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Changing the Evangelical Conversation on Sex
18 Plays3 hours ago
This week’s guest, Sheila Gregoire, dives into the findings from her research on how many evangelical teachings around sex have negatively impacted women's mental health. We explore the harmful effects these messages have had on beliefs, behaviors, and self-worth and discuss the long term damage they can cause to relationships, self-perception, and overall mental health.
However, Sheila believes that can change, and she offers hope for healing through Changing the Evangelical Conversation on Sex.
About Sheila Gregoire:
Sheila Wray Gregoire is an author, podcaster, and researcher into evangelicalism and sex. The founder of BareMarriage.com, together with her team she has surveyed over 32,000 people for her books The Great Sex Rescue and She Deserves Better. Her goal is to change the evangelical conversation about sex to be healthy, evidence-based, and rooted in Christ. A graduate of Queen's University, she's married to her husband Keith, a pediatrician, who writes and often speaks with her.
https://instagram.com/sheilagregoire
https://facebook.com/sheila.gregoire.books
https://twitter.com/sheilagregoire
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Transcript
Introduction to Season 3 and Focus on Mental Health
00:00:06
Speaker
Welcome back to Outside of Session. I'm your host, licensed clinical social worker and therapist BFF, Julie Hilton. Season three is all about navigating life's challenges and finding balance. We're continuing the conversations around mental health and I'm once again joined by expert guests who share their stories and tips and hopes to inspire you on your journey of healing and growth.
Sheila Rae Gregoire on Evangelical Messages and Mental Health
00:00:34
Speaker
Hey everyone, welcome back to outside of session. In today's episode, I sat down with Sheila Rae Gregoire to discuss her research and her work on sex and how certain messages and literature within the evangelical community have caused damage and especially how they've impacted women's mental health. But honestly, even if you aren't a part of this faith community, I think that there are messages here that you will still find true for many people.
00:01:02
Speaker
Sheila is a Christian marriage and sex blogger and podcaster and author of several books including The Great Sex Rescue which we talk about in today's episode. Sheila's work is focused on changing the evangelical conversation on sex. A quick disclaimer that topics such as sexual trauma including rape are discussed in today's episode so I always want to make sure that you are just being really mindful and take good care of yourself as you listen today.
00:01:31
Speaker
Sheila, good morning. Thank you so much for being here today. Hi, thanks for having me. um I was just saying that I'm not used to interviewing a fellow podcaster. So this is really, this is really interesting for me.
00:01:45
Speaker
um So far on outside of session, I have interviewed other mental health professionals, so other therapists, other um psychologists, things like that. And this season I wanted to branch out on that a little bit and I kind of like worked up the nerve to just send you a I think a DM on Instagram to say like would you come be on the show because I have followed you for a really long time and I've been a big fan of your work for a really long time. um And you're, you're in our realm, right? Like you were working with a lot of trauma. You're working with a lot of things that people are probably in therapy because of. So I'm just, I'm so happy that you're here on the show and willing to talk to us today. Yeah, it is an important conversation because there's, there's just a lot of pain. There's a lot of pain out there. Yeah, definitely.
00:02:33
Speaker
Well, for those of the listeners that may not know who you are and what you do, why don't you should share a little bit with us about not only what is the work that you do, but how did you get here and how has that evolved over time? um So I have a couple of master's degrees, but I was staying home with my kids and I started to write and I started blogging in 2008.
00:02:54
Speaker
I did that for about 10 years. I got quite big in Christian circles. I wrote a bunch of sex books. But one thing I had never done was read books by other people, because I didn't want to play dries. And I figured they love Jesus. I love Jesus. We're all saying the same thing. um And then one day in January of 2019, I was on Twitter, as
Critique of 'Love and Respect' and Sheila's Research
00:03:13
Speaker
it was called then. And people were debating whether they needed love or respect. And they were referring to Emerson Eggerich's best-selling book, Love and Respect. And I thought to myself, you know what, I have that book upstairs, that is a great way to procrastinate. So I went and got it and I opened the first chapter and it just changed the trajectory of everything we do because I was horrified and I was calling people on my team and reading paragraphs to them and saying, we gotta do something about this, you know, because he said,
00:03:43
Speaker
If your husband is typical, he has a need that you don't have. That need was physical release. There was not a single word about intimacy. There was not a single word about her experiencing pleasure. Just that if the husband doesn't get physical release, he'll come under satanic attack. and it was It was so horrific because this book has sold millions of copies and is the most used marriage study in North American churches.
00:04:06
Speaker
So um we've decided to do something about it and we've we've done the largest studies of evangelical women's marital and sexual satisfaction that have been done to date. So we've surveyed almost 40,000 people, 20,000 in our survey for our book, The Great Sex Rescue. And then we've done other surveys since um to just try to uncover the harm that is being done by a lot of our messages and and just to encourage people to come back to what Jesus really said. Absolutely. The the Great Sex Rescue blew my mind. You know, I think I had been following you for a while and and just like um reading some of the information that you were putting out and when I finally read the book, it was
00:04:50
Speaker
Mind-blowing for a ah lot of reasons. First of all, the study that's in the book is um just crazy. Not only the amount of surveys that you were able to complete, 20,000, is that what you said? ye um like That's so impressive. But also the length of the study. This wasn't just 10 quick questions for people to fill out. This was a very in-depth study that people had to have devoted a lot of time to completing. Yeah, it took it took on average about 40 minutes. Yeah.
