Sheila Wray Gregoire's Blog, page 35

Honestly: We Need Your Help.

I can’t tell you enough how your emails and comments of encouragement have kept us going this last year as we worked on The Great Sex Rescue!

It was a heavy project to do–but I hope and trust that the result is a book that is actually healing and hopeful! And that certainly is the feedback that we’ve been getting.

Normally I speak a lot in a given year, but this year with COVID I haven’t. And that means that I haven’t had the chance to meet readers face to face and to hear your stories and how much this blog and the Bare Marriage podcast has meant to you. Not great timing–to miss out on that personal encouragement just as we embarked on a hugely draining but important project!

Now that the book is out, we have some great plans to take our research even further.

One of our big goals for The Great Sex Rescue is that we set a new standard for research in the Christian world. Our Bare Marriage project, which was the basis for The Great Sex Rescue, surveyed over 20,000 predominantly Christian women, asking a minimum of 130 questions (some had more depending on their answers). And then Joanna performed some pretty nifty statistical analysis so that we could compare groups and tease out important findings.

We have so much data that we’d like to take it further. We’d like to publish in peer-reviewed journals, and we’d love for this to be Joanna’s main job for the next few years. We have data galore; now we need to get it into academic journals so that other researchers can use it in their research.

This is what SHOULD have been the model for research in the evangelical world all along, rather than poorly done survey questions. We should do things so well that it survives academic scrutiny.

Normally, writing papers for academic journals is paid for by either being a graduate student with grant funding or by being a professor with a salary.

We are none of those things (though we are pursuing several partnerships with key universities that do have grant funding!). Ideally Joanna would one day like to get her Ph.D., but right now she’s literally living in the Canadian arctic with two babies, and that’s not feasible.

So we have no way of paying Joanna to do this necessary work.

We also want to branch out of this blog and podcast and allow Rebecca to pursue other social media that tells the story of our research in a more millennial way.

We have great plans for a YouTube channel, and for TikTok, and for some cool stuff on Instagram, but none of that is monetized, and it will be hard to monetize it in the short term.

My blog and podcast are fully funded, mostly with sales from my courses. But I can’t pay Rebecca for time to do things that don’t immediately make money.

The Great Sex Rescue authors before Joanna moved up to the Arctic!

We have this big message we’d like to get out there, and no real way to monetize it.And so we’ve decided to launch a Patreon program.

People can give just a little bit a month–say $5 or $8–and that will help us fund what we’d like to do. That gives people access to a private Facebook group which we’re hoping will be quite active, and private group chats with us and an unfiltered podcast, where Rebecca doesn’t have all her snarkiness edited out by her sister (as happens with the normal podcast when Katie thinks Becca crossed a line).

At higher levels you can get autographed books every year and even merchandise we’re having designed!

But the big thing is that you’ll be helping us.

Hundreds of hours go into writing a peer-reviewed journal article.

We’re starting with getting our rubric of healthy sexuality, and a report card of evangelical teaching on sex, published, and then we want to move on to our ground-breaking research on the causes of vaginismus, coming up with screening tools that pelvic floor physiotherapists can use in treatment. We have so much to share about this problem, and we’d love to take it further.

If you’d like to partner with us, check out our patreon! It’s an awesome platform where you can give whatever you want a month to your favourite creators, and then get “rewards” or get a little more up close and personal with the people you want to support. When everyone gives even a small amount, it adds up!

Yes! I’d like to support your Patreon program! Take me to it! We want to change the whole evangelical conversation about sex, and for that we need some help.

We’ve already reached our first goal of getting the statistics and survey programs paid for on a monthly basis so it’s not out of pocket. Now we’re working on our second goal of getting enough funding to publish one research paper a year. That will soon be covered, and then we’d like to go bigger.

Will you join us? 

Remember–we need your reviews on Amazon, too!

Here’s another very simple thing you could do to help us–leave a rating and a quick review if you’ve read The Great Sex Rescue (or any of my books!). You wouldn’t believe how much this helps us! Amazon and Goodreads are the big sites where we could use it, but anywhere you bought the book is fine!

The Patreon doesn’t fund this blog.

In fact, it doesn’t fund Sheila at all (though we are hoping to take some money once we reach more goals and work at transcribing the podcast and maybe translating some of the blog into other languages). But the money really doesn’t go to me; it goes to getting our message out in ways that we can’t monetize.

So nothing here will change, whether the Patreon is funded or not. The big thing is that we want to get in different channels; we want to get more academic, and we want to reach millennials more. If you can help us, we’d so appreciate it.

The conversation is changing, and we’re so glad that you’re here with us for the ride!

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 Reclaim Sex and Not Make it Ugly

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The POWER and STATISTICS Podcast! Science Shouldn’t Be That Hard

Let’s talk power, science, and statistics!

They say that 68% of statistics are made up on the spot–and unfortunately, when you look at the way many of us evangelicals handle stats, it would be easy to believe it. 

Today we’re taking a bit of a romp on the podcast, starting with introducing our new series–sex advice through the ages! Then we’re going to look at how our views of power can cause people to ignore data and slant statistics to show a particular viewpoint. This one’s going to be a wild ride!

Listen to the Podcast Here

Browse all the Different Podcasts

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

Or, as always, you can watch on YouTube:

 

Timeline of the Podcast

0:42 NEW SERIES! Sex advice through the ages
5:02 Why Sex ISN’T about Power w/ Keith
8:15 Why Keith doesn’t believe in hierarchy in marriage
14:23 Is there an agenda with gender difference emphases?
17:36 How we NEED to handle research better w/ Becca & Connor
23:10 Basic stats 101 session (this should be obvious!)
29:30 Can we PLEASE raise the bar for research?
35:30 How we see stats being portrayed without intellectual honesty
39:30 Umm, you can’t just throw out survey results you don’t like?!
49:53 RQ: *TW* Rape in marriage situation
53:45 RQ: Healing after being used only as a sexual release vessel
1:00:20 Our patreon!
1:01:20 Positive endings!

Let’s Talk Power

Keith and I open the podcast looking at how in antiquity, power dynamics during sex seemed to matter as much, if not more, than gender dynamics.

Then Keith really shared his heart about how the “power” conversation when it comes to marriage seriously bothers him. It’s like all we look at is Ephesians 5:22, ignoring Ephesians 5:21 (submit to one another) and even the Golden rule (do unto others as you would have them do unto you!). And maybe one of the reasons that we stress gender dichotomies so much is that if men can see women as “other”, then it’s easier to treat women in a way that the men wouldn’t want to be treated, and ignore the Golden Rule, because, after all, they’re women. They’re different. They’re not like us.

That’s where things go wrong!

Let’s Talk Statistics

From there Connor, Rebecca and I moved into a discussion of statistics, looking at something that a number of readers brought up in relation to last week’s podcast on Emerson Eggerichs’ sermons and how he treated abuse. The problem? This claim:

According to John Gottman’s extensive research, 85 percent of husbands eventually stonewall their wives during conflict.

Emerson Eggerichs

Love & Respect, p. 60

He makes it repeatedly in different places, including this podcast clip we highlighted last week:

(these clips are super short; like 10 seconds long)

But let’s listen to what John Gottman actually says:

Do you notice a difference?

In this blog post, Eggerichs actually presents the statistics both ways!

For example, as a researcher I later learned that 85% of those who withdraw and stonewall during marital conflict are the husband……

(several paragraphs down)

Back to the research that found 85% of men withdrew and stonewall during conflict. I am part of the 85% and Sarah felt unloved when I did this and she certainly did not feel respect for me.

Emerson Eggerichs

Why Is Love and Respect Gender Specific?

Hopefully you’ll pick up on the problem! If not, listen in to the podcast!

We also go over some of the issues with Shaunti Feldhahn trying to show gender dichotomies (men are one way; women are the other) when her own research did not find it.

Seriously, I find this so depressing. Why did no one see this sooner? Why did no one speak up and say, “ummmm…you’ve got that stat backwards.” Why is the evangelical church doing this so badly. We simply have to set the bar higher. We simply have to change the conversation. This isn’t okay. 

Let’s Talk Power in the Bedroom

Finally, we answered two reader questions that were inspired by our treatment of the obligation sex message and the consent message in our book The Great Sex Rescue.

Recently I was relaxing and enjoying a bath and a couple of alcoholic drinks at home. I think I drank too much, too fast. Anyway, I wasn’t feeling well and unable to walk. My husband helped me to the bed and that’s the last I remember before waking up the next morning. When I woke up, my lower abdomen was achy. I soon realized he had sex with me. I ask him questions about what happened. He responded with, “I took advantage of you.” He was very proud of it. He’s my husband, so I don’t want to call this something that it’s not. However, I feel very hurt and violated. I don’t know how to feel about it. He did apologize later, but I just don’t know how to move forward. Why would he do this to me and be proud of it?

As we talked about in The Great Sex Rescue, marital rape is a thing. It’s okay to name it. And too often our evangelical resources don’t talk about this properly.

We also talked about this reader question:

I’ve worked through the orgasm gap and sex as an obligation with my husband, but recovering from the pain and betrayal of being used this way has rocked my core. How do we heal and come back together? It hurts. Badly.

And we ended with a wonderful testimonial from a guy for whom The Great Sex Rescue and the recent podcasts have totally changed how he sees his wife and totally transformed his marriage. I posted it on Facebook and it got a ton of traction! Here it is–it’s long but worth it.

My wife and I grew up hearing that teaching you describe in your podcasts and vlogs. My wife came to me one day and told me , “I feel like your prostitute that you just get to use.” I was so taken back by this. We love the Lord; we were doing everything we could to have a great marriage. We were taught that in order to have a great marriage we need to have sex, a lot of sex.

And my wife, bless her, never said no to me. She made herself available to me in the middle of the day sometimes while the kids were all occupied. I never really took into consideration how this would make her feel. I thought it really was all about my release. I am crying as I write this because of the heartache I now feel for my wife. It was never about her. It was never her wishes or her pleasure. We were marching to the beat of my sex drive that never once seemed to be content.

We would have intercourse on Monday but if she needed time to herself Tuesday, I reacted as though she did not love me. I would get angry, I would use mean words (I’m in tears still), I would accuse her. We were on the hidden sexless marriage path and didn’t even know it. And I was soon to graduate into a sexless marriage for myself.

