what I don’t remember? Modesty rules.

I attended summer camps as a teen (for the life of me I don’t know why; I never liked camps. I think I must have just been going for the boys). I even worked at a summer camp one summer. Maybe they had dress codes for the girls; I honestly don’t know. If they did, they didn’t register, and we certainly didn’t talk about them much.

Me with a friend the year I counselled at camp

The only time I do remember modesty rules was when I went on a Teen Missions International missions trip in 1986. That was not a good experience; it was my first foray into fundamentalism and legalism, and it was jarring and actually quite traumatic. It took me a long time to recover spiritually after that. But they had strict modesty codes for the girls. I assumed, though, that that was because we were traveling internationally, and so it made sense to me.

We were consumed with making a difference and making Jesus #1 in our lives.

Not everyone was of course–but that’s what the Christian culture was all about, including teenage culture. When we talked about dating, it was in the context of: “if you date him, will Jesus still be #1 in your life?”, or “are you allowing your boyfriend to come before Jesus in your life?” It wasn’t about rules as much as it was about keeping Jesus as the main thing. (I do think the message went overboard here; I was so worried I loved Keith too much when we were about to get married, or that I loved my children too much when they came. Jesus is big enough to have you love lots.)

I remember feeling as a teen that many of the conferences I went to were treating me like an adult Christian. The message was that we could change the world. We could make good decisions. We could put ourselves in strategic places so that we could do something important with our lives.

We were definitely not consumed with relationship advice.

That didn’t mean that we didn’t have relationships–we sure did! I dated two different guys in my youth group in my early teens, and then spent about 2 1/2 years single until I got to university. But those single years weren’t by choice!

Nobody thought you were bad if you dated–though we were all worried if someone seemed like they had “gone too far” and was having sex. But dating was normal and natural, and kids would hold hands as we chatted about the gospel of Mark and talked about how to be sold out for Jesus.

Keith and I when we started dating.

I am not saying that everything was perfect in the 1980s.

Not by a long shot. We were way too concerned with End Times, and I think perhaps the “being 100% sold out for Jesus” was partially because a large segment of the population was convinced Jesus was coming back tomorrow. The Soviet Union was falling apart; there was upheaval everywhere. We had book upon book being published analyzing headlines and comparing them to the book of Revelation (I’m so glad that’s largely stopped).

There was definitely a tendency to judge who was and who wasn’t sold out by what music they listened to or whether they went to school dances.

By the time my kids became teenagers, I hadn’t realized how much had changed.

I assumed the main messages would still be to be 100% sold out for Jesus, and personal evangelism and knowing your Bible. But somehow it had morphed in those 25 years, and things had become really weird with purity culture.

In our survey of 20,000 women last year, we wanted to measure just how much the purity culture message had changed how couples behaved before marriage. So one of our questions was, “did you kiss before the wedding?” Over 99% of women over the age of 60 had kissed their first husband (or their only husband) before marriage. But of women under 40, that number goes down to 93.2%. Now, that’s still an astronomically high number, and is really quite interesting. Despite the millions of copies of I Kissed Dating Good-bye, despite all the purity culture balls and the Duggars and everything else, we’re still kissing in huge numbers. Yet even so, our grandmothers dated more and kissed more than many millennial and generation Z women! That’s something important to keep in mind. Purity culture was something new; our grandmothers wouldn’t have recognized it. It wasn’t the way things were always done.

The Great Sex RescueNow Available! 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! We haven’t run a lot of generational data yet; that’s on our list of projects to do as we’re looking at writing articles for peer reviewed journals.

But I do wonder if my generation had an easier time adjusting to marriage than younger generations did. I do wonder what the effect has been of becoming hyper-conservative and legalistic when it comes to dating and marriage. I’d still like to find out.

One of the reasons that I wanted to do this series on sex throughout the ages was to show people that what we think of as “natural” or “the way things are” is not necessarily true. Different cultures see things in different ways. I just finished reading The Making of Biblical Womanhood by Beth Allison Barr this weekend, and she was talking about how in medieval times women were seen as the ones with the higher sex drives often, and women were the seductresses. My how things change!

But the fact that our culture changes should give us some hope. That means that if they’ve changed in the past, they can change again. That means that if things aren’t great for you in your marriage, it doesn’t need to stay that way, because this stuff isn’t fixed in time. This isn’t just biological. This is largely determined by how we think and how we act. Change those two things, and sex can change, too.

So a word about the image for this post:

This wasn’t actually youth group–it was second year university. But I couldn’t find a good picture of a group of us in the 1980s that somebody in my past wouldn’t have objected to! 

I think Keith must have been taking this picture, because normally he would have been part of this group and he’s the only one missing! 

And interesting story: the woman to the left–Amanda Wiersma Benckhuysen. We lived together as housemates for two years, and then largely lost track of each other. But she’s an author now, too, writing about women in the church! She’s a professor at Calvin College, and her book The Gospel According to Eve was published last year. So it’s amazing that we’re doing such similar work now!

If you’re Generation X, what do you remember about youth group messaging? Were your experiences like mine? If you’re a different generation, how have you seen things change? Let’s talk in the comments!

Sex Throughout the Ages Series8 Weird Facts about Sex in Roman Times (April 6)The Significance of 1 Corinthians 6-7 in light of Roman culture (April 7)A Romp Through Medieval Times and Sex (April 13)10 Weird Pieces of Victorian Sex Advice (April 14)The Contagion Theory of Sexuality--and How to Change It (April 19)12 Pieces of Advice from a 1970s Sex Manual (April 20)12 Ways the Christian 1970s Culture Tried to Be Sex Positive--While Also Fighting Back against the Sexual Revolution (April 21)A Look at Christianity's Response to the Sexual Revolution: Kinsey, the 1970s, and the Early Christian Sex Books (our April 22 Podcast)How Youth Group Changed After Generation X (and what it was like before purity culture) (April 26)A Liturgy of Lament for What We Taught our Kids (April 28)A Liturgy of Lament for the Teaching We Received about Sex and a Prayer for Healing (April 30) Sheila Wray Gregoire

Founder of To Love, Honor and Vacuum

Sheila has been married to Keith for 28 years, and happily married for 25! (It took a while to adjust). She’s also an award-winning author of 8 books, including The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex, and a sought-after speaker. With her humorous, no-nonsense approach, Sheila is passionate about changing the evangelical conversation about sex and marriage to line up with kingdom principles. ENTJ, straight 8 FacebookTwitter Related Posts Dissecting a 1970s Sex Manual: How to Get More Out of Sex

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How to Help Your Kids Have Healthy Relationships with Opposite Sex

Ever since The Great Sex Rescue published I’ve had parents ask me–how do we make sure our kids don’t grow up with the same messages about sex?