00:05:20
Speaker
And what do you feel like you were surprised about from that study at that point? um What really surprised me was the gravity of the harm that the obligation sex message does. um I knew, I wasn't surprised by a lot of other things, but I was very surprised by the gravity of that and also how highly correlated that was um with the incidence of sexual pain among women.
00:05:45
Speaker
Because we've known in the literature, we've known for 50 years that evangelical women suffer from vaginismus at about two and a half times the rate of the general population. But we didn't know why. And the obligation sex message, the idea that a woman is obligated to give her husband sex when he wants it.
00:06:02
Speaker
which is heavily taught in in most evangelical resources, is one of the biggest contributors to that stat. Yeah, and I can't remember if if you specifically talk about this in the book or if I've just seen it on some of your other online work, but I have definitely found this as a trauma therapist that um When the the messages is the same whether it's sexual child sexual abuse Which is what I work a lot with or the obligatory sex that you're talking about in marriage. It boils down to the same Feeling that my body is not my own. It's not it's not for myself Yeah, um and and I don't have a choice. What's being what it's being used for what's being um Done to it
00:06:49
Speaker
And so when you when you talk about like the damage that's done in this research and the gravity of it, that coincides so much with the work that I do of like, yes, when we feel like our body is not our own, that's trauma. Yeah, exactly. And you know, sex is supposed to be this deep knowing, right? Like God created sex to be a deep, intimate knowing between two people.
00:07:08
Speaker
But if we're saying that she's obligated to give him sex, then we're saying her wants, her needs, her desires are irrelevant. So sex isn't a knowing, it's an owing. And it becomes deeply impersonal and dehumanizing yeah because her agency is taken away from her. And the body just interprets that as trauma. And what's interesting is it interprets it as trauma even if the husband is not the one giving that message. Like you could be married to the best guy in the world,
00:07:36
Speaker
But if you've read all of these books and you feel like you don't have a choice, then your body can still interpret marriage and sex as trauma. Oh, absolutely. um and I'm glad you bring that up because I think that a A lot of times I think women who do have amazing husbands that really do love them and respect them, I think that they don't even realize that they carry this burden um because the way they would describe their marriage is like, we have a good marriage. I love him so much. i I want to do this for him.
00:08:14
Speaker
But then when their body is responding in a way of telling them that it's not safe and so they're having all of this pain, it further reinforces the idea that like I'm the problem here because I love him and he's not making me feel obligated. Again, like consciously I don't, he's not forcing this on me. He's not forcing me to feel obligated. um But my body is responding in this way. So I just need to push past what's going wrong with my body And they're not even realizing that absolutely what you just said is that the message might not be coming in the moment from him, but it's for some women decades.
00:08:51
Speaker
Yeah. Of bad information. Yeah. And if it doesn't show up in pain, it can show up in, you know, a harder time reaching orgasm. It can show up in lower libido. It can show up in a whole variety of ways. But when we take something like sex, which is supposed to be completely mutual, which is supposed to be about her just as much as it's about him, and we turn it into something which is focused on him.
00:09:16
Speaker
then that is essentially a threatening message to her because it's saying you don't matter and you get to be erased and you just are a body to use. Yeah. So a lot of your work is through through your books, your blogs, your podcast. It's just bringing awareness to how harmful this is, right? Like that's your miss mission. yeah Yeah. Like we like to say that we want to change the evangelical conversation about sex and marriage.
00:09:42
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. um And so through that process, I know that you are talking with a lot of women every day through the studies and through I'm i'm sure many different avenues. And I imagine that they're sharing with you a lot of painful stories.
00:09:59
Speaker
um of what their life experience and of sex has been. um what What do you feel like some of those effects that you've observed on how it has impacted women's
Impact of Evangelical Teachings on Women’s Mental Health
00:10:11
Speaker
mental health? And I think some of it might be a little bit obvious, but especially anything that has surprised you through your time in this arena.
00:10:20
Speaker
I think i mean some of the saddest parts is just the dynamics that can that can form when both a husband and wife have grown up with this idea that sex is a male entitlement and a female obligation because that does just breed fertile ground for marital rape as well. And I hear so many stories of marital rape.
00:10:42
Speaker
um over and over again, a lot of women where their first experience with sex was on their wedding night where they were basically raped. Yeah. um And that's hard. That's traumatizing to read message after message about that. Yeah, absolutely. um But I think there's also a deep depression and a deep sense of being unloved or unwanted within the church or the spiritual family too, because if you feel like God is the one saying that your needs don't matter, the God is the one saying you need to offer up your body to your husband, no matter what, that leaves you feeling like God isn't going to protect you.
00:11:24
Speaker
oh And I think one of the biggest things that I see is a sense of spiritual, ah spiritual trauma and just spiritual betrayal um and a lot of grief and awful lot of grief yeah ah because God, Jesus was supposed to be their safe space. And instead, Jesus is the one who's upset at them ah if they don't give their husband everything that he wants.