I regret to confess that even when she was on her period or recovering post-partum, I would use the advice from Sheet Music and request stimulation for my release. This was so wrong of me. I thought that my wife was here sent by God as a reward for my faithfulness to Him and that He sent her to me so that I could be happy. I never realized how awful this must be to live with. I never thought that she can love me, and I can love her, and she can take 3 months to recover from a baby and that’s ok. I thought that any, ‘no’ was in essence a rejection of me and our marriage.

I can see all these things now because one day a year or so ago my wife stumbled on your Facebook page. We read your letter to Focus on the Family (and at the time I was in a statistics class for college) and saw that you didn’t have data, you had DATA! A lot of it. And they were simply ignoring you. This was a big concern to us because we spent most of our engagement listening to podcasts at a cafe and talking about them. This was in an effort to remain pure in our relationship and we learned a lot. As we followed along, I began to see we have a problem.

Then a couple of months ago as the Lord as softening my heart my wife said those words to me, “I feel like your prostitute”. I prayed about it and asked the Lord to help me. Then a beam of light came through to me in the form of a vlog called “Duty Sex isn’t Sexy”. That impacted me so deeply because it was that one that I realized ‘oh my God my wife is not enjoying sex!’ This, of course, was a big problem for me. My wife and I have been listening to all vlogs and podcasts about orgasms and sex that we can. One thing we wish that we would have heard more of in our pre-marital counseling is how she can be stimulated instead of ‘well just go stick it in there and that consummates the marriage’. Not the exact words but the essence of it. We reflected recently on our honeymoon and realized that my wife, who was raised on purity culture, dealt with vaginismus and we were not able to have sex for a couple of days into our honeymoon.

I have been doing a lot of reflecting and came to this conclusion: I feel that your family and the work you are doing saved my marriage. I cannot thank you enough. I feel so fortunate to have the Lord correct me through your work, your daughter’s rants (LOL), and your husband’s gentleness. Please don’t ever stop your work. Husbands, especially christian husbands who were raised on the purity message, need to hear this. There is SO MUCH wrong with how conservative christianity has approached sex and pleasure for women. So, thank you Sheila. Thank you for showing me what it means to be a good husband. I realize now that I am more attentitive to my wife in the bedroom, I am more attentive to her overall. I cannot stop crying because of how fortunate and thankful I feel for this. My children get to grow up now in an environment where mom and dad really do like each other and like being around each other.

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! Support us getting our research into peer-reviewed journals and getting on new social media channelsThe Great Sex Rescue! And remember to rate and review!Last week’s long post on Emerson Eggerichs gaslighting abuse victims–and the podcast that went with itThe blog post where Emerson Eggerichs uses the stat both correctly & incorrectly at the same time10 reasons rushing forgiveness ruins intimacyOur Open Letter to Focus on the Family (that our letter writer referred to)The Duty Sex Isn’t Sexy podcast (that our letter writer referred to)Why Unconditional Respect Isn’t A Thing (where we looked in detail at Shaunti Feldhahn’s survey question regarding respect)

 

Did you see the problem with the stonewalling statistics? Why do you think evangelicals get stats wrong so much? What do you think about power and 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 An Open Letter to Evangelical Marriage Authors, Influencers and Speakers about Toxic Marriage Teaching

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Top 10 Ways to Get Turned On By Your Husband Again

What do you do if you’ve lost that spark and you want to be turned on by your husband again?

I thought we’d switch gears a bit today and focus on a question that I get from lots of women: they want to be turned on by their husbands, but they’re just not anymore. It’s not just a question of boosting their libido–although that can help (as can my Boost Your Libido course!). It’s more that such a woman has a desire for sex, but her husband doesn’t turn her on anymore. In fact, in some ways he turns her off!

Sometimes it’s because of health issues, where he’s just gotten really big or developed quite the paunch (and I’ve got other posts talking about how to have sex when your husband has a big belly, or how to talk to your spouse about weight issues.) Sometimes it’s just that the relationship has gotten stale and you don’t have that spark anymore. And sometimes you just feel so distant.

So let’s try to think this through, and look at 10 tips for helping you get turned on by your husband again!1. Make sure there’s not something outside the bedroom that’s spoiling your enjoyment inside the bedroom

There are certain actors that routinely make the “sexiest men alive” lists, but I don’t find attractive at all–because they’re jerks in real life and it totally turns me off.

A person’s character, and your interactions with them, actually have more to do with whether you find them attractive or not than you think. As we look at last week on the blog, sex and friendship go hand in hand in marriage. When the friendship is better, sex is better; when sex is better, the friendship tends to be better. But there’s a caveat. Sex alone can’t fix a bad marriage.

And when women feel as if their opinions aren’t valued; when women feel as if their husbands don’t care about them or prioritize them; then sex suffers.

If you’re having trouble getting turned on by your husband, then, before you start looking at solutions in the bedroom, make sure there’s not something bigger going on in your marriage. It could be that you have bigger things to deal with, and for that I highly recommend checking out 9 Thoughts That Can Change Your Marriage, which can focus on how to bring up issues in your marriage and how to deal with the things that are taking you down a bad path.

2. Get enough sleep!

Lack of sleep is often the #1 libido killer. If you’re just never turned on by your husband, it could be that you’re too tired to be turned on at all!

Or, if it’s not sleep, it could be that you’re carrying so much mental load in your head that you’re building up resentment towards him because he gets down time and you don’t. Check out our mental load series if this could be your story.

3. Don’t fuel unnecessary comparisons

Okay, let’s assume that there’s nothing particularly wrong with the marriage, and you aren’t completely overwhelmed and exhausted.

But he still doesn’t turn you on.

Now what? One big piece of advice: Keep away from media that will solidify in your mind that your husband isn’t measuring up. Some women can read novels and the love story makes them feel even more giddy for their husbands, because it reminds them how wonderful it is to have a man who loves them. But other women read novels and just find themselves wishing for another kind of life.

If you find yourself discontented with your marriage after reading novels or watching Netflix shows, then it’s likely best to steer clear of those things. Focus on media that uplifts rather than causes comparisons. Or just watch a ton of comedies together! We’ve really been enjoying Superstore lately–there are a ton of funny sitcoms that can help you laugh with your husband without making you feel discontented with him.

4. Focus on your shared history

I’ve always said that one of the reasons I can never leave Keith is that he’s the only other person in the world who understands what it meant to lose our son Christopher.

Our family at Christopher’s grave last summer

I know that’s a downer, but once you’ve spent years and years together, you’ve built up so much shared history that it does bind you together. When you focus on what’s good about your past, and how your husband uniquely understands things about you that no one else ever could, it can help revive those feelings again.

So often we think that romance and attraction is fuelled by what is new. But what if we realized that our shared stories are far more potent when it comes to building connection? No one else can ever know what it was like in the first 24 hours after your first baby was born; can know what it was like for you when a friend or parent died; can know what you went through trying to finish up that degree, and how you persevered despite trials. Instead of wondering “what if?”, remind yourself of the things that no one else will ever “get” about you in the same way.

5. Find things to laugh with him about

Laughter fuels desire far more than anything else! When we laugh we let our guard down, we become more truly ourselves, and the stresses of the day tend to diminish in importance.

How do you increase laughter? You spend more time just doing things together! Check out my list of 79 hobbies to do as a couple. Each of you choose two that you would love to try, and then switch lists and choose one of your spouse’s to do together. The more time you spend together, even if it’s doing stuff that you normally wouldn’t do, the more you’re going to laugh. And it’s often easier to laugh when pursuing hobbies together than it is just going on a “date night” which can seem contrived.

6. Do something meaningful together

Here’s another way to build desire–have a shared purpose! When you feel as if  you’re making a difference together, it’s going to lead to the good kind of pride in your relationship. You’ll feel honored to be with your husband. And that will fuel desire, too!

So aside from hobbies, find some way to volunteer together. Or maybe just pray together more. Prayer can be a great way to build desire, too, because you become so vulnerable with each other. If you find praying out loud challenging, I’ve got a great post on making praying as a couple much easier. 

7. Get active together

Getting your heartrate pumping from exercise is a great way to boost your libido! So with spring coming, how about going for a bike ride? Or taking up tennis? Even just going for a walk after dinner together instead of sitting on the couch?

Being in the outdoors helps fuel libido, and when you see your husband being active, that’s likely to fuel more desire, too. Besides, if one of the reasons that you’re not finding him attractive is that he’s gaining some weight, then getting more active can help in that department, too. 

8. Buy him attractive sleepwear

Ratty t-shirts with holes don’t exactly say, “Come and get me, baby!” They say, “I can’t even be bothered to try.” And when someone can’t even be bothered to try, then it’s hard to get excited!

Why not go shopping for some really attractive sleepwear–for him and for you? When you feel sexier, you’ll tend to see him as sexier. And when he’s in attractive plaid pajamas rather than just some old t-shirt from a charity walk you did together 12 years ago, then that may help with desire at night, too.

9. Focus on technique

Bigger guys can be awesome lovers–and guys who are in awesome shape can be terrible lovers! You don’t need a perfect body to bring your wife to orgasm at all, and if we focused more on perfecting technique, then maybe our bodies would respond more!

So speak up about what you want in bed! If you find that hard to do, check out The Orgasm Course which walks you through all the specific elements that go into women’s sexual response–and has an add-on to help husbands understand, too!

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! 10. Pray about it

Seriously, I know it sounds weird! But if you love your husband; if you’ve got a good marriage; if you want a great sex life–but you just don’t feel anything? Pray! Ask God to give you incredible desire for your husband again. It’s honestly okay to pray about this stuff. I know it seems weird to pray about libido and sex and all that, but God wants you to have an awesome marriage, and He made this part of you. It’s okay to ask for some help!

So there you go–10 ways to reignite that spark and feel more turned on by your hubby! 

Instead of trying all 10 things, focus on the 1-2 that spoke the most to you, that sounded like they most resonated with you. That’s likely where you should focus. What could you do in those areas today? Make a quick list, pray about it, and then do it!