It’s funny because The Whole Story–our sex & puberty course that moms can share with daughters or dads with sons (or single parents with opposite sex children–we have some help in there for these situations as well) has been selling really quickly, I think because parents are more and more aware that we need to do a better job.

Rebecca and I, two weeks ago on the podcast talked about better messaging for teens about sex, dating, and lust. But what about for younger children? How do we help them have healthy relationships with the opposite sex and grow up well?

I actually tackled this subject back in 2012, and when I looked back on what I wrote I cringed a bit. Well, I cringed a lot. I still recommended some resources (like Secret Keeper Girl), which are focused on negative modesty messages. So I guess I really have come far! (here’s the podcast we did trying to put the “don’t be a stumbling block” message away for good).

I thought today I could mention just a few quick things that I think are most important, and then I’m hoping we can have some good conversation in the comments about how to raise kids not to be awkward around the opposite sex, but also not to be obsessed with relationships or treat others in any kind of dehumanizing way.

So, here are the few quick thoughts I wrote back in 2012 that I think still stand the test of time (and I did write them when my kids were still teens at home):

1. Model Affection with Your Spouse

I have met many adults who grew up in more physically reserved homes, who learned as adults how to touch, and who reported loving friends’ homes where more touching took place. I have one friend who was not touchy at all, though her husband’s family was, and she’s had to learn to be more touchy for her husband and her kids–but she now enjoys it. In general, we like hugging.

I have yet to meet anyone who feels that their home was TOO physically demonstrative, and they were trying to learn to hug less.

So I say: you can’t go wrong by touching your kids a lot and by touching your spouse a lot. People do yearn for affection. And when your children see you and your husband kissing, and hugging, and even some rather passionate kisses, that’s just part of a healthy family. The kids need to know that you enjoy your husband. So gross them out every now and then! My girls have one friend who comes over quite a bit who jokes that she always is really loud before walking into our kitchen because she’s never sure if she’s going to turn the corner and find “Mr. and Mrs. Gregoire making out”. But she thinks it’s funny.

When your children see that you enjoy being with your husband, they learn that sex in marriage is healthy, is fun, and is awesome–not something to be ashamed about or scared of.

And they learn that all this talk about how marriage is boring is nothing but talk. They know the reality. On the other hand, if you yourself are a little  uptight about sex, and so you don’t show your husband much affection, your children will pick up on that. They will absorb your hangups. So force yourself out of your comfort zone. Sex is a healthy part of marriage; believe that, show it, and your kids will believe it, too.

If you’re a single mom and you can’t do this, then talk to your kids about it anyway. And, if possible, make sure that they develop a close relationship with an aunt/uncle or with a family from church who is affectionate, so they have a chance to see this in action. I still remember loving going over to Mr. and Mrs. Timpson’s house when I was a young teen, because they always held hands. I thought that was sweet.

2. Be Affectionate with Your Kids

Going along with that first point, it’s important to touch your children and hug them, too. Obviously you don’t want to smother them, but children do yearn for touch.

If they don’t get it from you, they’re more likely to look for it in the opposite sex.

When my kids were little, we all spent a lot of time on the bed just cuddling and wrestling and rolling around. It’s funny, because as they’ve grown, my girls have not stopped doing that, though they’re 17 and 14. My youngest likes to “tuck” my oldest into bed, which usually involves squeezing her until she can’t breathe, and all kinds of other over the top wrestling things. They often end up laughing for a good half hour before bed–but it’s because they’re touching.

This can be trickier if you have boys, or if you have kids of the opposite sex, but wrestling, leaning against each other while you’re watching a movie, all of those things are perfectly healthy. And the more your husband can hug and touch the girls in a healthy way, the less likely they are to seek out affection from a dating relationship.

My husband had an adjustment to make when the kids hit puberty, and he found he couldn’t wrestle them or hug them in the same way. For a while he stopped hugging them, because it was awkward, but then he realized that was the exact wrong thing to do. Kids need physical affection.

3. Fill Your Home with Peers

They’ll get their affection from you and the modelling of appropriate marriage relationships from you, but you can’t give them everything. For other things they’ll need other people. And one of the most important things you can do is to give your kids healthy opportunities to make friendships of the opposite sex.

The easiest way to do this is to have people over for dinner with kids around the ages of your kids. One of the problems that parents sometimes get into is that they talk about dating in such a negative way, and talk about sex in such a negative way, that kids decide “boys are yucky” or “girls are scary” and they never want to have anything to do with them. That’s not healthy, either. What you want is for your kids to figure out healthy platonic relationships, which really are possible.

I mentioned in this post recently that our family has gone camping every summer and up to a hunting camp in the winter with a family for the last 12 years. They have boys almost the same age as our girls, and the two boys and two girls have grown up together.

That’s really healthy. They learn that boys are very different from them, but they also have almost a brother/sister relationship with these guys because they’ve been together since they were so small.

 

Don’t assume that just because your children are in school or at church that they’ll learn good relationships with the opposite sex.

First, kids tend to sex segregate and don’t always talk to the other gender. Also, schools and even some churches are not always the healthiest environments. When you have a smaller number of kids under your own roof, it’s easier for the kids to learn how to talk to each other, because they have to.

So just make your home an open place, where you have other kids over, and your children will learn to develop healthy relationships. An added bonus: your children see you interacting with other men, so they see the difference between how you act with their dad and how you act with Mr. Smith. And they see that it is possible to just have a nice friendship.

 

You're telling me WHAT goes WHERE?!

Talking about sex with your kids doesn't always go smoothly. 

That's why we created The Whole Story, our online course that walks parents through the tough conversations and does the hard parts for you!

Learn More! 4. Talk to Your Kids

Finally, talk to your children about what you expect and what’s healthy. In fact, talk to your kids about just about anything at all. The more your talk to your kids, the more you keep lines of communication open so that they will come to you with questions.

The kids who grow up with either hangups about sex, and are too shy and never talk to the opposite sex, are often those who were not shown affection, didn’t witness affection, and had no natural outlets to make friends. On the other hand, those who grow up to be boy crazy or girl crazy are also often those who didn’t always talk about these things openly with their parents.

Now it’s your turn: Do you have trouble being affectionate with your spouse in front of your kids? Are  you a touchy person–or not? Let’s talk in the comments!

Sheila Wray Gregoire

Founder of To Love, Honor and Vacuum

Sheila has been married to Keith for 28 years, and happily married for 25! (It took a while to adjust). She’s also an award-winning author of 8 books, including The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex, and a sought-after speaker. With her humorous, no-nonsense approach, Sheila is passionate about changing the evangelical conversation about sex and marriage to line up with kingdom principles. ENTJ, straight 8 FacebookTwitter Related Posts Do Christians Still Think Sex is Bad? The Contagion Theory of Sexuality

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Podcast: Christian Sex Books & the Backlash Against the Sexual Revolution

How did the 1950s Kinsey Report & the 1960s and 1970s sexual revolution all contribute to the earliest Christian sex books?

