We’re embarking on a new book project, and so we have a new survey!
We hope you’ve all been enjoying The Great Sex Rescue! (And if you haven’t read it yet, you really need to. Even if you don’t think your sex life needs rescuing. So many people have told us, “I didn’t think I needed this book, but I bawled all through chapter 5!)
But now we’re working on book #2 for Baker Books, which will be a book for moms of daughters. We want to talk about how to navigate the teenage years and how to make sure your daughter doesn’t grow up needing to read The Great Sex Rescue later.
So we’ve put together another survey. It’s not QUITE as long as the first one (if you did the first one), though it does come close, so you will need about 15 minutes. And you will find some of the questions the same (along with a whole lot of new ones!).
We’d appreciate your time so much.
And you don’t have to be married or be a mom to take the survey.
You don’t even need to be a Christian! Just any woman who was once a teenager (so that’s all of us!). We’d like a ton of Christians, but if we have a bunch of people who didn’t grow up in the church for comparisons, that’s a good thing too.
Are You a Woman? Take Our New Survey!
Help us write a book for moms of daughters by filling out this survey.
The book will likely be out fall of 2022, and we’ll be using the data to write some articles for peer-reviewed journals as well.
But we’ll have so much fun filling you all in on some of our findings, potentially even before the book launches. And we’ve had so many requests for parenting materials that we’re looking at how to incorporate more of this in the podcast, too.
Please spread the survey around as well! Here’s the link: https://www.research.net/r/baremarriagehs
Thank you so much, and we look forward to analyzing all your results!
Anything in particular you want us to say about raising girls to not need The Great Sex Rescue? Let’s talk in the comments!
I’m a mom of a teenaged son only. He just turned 17!
You can still take it! It’s not about your parenting. Just about your experiences as a teen!
We hope to write something for moms of boys one day, too, but it may be too late for you, Kelly!
Yay, I’m so excited to participate in this one! I’ll be forwarding it to my sister, as well, who is still very much a part of the Christian community and is just starting to come to her own reckoning with purity culture.
Sheila!
Thank you for giving us the opportunity to participate in your survey. Recently (within the last month), I discovered you on the Preacher Boys podcast and have come to enjoy reading your blogs and listening to your podcasts on YouTube. It is so refreshing to know a Christian woman who is willing to speak out against the damaging teachings of purity culture and submission in marriage.
Even though I did not become a Christian until the age of 17 in 1994 and was not immersed in purity culture, I realize now that what I had learned in junior high sex ed (early 1990’s) used teachings that pertained to purity culture. I was told that if you had sex before marriage, sex would not be as good and if you lost your virginity, you were never the same. I brought those beliefs with me into my first marriage at 23. Of course, at that time, I could not put any of these feelings or thoughts into words until now.
I’m enjoying the Great Sex Rescue and learning new things that I hope to take into my next marriage (if that ever happens).
So glad you found me, Laura! And thank you so much for filling out the survey. It’s so helpful! My opinions have changed a ton since high school as well, or even since my own daughters were in high school. Really interesting.
I think a tweak to the survey might be needed for those of us who are currently Christians but came to Christ after high school. The questions after the identifying questions revolve around things happening in youth groups, etc, and there’s no option on every question to say that I didn’t attend youth group because I wasn’t a Christian then!
I’ll tell Joanna!
I was going to give a suggestion for the survey as well. I became a Christian after I graduated from high school, and was raised unchurched and secular. In the survey, in the section where certain teachings are listed and it asks what you thought about these teachings when you were in high school, I had a hard time answering, because I wasn’t raised in the church and had never heard some of those teachings before in my life. So I wasn’t quite sure how to answer. I ended up answering with how I imagined I would have felt if I had heard those teachings back when I was in high school as a nonbeliever. (And of course, many of the teachings were absolutely appalling!) I think it might be a good idea to add an option of “not applicable” or “I did not learn/hear this teaching when I was in high school.”
Thank you so much for all the work you are doing, Sheila!!!! You are truly doing the Lord’s work!!!!
I think the point is that you didn’t necessarily hear them in youth group; they may have just been in the water. So if you didn’t believe them, you can pick “disagree” or “slightly disagree”. so there’s a spectrum that people can choose from! So we’re hoping that if people didn’t hear them and didn’t believe them, they’d just pick “disagree” of some sort!
It still felt confusing because back in high school I neither disagree nor agreed …. just never heard about or thought about it.
Sometimes these kinds of things are hard. WE just ask people to picture 16-year-old you and ask, “would I have agreed or disagreed if someone said this to me then?”
You did it perfectly! That’s just what we were looking for. I know it can be tricky sometimes.
I think the survey should define what a purity pledge is before asking about it. I wasn’t sure if it was the kind where you do it in front of others and maybe wear a special ring (I’ve heard of this type of thing but never experienced it) or if it could simply mean deciding on your own to be “pure” until marriage.
Since people are sharing ideas for potentially tough to answer questions. I live in one country now, but was raised in another. Also, the options for sexual experience before marriage might include some more things like “everything but intercourse”. The question about household chores should include an option to where it depends on other life factors (like right now hubby commutes over 2 hours so I insist he not do much, but when he has been unemployed he did more).
Can’t wait to see what you learn from the data.
Yes, I noticed that too. Right now, I’m doing most of the housework, but it’s because I’m not working so many hours in my job as my husband is.
Also, on the topic of sexual pain, it would be good to include a question around known causes. E,g, sexual pain caused by fear/trauma is a very different thing to sexual pain caused by a physical condition. (Especially if you are going to end up comparing beliefs on sex with levels of physical pain. )
I took the survey last night. I wish I had added a comment at the end! I didn’t think of it then and there wasn’t an option at the relevant section for me. But when I got my period I told mom I was bleeding. The FULL extent of communication was an seemingly aloof “Well you know where the pads are.” She was a nurse and I was very curious when my sister came when I was 3 and brother at 8, and she got very scientific books (real pictures and accurate drawings) the science behind sex and babies, but that was it. So I knew most of the basics. Other than that just don’t do it until married. No reason to see a doctor before then. I now know her period wasn’t normal as mine wasn’t but she’d accepted it all as “normal”. I would literally vomit on first heavy day (bled thru super TP in 2-3 hours) if I did much of anything and would seriously pray it would come on a day I didn’t have to go anywhere. My sister says she learned everything from me.
I’d like to take the survey, but after clicking the link it takes me to a page that says the survey is closed. Is that correct? It’s only been out a week, right? TIA.
Survey closed eh? 🙁
It is now, yes. We got over 7000 respondents, and then we wanted to quit before SurveyMonkey started charging us a ton! thanks for being willing1
Is it possible to still take the survey? I’d love to participate if possible.
It’s closed now! But we’ll be doing another one in September, so keep your eyes out! And if you’re on the email list you’ll hear about it right away.