What one spoke the most to you? Is there a particular element that’s most related to how you see your husband? Or what would be #11 if you were to add to the list? 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 Podcast: On Emerson Eggerichs Gaslighting Emotional Abuse Victims, and Stop Seeing Women as Dangerous

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The Great Sex Rescue has been featured in two amazing places lately–and I wanted to point you to both!

First, Relevant Magazine ran an excerpt from chapter 2–so if you’d like a taste of what The Great Sex Rescue is like, this is a great place to start!

Our new book has been out since March 2, and it’s doing very well. The reviews have been amazing (and if you’ve read it, we’d love for you to rate and review on Amazon and/or Goodreads!). As most of you know, it’s based on our survey of 20,000 women, where we looked at how common evangelical teachings have affected women’s marital and sexual satisfaction, and looked at how too many of our best-sellers teach some problematic things.

In chapter 2, we were making the point that sex is supposed to be more than just physical. It’s supposed to be deeply intimate as well, which means that it’s not only about a husband’s physical release (no matter what books like Love & Respect may say!). 

Here’s just a taste:

In healthy marriages, sometimes the solution really is that you both need to have some sex. But sex cannot fix selfishness or laziness. It cannot fix an abusive relationship. It cannot cure an affair or porn use or lust. It is dangerous to tell a reader to have sex with an abusive spouse. If you are in an abusive relationship, where you feel as if you have to walk on eggshells to avoid setting off your spouse, and you feel unsafe, please call an abuse hotline. Having sex cannot fix serious issues in your relationship….

Sex can’t be intimate if you feel like you don’t matter. In fact, that’s not even sex; that’s only intercourse, and that’s a pale imitation of what God intended. Sex, after all, is so highly personal. You’re naked in a way that you wouldn’t be with anyone else; you show a side of yourself to each other that you would never show to anyone else; you experience passion in a way in which you are most yourself, in which you let go of control and surrender to the moment. Because of that surrender and vulnerability, sex becomes the culmination of you as a couple, not just you as bodies. It is physical, yes, but it’s so much more than that.

This intense vulnerability may be what holds the key to why emotional closeness makes such a difference to women’s sexual satisfaction: emotional closeness brings trust. When you feel close to your spouse and can trust them, it’s easier to speak up: “Hey, you know what I’d like to try?” or “I don’t actually like that, can we try something else?” That’s what’s likely behind our finding that women who experience closeness during sex are far more likely to have husbands who excel at foreplay. Emotional connection simply cannot be divorced from sexual connection. They are meant to feed each other.

"God Intended for Sex to Be Intimate"

Excerpt from The Great Sex Rescue in Relevant Magazine

Similar to what we talked about last week in what comes first: sex or friendship? You really do need both! Sex on its own can’t fix a broken relationship, but in a good marriage, the two things feed each other. 

Read the whole thing here!

Then the Wonderful Aimee Byrd chimed in with a bigger review

Aimee Byrd, who has herself challenged the idea that Christianity is supposed to be about men being in power, has been reading The Great Sex Rescue, too. Last week she published her first post on it, and then she wrapped it all up yesterday in a post called Sex Ed for the Church. The stuff she chose to comment on was the stuff that resonated the most with me, too, so I’m glad she read it the way that I intended to write it!

I’m just going to post a few of her observations from her posts. First, Recovering from Christian Marriage and Sex Books. Aimee first explains our project, our survey, and what we’re setting out to do, and writes how she’s talking to her husband as she’s reading our book, with all the terrible quotes from bestsellers, and thinking, “Thank goodness we didn’t read all this crap!” She explains what we’re trying to do:

Only halfway through, I see that she is not holding back. Good for her. She gets at the meaningfulness and intimacy of sex contrasted with what we are learning in the church. There’s even a chapter on “Bridging the Orgasm Gap” between men and women. Again, very revealing. Each chapter is loaded with graphs of statistics, practical check-ins for the reader, medical support, practical ways to talk about the content with your spouse and grow together, and a “Rescue and Reframing” concluding section, spelling out what should have already been settled knowledge.

Aimee Byrd

Recovering from Christian Marriage & Sex Books

Then she chooses one particular topic to delve into in more detail for her first post–namely lust. 

[The authors quote] from multiple books but one that has taken the steering wheel on this teaching is Every Man’s Battle and its offshoots promoting “bouncing your eyes” away from women. There are so many harmful premises in this teaching: that noticing beauty itself is equated with lusting, that all men cannot make this distinction, that attractive women are their enemy as threats to their purity, that women must conceal their attractiveness, that married women must view other women as threats to their marriage, that beauty must be consumed, that Christian men are animalistic and unable to conquer sinful thoughts, and that women really can’t trust their husbands. This teaching turns women into slippery slopes—not people. I don’t even understand how we can live under this principle.

Aimee Byrd

Recovering from Christian Marriage & Sex Books

I encourage you to read the whole thing! I know Aimee is working on a book about redeeming sexuality and beauty, too, and I’m looking forward to what she has to say. 

Then, yesterday, Aimee published her review after she had finished reading all of The Great Sex Rescue. 

She explains how our rubric worked, and how books like The Gift of Sex scored near perfect (47/48), while Love & Respect literally scored 0/48. She shows examples of our rubric questions to see how eminently reasonable they are–they’re not that high a bar to jump over! And yet far too many of our books didn’t even try to be healthy.

And then she says:

 

It is an eye-opening book. It’s full of graphs and statistics from their research to reveal what sadly isn’t basic knowledge in the church. You know, it’s full of shocking findings such as, “Women who feel their voice matters in marriage report better sex.” We should be surprised that this needs to be said, but studies show that it very much does!

Aimee Byrd

Sex Ed for the Church

And she picks up on our motivations and intentions, too:

The authors of The Great Sex Rescue are not out to bash men. In fact, they even point out how sometimes women are raised in this teaching and the husbands become horrified to discover how their wives have been thinking for years about their love life in the bedroom. The authors are wanting to help both men and women learn more about how sex is an intimate knowing in the union of marriage which is deeply personal and should be mutually pleasurable. 

Aimee Byrd

Sex Ed for the Church

And it sounds like she had similar emotions reading the book as we had writing it!

There is a powerful chapter on consent in marriage. This is where I about had it. They gave examples from prominent Christian books, like Every Heart Restored, Every Man’s Battle, His Needs, Her Needs, and The Act of Marriage where marriage rape is described and not named and rebuked. The context is usually around the man’s needs and the responsibility is placed on the coerced woman. Predation is normalized. In the church. Let that sink in. 

Aimee Byrd

Sex Ed for the Church

But then she ends with some hope, saying that even though a lot of these messages are still in the water in evangelical circles, we’ve issued a strong course correction that she hopes others will take. 

That’s our prayer, too. 

Read more of Aimee’s review.

And, of course, get The 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!

And remember–if you’ve read the book, when you rate and review it on Amazon or Goodreads you help us out a lot!

I love this one who featured it in her Instagram story yesterday, too. Look at all those sticky notes!

Were there any sections of The Great Sex Rescue that you really resonated with? Or where you were ready to throw a fit because you were so angry at what had been taught in our best-sellers? 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 Emerson Eggerichs and the Gaslighting of Emotional Abuse Victims in a Sermon Series

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How to Reclaim Sex and Not Make it Ugly

Sometimes, the way we talk about the purpose of sex makes it clear that we don’t understand the beauty of sex at all.

And that needs to stop!

Just a quick post today (or what I hope will be a quick post) with a comment about a news story in the Christian world that broke over the weekend, and that so many people tagged me in on social media.

I put a statement out on Twitter, but I want to make it here too.

So just a warning: this is going to start out a little dark, but i want to end it on a happy, hopeful note. And I will have some discussions of sexual abuse in broad terms (nothing specific). 

Okay, with that warning: here’s the dark part.

David and Nancy French broke a story this weekend about horrific sexual abuse of boys at Kamp Kanukuk in Missouri. Camp director Pete Newman is serving a life sentence plus 30 years for 7 counts of abuse, but he’s facing 57 civil complaints, and that’s apparently the tip of the iceberg. What makes this story so sad, like so many others, is that it seems as if those in power knew about the abuse and did nothing.

One particular paragraph in the article stood out, and this is why people kept tagging me:

Oddly enough, these prohibitions were enacted only until Newman got married. At that point, the camp said it would “re-evaluate” the restrictions. Years later, White characterized Newman’s wife as the “initial layer of accountability” against abuse.

David French

They Aren't Who You Think They Are

The wife was the “initial layer of accountability” and apparently would help reduce the abuse. 

Oh, dear.

This is the same reasoning that we read in Every Man’s Battle, when they say:

Your wife can be a methadone-like fix when your temperature is rising. (p. 118)

Once he tells you he’s going cold turkey, be like a merciful vial of methadone for him. (p. 120)

Note: These quotations have been removed from the 2020 edition, though the idea remains.

Steve Arterburn

Every Man's Battle

We’ve already talked about how dehumanizing it is for women to be told that they are methadone for their husbands’ sex addictions or predatory behavior.

It’s demeaning and disgusting.

But what I really want to talk about today is how this shows a fundamental flaw in the way we think of sex, which is something that we covered in The Great Sex Rescue. When we talk about sex as being methadone for men’s sex addictions, we don’t just dehumanize women. We also change the very definition of sex.

Sex and porn are not substitutes for one another.

Rebecca and I have been talking about this on podcasts lately, but it is not that sex can keep someone from using porn, because the two are not the same thing.

Biblically, sex is something which is the ultimate “knowing” of someone else (Genesis 4:1). It’s a deep longing to be connected, which is why God uses sexual imagery to talk about His relationship with us. It’s more than just physical; it’s the deepest intimacy we can feel. And if it’s intimacy, then it means that BOTH people need to matter. Sex is about two people together in the truest sense of the word.

Porn, on the other hand, isn’t a knowing at all. Porn is a using of someone. It says, “I get to do what I want to you for my benefit, without any consideration of you.” Porn says your needs don’t matter; I have the right to use you. And if your needs don’t matter–if they’re actually a turn-off–then porn says, “I don’t care what’s going on with you.” That’s a rejection. Porn isn’t a knowing; Porn is an UNknowing. It’s a complete rejection.

Porn is about an entitled taking; sex is about a mutual knowing and mutual pleasuring. They aren’t substitutes for one another; they are polar opposites. They may use the same body parts, but the similarity ends there.