00:11:53
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. I think it can be really hard to, to really tie those things together to realize that what you are experiencing is a result of some of these harmful messages, right? um Because in and the work that I've done with I do some religious trauma recovery, that kind of thing, as as well as like um complex trauma, those kind of things. And what I've realized is that when we have these lived experiences, we end up internalizing a belief as well as emotion that is tied to it. And so with the beliefs, the cognitive distortions that we're talking about, it's what you said of like, I'm not good enough. Or um somehow if this is happening in my marriage, it must be my fault. So we ah
00:12:44
Speaker
for ah For a lot of women that's what gets internalized and so I think that that's where a lot of the depression comes from is because you start to believe these things and if if at home with your spouse you're getting these messages of I'm not good enough and then you're going to church and you're kind of getting from your same community the things of like, yeah, you you should be doing these things and it just reinforces over time like, well, I guess I'm the only one that's experiencing this. It's very isolating. um I'm the only one that is is not on board with this or is not enjoying this, right? So not only do you internalize the belief that comes with it,
00:13:20
Speaker
But then you also kind of carry all the emotion that comes with it too so if you have a right and I'm and i'm sure in your work when when women are starting to. Learn from you and and read your books and and get some of these revelations from it like they're probably feeling a freedom in a lot of ways hopefully and we're gonna talk about what that looks like in a little bit.
00:13:39
Speaker
um But I'm also wondering if like a lot of the emotion that maybe they have a right to place on like things like anger, anger at these, you know, harmful teachings. Until you realize that the teaching is the problem, as long as you believe that you're the problem, you're going to internalize the feelings too. So it's going to be ah anger in yourself.
00:13:59
Speaker
disappointment in yourself, like all the emotions that come with, you know, I'm, I'm a failure, or there's something wrong with me, you're also internalizing all of those emotions, which is highly disruptive to your nervous system, too, right? Absolutely. Here, let me give you some numbers to that. Okay, they can they can help that. and I love that you're such a let me back this up. I've got the receipts for it. Yeah. So when we asked, so we after our survey of 20,000 women for the great sex rescue, we did survey 3000 men for our book, the good guys guide to great sex.
00:14:29
Speaker
um And we asked men basically the same questions we asked women. So we asked both men and women, hey, does he do enough foreplay? Right? So we said to men, do you do enough foreplay? We said to women, does your husband do enough foreplay? And in marriages where she frequently reaches orgasm, you know, over 90% of men said yes, 88% of women said yes.
00:14:51
Speaker
But in marriages where she doesn't reach orgasm, 71% of men said, yes, they do enough foreplay, but so did 52% of women. That's really interesting. Yeah. So she's not reaching orgasm, her but more than half of, more than half of women in that situation are saying, but it's not his fault.
00:15:17
Speaker
Right, so do you interpret that those numbers as she's still internalizing? It's not because he ah didn't do enough foreplay. It's because I'm the i'm the problem. i' Yeah, my body's broken. I just don't and enjoy sex enough. I am sexually inadequate in some way. Yeah. And you know, that's a very easy dynamic to get into because if you grew up in in an evangelical family or Christian family and you know You did want to wait for marriage for sex um and there you are on your honeymoon and you've been told your whole life this is going to be amazing and you go from not doing much of anything to all of a sudden full blown intercourse.
00:16:00
Speaker
um When we asked women how they felt about their honeymoons, the most common word that was said was bewildering. ah yeah right So it's not a great experience, but he seems to really like it. And he often wants sex more than she does, not always. In in the large minority of marriages, she wants sex more than he does. but You know, he often wants sex more than she does. It's so easy for him. And so the it's easy to make the assumption that um sex should be the way that it works for him because he's having a great time and it is working for him. So why isn't it working for me? So I'm the problem and he just must be more sexual than me.
00:16:43
Speaker
And they've just never figured out like the sexual response cycle. They've never figured out how her body works. And with all of these messages about how she's supposed to do it anyway, and most of our messages, remember, do not talk about the fact that women want sex too, or can enjoy sex too. It's just, you know, women need to understand men's emotional needs, what or sorry, men's physical needs, what women really need is the emotional side.
00:17:07
Speaker
That's interesting what you mentioned too, um, about like all the messages and, um, just about purity culture and how I had a conversation with a client where we're doing some of this work not long ago when we have started to zoom out a little bit to say, like, let's get a ah broader picture here and really putting some language to her preteen years, even almost like primed her.
00:17:38
Speaker
to internalize all of this in so many ways. um like all the All the messages were, you aren't to be trusted. And not just about your body. um like Yes, there's plenty of that with purity culture, but you're not you're not trustworthy to make big decisions in your life. um You always need to go to someone else. And and I'm not talking about mentorship. like That's awesome. I'm talking about,
00:18:04
Speaker
blatant messages of you can't be trusted to make decisions for yourself. And so women kind of aren't coming into the honeymoon with this um confidence and sense of agency to say like, no, way I i'm can trust my intuition and something doesn't feel right here. So we need to slow down or we need to pause or we need to um stop because this doesn't feel good. And so it's like this perfect storm coming into it.
00:18:33
Speaker
where you're you're kind of like primed to internalize yourself as being the problem. Yeah, exactly. And you don't know how to
Marriage Dynamics and Gender Stereotypes
00:18:41
Speaker
speak up. you know we did Another one of our surveys we did was of 7,000 women to look at their experiences as teenagers in church and how that and impacted them long term for our book, She Deserves Better. And one of the things that we measured was the belief girls talk too much. So we asked women, did you believe that as a teenager? Do you believe it now? Was it taught to you? And you know over 50% of women said, yeah, I believe that as a teenager, that girls talk too much. And so our voices are a problem.