We talk about it in today’s podcast!

And I do need to say, TRIGGER WARNING: We did talk about some pretty intense examples of sexual abuse that were considered “normal” and no big deal in the past, that we found quite horrifying. 

Listen to the Podcast Here

Browse all the Different Podcasts

See the Last “Start Your Engines” (Men’s) Podcast

We didn’t get a video for this week’s podcast, sorry! But that will continue as usual next week. There were just some glitches this week.

What culture were Christian sex books originally speaking into?

We’ve been on quite the journey the last few weeks, looking at:

Sex in Roman timesSex in medieval timesSex in Victorian times

And then this week on the blog we looked at 12 things a 1970s sex manual taught us (some of which were beyond cringey and some which were downright illegal and coercive), and then we turned to what Tim LaHaye said in The Act of Marriage, one of evangelicalism’s first bestselling Christian sex books of the modern era.

We were summarizing a lot of that in today’s podcast, but we also wanted to further set the stage for the culture into which the first evangelical sex books were written.

So in this podcast, we talked first about The Kinsey Report, the 1950s “scientific” reports on human sexual behavior. We looked at how they changed the conversation about sex, by allowing things done in private to actually be discussed widely for the first time, but also how problematic the methods were, and how downright abusive and pedophilic much of it was (and Connor got quite emotional describing it).

When we move to the late 1970s when evangelicals were finally writing sex books, they were entering into a cultural fray where:

Sex was being discussed and could no longer be kept hiddenPeople wanted to enjoy sexDivorce was rising“Free love” was the rage–meaning sexual experimentationFeminism was on the rise, and it was seen as the evil that was promoting societal breakdown.

These books, then, were largely reactionary. They were trying to fight against family breakdown by preserving the need for marriage and by doubling down on the need for gender roles–but at the same time they were trying to make sure that sex in marriage was really fun so that nobody would want to stray, and thus break apart the family.

The focus, then, was not on growing intimacy, or helping women reach fulfillment, or helping both partners overcome shame and find true love as much as it was keeping marriages together at all costs. That should help us understand some of the emphases in The Act of Marriage.

But as Connor said–secular books in the 1970s were talking about issues that evangelicals STILL haven’t grappled well with–until our book

Even the book he looked at treated sex as intimate (though they forgot about that commitment thing), and it recognized the orgasm gap. Why is it that 50 years later many of our bestsellers still aren’t doing that?

It was a much more hard-hitting discussion than I thought it would be, but it was an important one, and the conclusion is important too–not everything that the world does is automatically wrong. 

Reader Question: How do I protect my younger brothers from the lust message?

A woman who grew up in the purity culture writes in with this problem:

I have been married for a decade and my husband and I have an amazing marriage and an amazing sex life. I am so grateful, because honestly, it feels like we are the complete NOT norm in our conservative Christian circle. I am from the reformed church where purity culture is rampant and women and held in a certain esteem that is hard to explain. In my church, beautiful women are viewed as dangerous. It is very clear in how men speak of them, as if the very state of being beautiful is slutty.

Anyways, I am from a family of amazing parents. They’re wonderful, but from a very very early age, i was clearly taught that my body was a dangerous weapon to be hidden, to be ashamed of and a thing that would cause many men to stumble. I know they did their best with what they had. And i love them. But this is one particular area of growing up that was damaging.

I remember one particular incident. I had recently lost about 30 pounds and I was grocery shopping at night. A man approached me and wouldn’t stop harassing me. He ended up waiting for me at the doors with a group of men. I waited long enough to leave that they finally seemed to leave. When i got outside, i realized they were still lurking – I ran to my car and locked the doors. I drove away so fast and so terrified i ended up going the wrong way down a one way street. (That’s beside the point, but just goes to show how terrified I was. )When I told my parents, my dad is particular was so angry with me. He immediately brought up how my style of dress had changed with my weight loss – that I MUST have been wearing something tight, showing my arms. I was in fact, wearing a long coat as it was fall season. Not that it should matter. This is just one example of many instances similar.

I have several brothers at home, and I am very concerned about the approach in which my parents/church are taking with how they speak of lust and porn. It is just so typical of the ‘every mans battle’ mindset, and i can already see the damage it is doing. I want to give my parents some resources to start having a new conversation about this, but I don’t even know where to start. Porn is taking over because our teachings don’t work. I am sick to death over youth retreats have boy’s seminars on lust and girl’s seminars on modesty and how to make boys not lust. It’s wrong and we need help. I am so worried about our younger generation. 

And, again, you can find our rubric and scorecard here to share with those who may need it, but also–don’t be afraid to talk to your brothers yourself!

Encouraging Review for The Great Sex Rescue!

I do like to end with something encouraging:

I didn’t realise until I got married just how deeply I had absorbed the pervasive evangelical teachings about sex and marriage. The obligation sex message and the teachings around lust in particular have caused so much hurt for me and my marriage, so I was thrilled to hear that Sheila, Rebecca and Joanna were writing The Great Sex Rescue to help challenge these teachings in a big way!

They explore the evangelical teachings about sex, lust and more, and with clarity explain where the teachings go wrong, how they objectify women and hurt men and women in general, and how we can reframe them in a healthy way. I am so thankful for the courage with which these authors are boldly challenging the evangelical literature which has caused so much heartache!

I love how the book focuses on encouraging us to behave more like Jesus and to evaluate our teachings by their fruits. The Great Sex Rescue minces no words in defence of the many of us that have been hurt, it replaces harmful teachings with healthy ones and ends with great hope. It helped me understand so many things about myself, it was healing, and I would 100% recommend it to anyone that has grown up in the evangelical church.

Amazon Review

Great Sex Rescue

The Great Sex RescueNow Available! 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! Things Mentioned in this Podcast:Our Patreon! Come support our peer-reviewed research and getting into more social media channels!Amie Latta’s counseling programConnor’s review of the 1970s sex bookMy review of The Act of MarriageOur sexuality through the ages series–start here and then follow the links at the bottomOur rubric and scorecard of all the books we looked at for The Great Sex RescueWe go into detail on Shaunti Feldhahn’s treatment of 4-year-old sexuality in this podcast

What do you think? Did the Kinsey report horrify you, too? Anything stand out to you? Let’s talk in the comments!

Sheila Wray Gregoire

Founder of To Love, Honor and Vacuum

Sheila has been married to Keith for 28 years, and happily married for 25! (It took a while to adjust). She’s also an award-winning author of 8 books, including The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex, and a sought-after speaker. With her humorous, no-nonsense approach, Sheila is passionate about changing the evangelical conversation about sex and marriage to line up with kingdom principles. ENTJ, straight 8 FacebookTwitter Related Posts The Misuse of Matthew 18 When It Comes to Calling out False Teaching

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12 Ways a 1970s Christian Sex Bestseller Tried to Push Back Against the Sexual Revolution

When we understand the culture that books are written into, we can understand those books better.