That’s why making women into methadone is so dangerous.

It actually rejects what sex is. In fact, in Every Man’s Battle intimacy is never talked about. Her pleasure is never talked about. It’s only about “giving him release” so that his eyes aren’t as clouded and he can resist lusting more easily. But that has nothing to do with the actual biblical definition of sex, and that cheapens and degrades sex for everyone.

What this camp did by seeing a wife as methadone not just for porn but also for sexual abuse is even worse.

Sexual abuse is not about sex but about power. It’s also about using someone. It’s getting a sexual high by corrupting someone; by managing to break down barriers and do something illicit.

This bears absolutely no resemblance to real, biblical sex.

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 will never have a healthy view of sex in the church when we equate sex with using someone.

And this, really, is a large part of the problem. Men are treated like animals that need to be controlled and satiated by as much “sanctioned” sex as they can get so that they don’t act out what they really want to do. Married sex isn’t seen as something beautiful but instead something that is standing between him and his monster self.

I think the reason people are so quick to blame the wife in these situations is that we actually have no idea what intimate sex looks like.

We only ever talk about sex in terms of male needs (remember, Emerson Eggerichs said in Love & Respect, “If your husband is typical, he has a need you don’t have.”). And we tend to talk about sex not in terms of intimacy but in terms of men’s need for physical satisfaction. (Again, Love & Respect said, “a man has a need for physical release as you need emotional release.”). When we see sex as something men need, we deprioritize her experience and her pleasure. She’s just supposed to be there for him–it’s not for her. And that means that her needs don’t matter, and now we’re back to sex being a rejection of her rather than an intimate knowing again.

So what do we do about our shallow, degrading, and terrible view of sex?

Honestly, two things. Whenever we talk about sex with others, we have to include two things in the conversation:

Sex is for her pleasure as much as it is for his.Sex is ultimately a deep knowing where two people matter.

We’ve gotten into this mess because we only see sex as something that men need, and thus we make it only about male entitlement. So we get out of the mess by stressing a woman’s experience too, and by stressing intimacy and mutuality.

If we understand that sex is not one-sided, but instead intimate where both people matter, then we would never, ever think of sex as being methadone for anything. We’d understand that they’re two polar opposites.

If we understand that sex is not one-sided, but instead intimate where both people matter, then we would never, ever think of sex as being methadone for anything. We’d understand that they’re two polar opposites.

Imagine what would happen if we really understood that sex was about a deep experience that two people shared together, that was the most loving and most intimate moments they could have? Imagine if instead of talking about sex as a 5-minute encounter where he gets physical release, we talked about the beauty of truly experiencing being together, of looking into each other’s eyes at the height of passion, of being vulnerable and bare before your spouse in a way that binds you together? Imagine if we talked about what a profound experience it is to be so completely vulnerable with each other, and still be loved and accepted? Would we still think of sex as methadone?

And imagine if talking about sex like that became normal! Imagine if our conversations around sex had far less to do with “needs” and far more to do with “intimacy.”

Last year, I did a Twitter and Facebook poll to ask which message people had heard more: ‘do not deprive your husband’ or ‘women’s sexual pleasure matters’?

It was “do not deprive” by 95%-5%.

That’s just unacceptable. We’re seeing sex entirely as something for men. That’s where the trouble gets started. It’s dehumanizing for everyone and it wrecks sex.

Let’s stop it. If you’re wondering how, that’s what The Great Sex Rescue is all about. But you can help, right now, by simply changing the conversation whenever it’s brought up.

Women’s pleasure matters. Sex is about intimacy. 

Lather. Rinse. Repeat!

What do you think? Have you heard the methadone argument in any form lately? How do we stop this? Let’s talk in the comments!

Read the Do Not Deprive Series:

Do Not Deprive: Are Women the Ones More Likely to Be Deprived?

Godly Sex is Mutual Sex!

Why We Need a New Definition of Sex

10 Times It’s Okay to Say No to Sex

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 Which Comes First, Sex or Friendship? The Chicken and the Egg in Marriage

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An Open Letter to Evangelical Marriage Authors, Influencers and Speakers about Toxic Marriage Teaching

To my regular blog readers: This is something that I needed to say, and the place to publish it where it will get seen the most is right here on the blog. So excuse me for injecting more discussion of toxic marriage teaching into the blog! I thought, though, that this made a fitting wrap-up to our week. I know this doesn’t apply to all of you who read the blog, but thank you for your grace in letting me post it–and if you are willing to share it to get more relevant eyeballs on it (or even tag influencers on Twitter/Facebook to whom it may apply) I would greatly appreciate it!

I had my first book published in 2003, by a wonderful little Christian publishing house, Kregel. It was called To Love, Honor and Vacuum: When you feel more like a maid than a wife and a mother (hence the name of my blog). Over the next few years, I continued to publish small books, and my speaking ministry grew.

The three of us at my first Publisher, Kregel, with copies of To Love, Honor and Vacuum in the background!

In 2008, I started this blog, because I needed a “platform” if I was ever going to get big in the Christian world and be able to write books that would reach a bigger audience. Blogging was slow. I wrote posts everyday, but they didn’t really take off. I didn’t know what I was doing.

But I kept at it. I got better.

I networked constantly, and found other bloggers who were also talking about marriage. I posted on their blogs; they posted on mine.

But I started to notice something. All of these big blogs were extremely conservative about marriage, sex, and dating. Most said that it was a sin to kiss before you were married. Many preached a form of wifely submission that I found actually quite dangerous. But I didn’t say anything, because, quite frankly, I wanted the audience. And so I toed the party-line, or at least I said as little about it as I could, so that I wouldn’t be antagonistic.

***

Many of those bloggers are now divorced, or have come forward with their own stories of emotional abuse, affairs, or domestic violence on the part of their husbands. Few are still blogging today–though some have done a 180 and turned into the biggest and best abuse advocates there are! But most have not. I am heartbroken for many of these women, who were just trying to serve Jesus.

And I wish I had been more open back then to encourage women to run after Jesus, not just to run after their husbands. I wish I had told them that Jesus cared about their needs, too, not just their husband’s needs. I wish I would have told them that you can’t create an intimate marriage if you keep all of your unhappiness inside, telling yourself that this is part of submission and serving your husbands. I wish. I wish.

***

Sometimes I get overwhelmed by the emails and comments on this blog from desperate people. I’ve been trying to address these things on a case by case basis, writing posts about very specific marriage and sex issues.

But when the same things keep popping up, time and time again, I started to ask myself: “How can I address the root cause?”

Just over two years ago, I started wondering if maybe the reason that so many of the same issues kept recurring was because the Christian teaching in a particular area was faulty. 

Full disclosure: I had not read many Christian marriage books. I didn’t want to inadvertently plagiarize anyone, and I wanted all thoughts to be genuinely be my own. I read books to offer endorsements when asked, but I didn’t read for the sake of reading, except secular books on very specific topics to become more of an expert (like how our sexual physiology works).

So I wanted to rectify that, and I decided to start with one of the marriage best-sellers, Love & Respect.

I was horrified. I won’t go into all the reasons here; I have written at length on them before, most notably in the first post in my big review series where I talked about how Love & Respect handled sex, and in my Open Letter detailing my concerns. (And here’s a summary page for those interested).

But I want to offer a challenge to you all.

I know that many of you realized this book was terribly dangerous, too.

I’m not talking about doctrinal disagreements–those are fine, and it’s good and healthy to have different points of view.

But there’s a difference between a book you disagree with and a book that actively causes harm. No one who gives healthy marriage advice could fail to see how dangerous this book is. It does not take much discernment to realize that it’s not a good idea to say that sex is all about a husband’s physical release, and not even a mention intimacy or a wife’s pleasure; that it’s not a good idea to tell a woman whose husband has “withering rage” towards her, so much so that she feels like she should “get away and hide”, that she should ignore that and instead respond with unconditional respect; that it’s not a good idea to praise a woman who let her physically abusive husband back into the house simply because he said he repented, without mentioning the love bombing phenomenon and the need to prove repentance over time in the case of abuse. These are pretty obvious HUGE red flags.

Yet this book became an almost instant best-seller, and has kept that best-seller status, because people did not speak up.

We kept quiet. And it sold. And sold. And sold.

* * *

And here’s what it did (just a few examples of the thousands of comments and survey responses that we have now had):

This book was also harmful to me during the narcissistic discard/abandonment by my then husband of 28 years (who’d been a full time pastor for over 20 of those years). This book was part of me accepting the blame for everything and allowing things to get to the point where the kids and I were left homeless. Friends took us in and we were spared living on the street, but this message to continue to respect an abusive man and follow his lead played a large role in my trusting him despite continual deception and horrific treatment. I’m disgusted that I bought into these lies and didn’t better protect myself and my children.

In my marriage, many of the love and respect values were preached to me over the years any time I sought help. This deepened and perpetuated a cycle of abuse in which my husband was never allowed to be confronted, and I was continually squashed. It took a divorce attorney to tell me I had been in the victim of domestic violence. Meanwhile my ex continued so far in his sexual deviance that he was busted for watching pornography at work and now says he is bisexual. Yesterday n old friend reached out to me and shared her story. Suffice it to say that the church’s teaching, based on Love and Respect, lay the blame for his egregiously bad behavior at her feet. The church is losing people over this. Yes to affirming marriage. No to affirming abuse and narcissism. Yes to biblical boundaries and conflict resolution. No to encouraging abusers.

As a result of Love and Respect, the multi-faceted abuse perpetrated against me by my ex was further compounded with spiritual abuse, damaging my view of God, marriage, and myself. Fighting hard to save my marriage under these circumstances nearly cost my life and the life of my child. Sadly, I wish my story was the only one — but it’s not. I personally have many friends subject to abuse as a result of Love and Respect. Absolutely heartbreaking.

Our Bible study group did this book several years ago. We went into not knowing anything about it other than it was a popular marriage book. We were so excited. We ended up horrified by what we read. Eggerichs spends the whole book playing the victim and encouraging all men to follow suit. I am married to a believer who truly loves me (and I, him) and we have always communicated well. But he grew up with a passive aggressive mother who is the eternal victim. It has always been a struggle for him to not follow in her footsteps. Not only did this book give him permission for this behavior but it tried to teach him this is how he *should* be. And, as for me, until I realized I was reading lies, all this book did was make me feel bad about myself, like there was something inherently wrong with me. It did not spur me on to change or to good deeds, like godly conviction does. It just felt like a “you’ll never be a good wife” anchor. Praise God for the Holy Spirit, who spoke loud and clear that this message was flat out wrong. This book could have done some serious damage. You don’t have to be in an abusive situation for this book to be harmful.