00:19:09
Speaker
And when you believe that as a teenager, once you get married, even if you don't believe it today, you're far more likely to do all the housework. You're more likely to have trouble speaking up when you're having an argument. You just feel and you're less likely to enjoy your sex life because you feel like my opinion is not as important. What I think is not the main thing. And you haven't been taught how to express your opinion because you've been told you are a problem. You need to make yourself smaller.
00:19:37
Speaker
Yes, make yourself smaller. Your voice is not just a problem, but it's a it's a bother. I hear that a lot for women that they were just um taught that their their opinions were a bother to others. Yeah. And their needs are a bother. So if you have a need, then that's the imposition on other people. And when you combine that with the teaching that we've had about how huge a need it is for set of sex for men, you know, if they don't get sex every 72 hours, they're going to lust or they're going to watch pornography or they're going to have an affair and you need to satisfy his needs because you're his only lawful sexual outlet. um And all all these messages that are everywhere.
00:20:20
Speaker
then it's pretty easy to feel like I i can't speak up because this is his greatest need. And no matter what I need, it is nothing in comparison to this huge need that he has.
00:20:35
Speaker
You know, I have to give you a lot of credit um that you can remain so professional in talking about these things because I'm trying not to gag over here. You know, um like I'm sure it's taken a lot of practice and I don't know that off camera it's always this way, I'm sure. um But it's just, it's so much more than heartbreaking and it's so much more than infuriating. It's disgusting in so many ways.
00:21:02
Speaker
it really is and it's done so much harm and you know this this is one of the hardest parts for us personally as we wrote this book because it these aren't just it isn't just me there's two co-authors on um on my book so one is my daughter Rebecca Lindenbach who designs most of our surveys and does a lot of the writing with me and one of them is our statistician Joanna Sawatzky who runs all the numbers for us and I think I Joanna and I were a little bit naive going into this Rebecca was not my daughter wasn't at all but um We kind of thought that at least some of the authors that we critique would listen because we thought that people cared, you know, and we thought they were doing this out of ignorance and not out of malice or any other reason. Um, and it turns out that nobody, nobody has cared.
00:21:51
Speaker
You know, we looked at 13 of the best selling sex and marriage books in the evangelical space. And, and then we looked at more for, she deserves better. And not a single person has recanted or apologized. They've just doubled down and threatened to sue us. Um, yeah and that was, that was hard. wedding Yeah, it it was just, it was really hard on your faith, you know, because you You just feel like, okay, how can people who claim to know Christ and how can people who are writing these books supposedly for Christian marriages not care if they're doing harm? That's hard. That's hard to process. Yeah, that's very hard and to swallow for sure. Well, and I would imagine that for you, the the way you keep going is when you hear from the people that it's helped, right?
00:22:45
Speaker
Yeah, I figured this is just a grassroots movement. we We're never going to get noticed by the big names in evangelicalism. Like Focus on the Family has scrubbed me from their website. So I had done some interviews with them before we started this work and now they've scrubbed me from their website.
00:23:01
Speaker
um Other authors have plagiarized our work and used our wording but refused to credit us because they don't want to draw attention to what we're doing. um So, you know, there's a lot going on behind the scenes. But our work is spreading because counselors love us because they know that this stuff is harmful and they need healthy resources.
00:23:22
Speaker
um people are reading it and finding freedom. A lot of men are reading our books and finding freedom, which we weren't expecting, but we've been thrilled about. um and And it is spreading as a grassroots movement. We had a really funny review by the Gospel Coalition in Australia. The Gospel Coalition in the US s won't touch us, um obviously. But it a pastor wrote, it wasn't a bad review either in Australia. And he said, there's this book that is is kind of like an underground bestseller and all these women are reading it even in our most conservative churches and as pastors we really need to pay attention because she brings up some good points.
00:24:00
Speaker
And I thought, Yeah, so it's spreading underground in Australia. That's awesome. yeah You know, i'm I'm really glad to hear that men are reading it and that they're interested in this. I know that one of the things that I really appreciated about The Great Sex Rescue is that it, it gave me a different perspective as well as like, um what messages are we giving our boys, our young men?
00:24:24
Speaker
And how harmful are those messages? And, you know, I've got a ah teenage son and it very much made me just insanely protective of him, of I do not want him to grow up with these messages that he's dangerous. Yeah.
00:24:41
Speaker
And that's really, that's what the Every Man's Battle series did, right? Like that that series has sold four million copies. And it said when it comes to sexual sin among men, we got there naturally simply by being male. And it said men just don't naturally have that Christian view of sex. And ah throughout the books, it makes things that are predatory, illegal. yeah ah All of those things seem absolutely normal for men to do.
00:25:09
Speaker
yeah And they they list so many things that are actual crimes and never come from that. you know They'll say, maybe you've driven your rental car to a gym parking lot and masturbated to the women going in and out, which is an oddly specific um is anecdote. But like that's exhibitionism.
00:25:29
Speaker
right You know, and they they they just treat it like it's all normal. um And it's it's a very disturbing book. And they're they're they're twin. um And I'm going to get to your son, how how we talk to teenage boys in a minute. But just to let listeners know, like their only answer to sexual sin is number one, to transfer all your sexual energy to your wife. So instead of objectifying all women, you get to objectify just one.