Yesterday Connor told us some super weird (and some good) stuff that was in a popular sex book from the early 1970s. On the podcast tomorrow we’re going to give even more context–the Kinsey report from the 1950s, the 1960s and the sexual revolution, but let’s just say for now that in the early 1970s, divorce rates were skyrocketing (they’ve been falling ever since then), women were starting to head to the workforce, and “free love” was all the rage.

And the church needed to speak into that culture. Thus, much of what was written was reactionary–we had this idea that we need to stop the world from changing, because a lot of the change is bad. We want to keep marriage, and that means stopping women from working. But we know that the idea of great sex is really enticing, so let’s make sure that couples have great sex in marriage so that no one has to stray.

Tim LaHaye, in The Act of Marriage, was the first one to talk at length about how women deserved pleasure, too, and what clitoral stimulation was like. He wanted there to be fulfillment in the marriage bed, which honestly is an awesome goal.

But I want to share with you twelve other things he emphasized in his book that shows that, in many ways, he was trying to turn back the clock and keep people “Christian” by fighting against the tide in the culture, rather than embracing some parts of the culture that were good.

Yes, a lot of cultural change in the 1970s was negative. But a lot was awfully good, too. And yet, in an effort to preserve marriage, it seems as if much of the good (like valuing women as whole people) got left behind as well. And, just like the cultural books, he seems to have downplayed the whole intimacy aspect in favour of looking primarily at the physical side. Let’s take a look!

Sex is centered around men’s experiences and needs1. Men’s affairs are framed as women’s fault–be sexy or he’ll stray

Take this statement. This sounds like a progressive thought, right? Now we’re going to let women enjoy sex!

“Formerly it was common for many wives to look upon the sex act as a “necessary part of marriage” or a “wifely duty to perform.” Now an increasing number of women view it as a God-given means of enriching their relationships for a lifetime.” (p. 33)

Act of Marriage

But the problem is that this statement was made in the context of how, if you keep him satisfied at home, he won’t have an affair. So women’s sexual satisfaction, while stressed by LaHaye, is still stressed largely for men’s sake. Here are some more quotations along that vein:

“While his decision to leave his family cannot be condoned in a Christian, I am confident, knowing the youthful character of the man and his commitment to Christ, that it would not have happened if his wife had not been afflicted with an unbiblical mental attitude toward married lovemaking.” (p. 20)

“When you have a Cadillac in the garage, how can you be tempted to steal a Volkswagen off the street?” (p. 33)

“Male eroticism, fulfilled within the home, does not hunger for more outside.” (p. 45)

“Most Christian men (as high as 70 percent in some surveys) do not violate their sexual commitment to their wives, even though it is tempting,” (p. 51)

Act of Marriage

So men are seen as about to have affairs at any moment–and women are supposed to be the bulwark against men straying. He also talks about how no one is allowed to refuse to meet their mate’s sexual needs, but at the same time, you’re not allowed to see it as a duty (“If either person looks on it as a duty to perform” [p. 29]). So there’s some strange messaging to women going on.

Along this line, there’s a vein going through all of The Act of Marriage that talks about women learning how to be “successful” in bed. This is strange wording; you would think learning how to “enjoy sex” or discovering her sexuality. But instead it’s framed as a pass/fail thing, and presumably she has to be successful so that he won’t have an affair. He says things like “she might consider herself unsuccessful in bed” if she can’t enjoy it, or there’s this:

“A wife is more than a mother and homemaker. She is also a sexual partner to her mate. Like the male, if she doesn’t succeed in the bedroom, she fails in other areas…” (p. 40)

The Act of Marriage

Sex is successful when people don’t have affairs!

Men and Women Are Seen as Different Species Sexually2. Women are expected to not want sex–and then blamed when they don’t

Even though women are supposed to be “successful” in bed, it’s assumed that women won’t want sex the way that men do.

“Because of their lack of experience, preconceived notions, and most of all their fear of pregnancy, many young wives do not share their husbands’ enthusiasm for lovemaking.” (p. 29)

“Young wives may equate their husbands’ youthful passion with bestiality, not realizing that their husbands’ drives are not unique, but characteristic of most normal men.” (p. 29)

The Act of Marriage

Good sex reinforces gender roles and allows him to be a man

Here’s where we really see the reactionary nature of a lot of The Act of Marriage. Tim LaHaye framed good sex as what allows a man to go out and provide, and women should give sex so that he will be able to be a good breadwinner.

3. You need to sexually satisfy him if he’s going to succeed at being a man–which includes providing for you

 

“No matter what our love life consists of, there is one time each month when I always try to get my husband to make love to me—the night after he has paid the family bills. It seems to be the only thing that gets him back to normal.” (p. 31)

“I’d rather spend my evenings working on my racing car than on a second job to support a family.” His wife admitted that their physical relationship had been minimal and that she had never shown any appreciation for the sacrifices he had made for the family. Realizing that her indifference may have contributed to his dissatisfaction and irritation, she pleaded with him, “Give me another chance, and I’ll prove to you that marriage is worth whatever sacrifices we both have to make.” (p. 34) (so she has sex in order to encourage him to get a job and provide for the family)

“One way to understand the function of the female mind is to contrast it with the male thought system. A man has the God-given mandate to be the provider of the family. Consequently his mental psyche is so oriented that he gains much of his self-image from successful occupational pursuits.” (p. 40) (whereas when you ask a girl what she wants to be, Tim LaHaye asserts that she will answer “housewife”.)

“It fulfills his manhood. A man usually possesses a stronger ego than a woman. If he is not a man in his own eyes, he is nothing; and somehow his sex drive seems to be intricately linked to his ego. I have never met an impotent or sexually frustrated man who enjoyed a strong self-image. A sexually satisfied husband is a man who will rapidly develop self-confidence in other areas of his life.”

The Act of Marriage

4. Sex mirrors hierarchy

And the sex act itself mirrors the hierarchy between men and women:

“Remember that you are a responder….Except for those occasions when a wife is particularly amorous and initiates lovemaking, the husband makes the first approach most of the time.” (p. 112)

“The very nature of the act of marriage involves feminine surrender…But to a strong-willed, choleric woman, surrender in any way is difficult. Consequently she will often subvert her sex drive and responses to avoid surrender.” (p. 146) (he talks a lot about how a woman who likes to make decisions or speak up for herself will eventually lose her libido and never enjoy sex).