Read many, many more comments in the comments section of my open letter.

* * *

It’s not just Eggerichs’ books, either. I recently conducted a survey of over 20,000 Christian women. We asked them an open-ended question: Are there any books, resources, or ministries that have harmed your marriage? We didn’t name any; we let people name them with no prompting.

The top 5 mentioned, in order, were:

Love & RespectCreated to Be His HelpmeetEvery Man’s BattleI Kissed Dating Good-byeFocus on the Family (largely mentioned because of terrible advice to women in abusive marriages)

And there were so many more. So many.

I’m starting to read through many of those mentioned, so that I can be better informed. I dropped the ball for a long time because I didn’t want to see, and I did a disservice to my readers.

Why do we try not to see?

I think it’s self-protection, just like I was in self-protection mode when I started my blog. We want to grow our platform, and so that means that we can’t tick off the wrong people. We need people to endorse our books. We need to get invited to speak at conferences, and there are only so many to go around (and far fewer every year). It’s a relatively small, insular market. We can’t tick off potential publishers; potential bookstores; let alone potential denominations.

So we stay silent.

And we convince ourselves that that’s okay, because we’re just going to publish GOOD books. We’ll spread good teaching, and that will be enough.

Nope. It won’t.

Silence is not spiritual.

* * *

We can’t help marriages by publishing good books if terrible books are still the best-sellers. And if those terrible books are being sold and promoted through the same media outlets that we are trying to appear on, then we are propping up the very mouthpieces that are keeping women and men in bondage, and that are keeping marriages unhealthy.

Focus on the Family, for instance, may feature a wide variety of healthy guests, but when it comes down to what they actually, consistently promote, Emerson Eggerichs is one of their go-to people. When you appear on their show and give heathy advice, you make people think, “Focus on the Family is a good resource for help for my marriage.” You lend your personal seal of approval to Focus on the Family, and help them earn a reputation for being safe off of the backs of your books and your message.

But then they target those same listeners with messages to buy harmful materials like Love & Respect or Mothers & Sons.

Is this what we want to do? Don’t we want healthy marriage books and healthy parenting books to rise to the top? That won’t happen when the biggest organizations speaking about Christian marriage and family (and Focus is not the only one) believe and teach things like women can’t divorce in cases of abuse; that sex is an obligation women owe to their husbands. That won’t happen when the biggest voices blame women for men’s porn use or men’s lust or men’s affairs.

That won’t happen when we allow these organizations to represent us and speak for us.

I did it three times. I didn’t do my homework. I didn’t understand what I was promoting.

Or is that I just didn’t want to see?

* * *

So what should we do instead?

Do the legwork. Get on as many podcasts as you can–podcasts that aren’t beholden to donors. Podcasts where you can truly say what you think. There are so many out there! Yes, it will mean more work to move the needle for book sales. But many of those podcasts actually have more engaged audiences than some of the bigger broadcasts. And in a few short years, they will have a far bigger audience than the huge, traditional media anyway, if they don’t already. The world is changing quickly.

So partner with the smaller outlets that are doing a good job. Support the ones that don’t cover up sexual abuse; that don’t keep women in bondage. Partner with those who respect and protect their listeners.

* * *

And while we’re at it, don’t be afraid to say what you think.

Most Christians today do not listen to big Christian broadcasts. They don’t read Christian magazines. Likely, they don’t even go to church.

The “dones” still claim allegiance to Jesus. They’re just done with church. And the nones and dones outnumber those in the pews.

You don’t need the big name Christian organizations to prop you up. Speak up, and the “dones” and “nearly dones” will notice–and there are a lot of them. Often they’re “done” because of the messages coming from those big organizations–organizations that we have allowed to speak with a singular voice because of our silence.

If all of us who actually have a healthy view of what it means to follow Jesus; who don’t see Christianity through an authoritarian mold; who believe that some of what is being preached about marriage is toxic–do you know how encouraging that would be to the “dones”? Do you not see how that would inspire millennials to have hope in the church again–a hope that they have largely lost because we all speak the same message and dance to the same tune–a tune that’s becoming increasingly off-key?

We would tell the “dones”:  we see you. We hear you. We want to know the real Jesus, too, and separate the weird teachings from what Jesus really says. We don’t want to be toxic. We’re listening. 

* * *

God is shaking the church. He is bringing down the principalities and powers that have perverted His body. Mars Hill. Harvest Bible. Willow Creek. Sovereign Grace. Moody. Gospel for Asia. The SBC. Bill Gothard. Carl Lentz. Ravi Zacharias. And so many, many more. He is separating the modern-day Pharisees from the modern-day disciples.

He is not finished. This purging will go on, and on, and on, because God will not be mocked. Too many are pursuing Christianity for their own agenda, not Jesus’. Too many are going after power, or money, or sex, or anything else–anything but Jesus.

And God has chosen this moment in time to act.

We need to decide: will we pursue Jesus, or cultural-Christian fame? Will we be so seduced by the idea of being a household name in Christian circles that we won’t speak up? Or will we say, “He must increase, and I must decrease”? Will we sacrifice our reputation and accolades in order to stand up for the least of these?

Women’s pain needs to matter more than our own ability to be famous on Christian media.

It really is that simple.

And if we all spoke up, together, we could change the conversation.

To my readers: Will you share this on social media, and tag influencers and authors and podcasters and bloggers that you know? Let’s get this message out there. And share it with your own message, too. Let’s start a bigger conversation about the Evangelical Industrial Complex, and how we need to get more discerning instead of just protecting the reputations of those at the top. 

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 Grief: Does Time Really Heal All Wounds?

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Podcast: On Emerson Eggerichs Gaslighting Emotional Abuse Victims, and Stop Seeing Women as Dangerous

We simply MUST change the way we talk about women in the church, because what is happening is DANGEROUS.

In today’s podcast, we look at two examples of the dangerous ways we can talk about women: Steve Arterburn and the Every Man’s Battle team portraying women as “enemies” in your battle against lust; and Emerson Eggerichs gaslighting abuse victims in his sermons.

Today is the last Thursday of the month when we tend to focus on men’s stuff, but this podcast is really great for both men and women!

Listen to the Podcast Here

Browse all the Different Podcasts

See the Last Women’s Podcast

Or, as always, you can watch on YouTube:

 

Timeline of the Podcast

0:52 The Book is out, guys!
1:40 What the News can Tell us About the Church
8:00 Keith and Connor give testimony that it is NOT every man’s battle
14:54 We set up a Patreon!
16:09 Our Copyright drama
20:11 Walking through the sermon with transformative critique
58:05 What we’re prepared to do for our voice not to be silenced
1:01:58 Closing off with a man’s review of our book!

Why we have to address these issues

Ever since The Great Sex Rescue was released three weeks ago, high ranking people in the evangelical church have been upset with us because we’re taking on big name authors and saying that what they’ve written has hurt women. We surveyed 20,000 women for our book, and measured how the things that are taught about sex and gender dynamics in these books impact women’s sexual and marital satisfaction. We have the numbers.

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!

Nevertheless, some have been upset at us, and last week Emerson Eggerichs put a copyright infringement notice against a video on YouTube where I commented on clips of his sermons at Houston’s First Baptist, and put a copyright claim on my Twitter account.

I decided that it was time that the people who are trying to silence us understand that we aren’t going to be silenced.

We will always be fair. We will simply quote what they have said or written, and we will, when possible, link back to original material. And this is not personal, about them as people. This is only about what they have written and what they are teaching. When bad ideas in the church are hurting people, we need to allow people to see that the ideas are bad and reject them!

We do not want to cancel these authors; in my mind, the best case, win-win scenario would be that they repent, recant of what they taught in the past, and start teaching healthy things. After all, they already have the platform! If they started teaching healthy things, it would make such a difference! I don’t mind if they still earn a ton of money and get a ton of speaking engagements–as long as they’re teaching what is healthy. 

I would also point them to this discussion in Acts 5 among the Sanhedrin, when they were trying to figure out what to do with the apostles who were preaching things they didn’t like:

When they heard this, they were furious and wanted to put them to death. But a Pharisee named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law, who was honored by all the people, stood up in the Sanhedrin and ordered that the men be put outside for a little while. Then he addressed the Sanhedrin: “Men of Israel, consider carefully what you intend to do to these men. Some time ago Theudas appeared, claiming to be somebody, and about four hundred men rallied to him. He was killed, all his followers were dispersed, and it all came to nothing. After him, Judas the Galilean appeared in the days of the census and led a band of people in revolt. He too was killed, and all his followers were scattered. Therefore, in the present case I advise you: Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.”

Acts 5:33-39

I want to say to these authors, if what I am saying isn’t true, you have nothing to fear from me. If you are sure what you’re saying is true, then defend it. Keep speaking. Keep writing. But there’s no point in trying to silence me. If I’m wrong, that will become evident.

But if I’m right, you’ll be fighting against God. And nobody wants to do that.

Instead of summarizing what we said in the podcast today, I’d encourage you to click on the links below. Much of what we said was covered in some of the blog posts from the last week, and you can read most of it there.

I just want to add one question: one thing that we haven’t discussed yet, despite the many comments on the post yesterday, was why no one on staff at Houston’s First Baptist recognized that these sermons were problematic? (some parishioners did; they sent me the links after trying to talk to staff about it). How do we help churches understand that talking about abuse like this from the pulpit is dangerous? This church actually has licensed counselors on staff. How could this have got past them? I don’t understand.

Things Mentioned in This Podcast:Our Patreon! Come on over and support our research:and getting our message out thereThe Great Sex Rescue–where we talked about a better way to talk about lust!The post yesterday where we discussed Emerson Eggerichs’ sermons in detailLast week’s post on the Atlanta shootings and seeing women as dangerousStudy showing that non-fatal strangulation increases the odds of a woman being killed by seven-foldThe original sermon series by Emerson Eggerichs on YouTube–Part 1 and Part 2

What do you think? Is the conversation changing? Is there hope? And how do we get churches to realize that sermons like Eggerichs’ are dangerous? 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 Has Evangelical Teaching about Sex Contributed to Horrific News Stories?

