It’s the one year anniversary since The Great Sex Rescue was published!
So Rebecca and i want to talk about what we’ve rescued and how it’s been rescued–plus Elizabeth Fisher Good joins us to talk about fighting sex trafficking.
Or, as always, you can watch on YouTube:
Timeline of the Podcast
0:50 Knix bras have changed Sheila’s life!
3:30 Happy birthday to us!
8:10 Joanna joins with her thoughts
13:30 Encouragement from the book’s readers/sales
20:00 What surprised us?
30:00 Our visions for the future
34:45 Interview with Elizabeth Fisher Good
55:40 Closing Encouragement
I Love Knix Bras!
Like seriously love them. They fit amazingly well; they’re so comfortable. They look better than my underwire bras, but there is no underwire! I bought three over Christmas and NEVER wear my underwire ones anymore.
I’m an affiliate for Knix, and when you buy their bras or underwear or clothing I get a percentage. I want to make enough to start paying to transcribe this podcast! And I’m only promoting stuff I absolutely love myself.
Main Segment: We’re Celebrating The Great Sex Rescue!
Rebecca and I talk about what delighted us, what surprised us in the last year since The Great Sex Rescue was out, and what we hope for the future (as in we’d love for the book to be obsolete in ten years because all the harmful teachings have been eradicated!).
And I share how the saddest moment for me in 2021 was the publication of Married Sex. Gary Thomas read The Great Sex Rescue a year before it came out, and he read it while he was writing his book.
And he used so many of our phrases and wording (without attribution, by the way), to make him seem healthy. But then the anecdotes and teachings said the opposite. So he’d say that porn is bad, but then he’d tell an encouraging story of a woman who sent nude photos so that “neurologically” her husband would be drawn to her nude body instead of other women’s nude bodies. Like really? And he’d say how obligation sex is bad, but then he’d say that sex should feel like a sacrifice, as if you’re feeding a newborn baby.
So we felt like we taught him how to sell toxic ideas using “safe” language that dresses it up.
That’s why we still have more work to do. Many in the Christian marriage space don’t get it yet (in fact, of all the marriage bloggers I used to hang around with and guest post for and vice versa, only Ngina Otiende from Intentional Today gets it. Everybody else is still supporting Love & Respect type teaching). (See our podcast featuring Ngina!).
What if you’re NOT the problem with your sex life?
What if the messages that you’ve been taught have messed things up–and what if there’s a way to escape these toxic teachings?
It’s time for a Great Sex Rescue.
What Can We Do to Fight Sex Trafficking?
Elizabeth Fisher Good is simply an amazing woman. She spent years building up a foundation that helped fight sex trafficking in the United States and helped rescue those trapped, and now she’s also turned to creating church curriculum to help churches recognize sex trafficking and stop the underlying messages that contribute to the problem.
She’s adamant about defeating shame in the church that makes us push these things underground. I love her passion, and check her out at Free with E!
Things Mentioned in This Podcast:
- The Great Sex Rescue! Pick one up for yourself, or buy one for someone who works with couples and can get the word out. We need your help to keep up the momentum!
- Support this podcast by purchasing Knix products, either in the U.S. or Canada
- Elizabeth Fisher Good and Free with E!
- Our articles this week on how men can fix their sex lives, and who believed the toxic teachings more
- Our issues with the book Married Sex
How can we raise awareness about sex trafficking? And how are you celebrating the one year anniversary of The Great Sex Rescue? What’s most encouraging to you? Let’s talk in the comments!
Sheila Wray Gregoire
Founder of To Love, Honor and Vacuum
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Part way through podcast. Two things.
Up to number 19 on Kindle? Cool! And you didn’t even have to use ResultSource. Nice!
So TGSR covered the four worst problems with Evangelical, Male-centric sex teaching. Are there plans to write a supplemental book for some of the mid-range and low-range offenders?
We’re working on our mother-daughter book now, and we’ve got a bunch of teachings aimed at teens especially which actually did far worse things. The stats in the mother-daughter book are even starker, honestly, and more scary. The things we do to teen girls!
I will echo what others have said- tGSR is helping my relationship with Jesus. Growing up in the church, I absorbed many of these teachings even though I never directly read the toxic books. Church friends did, and their advice was usually out of these books or from sermons that were heavily shaped by these books. So I just assumed that God did not like women as much. And it hindered my faith.
My husband, having absorbed these teachings in similar ways, has hurt me many times over (now he is aware and sorry, and at least trying to do better) but that made me see the link between Jesus the Groom and His bride the Church as a hurtful, rather uncaring one because earthly husbands are basically taught to use their wives. Thank goodness we are both working on changing how we view God’s love and creation now!
I’m encouraged by your work because you have shown me, via this blog and tGSR, that Jesus does actually care about me. That I am worth more than simply a prostitute, cook, and maid for my husband. That God, the Great and Divine Creator, did not take the time to create me and all these poor girls (and boys) only for the purpose of being disrespected, unloved, and abused. I have worth, and it doesn’t matter if a spouse sees that or not, but I can and should change myself to not allow that anymore.