“As we know, in sexual intercourse, as in life, man is the actor, woman the passive one, the receiver, the acted upon.” (p. 147)

Even in a chapter where LaHaye is telling men that their wives need companionship, he ends up giving the advice primarily to women about how to make it easy for men to talk to you. And the answer? Make sure the conversation that you so desperately want is actually centered around your husband: “It is also true that many women would do well to improve their companionship appeal by talking about things that interest men instead of making small talk. It is unwise for a wife to direct all the conversation toward her interests when her husband comes home. It is a good rule to accompany his arrival home with pleasant conversation that is interesting to him and conveys a message of love and welcome. This usually involves allowing him to share his thoughts with her and showing her interest in his activities. This gives her opportunities to build him up with her positive comments.”

The Act of Marriage

But then, after saying all that, he says something again contradictory: “Practically every man has dreamed of having a sexually aggressive wife.” (p. 184). So women are supposed to be the responders, but men secretly want them to be more. But if they are more, then they’re not really women and they’ll lose their sex drive. It’s very confusing.

We should note, too, that in our survey for The Great Sex Rescue, we found that performing stereotypical gender roles does not hurt one’s sex life or marital satisfaction in the least! We’re not saying that you can’t be a housewife and he can’t be the provider. In fact, that’s really the role that all three of us who wrote the book did, or are doing, with our own families. What DOES impact the marriage & sex life, though, is feeling as if it has to be this way. If it’s a choice freely made, everything’s cool. As soon as you don’t feel like it’s an actual choice, and you feel like it’s a duty, things go haywire. So just imagine what these 1970s women felt like!

Oh, and Intended for Pleasure chimes in along these lines, too: “A responsive and receptive wife willingly demonstrates that she surrenders her freedom for his love, adoration, protection, and provision.” (p. 31) So she’s giving up her freedom and become sexually responsive so that he will protect and provide for her. It’s kind of scary when you put it like that, I think!

The Great Sex RescueNow Available! 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! 5. Women and men are two different species–even outside the bedroom

If we’re going to stress the idea that sex is tied up to gender roles, then we have to also stress that the sexes are completely different to make this make sense. And in a world that was seeming to make women into men by letting them work, it was important to stress that women weren’t like men at all. Here are just two examples:

“His need for romantic love is either nonexistent or minimal. But he is married to a creature with an extraordinary need for romance.” (p. 42)

“Has it ever occurred to you that He made no such directive concerning a woman lusting after a man?” (p. 111) (women are basically incapable of lust, while men do it all the time, naturally)

The Act of Marriage

6. There’s an archaic view of what makes a “virtuous” woman

Just as men and women are made differently, so the expectations for men and women are different in terms of “sexual purity” and the approach to sex. Even though biblically both sexes are supposed to wait for marriage, this is stressed far more for women, and women are expected to be afraid of sex:

“Almost every virtuous bride understandably goes to her wedding bed with a good deal of trepidation.” (p. 138)

“Their maidenly inhibitions and misconceptions compel them to lie on their backs and allow the vigorous young husbands to satisfy themselves.” (p. 139)

“Many a married woman suffers today from guilt feelings and shame caused by indulging in such practices before meeting her husband.” (p. 259) (nothing about a husband feeling guilty for what he may have done).

The Act of Marriage

Consent is entirely absent from the discussion around sex7. No understanding of coercion, rape, or trauma

I’ve spoken at length on podcasts and in other blog posts about the infamous Aunt Matilda story in The Act of Marriage. Basically, Tim LaHaye tells a story of Aunt Matilda warning her niece who is about to get married that marriage is just “legalized rape”. LaHaye explains that on her wedding night, Aunt Matilda was raped “kicking and screaming”, and this has continued. But Aunt Matilda is the antagonist in this story, as she wrecks her niece’s view of sex. And as LaHaye bemoans the fact that Matilda never learned to embrace sex, he talks about Aunt Matilda and her “equally unhappy husband.” So he calls the rapist equally unhappy as his rape victim. This is horrifying.

You may also enjoy:We read the Act of Marriage so you don’t have to! (podcast)Marital Rape and Coercion podcast

The book has several anecdotes of husbands “pawing and grabbing” at wives, and wives trying to get them to stop, and he says that the women need to understand the men. But the coercion can go the other way, too, as in this bad piece of advice of how a woman should approach a man with a lower sex drive:

“How do I cope with my husband’s indifference to our sex life? Have a frank talk with him—perhaps you are doing something that turns him off. Then try to ignite his interest by showing affection, displaying provocative attire in the bedroom (or elsewhere when no one else is around), and massaging his penis. Even the most reluctant penis can hardly ignore wifely stroking.” (p. 296)

Note: if he doesn’t want sex,  you shouldn’t be grabbing at his genitals!

And there’s a fundamental misunderstanding about trauma. He lumps guilt from rape in with guilt from doing something bad, and says that the solution to each is repentance:

“Guilt is a common cause of orgasmic malfunction, as verified by the fact that every book we have read on this subject refers to it. Whether related to an attempted rape for which the unwilling victim feels guilty, or an ill-advised adulterous liaison experienced prior to marriage, or promiscuity before or after marriage, guilt is a cruel taskmaster that must be confronted spiritually. As a pastoral counselor, I have been privileged to lead many women to the forgiving grace of God, either through accepting Christ as their Savior (as explained in chapter 14) or applying the cleansing principle of 1 John 1:9.”

The Act of Marriage

8. Men will want to push your sexual boundaries

And it’s assumed that men will push you to go further than you want before marriage, and this is normal and okay.

“Our whole four-year courtship seemed to be a continuous scene of Tom trying to seduce me and my fighting him off. I made too many compromises and am honestly amazed that we didn’t go the whole route before our wedding. After we were married, it just seemed to be more of the same. Why did God include this sex business in marriage anyway?”

“Ever since I met him it seems I’ve been fighting him off.”

The Act of Marriage

In our survey, the idea that “boys will push girls’ sexual boundaries” is highly correlated with lower levels of arousal once you’re married and lower rates of orgasm. It isn’t an okay message. It should be a red flag that something is wrong with the relationship. (And you can see a post here where I looked at how the book For Young Women Only teaches the same thing.)

Sex must be done properly so as not to violate the conscience

In the middle of the “free love” era, it made sense that Christian books would want to stress sex only a certain way, because it seemed as if all boundaries were being torn down. And so while there was emphasis on sexual pleasure, you could only get it certain ways.

9. Sex could easily become “wrong” if you do bad things

Whether it’s oral sex or cohabitation, it’s very, very wrong.

 

“It is readily apparent …that oral sex is on the increase today, thanks to amoral sex education, pornography, modern sex literature, and the moral breakdown of our times.” P. 225

“Our chapter of questions and answers (chapter 15) will deal with illegitimate sexual experiences [including oral sex], but here it must be pointed out that they all have one factor in common: although they provide biological release, they do not guarantee lasting enjoyment, because the conscience God has given to every man “accuses” him when he violates divine standards of morality (read Rom. 1; 2:14–15). When sex provides only gratification and is followed by guilt, it makes a mockery of what God intended to be a very satisfying experience. By contrast, the act of marriage [intercourse] when properly performed is followed by physical relaxation based on innocence. Because sex is such a necessary part of a man’s life and married love preserves the innocence of his conscience, the woman who provides these for him will increasingly become the object of his love.”