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Last year, I looked at some rather alarming clips from some sermons Emerson Eggerichs–the author of Love & Respect–gave where he essentially gaslighted emotional abuse victims.

I was prepared to let it go–I’ve talked about it, and let’s move on.

But in the last week he put a copyright infringement on our video where on YouTube where we provided clips of the sermon with commentary, and on my Twitter thread where we talked about it. I believe those uses were Fair Use, but I decided not to contest it, and instead to revisit it in a more comprehensive way. This is actually quite serious, and if I don’t deal with it again, then I give the impression that if you bully me to be silent, I’ll be silent.

In that original post and the original video I only looked at a few clips. Today I asked Connor to look at the totality of the two sermons, and dissect them for me, and he has. I’m going to turn this over to him in a moment, but I want to point something out.

A sermon or book about marriage can deal with abuse in one of three ways:

HEALTHY: It can warn people what abuse looks like, and advise people to take proper precautions to protect themselvesNEUTRAL: It can ignore abuse altogether and only talk about how to build a healthy marriageUNHEALTHY AND DANGEROUS: It can give caveats about abuse (or fail to give any caveats at all), but then show in anecdotes that people are blowing abuse out of proportion, and prime the church leaders and the congregation to disregard any abuse allegations that are brought forward.

Obviously, #3 is awful. and that’s what we contend is being done here. I’ll hand it over to Connor to explain:

Sheila Wray Gregoire

On October 6, 2019, Emerson Eggerichs preached two sermons at Houston’s First Baptist Church, where he talked about abuse in an unhealthy way.

The videos of the sermons are up on YouTube: Love and Respect Part 1 and Part 2. We would like to readdress this today.

(We’ll be showing clips of the sermons below, but we invite you to watch the whole thing using the links above if you would like even more context.)

Now, the reason I say “readdress” is because Sheila has actually talked about these videos before. Well, not ‘talked’ so much as ‘put out a video on Youtube’ where she showed several clips from his presentation and provided some text commentary laid over the clip, and some text screens between the clips. Yes, it was very cinematic. But honestly, she just wasn’t planning to make a big thing out of it. She saw the videos, and it seemed as though parts of Eggerichs’ presentation talking about female trolls may have been in response to statements she had been making about the book at that time. The videos themselves provided some examples of the problematic ideas Sheila was concerned with, so she figured she would respond in a video.

Some people liked her points, and some people complained that he was being taken out of context, and that we had not watched the entire video. That’s all fine and normal, but then just last week, Sheila’s video received a copyright claim for using parts of Eggerichs’ video in hers, demanding we take down the video.

Now, for those of you who are not in the know about copyright law, video used for the purpose of critique or commentary is protected under fair use (note, that I am not a lawyer, nor should this be considered expert legal advice). So I look at this situation and naturally I conclude: “They don’t think we provided enough critique or commentary. I suppose they must be asking for more, and I am more than happy to oblige.” So with that, I watched both videos through several times to arm myself with commentary and context. Here we go.

Disclaimer

While I have read Emerson’s book, Love and Respect, I will be solely discussing and referencing the aforementioned videos. This is partly in the interest of time, and partly because I want to make it as easy as possible for you to access the full context of what I discuss, so you can watch the full videos and look at the clips and timestamps I include to form your own opinions on whether information is being misrepresented. 

They are set to play at specific timestamps, though the clips sometimes load wrong and start in the wrong place, so below each video will be the timestamp for the clip I am talking about.

But largely, I am only addressing these videos because the larger context of his many blog posts, other speeches, even his book, doesn’t matter. Most people aren’t going to hear everything Eggerichs has to say, so if he says something somewhere that is harmless as long as it’s in the context of a blog he wrote two years ago, or an appearance he made in someone else’s podcast, that’s not good enough. Not even close. If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it clarify Eggerichs’ stance on abuse?

I also have no interest in making claims about Eggerichs’ intentions, motivations, or thoughts, as the claims would be uninformed, unfounded, and I do not wish to cause any harm to Eggerichs personally.

Likewise, I am not interested in speculating about his family, his marriage, or his private life, and will only be addressing the information he provides in his presentation. I do not know his family or any of their dynamics, and again do not wish to cause harm to anyone involved.

My critique is only of the message and its presentation.

Now let’s get into the sermons. When Sheila originally uploaded her video, it was titled “Emerson Eggerichs Gaslights Emotional Abuse.” Her point was that the way Emerson talks in these videos tends to downplay the existence and prevalence of very real concerns in marriage, while encouraging people to stay in abusive, toxic, and harmful situations. Of course, many jumped to Emerson’s defence, saying that he doesn’t condone abuse and actively tells people to get out of harmful situations. So my first order of business is of course… to do my best to back them up.

I combed through both videos looking for anything that could be perceived as a disclaimer, caveat, or statement of any kind that acknowledges that abuse exists and should be dealt with differently.

And guess what? He had several. 

“Unless it’s an evil” 20:01 – 20:13

Emerson advocates against just seeing arguments in the black and white terms of one spouse being wrong and the other being right, but rather as different, “unless it’s an evil. Unless your husband is saying, ‘Hey I’ve been thinking about selling the kids for our coke habit.‘”

That’s not bad advice, though it’s a pretty low bar to set. So let’s see if he later clarifies what is or is not unacceptable, evil, or abusive.

“I’m not talking about being nice” 33:14 – 34:22

So Eggerichs is saying contrary to what some people take away from the book, you are not just supposed to just nicely and meekly go along with whatever your husband says because as in the case of Ananias and Sapphira, if you follow your husband into sin or evil, you are still accountable.

It starts off sounding helpful when he is saying that rather than just being nice and permissive, you should “courageously and respectfully speak the truth.” But when he elaborates, he ties it to not following your husband down a sinful path, rather than informing women how to protect themselves when their husbands are sinning against them. Should they still just speak the truth courageously and respectfully while enduring? When is a woman justified in doing more? It’s still unclear. Let’s keep looking.

“There’s not moral issues here” 27:04 – 27:37

“It’s just common issues. There’s not moral issues here. If there are then that’s not my frame of reference. ‘He’s betraying you, he’s beating the ki-‘ we’re not talking about that. We’re talking about these day-in day-out tensions between people of good will“

So here we have a defence that Eggerichs and others will commonly make about his teaching. His advice is only for people of good will. In fact, he uses the phrase “good will” quite a bit throughout these two videos. That’s fine. It’s okay to put your focus on giving advice to healthy couples, as long as the advice would not do harm if applied in the wrong marriages, or at least clear boundaries are laid out to establish where the advice is or is not appropriate.

“Not talking about being in harm’s way, you get out of harm’s way” 41:46 – 42:08

This is the fourth and final disclaimer I was able to find in the videos. “You get out of harm’s way.” That’s a good caveat. That’s an important caveat.

Eggerichs’ Caveats about AbuseNot talking about going along with evil (like if your husband wants to sell the kids to support a coke habit)You don’t follow your husband into sin (like Ananias and Sapphira)It only applies to people of goodwillYou should get out of harm’s way.

With this, and the other disclaimers Emerson gives, it becomes easy to see for anyone watching, whether in a healthy marriage or a toxic marriage, whether his advice is applicable to their circumstances, right?

…Right?

Now Let the True Critique of how Eggerichs Handles Abuse Begin

We have looked at all of the times he acknowledges toxicity, evil, etc. as a real problem (he doesn’t acknowledge abuse). Now let’s look at how he actually handles abuse.

He laughs at–and encourages the congregation to mock–women who claim that they are married to narcissists or that his advice enables abuse.

Now observe as he puts on a mocking female voice to bring up some women’s concerns about husbands who may be narcissistic, controlling, or emotionally abusive.

Pause for laughter.

Mocking women who say, “I’m not going to submit myself to emotional abuse”, 13:46 – 15:59

Keep watching the clip and you’ll see he goes on to say these women (women who are trying to guard themselves from narcissistic, controlling, or emotionally abusive men) are going to victimize your ‘honorable’ sons, and slander them on social media and talk shows. And then he talks about how social media is filled with trolling women.

He doesn’t directly say ‘if a woman complains about these things, she is just a troll,’ but can you honestly say you can’t see how vulnerable women watching this would easily connect those dots? I am not saying this is Eggerichs’ intent. I don’t care whether his wording is intentional or ignorant. What matters to me is the impact on people watching. And as we will see, these are not the only dots that Emerson will put right beside each other without quite explicitly connecting them.

Now before we move on, I want to again point out that he does not name or denounce abuse in any of his disclaimers. He only brings it up in the previous clip where he mocked women who were skeptical that his teaching would promote their safety, and this next one where he again tries to garner sympathy for ‘your sons’ because he argues that honorable male conduct has been relabeled as abusive.

(Note: I am referring to a later portion of this clip, but have include the earlier part to give context to my next point.)

 “Your sons will be called abusive.” 25:56 – 27:21

So between the two videos, Emerson only brings up abuse as a term used for man-bashing. He doesn’t explicitly say abuse doesn’t exist, but he only mentions abuse in the context of women unfairly using the term and thus harming good, honorable men.

In general, according to Emerson’s video, when women talk about abuse, men are the victims.

What is the takeaway from these clips? Women should think twice before speaking up about abuse, because usually they are wrong, and are unfairly hurting someone’s son for doing the right thing.

But there is a lot more here to unpack. Recall that last clip and then take a look at these two.

Men in warrior mode (ie a fight with their wife) withdraw out of honor, 24:33 – 25:32 Why should men apologize when they withdraw rather than raising a fist? 27:33 – 28:10

That’s right, he talks a LOT about how when you get into a conflict with your husband “his heartbeats are in warrior mode,” and “He’s felt dishonoured and he has to CALM DOWN. So he walks away out of honour,” and how men have to walk away because “men know physiologically that can lose it.”