00:25:59
Speaker
um And she and it it literally calls her the methadone for your sex addiction. So, you know, when you feel your temperature rising, she can be like a merciful vial of methadone for you.
00:26:12
Speaker
which is so dehumanizing. um So that's one. And then the other method to stop lusting is to bounce your eyes. So when you see a woman, not look at her. so And it literally says, you know when you when you go into an office building, remember that receptionists are usually female and they often bend down. And so as soon as you go into an office, look away from the desk.
00:26:36
Speaker
um And this is this is how you're supposed to manage lust. They say that you're supposed to make a list of your enemies to defeat lust. And one ah one potential enemy is your female coworkers. wow but So it talks about women as your enemy. ah Recently, mega church pastor Josh Howerton in the Dallas area gave a sermon where he talked about men, if you get, if you go outside the into the church parking lot and there's a shady little girl in a miniskirt there after the service, run forest, run, cause you're no match for that enemy.
00:27:10
Speaker
what it's So, you know, they're literally called. little girl's enemies, female coworkers enemies saying you have to bounce your eyes. And it's like, Jesus never refused to look at women. Jesus chose to truly see women. yeah And what is wrong with these men that they are refusing to see the women who are right in front of them. But what we do to little boys is we tell them,
00:27:35
Speaker
that you were born to objectify and dehumanize women. This is the way God made you. And this is gonna be your lifelong battle. And then we conflate. And then to add insult to injury, we conflate noticing with lusting. So we make that we take these little boys think that as soon as I see a pair of boobs, I have now lusted after her and I've sinned. And so God is asking me to do something that's impossible.
00:28:00
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And I also think that they're, you know, you've you've got a small percentage of the population that, I mean, they have really problematic behavior.
00:28:11
Speaker
and And it's lumping all men together. And i I think what's really hard about that is that this is, like I can't imagine, especially again for like a ah young man to be told, well, yeah, I noticed a girl so that must make me a monster. Like I can't imagine, you know, I'm talking before about what gets internalized for women of being the problem.
00:28:37
Speaker
What's being internalized for boys if they're saying like, oh, I must be ah like the guy that that is masturbating in the parking lot of a gym. We're we're all the same because I noticed a ah pretty girl. Right. And that's not the same thing. Exactly. But what does it do with what does it do to them to be lumped in? Yeah. And and we we know that to a certain extent, like we found that when teenage boys grow up believing the every man's battle lie, they are much more likely to have a lifelong problem with pornography.
00:29:06
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. You know, whereas they're told that they they're told that they would. Yeah. Whereas whereas if you grow up as a teenager, not believing that even if you do watch porn as a teen, it's you're you're far more likely to quit.
00:29:23
Speaker
Hey everyone, just wanted to take a quick break and say thank you so much for all the love and support you've shown to outside of session. Make sure you subscribe so that you never miss an episode and share with your friends who could use some inspiration. Now back to today's episode.
00:29:42
Speaker
So you're seeing a lot of depression, a lot of disfa dissatisfaction in marriage. Um,
00:29:50
Speaker
A lot of anxiety, do you think? um like How else is it presenting? Yeah, a lot of anxiety, um a lot of abuse. abuse you know and Abuse is a tricky thing because some people are going to abuse no matter what.
00:30:07
Speaker
But I also think that a lot of our teachings create abusers who wouldn't otherwise abuse. yeah um And I know that because I have talked to so many men who, when they realize what they've done to their wives, they repent.
00:30:22
Speaker
immediately. A lot of abusers will never repent. That's actually one of the big things that we know, right? Is that an abuser is someone who can't accept responsibility for what they've done, or who refuses to accept responsibility for what they've done, who gaslights, who Darvos, who tries to transfer all the responsibility for the negative dynamics onto their spouse. But I have seen so many marriages where the husband was coercing the wife into sex, where the husband was domineering. But then as soon as he realized that
00:30:55
Speaker
Noticing wasn't lusting that he didn't have a right to use her body whenever he wanted that God didn't provide her body to be an outlet for his lust. He realizes what he did to her and he feels such incredible remorse. And I've seen that again and again, because a lot of guys actually think that they are being good to their wives when they use their wife's body instead of lusting. Wow.
00:31:21
Speaker
Cause they've been taught, like if you've been taught, noticing is lusting. And so whenever you go out in public and you see an attractive woman, you've sinned against your wife. And you also think, well, God gave me my wife to be my sexual outlet. Then the more I can have sex with my wife, the less I will sin against her when I'm in public. Gosh. And there's a lot of people using their wives and coercing their wives into sex without realizing how much they're harming their wife.
00:31:50
Speaker
Now there's also a lot, let me be clear, there's also an awful lot of marital rape that is just plain marital rape. And those guys do not repent. I'm just saying that we have created a situation where I think we've created abusers who wouldn't otherwise be abusers.
00:32:02
Speaker
I agree, because you're talking about shame, right? And shame is not a good motivator for anything. But if we are creating in men this sense of shame that doesn't have to be there, because he could have learned that, oh, that was that was just in an observation. It wasn't lust. But instead, if he feels like he has sinned against his wife, wife then that is that's creating a ah shame in him that he's trying to correct.