“How should parents treat a son or daughter who is living with someone without marriage? This is one of the most distressing experiences a parent can endure. As one mother exclaimed, “I would rather hear that she died!” (p. 265)

And what about pornography? That’s blamed on women somehow, too. This prediction about porn is actually sad in retrospect: “We look for this problem to increase as the woman’s lib philosophy creates more conflict in the home and continues to assault the male ego.”

The Act of Marriage

10. Orgasm is only really good if it’s simultaneous and during intercourse

Along with that, while the book does talk about clitoral stimulation and acknowledges that bringing her to orgasm in another way on the wedding night is good, the aim is orgasm during intercourse, and simultaneous orgasm at that. What we found in our survey is that intercourse is the least reliable route for women’s orgasm. Of women who can orgasm, only 39% do so through intercourse alone. The rest need a lot of foreplay, or find other routes easier. By centering his book around orgasm during intercourse, he is actually denying a lot of women their best routes to orgasm. He does insist that women deserve pleasure, but there seems to be a misunderstanding of how women get pleasure.

Now, in our orgasm course we do talk about how to make orgasm through intercourse easier! But no one is a failure if they can’t get there.

The Orgasm Course is Here to Help You Experience Real Passion!

Figure out what's holding you back. Open the floodgates to orgasm.

Tell Me More about It! I Need that Now! 11. Sex Education is Very, Very Dangerous and Bad

Along with there being a “right” way to do things, the blame for things being done the wrong way is very clearly laid at the feet of our schools, with an entire chapter (and quite a long one at that) talking about the evils of sex education. Now, I have my own misgivings about how sex education is done in schools, but the vehemence with which he rails against it is telling:

“If they emphasize reading, they will get good readers, or if they emphasize math, they will produce good mathematicians. Instead, they have emphasized explicit sex education and have produced the most sexually permissive generation in the history of America.” (p. 58)

The Act of Marriage

12. Lots of Stuff that Just Isn’t True

A lot that was in the book is simply wrong, or extraordinarily bad advice.

“A woman never ejaculates or expels fluid as does a man,” (p. 71). Actually, female ejaculation is a thing!

“In this enlightened age a bridegroom would rather have the hymen surgically removed in advance to reduce the possibility of causing pain to his virtuous young bride.” (p. 75) Oh, my word! No. Some women do require this, but in general, absolutely not necessary and traumatizing.

“I think my female organs are too small, and I can’t function like other women.’ (Modern research indicates that all female organs, like those of their male counterparts, are approximately the same size regardless of the person’s size.)” (p. 107) LaHaye absolutely denies vaginismus exists, and says that it is caused by women’s irrational fear.

“Anxiety over one’s ability to function sexually is the primary cause of sexual malfunction.” (p. 108) Again–not true. The causes of sexual dysfunction are varied.

“Interestingly enough, women who have had the clitoris removed for some reason reported no adverse effect on their sexual capability,” (p. 108) ummm…..no.

“Few sexually vigorous wives have impotent husbands.” (p. 185) Again, ummm….no. And let’s not blame men’s sex conditions on women!

“Where can a Christian wife go for help when there is a sex problem in her marriage? Your minister is the proper person with whom to start.” (p. 258) Ummm…..no. I would start with a licensed therapist!

The Act of Marriage

My Final Thoughts on The Act of Marriage

For its time, The Act of Marriage was groundbreaking. It talked about sex openly; it talked about how women were designed for pleasure, and it helped women get there. It celebrated good sex in marriage.

The problem was that it did this in the context of: You need to get this right or very, very bad things will happen. Affairs, divorce, or perversion was just around the corner if you couldn’t figure out how to be “successful” in bed. So sex was to keep the bad world at bay; it wasn’t fundamentally to celebrate just being together. Even though The Act of Marriage makes allusions to intimacy, it isn’t a big part of the book. 

As we’ll talk about tomorrow in the podcast, secular books made headway in the 50 years since How To Get More Out of Sex was published (which Connor looked at yesterday). But in a lot of fundamental ways, we’re still stuck in the 1970s. In fact, on our scorecard of the evangelical books we looked at for The Great Sex Rescue, many books written decades AFTER The Act of Marriage scored worse on our rubric (including Power of a Praying Wife, His Needs, Her Needs, For Women Only, Every Man’s Battle, and Love & Respect). 

Get access to our scorecard and rubric here

I hope that we can understand God’s bigger purposes for sex, especially intimacy, and stop approaching sex in a reactionary way. I think then we could discover what’s really beautiful about “the act of marriage”!

What do you think? How much of that is still a part of our evangelical culture? Anything stand out to you? Let’s talk in the comments!

Sex Throughout the Ages Series8 Weird Facts about Sex in Roman Times (April 6)The Significance of 1 Corinthians 6-7 in light of Roman culture (April 7)A Romp Through Medieval Times and Sex (April 13)10 Weird Pieces of Victorian Sex Advice (April 14)The Contagion Theory of Sexuality--and How to Change It (April 19)12 Pieces of Advice from a 1970s Sex Manual (April 20)12 Ways the Christian 1970s Culture Tried to Be Sex Positive--While Also Fighting Back against the Sexual Revolution (April 21)A Look at Christianity's Response to the Sexual Revolution: Kinsey, the 1970s, and the Early Christian Sex Books (our April 22 Podcast)5 Ways Millennials Grew up More Conservative than Generation X in the Church (aka Purity Culture!) (April 26) (April 27)A Liturgy of Lament for What We Taught our Kids (April 28)A Liturgy of Lament for the Teaching We Received about Sex and a Prayer for Healing (April 30) Sheila Wray Gregoire

Founder of To Love, Honor and Vacuum

Sheila has been married to Keith for 28 years, and happily married for 25! (It took a while to adjust). She’s also an award-winning author of 8 books, including The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex, and a sought-after speaker. With her humorous, no-nonsense approach, Sheila is passionate about changing the evangelical conversation about sex and marriage to line up with kingdom principles. ENTJ, straight 8 FacebookTwitter Related Posts PODCAST: A Church Called TOV, and Matthew 18!

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Dissecting a 1970s Sex Manual: How to Get More Out of Sex

We’ve been taking a romp through history looking at views of sex in different periods.

We’ve looked at the Roman world; the medieval period; and the Victorian period. 

Today we’re jumping forward to the 1970s. On the podcast this week we’ll be taking a little bit of a broader look, throwing in the 1950s and 1960s as well. But I want to set the stage here. Both World Wars saw the world opening up for women, as they did so many of the “men’s” jobs while the men were out at war. Society was changing. 