And then in all three clips he’ll switch over to talking about that same dynamic happening between male buddies, and he’ll talk about how men know to walk away from each other in a heated dispute so they don’t escalate. In all three cases he raises a clenched trembling fist and feigns barely suppressed rage. In the last clip he says, “You don’t say you’re sorry, in the man’s world, for doing the honourable thing! when you wanna… *shakes his fist and clenches his jaw* just really go after your best buddy.“

What are we to think when Eggerichs says that men withdraw out of honor, but then gestures that they do it so that they don’t punch someone?

I don’t think it is fair to assume or imply that it is a calculated move on his part to switch over to talking about disputes between men before using violently suggestive body language all three times to carefully avoid directly implying normal, good, honourable men will get violent with their wives if they don’t walk away. I can’t and won’t speak to his intentions. But again, the question is “what is the message?” What’s the takeaway?

Some people coming away from Emerson’s presentation are going to think:

When things get heated, my husband has two choices. He can walk away, or he can get violent. And if he walks away because that’s the only way he thinks he can avoid getting violent, he is actually a normal, good, and honourable man. And, knowing this, if I chase after him or try to get him to stay and talk, frankly, it will be my fault when he hits me because he is an honourable man who I wouldn’t allow to the honourable thing.

That’s horrible. And watching his presentation, I just kept feeling like the way Emerson normalizes this behaviour and elevates it as honourable seems so similar to the way some people used to talk about porn use in teenage boys like it’s just a sign that they are a normal, healthy, red-blooded man.

Is it true? Probably not.

Do we want it to be true? PROBABLY NOT!

I know there are some who defend old marriage teaching by saying that the ‘feminists’ and ‘trolling women’ are just man-bashing and want men to be ashamed of what they are.

But as a guy, I can tell you that watching these videos is what makes me ashamed.

To men and women both, I want to say that Eggerichs does not speak for me.

I have never been in a heated situation with ANYONE that has made me need to walk away lest I do something I’ll regret. I can confidently say the same about pretty much all of my male friends, my father, my father in-law, etc.

Withdrawing so you don’t “lose it” is not normal, and it is not universally male.

I’m not saying men never stonewall or sometimes feel the need to walk away. I myself have requested and taken time to be alone and go for a walk a couple of times in the earlier years of marriage… but only after we had resolved our conflict, and never for long. I was glad we resolved the situation, I would just feel a little emotionally exhausted and take some time of listening to music and stretching my legs to process and move into a happier head space so I could come back, cuddle up with Rebecca, and watch a show or something.

So if Eggerichs is saying his advice is not for people who are in harm’s way, but is instead meant for those in marriages with good will, why isn’t it relevant to me or anyone I know?

And why, on the other hand, could someone who regularly finds themselves on the verge of physically or emotionally abusing their wife come away from that sermon feeling like a strong, noble knight?  Why does this presentation make light of the term ‘abuse,’ and then normalize dangerous dynamics while saying things like “It’s not that there’s anybody who’s mean spirited. Everybody’s sincere.” (Part-1 11:05)

But wait, there is still more!

Trigger Warning:

In this next clip Emerson Recounts a story of domestic abuse and attempted murder in his own family.

He does not provide detail or describe it as abuse, but I want to give you a heads up anyway. If this is something that might trigger you, you can skip to the end of the grey section for my closing thoughts.

“My father attempted to strangle my mother”, example of the Crazy Cycle, 24:57 – 25:48

First, let’s be fair and give the context preceding this clip.

Eggerichs is in the middle of explaining the ‘crazy cycle,’ a term he has coined that refers to how men react unlovingly when they feel disrespected and women react disrespectfully when they feel unloved. So the crazy cycle is a form of a vicious cycle where a perceived slight from one spouse causes a back and forth chain reaction of not meeting each other’s needs because they each feel wounded. I will not deny that vicious cycles do occur, even in healthy marriages. In fact Eggerichs drives home how normal it is to find yourself on the crazy cycle, explaining several times across the presentation that it happens in his own marriage, generally 3-4 times a month. It happens.

Rebecca and I spend all day every day in the same house and we get into something similar maybe 3-4 times a year (though it’s not because I feel disrespected or she feels unloved).

Now, given the context that he is introducing and explaining the crazy cycle, he provides an example, explaining that when he was younger, his father got angry in a heated dispute and tried to strangle his (Emerson’s) mother. Then he says his mother shut down because he had wounded her emotionally. They separated, for 5 years, came to Christ, and then reunited.

He says all of this, without mentioning abuse, violence, or crime.

He doesn’t tie this behaviour into any of the caveats I pointed out. He doesn’t condemn his father’s behaviour except to say he had wounded her, and he sums the situation up as family issues.

Then he says what he saw there, in the situation where he had a father who nearly murdered his mother, was the previously mentioned and normalized ‘crazy cycles.’ He then goes straight from describing an attempted strangling as a crazy cycle to saying the husband in a crazy cycle should ask himself if his wife was really trying to diss him or if she is a good-willed woman who was acting out of hurt, and the wife should ask herself “Is he really unloving? or did I say or do something earlier that was disrespectful?”

Let me play that out again for you:

Crazy cycles are a normal issue in regular marriages, because as Eggerichs tries to make clear, he is not talking about harmful or evil situations–>He provides an example of a crazy cycle from his own life–>His father tried to strangle his mother–>Women in a crazy cycle need to ask themselves if their husband is really being unloving or if she made the mistake of disrespecting him.

Is that a simplification, yes. But is it also clear to see how someone could have a very dangerous takeaway from this message? Especially a woman who is stuck in an abusive marriage, who sees this sermon and now has a way to rationalize her husband’s behaviour and make excuses for him, because she is trying her best to be an unconditionally respectful ‘Love and Respect’ wife?

Again, I am not implying Emerson Eggerichs set out to create, foster, or rationalize abuse.

And there are places where he addresses abuse and lays out a stance. For example, the article he wrote on his site entitled “On Abuse in Marriage.” If what he said in that article was included in the presentation, and maybe some things in the presentation were reworded or removed, Sheila would not have made her original video, nor would I have written this post. But that is not how things happened, and so there is this video which communicates a message to some that, if taken in isolation, is dangerous, and if taken with his other works, muddies the waters of what is ok.

Eggerichs says:

“Get out of harm’s way.”

Connor says:

If your husband needs to walk away to stop himself from getting violent, you are in harm’s way. If your husband strangles you for any reason (including his feeling disrespected by you), you are in harm’s way.

This is the problem:

Good teaching shouldn’t convince you, intentionally or otherwise, that a harmful situation is actually normally and healthy.

A lot of antiquated teachings about gender will say “there is a bar, and men who make it over the bar are a shining example of God’s design,” and then they gently and self-reverently place the bar on the ground. And when we say maybe we should raise the bar, the response is that we are trying to make men out to be disgusting pigs who can’t make it over the bar.

That’s certainly not what I am saying. I am saying when you set the bar on the ground, don’t be surprised when people just step over it. I think I actually have a far higher regard for men than a lot of evangelical marriage teachers, because I think we can raise the bar a lot higher and a lot of men will still clear it. Sure, maybe some men will have to jump higher than they were before, but isn’t that a good thing for the world?

Caveats mean nothing if the anecdotes in your presentation prime people to ignore abuse.

These sermons made fun of women who called their husbands abusive, and invited the congregation to laugh at such women. Eggerichs said in these sermons that ALL MEN will be called abusive, thus priming people to think that if a woman says her husband is abusive, that her husband is no different than any other husband. And he used very violent examples and violent body language to say, “this is just normal in marriage.”
That is dangerous.

I hope people can see this.

I called and emailed Houston’s First Baptist Church after these sermons went online, because I was contacted by people who were in those sermons and who were concerned. Houston’s First Baptist has, to date, never returned my calls or emails, and these sermons are still up on their YouTube channel and their church’s website.

Sheila Wray Gregoire

How You Can Help

Please share this post on social media, and tell people about it.

The old video that they put a copyright infringement on had had 3,600 views at the point of the DCMA take down order. In the last 18 hours, my posts about this on social media have been seen by 82,000, with 15,700 people engaging. The more people who see this, the more authors and speakers like this will understand that if they try to silence or threaten me, it will turn out badly. So please help get the word out for my sake, but more importantly, so that we can change the conversation in the evangelical church. This should never be acceptable anymore.

Thank you.

What do you think about the sermon clips (or the whole thing if you watched it)? Did anything stand out to you? Let’s talk in the comments!

Other Posts in our Love and Respect Series:THE MUST READ: An Open Letter to Focus on the Family about Love & Respect and Emerson EggerichsA Review of Love and Respect: How the Book Gets Sex Horribly WrongLove and Respect: Why Unconditional Respect Can’t WorkThe Ultimate Flaw in the Book Love and Respect: Jesus Isn’t at the CenterDissecting a Sermon Series where Emerson Eggerichs Gaslights Abuse VictimsIs It Okay if Christian Marriage Books are Just a Little Bit Harmful?PODCAST: Why Unconditional Respect Isn't a Thing (and how the verse the book is based on, and the survey data the book is based on, don't hold water).PODCAST: An Example from Eggerichs' blog of Eggerichs Gaslighting Women (we work through line by line)PODCAST: Our Love & Respect Wrap UpI’m Passing the Torch on Love & Respect. 10 Ways You Can Pick it UpPlus our Resource Pages:Summary Page of Issues in Love & RespectResources to let others know of your concerns about Love & Respect

Which Comes First, Sex or Friendship? The Chicken and the Egg in Marriage

Sex and friendship in marriage can be a lot like the chicken and the egg.

Do you have sex to build friendship, or does building friendship lead to more sex.

The answer? Yes.

Yes to both.

That’s what we found in our survey results for The Great Sex Rescue, as Joanna talked briefly about in her segment on the Bare Marriage podcast last week about orgasms. Marital satisfaction and sexual satisfaction are closely linked.

Today I wanted to pull out just a few of our results and point you to THREE quick things that are important to know about this chicken and egg phenomenon. So let’s jump in!

Point 1: Great sex and a great marriage do go hand in hand.

We definitely found that people with strong marriages tend to have better sex. Women in the top 20% of marital satisfaction were four times more likely to reliably orgasm than women in the bottom 20%! And when women feel that their opinions matter in marriage just as much as his do, they’re roughly 7 times more likely to say he does enough foreplay and roughly 4 times more likely to say that she feels comfortable talking to him about what she wants in bed (plus a ton of other findings that are in a pretty chart in The Great Sex Rescue!). But you can also read those results the other way–when she feels comfortable telling  him what she wants in bed, she’s also more likely to say that her opinion matters in marriage!