00:32:28
Speaker
And that the way that he's been taught to correct that is we'll go have sex with her and then it's coercive. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's why so many women have told me, you know, they read the great sex rescue. It clarifies so much about their marriage and then they ask their husbands to read it. And it it it's like, if he gets it, their marriage is going to get on a pretty good track usually. But if he doesn't get it, that's really a sign that there's something seriously broken. Yeah.
00:32:55
Speaker
Well, that leads to my next question. I was gonna ask like what are you saying is in improve it helping to improve mental health?
Healing from Harmful Teachings
00:33:02
Speaker
um Like now that you notice where all of this pain is how do we work towards healing?
00:33:10
Speaker
A lot of it, like you said, you you see a lot of women in your office who haven't realized how much these teachings have impacted them. And they think the problem is just with me. I'm too uptight, I'm too ashamed, I'm too, you know, whatever it might be, I'm broken. um And they don't say, well, actually, that's a result of what you were taught. This is totally normal and except in in going along with what we would expect from someone who was taught all this as a teenager.
00:33:39
Speaker
And so you need to give yourself a huge hug. You need to give little you a huge hug yeah and re-parent yourself. um And a lot of women have been doing that as they as they read the Great Sex Rescuer, she deserves better and and find their voice and say, no, I never should have been treated like my body was a problem. um I never should have been treated like a sin management tool for the men around me. I never should have been blamed when I was 12 for having a chest that grown men in my church might lust after. Yeah.
00:34:14
Speaker
you know That was not my fault. And so no wonder I have such a weird relationship with my body. Yeah, I love that because I do a lot of inner child work. um And i have I have seen a lot of that, especially even with a few clients have gone back and said, if you could go back and and teach that lesson in your youth group or whatever it was, like, what's the information that you would have wanted to hear?
00:34:41
Speaker
Um, how would you want it to have been presented to you? And for, for a lot of women, they're doing this work because they have preteens, like their daughters have become 12, 13 years old. And but they start to realize like, Oh my gosh, I don't want my kid to get this same message. And so they are having to ask themselves, well, but if it's not explained this way, I don't even have the language for how, for what I do want her, which is why you wrote your second book? Was that the second book? she Yeah, she does. Well, I mean, I've written a lot of them, but it's the second big one. She deserves better. Yeah. Yeah. And so a lot of women are doing that in therapy, if they're going back and realize I'm like, yes, the first step is to realize that the problem was not you, it was what you were taught. And I think that that's a huge
00:35:25
Speaker
huge first step because um It's such it's such a relief to realize like I wasn't the problem But that brings a lot of grief with it It does a lot of a grief of um i'm i'm grieving for my younger self for having carried a burden that never should have been heard hers and it comes with a lot of anger um righteous anger it comes with a lot of sadness for your younger self because you realize How much was lost of, honestly for a lot of young girls, it's just the right to be a kid because when you're 12 and you just want to be places with your friends and and act like a 12 year old, instead you're getting lessons about how you need to um cover up your body because there are all these predators around you. Like that's scary and that's robbing you from just having having like a normal childhood in a lot of ways. so there's
00:36:21
Speaker
There's a lot of grief that comes with that. um But there's a lot of freedom that comes with it too. Yeah, and I would even say they weren't just warned. You need to cover up because his predators around. They were warned. You need to cover up or you're the predator because you are the one who's going to cause him to do something like Dana Gresh, who wrote and the bride wore white. She wrote a ton of books in purity culture and she wrote secret keeper girl, which was for girls eight to 12. It's now called true girl. It's been rebranded.
00:36:53
Speaker
um But in that book, she told girls about modesty tests they should take and this thing and we're we're talking about something which sold like 500,000 copies that this is not a small thing. um And so she instructed girls, raise your hands in the air. And if you see any belly, that's bad because bellies are intoxicating.
00:37:11
Speaker
And then the conversation continues as to what intoxicating means. And intoxicating is how God made women's bodies and that they have the ability to make a man go out of control like he's drunk. So she told eight-year-old girls that their bodies have the ability to make an adult man get out of control. So in that situation, he isn't the predator she is because she did it to him.
00:37:40
Speaker
And I think when women realize that this was what they were told, there's a lot of grief, but there's also a lot of anger, anger at their parents, anger at their church, and um even anger at God that can take a lot to work through. Yeah, absolutely. And I know that your goal is to to change the conversation, the evangelical conversation on sex. But I know that a lot of the work that I do is helping women to just deciding what they need that relationship to look like going forward. Because for a lot of people, they do walk away from the faith. And that that's,
00:38:24
Speaker
That's ah a hard pill that the church needs to you know swallow and and take a look at is that this this is having lifelong impacts on women. And and again, like even if they even if their marriage does take a turn and get on a wonderful track, they're still acknowledging the hurt that was done.
00:38:46
Speaker
Yeah. And there's still a lot of hurt that shouldn't have been, that shouldn't have been in their lives. That's still a lot of years that was stolen from you. You know, a lot of years of terrible sex, a lot of years of painful sex, a lot of years of self doubt. Yeah. So, so when it comes to making change, you're seeing a lot of women, probably first step is to have an una awareness around this. Um, and then what comes after that? Is it,
00:39:17
Speaker
working to get your partner aware of this as well? I think before you even get to that, there needs to be a feeling deep inside, a firm belief that you matter. o Because a lot of women at heart do not feel like like they matter.