And technology was changing! In the 1950s, the famous Kinsey report was published–the first mainstream scientific study of human sexuality. It got a lot messed up (and used very dubious methods), but it made sex, and sexual response, a much more common topic. 

In the 1960s when social upheaval took place and authority was thrown aside, the sexual revolution came with it. The best way to reject society’s values was often in the sexual arena.

(The 1960s had plenty of GOOD things about it too–including a push for justice and equality. I’m just looking at the social ramifications for sex here). 

For my in-law’s 50th anniversary party, we found this amazing book from the 1970s on sex, which we put front and centre on display. I stole it after that (if you’re looking for it, Mom and Dad, we’ve still got it!), and I gave it to Connor to mine through to see how sex was being talked about in the 1970s–right before Christian books about sex began to be written. Let’s take a look!

Looking at a 1970s sex manual

When I was in university, the sentence, “I’m going to review a 1970s sex manual in detail for my mother-in-law one day” never crossed my mind. But here we are! 

So let’s take a look!

THE GOOD in the 1970s sex manual

For this series on sex through the ages, I have mostly been pointing out beliefs and practices that were either bad, goofy, or some combination of both. But as we get into How to Get More Out of Sex by David Reuben, M.D., I want to discuss a number of ideas contained within this book that have actually aged fairly well.

1. The idea that sex teachings are largely responsible for the orgasm gap isn’t new

This is something that Reuben actually spends a fair amount of time discussing. He asserts that sexually repressive cultural messages have made women feel like their sexuality is unthinkable, unmentionable, and untouchable, and that the result is difficulty reaching climax or enjoying sex at all. Instead, if we allow women to talk about, think about, and embrace their God-given sexuality, sex can be just as much for them as for men.

I was quite surprised to see how much of his writing on the subject of female sexual education mirrors what we found in our study, and this book was written almost 50 years ago. If people were discussing this 50 years ago, why have evangelical marriage speakers/writers still been teaching that sex is for men, and women can’t understand it? I have some thoughts, and I’ll be going into more detail this week on the podcast.

2. Sex needs to be physical, emotional, and spiritual

Reuben discusses the physical components of getting sex to feel good for women, but also emphasizes the importance of emotionality and spirituality. He deals with the emotional barriers that can impede pleasure and orgasm for women, including guilt over past messaging about sex, frustration with a selfish husband, etc. He also states that it is crucial not just for a man’s penis to touch the vagina the right way, but for his spirit to touch hers.

3. A man is responsible for helping his wife figure out how to make sex good for her.

The journey to overcoming orgasmic impairment is not the woman’s alone. Reuben acknowledges that men need to take an active role in promoting her pleasure as well.  It is not enough to say “Well sex feels good for me, so figure it out on your own.” As Reuben states, if all that was required of a man was to get hard, get inside her, and stay there for long enough to satisfy her, then “a good hard rubber dildo would be the ideal sexual partner” (p. 56). Instead, a man is required to work with her to figure out her pleasure, and to bring love, kindness, and understanding. Sex shouldn’t be about his physical release, but rather an expression of their devotion to each other that is unique to their relationship.

4. His language is usually neither overly clinical, nor is it condescending

In most of the book, he gives fairly detailed descriptions of specific anatomy and how they may come into play in sexual situations. His descriptions are neither overly bland, scientific and sterile, nor do they rely on pet names and euphemisms such as calling a penis Mr. Happy, or a vagina a “tender little friend” (as Kevin Leman did in Sheet Music, and as we’ve talked about on the podcast). It is straightforward and matter-of-fact. Sure, some people may find it more graphic than they feel comfortable with, but I found surprisingly little to cringe at while reading these chapters.

Now I say usually because, as we will see in “The Bad” section, there were some places in the book I violently cringed.

5. He takes pragmatic but nuanced approach to teenage sexuality

Rather than take a firm stance on whether teenagers should be having sex, he discusses many of the dynamics at play, including hormones, peer pressure, culture, curiosity, shame, parental influences, and the parents’ parental influences. And then rather than say teenagers should never have sex, or they should be free to have sex all the time, he argues that what teenagers need is for parents to understand that teenagers are capable of sex, many of them will want to have sex very badly, and many are currently having sex.

Parents need to accept that reality in order for them to effectively communicate with their children and teenagers, and to educate and guide them. To never address sex is harmful. To vilify sex is harmful. To just forbid and punish sex is harmful. Instead, support, communication, and education is the best way to address teenage sexuality and promote safe, healthy decisions.

(Obviously many Christians would want to take a firmer stance on sex being wrong in the teenage years, but the emphasis on open communication and the need to guide them is actually pretty true).

 

THE BAD in the 1970s sex manual

Now we come to the bad. There are a lot of things Reuben put in this book that aged about as well as… well… a 50 year old book on sex.

And Trigger Warning: some of these describe sexual assaults.

6. Wait, that’s….sexual assault!

When Reuben talks about fetishes and perversions, he makes a distinction between sexual proclivities that are simply unusual, and those that cross the line into harmful and pathological. Which is a fair point. Just because something isn’t standard, especially in a time where oral sex could be punished with 20 years in prison in some states, doesn’t mean it is automatically harmful.

But then when he gives examples from letters written to him, the last example of an “unusual taste” (p. 117) before talking about what’s bad was problematic for me. It comes from a man who described what he liked to do in lieu of masturbation. He would go to a crowded hotdog stand lineup every weekend in summer, pick out an attractively lady, and position himself behind her so that the packed crowd would grind his erection against her butt until he climaxed! He goes on to note that in four years of doing this every weekend he never had any complaints, so he must gotten lucky with women who were as into it as he was. No! That’s sexual assault! This happens to many women on crowded trains and subways during their daily commute, and they rarely speak up because they are terrified because there is a predator behind them PREYING on them, and it’s horrifying!

And using one’s power to get sex is sexual assault, too! (are these really the example  you want to  use?)

Many of the examples he gives from letters addressed to him and clinical interactions with his clients are problematic in ways that he does not address because they aren’t relevant to the point he is making. As someone who was not personally alive during the sexual revolution, it feels to me like many people saw the sexual revolution as a call to liberate everything related to sex, and to cast aside all judgements regarding what people do with their bodies in their personal lives. That’ “everything goes” mentality seems like a pendulum swing to me, because plenty of what he casually brings up is particularly out of touch by modern progressive standards. Here’s an example of what I am talking about.

When addressing how erectile dysfunction and premature ejaculation are issues we need to deal with on a psychological level, he cites a “success” story from one of his clients who was able to overcome his condition with Reuben’s help. He thanks Reuben, explaining “You know, I’m a film producer and I can have almost any girl I want–all I have to do is promise her a contract. But in all those thousands of bedroom casting sessions, I never got to see how my own organ operated…” (p. 156)

Does this remind you of someone whose name rhymes with Barvey Meinstein? Me too.