We definitely found that people with great sex lives tend to have great marriages–and people with great marriages tend to have great sex lives! They go hand in hand, because sex is not only physical. It’s also about emotional and spiritual connection. When you feel as if you have that outside the bedroom, then inside the bedroom is more likely to rock!

And then, when the bedroom does rock, you build this sense of closeness, like “we’re in this together”, and that, in turn, feeds your marriage.

For sex to feel intimate, it needs to be about saying, “I want you,” not just “I want sex.” It needs to be about saying, “I see you. I choose you. I want to experience something with you, and only you. I want to know you better.” 

You is the key word. You are the focus. Sex is not just about me; it’s about me knowing you and building us. 

The Great Sex Rescue, p. 22

 

Point 2: Sex can smooth over problems and help healthy couples feel close, but it cannot fix a bad relationship.

However, when we talked with our focus groups and did interviews, and reviewed other research, it’s clear that a great marriage can help build a great sex life, but a great sex life can’t fix a bad marriage. When you work on your marriage, and work on your communication, and help each other feel valued, sex will tend to get better. When you build better sex, you don’t necessarily grow a better marriage.

You can smooth over problems, though. You can help build goodwill in the marriage so that it’s easier to tackle small communication issues, or bring up issues that might be bugging you (I’d love it if you’d give me more of a hand with the kids at night rather than sitting in front of a screen; I’d love to spend time on the weekends doing something fun instead of always hanging out with your mom). When you have that foundation that says, “I like having fun with you and experiencing this with you together,” then you solidify that relationship and you can talk about things.

In fact, sex can be a shortcut to rebuild closeness when there’s been tension. How many times have you been picking at each other all day, and then you make love at night, and you just sigh this comfortable sigh of relief and snuggle in each other’s arms, and all is forgotten? It’s like a way of saying, “It’s okay. We really are good.”

But if you’re not really able to talk outside the bedroom, or if your marriage is marred by some major issues, sex can’t fix it. And, in fact, if the problems are big enough, having sex can prolong those problems, because when you do have sex, you tell your spouse, “we’re okay. We’re together. We’re on the same page.” So if you’re regularly having sex with someone who is wounding you emotionally or betraying you, you actually tell them, “this behaviour of yours is actually acceptable.” What we found in many interviews and emails is that spouses often didn’t take a big, marriage endangering problem seriously until the sex stopped.

(That’s not saying that you should stop having sex whenever something is bugging you, but in cases of porn use, addictions, or any form of abuse, having sex can solidify the issue).

Point 3: Frequency matters less than sexual quality when it comes to building the relationship.

Sex where she doesn’t orgasm and where she doesn’t feel particularly emotionally close to him during sex is not going to build the relationship in the long term. In fact, if she keeps having sex with him when she’s not orgasming and when she’s not feeling particularly close, and you may find that in a decade or two she just gives up on sex altogether. In fact, you’re 7 times more likely to end up in a sexless marriage!

If he doesn’t spend enough time on foreplay she’s fourteen times less likely to say that her husband spends enough time on foreplay and twelve times less likely to say that he makes her pleasure a priority. When she feels as if her pleasure doesn’t matter to her husband, she’s far less likely to feel emotionally close during sex.

At the same time, when she feels as if sex is about them together, and it isn’t only about him, she’s five times more likely to reliably orgasm.

When she has really bad sex where she feels as if her pleasure is not a priority, she feels more emotionally distant, not less. So if sex is going to build your friendship, it has to be good sex! Intercourse alone doesn’t do it.

Okay…so which is it? The chicken of the egg?

After all of that, I’d say that in relatively healthy marriages, where you have regular disagreements–have sex as much as you can and make it awesome! It’s a great way to invest in the relationship, keep that relationship strong, and keep you feeling happy and cherished. Couples who have frequent sex that’s awesome also tend to build marriages that are awesome. And that feeling of closeness in the bedroom does transfer outside of the bedroom!

But make sure it’s REAL sex, not just one-sided intercourse. Sex biblically is supposed to be INTIMATE, PLEASURABLE, and MUTUAL–it’s not just about “doing the deed”. It’s about both of you together. If you’re not receiving much pleasure from sex, check out The Orgasm Course!

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!

And finally, if there are big issues in your marriage, then deal with those issues, don’t expect sex to fix them. Often we’re told that having more sex is a magic elixir that makes everything better, but that’s not necessarily true. For small problems, more frequency is likely a good thing. For big problems, it can actually backfire.

Really, one of our big findings in The Great Sex Rescue is that we use frequency of sex as a measure for good marriages far too often, when frequency of sex is actually a poor measure.

If we concentrated on two different measures–do you feel emotionally close during sex, and does she feel pleasure?–we’d likely get to WHY sex builds friendship, and to the KIND OF SEX that builds friendship, a lot more quickly!

That was actually one of the big messages of our book–that we need a much more nuanced conversation about sex, because too often we think intercourse fixes everything. The truth? Sex can be awesome, and it can be a balm, and it can help build the relationship. But not all sex is the same. So we have to talk about this well. And if you want to join that conversation, then, of course, check out The Great Sex Rescue!

What do you think? Has having sex ever made you feel closer, even during a period of tension in your marriage? Or has sex made you feel further apart? 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 25 Quick Ways to Show Your Husband Love–or Your Wife Love!

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Grief: Does Time Really Heal All Wounds?

Can you “get over” grief? Can you recover from the loss of a child, the loss of a spouse, or the loss of a parent so that life can become normal again?

A few  years ago I wrote an important post on what grief looks like, and that post has been shared a bunch of times recently on social media, while I’ve also had friends going through some difficult funerals.

It occurs to me that many of you may not have been following me when I wrote this six years ago, and so I’d like to run it again today, because honestly–this teaching about how to picture grief has been one of the most helpful concepts to me personally, and I hope that it will help some of you today, too, who may be grieving the death of someone you love.

There’s been a twitter fight going on recently between those who say that grief always stays with you, and Joel Osteen, a motivational speaker who says “yes, you can get over grief, God wants you to, and if grief lasts more than a few months you’re wallowing” (okay, I’m paraphrasing). The former camp believes firmly that Osteen is being insensitive to those who have endured something huge like losing a child, and does not understand the grief process.

Personally, I fall mostly into the first camp, too.

Yes, it’s true, as Osteen supporters say, that “we don’t grieve in the way the world grieves” (1 Thessalonians 4:13), but that doesn’t mean that we just get over a huge, aching void.

Twenty-five years ago I lost my baby boy.

At 9:30 p.m. on September 3 he was looking like he had turned a corner. The crisis post-surgery had passed. So I kissed him on the forehead (the only place I could reach without tubes), and said, “Good night, Christopher. Mommy loves you. I’ll see you in the morning.” And Keith and I walked out of the Intensive Care Unit and walked home.

At 1:30 a.m. the phone rang. We had better come now, the nurse said, because he was crashing.

When we got to the hospital they were still working on my baby. Fifteen minutes later they brought his body out to us. He was swaddled in a blanket, and the only thing we could see was his little face, with his little tongue sticking out a bit.

We held him and cried over him, and then I kissed him on the forehead and I said, “Goodbye, Christopher. Mommy loves you. I’ll see you in heaven.” And I handed him back to the nurse.

Over the next few days it hurt to breathe.

It felt like someone was stepping on my chest. I had to concentrate to force myself to eat, to force myself to pick up Rebecca (who was 18 months old), to force myself to shower.

But then, I remember about two weeks in, I had a good day. I didn’t cry much at all. And I felt guilty about that. What was wrong with me? How could I be “over” such a loss?

I shouldn’t have worried, because a week later I was a mess again. But slowly but surely those horrible days got fewer and farther between. They still came, but there were good moments, too.

About a month after he died someone shared with me this truth about grief which helped me so much:

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You don’t “get over” grief. Something will set you off–a song, the back of a stranger’s head, a movie–and you’ll be thrown back to that ICU room, feeling everything with the same intensity. But those moments will come less frequently, and they won’t last as long. Instead of a whole day of not being able to function you may just have an hour when you sob and journal.

And those times are random. Sometimes they may be at anniversaries, but often it’s when we’re stressed about something else, or when we’re by ourselves just thinking or even enjoying life. And then it will come–what we’re missing. And it will be so, so sad.

The person who told me this also gave me these words:

When you have good days, do not feel guilty for them. The good days do not mean that you have forgotten the person you loved. They just mean that you are still able to enjoy the good things that God has given you. That love is still there, and there will always be times, unbidden, when that love will manifest itself in tears and in aches and even in rages. But those times will be less frequent. Laughter will return. So enjoy life when you can, and give in to the tears when  you must. This world is broken, and God understands our grief. It’s okay to feel it–but don’t feel badly if you feel it less frequently than you once did.

Those words meant so much to me, and now, every time I have a friend who suffers a great loss, like a miscarriage or a death in the immediate family, I share these truths about the grief process with her, too.

I also shared them in more detail in my little book How Big Is Your Umbrella, which I wrote to talk about our journey with our son. 

And so I wanted to share that concept of the timing of the grief process with you all today. Joel Osteen proves that even those who are Christians don’t really understand grief. Grief is not unChristlike or self-focused. Jesus Himself grieves. But Jesus also laughs.

And one of the most amazing things about this life is how laughter and grief can often co-exist.

Grieving is not ungodly; covering up pain and not speaking Truth, on the other hand, is.

So let’s extend grace to one another when we grieve, and let’s extend grace to ourselves, both when we have a hard time dealing with grief, and when we seem to be able to laugh too early. Neither is a sign that we are far from God; they are both simply signs that we are human. And that, after all, is how God made us.

Are you walking through grief? When life is difficult, we often yell at God. Here’s what He whispers back.

This little book covers the reality of grief, and the promise of heaven can make the grief process easier. The ebook version is really inexpensive, so if you’re having a hard time–I hope this can bless you.

Take me to it!

Does this resonate with you? How do you see grief? Have you ever felt guilty for not feeling sad? 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 FUN Marriage Series: Do We Take Marriage too Seriously?

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