00:39:35
Speaker
Everyone else's needs matter more. You know, there's no way that I could try to set boundaries about sex because he needs it so much. And so this is just something I need to give him and whatever I'm feeling doesn't matter. Um, and you can't fix anything until you realize, no, I do matter. And we can't have real intimacy until I let myself show up in authenticity.
00:40:04
Speaker
Yeah, that's a really good point that better sex is is not the real change. It's great. We want that. um But even if you could figure out how to have more enjoyable sex, if there if there's not that foundation being built of I matter as a human as my you know, that this that my worth is there, you know,
00:40:30
Speaker
Good sex is not going to fix that. No, exactly. And and it's you're not going to get it anyway. This is pretty unlikely to get it until you believe that you better because you can't, you can't really change the dynamic in your marriage with your husband. If this has been the dynamic where sex has mostly been for him for years, that's a very difficult thing to change until you firmly believe that you matter.
00:40:54
Speaker
Yeah, I think that I'm really glad we you touched on that because this is a lot deeper than some people might think it is. So even if you can have conversations with your husband and say, um actually, I do feel pressure. I do feel obligatory. And even if you guys could have conversations to where um you have better communication about those things, you're right. Like if the underlying issue for years has been my needs don't matter, even if you can somehow figure out ways to voice those specifics, if you don't start to work on changing what's underneath, the place that you're operating from is going to be very different. Yeah, now the good news is I have I've talked to a lot of women where they didn't believe that they mattered, but their husbands did. And so their husbands went out of their way.
00:41:42
Speaker
to show their wife that she mattered. So there was one particular couple that that we featured in the great sex rescue where I think we call her Karen um or Kay, I don't care where what we call her something with a K. um And she had had four kids, their sex life had always been really good. But with each child, she had postpartum depression progressively worse. And after the fourth child Her orgasms just stopped, but she was still initiating sex every 72 hours you know for a couple of years after the fourth child was born because she was supposed to because he needed sex so much. And finally, he was just like, you know you just you're just not enjoying it. like I don't want this. What's going on? And she said, well, I know that you need it. o And he said, no, hold on a second. I never want to do something that you don't want to do ever. So from now on, like even if we're in the middle of something,
00:42:35
Speaker
tell me if you're not into it and we will stop and don't ever initiate if you don't really want it. And over the next few months, he proved that to her, you know, like they'd be in the middle of something and she'd be like, no, it's just not, it's not going there for me tonight. And, and he would just roll over, give her a kiss, go to sleep and it was fine. And so he proved to her that she mattered.
00:42:56
Speaker
And her orgasm started again and her libido came back and they've settled into a new routine where they have sex about every 72 hours. But, you know, but this time it's because she wants it. Yeah. And it's totally different. And so, you know, that, that's something that's really beautiful. I think when you're, when you're spouse can be part of that healing process of, of letting you believe and showing you that, no, you do matter. Yeah, absolutely.
00:43:23
Speaker
I wanted to ask this question on a more kind of like zoomed out big picture. The work that you're doing to change the kind of the evangelical conversation on sex.
Advocating for Equality in Church and Marriage
00:43:38
Speaker
I guess this comes from a place for me of of like before when you were saying all these people who are not interested in this, it it boggles my mind. Cause it makes me wonder just like, why, why would you not be interested in this? And it makes me wonder if they feel like it is ah a threat to the structure of the family. I'm not, I'm not sure. I can't speak on that, but I'm, I'm curious what your vision is. Like, how do you feel like the health of the church, the health of families, the help of couples, the help of women,
00:44:14
Speaker
if If people are coming around to this and learning more, how do you say that actually like advancing the health of the church? um I think one of the reasons that the church has held on to these ideas about sex is because the church has held on to the idea that men and need to be an authority over women.
00:44:35
Speaker
And we know that that is a very destructive dynamic. yeah um And we've shown that in our studies as well that couples who act out that dynamic have a much higher rate of divorce. John Gottman found that as well. He's the world's latest leading marriage researcher, um you know that when couples operate where he makes the final decisions in the marriage, they have an 81% divorce rate.
00:45:00
Speaker
um The good news is that most couples who believe that don't act it out. Right. So that's the good news. But because the church wants men to be in authority, then they have to teach that men and women are fundamentally different because there has to be a reason that God put men in authority. And so they tend to teach a lot of very um dichotomized views of men and women, which makes things worse. So the idea that men want sex and women don't.
00:45:28
Speaker
um Men are visual and women aren't. Women are emotional and men are logical. um And they men want respect and women want love. ah I'm gagging again.
00:45:40
Speaker
And so much of our marriage resources are wrapped up in that. And I think and and and they don't work. That's it's just highly problematic. And I think one of the reasons that we are so wedded to this kind of stereotypical advice is because we're also wedded to hierarchy in the church and in marriage.