And being subject to an erect penis should not have to be part of someone’s job. Not okay. 

This is actually a direct quote from Reuben! When explaining how a woman can use a sensual massage to help a man get it up, he says,

“One word of warning: the amateur masseuse is exposed to the same occupational hazards as the professional lady massager. They include lustful thoughts, wandering male hands, and the risk of being suddenly invaded by a throbbing penis. But then, that’s the whole idea, isn’t it?” (p. 168).

Maybe if you ask the late Ravi Zacharias. But much like many American and Asian massage therapists, I never asked for Ravi’s input.

7. It’s still sexual assault even if it’s with “exotic” girls

In another story about a man he helped overcome ED, he recounts suggesting a vibrator to this man he then says, “the only thing I can compare it with was an experience I had in Burma during the Second World War with a couple of sixteen-year-old temple dancers…” (p. 162).

Now I know 16 is old enough to consent in Myanmar, but an American vet reminiscing fondly about sleeping with two 16-year-old Burmese temple dancers 40 years ago after masturbating his limp penis with a suction cup vibrator is gross for me to read, and a detail I would have left out were I writing a book on how to get more out of sex. Especially considering I live in a place where 16 is two years too young, much like Reuben’s home state of California (where the age of consent had been 18 since over a decade before Reuben was born).

The lack of attention to the reality of sexual abuse is really quite astounding and sad.

8. Ummmm….Abortion isn’t birth control

In literally the first sentence of the chapter about contraceptives, Reuben claims that abortion is the perfect form of birth control. He argues that it doesn’t interfere with foreplay, has the highest birth prevention rate, is safe, doesn’t get your clothes messy, and can be the cheapest method when averaged out across all of one’s ‘copulations.’ And while advocating that abortions are the optimal method of dealing with undesired pregnancy, he openly argues that abortions necessarily involve killing a child. I know abortion is a complex and heated topic, and I believe one of if not the largest topic for single-issue voters, but even most people who themselves get abortions report having used contraceptives during the month of conception. All of the pro-choice organizations I am aware of advocate for more access to contraceptives to reduce unwanted pregnancy before abortion even enters the picture, and they certainly aren’t calling abortion murder while they advocate for freedom and access.

For me, the issue here is that he calls abortions ‘killing,’ and then says that is preferable to using a condom or birth control pills for the sake of convenience and pleasure. He admits it’s a killing, but doesn’t seem upset by this. It’s easy to forget how people used to think about abortion.

9. There’s a bizarre bit about the penis-breast relationship?

Reuben regularly refers to this pseudo-scientific idea that a man with ED is subconsciously playing out a role-reversal revenge fantasy for times when he had been denied the breast as an infant, whether from it being taken away, not producing milk, or it leaking all it’s milk before he got to suck on it. His penis becomes the substitute for a breast, his semen for milk, and the vagina for a mouth. Reuben’s advice, therefore, is to say to yourself when you first see your partner for that night: “I am not going to snatch away the penis-breast just as my ‘baby’ is getting ready to drink” (p. 172). Or in the case of someone with delayed ejaculation: “I will eagerly feed milk to my hungry ‘baby'” (p. 177). Highly un-scientific, and so ridiculous that I almost want to put this in the Funny section. But it’s also gross enough that I feel fine leaving it here.

10. There is no recognition of the harm of certain cultures’ practices towards girls

In the 1970s, it was in vogue to treat other cultures as the same as ours and not to criticize other cultures.

But sometimes we need to!  For example, he brings up female circumcision, not as a human right’s violation, but as an operation that is considered important in some cultures, and describes how it ties into their famous hospitality. He also describes certain tribal practices of incorporating stinging ants into the sexual education of peri-pubescent girls by having the ants sting the girls genitals to promote swelling and rubbing. His stance on this practice is that it is “rational, sensible, and eminently practical” (p.14). He also explains how to use crank vaginally, and how to apply cocaine to the tip of the penis.

 

11. He argues recreational A-P repair surgery is an essential operation denied to millions of deserving women

Rueben recommends women get A-P repair surgery on their vagina, not out of medical necessity, but so they can sexually resemble an 18-year-old again. Now remember when I said there was some stuff in this book that made me cringe? Here we go: He says women should get this surgery after childbirth because when the baby’s head pushes through the birth canal, “the penis’s little grotto of pleasure is instantly converted into Carlsbad Caverns” (p. 17). That seems like a pretty reductive and male-centered view of a woman’s body at the very moment of her going through the emotionally and physically intense experience of bringing a life into the world.

THE FUNNY in a 1970s sex manual

I just had to include this one because it was so funny to me, and I think is an excellent way to end on a lighter note.

12. Test your male pheromones

Reuben suggests men rub a clean handkerchief on the underside of their testicles in the morning before they shower, and then wear that tainted (pardon the pun) hanky in their breast pocket as they go about their day. He suggests some men who do this find themselves drowning in women.

Sheila says: Thanks, Connor, for reading through this so I didn’t have to!

It’s interesting how you can see from these tidbits how much the 1970s was trying not to lay judgment on anyone–but sometimes judgment needs to be laid! And even though they thought they were so progressive, they almost completely ignored issues of coercion and sexual assault (pretty similar to many of our Christian books, actually).

Tomorrow I’ll be looking at the Christian books that were written into this culture, to help us better understand what these books were trying to address. And then in the podcast this week we’ll go into more detail about this cultural transformation, and how so many different things were pulling us in all different directions, at the same time. It makes it easier to understand why the early Christian sex manuals took some of the stances they did, but also helps us clarify what we should be saying now.

What stood out to you from all of that? Anything surprise you? Let’s talk in the comments!

Sex Throughout the Ages Series8 Weird Facts about Sex in Roman Times (April 6)The Significance of 1 Corinthians 6-7 in light of Roman culture (April 7)A Romp Through Medieval Times and Sex (April 13)10 Weird Pieces of Victorian Sex Advice (April 14)The Contagion Theory of Sexuality--and How to Change It (April 19)12 Pieces of Advice from a 1970s Sex Manual (April 20)10 Ways the Christian 1970s Culture Tried to Be Sex Positive--While Also Fighting Back against the Sexual Revolution (April 21)A Look at Christianity's Response to the Sexual Revolution: Kinsey, the 1970s, and the Early Christian Sex Books (our April 22 Podcast)5 Ways Millennials Grew up More Conservative than Generation X in the Church (aka Purity Culture!) (April 26) (April 27)A Liturgy of Lament for What We Taught our Kids (April 28)A Liturgy of Lament for the Teaching We Received about Sex and a Prayer for Healing (April 30)