00:46:03
Speaker
um And so my plea is that we get back to what Jesus said, you know which is that it's the Gentiles who run after power and authority, and it's not supposed to be that way with you. Right? Cause the son of man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. And that we're supposed to have the same mind that was in Christ Jesus, that he didn't consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing and took on the very form of a servant. And that's, that should be all of our goals is instead of worrying about hierarchy and authority, we should be worrying about how can I show up in authenticity? How can I serve? yeah
00:46:40
Speaker
yeah you know, how can I be real? And how can I let my spouse be real? And how can we truly know each other without all these gendered masks of trying to be something that we're not? um And I think if we can get back to that, I think we'll see a lot of healthier churches. What I'm also thinking about oh just that that people are going to be like marriages are going to be happier.
00:47:11
Speaker
there's gonna be lots of really good mutual sex. I think that there's an an assumption that if if we give women the right to say no, that means that they're gonna withhold. And it's like, ah again, it goes back to your point of not believing that women have sexual desires. We do. you're It's not gonna be ah less frequent sex or um constantly being told no. I think that women will,
00:47:38
Speaker
be so much more present. And I think that it will be ah more enjoyable. And i i I like in your book, when you talk about frequency is not a good indicator of um a good sex life. I think that there's also that too, like I'm imagining couples who understand intimacy and not just intercourse.
00:47:56
Speaker
And how that will spread over to so many different areas of life of you know one of our one of the biggest things that we need in life is to be seen and known and Sex is a big piece of that and so if you are not feeling seen and heard because you've got all of these fears and obligations and everything going through your mind while you're having sex, you're you're not feeling seen in that moment. That's shutting down the opportunity for so much intimacy in a marriage. And so I'm imagining like, if we can get people on board with this, you're going to have couples who know each other better and love each other better. And a church made up of those couples is going to function better.
00:48:34
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And I think you're absolutely right that the reason that they double down on obligation sex is they're so afraid that if they don't give that message that women will just never have sex with their husbands. um And what we found is that I'm going to list five things really quick. Okay. So when women frequently reach orgasm, when there's high marital satisfaction and mental load is shared,
00:48:57
Speaker
when the couple feels emotionally close during sex, when there's no porn use in the marriage, and when there's no sexual dysfunction, frequency pretty much takes care of itself. and libido takes care of itself. So it's like without obligation, as long as long as you've got a healthy marriage, libido tends to kick in. yeah yeah the and And so if there's no libido, you gotta ask yourself what's going on. And maybe the reason they don't feel emotionally close isn't because of dynamics in the marriage. It could be trauma from past sexual abuse so that she just doesn't experience sex or he doesn't experience sex as something that's emotionally bonding.
00:49:33
Speaker
um It could be that they've believed all these toxic messages and so sex is seen as something ugly. Like it doesn't always mean there's something wrong with the marriage, but it could still be impacting your sex life. And if we can get rid of those things, yeah, we open couples up to so much flourishing. It's so much better. yeah And I think that, I think that's a beautiful focus to keep it on is that, yeah, we got to tear it down.
00:49:58
Speaker
but you're trying to build something back up that is just as beneficial to men, right? Like we're not trying to take anything from you. Oh yeah, like ah most men do not want sex, pity sex. Most men do not want pity sex or do sex. They want their wife to be enthusiastic, but they just don't even know if that's possible.
00:50:22
Speaker
And there's all these dynamics where they don't know how to talk about sex. They assume that she's not into it. She assumes she's not into it. The body doesn't work. It's just all a huge, huge mess that needs to be untangled, but it can be. Yeah, it really can be. Yeah.
00:50:39
Speaker
Um, one more question before we wrap up. I just wanted to see if, if anybody is listening today and they are maybe at the start of this journey, um, maybe they haven't even really had some of these revelations yet, but, but they know something is, is off and this is resonating with them. Um, what tips would you offer on where to start making those changes and how to take care of their mental health through this journey? Yeah. Um,
00:51:06
Speaker
I think you got to realize it's a grieving process and there's going to be anger as you walk through this. And that's, that is hard, but it is so, so necessary. Cause when you get to the other side, there's so much freedom. So you got to trust yourself. You know, if things have been not working for a long time, there's a reason you're not crazy. And it's not a problem with you. It's a problem with ah the dynamics in your household. You're growing out the stuff you were taught, maybe the dynamics in your marriage,
00:51:36
Speaker
but it doesn't mean that you're broken. And so trust your gut and read stuff that that doesn't shame you into doing stuff anyway, um but instead teaches you how to listen to what your body is trying to tell you.
00:51:53
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And know that you're not alone, that there are a lot of women figuring this out right now. Oh, yeah. And that there's a lot of safe spaces just to start having these conversations so that you don't have to do it alone. Yeah, exactly. And I hope that's what the Great Sex Rescue does for a lot of people. um And I think that that's that's some of the nicest feedback we get is when people say, like, this didn't just bring me back to my husband, but it actually brought me back to God. And that's pretty amazing.
00:52:20
Speaker
can Yeah, absolutely. Sheila, thank you so much again for being here today. This has just been wonderful. Yeah, thank you for having me. Yeah, and I will definitely have all of your information linked in the show notes so that people can find you and they can find your book, find your resources. um Yeah, I just appreciate you so much and all the work that you do. Yeah, thank you.
00:52:46
Speaker
Thanks for tuning in to this episode of outside of session. Remember while I am a licensed therapist, this podcast is not a substitute for individual therapy. The contents of this episode are for educational and entertainment purposes only. If you are having a mental health emergency, please dial 911 for immediate assistance or dial 988 for the suicide and crisis lifeline.