If the church’s purpose is to bring glory to God, then why are we not standing against such satanic actions?!? How does being polite and not calling out bad teachings, abuse, etc., bring Him ANY glory?? How does turning a blind eye to the plight of these poor girls and boys being ensnared by sex trafficking display the love of God? How does sending a nude pic to my spouse- making me his “only” porn option- bring light or dignity to the institution of marriage that God created? It is cognitive dissonance with a whopping side of sexual abuse, which is exactly what many of these toxic books are grooming in us.
I apologize I keep commenting on these posts lately… I think it is part of how I am working out the hurt the evangelical church has caused me. I’m so thankful for a forum such as this.
Nessie,
I know the feeling. I used to think that God must not think much of me because I’m a woman and even though I did not grow up in the church, I felt like I had to buy into those teachings because if I didn’t then I was not being a good Christian. Thankfully, I have not read many of those toxic books and if I got started on them, I could not finish them. My mom would tell me to STOP reading these books. I’m glad I did but I picked up L & R last year after I discovered this blog. I was curious about those toxic parts of the book and when I picked it back up, I was appalled. I remember reading that book years earlier and had to quit because I thought it was very chauvinistic. I found it odd to for EE to say that men need respect, but women want love. I want both! Why should anyone have to choose between the two? Eventually I had to throw that book in the trash.
Yeah the part about the sex trafficking kinda plays into something I’ve been wondering about: Generational, messed up secrets. I know my parents are very proud of themselves for breaking generation sins, but I wonder if they are hyper focused on some(divorce, cussing) but not noticing the others.
They both focused on staying Married no matter what, and trying to still love each other openly for us.(one side has 6 stepmoms and the other had one)
But equally, if not a bigger problem is our generational tempers! Most of us don’t flare up much, but when we do, we lose control badly.
(Which is why I believe showing all the emotions and how to handle them, is so very important!)
And then sex….sex hasn’t been handled very well because they’re too proper to talk about it. But that also means that the innappropriate childish play, never really gets talked about or dealt with healthily. It’s always just, “no we don’t do that”. Which does nothing to prevent future curiousity or explaining the body feelings. (Which is a big deal with little kids!)
So I’m planning on trying to see if they’ll take the ace score…so I can maybe better understand why they had such obvious failures in an otherwise great parenting. (I learned about ace score after being married a while and it’s the best for understanding my tendencies! I’m thankful that we had no alcohol in the house ever, because knowing myself (and siblings) now, I could’ve slipped into that addiction.)
From above…
> > How does being polite and not calling out bad teachings, abuse,
> > etc., bring Him ANY glory??
Because this preserves the APPEARANCE of glory. And, sadly, that’s more important to some than the reality. It’s also often easier to do rather than improving the actual situation.
The pastor at our previous church was constantly using the term “perception” as a way to decide our behavior more so than biblical concepts. That was one of the prevailing reasons we eventually left. But if one says it convincingly enough, it “sells well” to many. Didn’t matter how dirty the cup’s inside was so long as the outside gleamed.
Sheila, you know what I have been noticing? I am finding words And phrases that I’ve only ever heard/seen on the blog all over the Internet. I am seeing the words like misogyny, orgasm gap, gas lighting, libido even vaginismus, marital rape, obligation sex, and the list goes on. So maybe I am just noticing? Or maybe the seeds are being planted. Yes maybe your work is being plagiarized, Maybe your language your words are even being miss used that’s sad but I guess I just wanted to look at this from a different viewpoint seeds are being planted that’s how it starts!
That’s kind of how I’m trying to see it too! To be fair, the orgasm gap wasn’t our phrase; it was mentioned in a TED talk once by someone else, but now we talk about it all the time, so I think we’ve popularized it! Obligation sex is ours (duty sex was more popular before), and the other words weren’t really ours, but tend to be talked about mostly in abuse circles in the church and not in the main circles. I’m hoping we do talk about them more!
A bit off topic, but the phrase “gaslighting” once appeared in an episode of the old TV show M*A*S*H*.
The others, though, seem to mostly have started from here.
I think gaslighting was originally an Alfred Hitchcock movie? But it’s become a lot more popular in the last ten years?
Close – the 1944 “Gaslight” was directed by George Cukor and starred Ingrid Bergman, Charles Boyer, and Angela Lansbury (her first role!).
Why are single people into ypur stuff? Well from one single giy with a lot of porn hangups it is because you honestly seem to care and you match that with science. You seem like lovely folks and well ypu just seem to love God.
Thank you, Codec! That’s high praise indeed!
Single here, and I love Sheila’s work because it destroys all that purity culture nonsense I was suckered into in high school. The stuff about men lusting and having to play sexual gatekeeper (especially with all the modesty crap) was bad enough and I’m still trying to deconstruct that one. However, the one that impacted me most was if you do X, Y, and Z right (stay a virgin, wait for the right guy, don’t be the one to pursue), God will bring you your husband and you’ll be married young. Guess what? My 20s are behind me and I’m still wondering where the heck my husband is. You have no idea how relieved I was to read Camden Morgante’s article on the purity culture myths and to know she had the same struggle as me. It’s just discouraging for young women to be told that if they keep their virginity and wait, they’ll get a knight in shining armor. The more I read about what the evangelical culture has done, the more it seems like these poor girls end up with a jerk in aluminum foil instead.
Honestly. At least from my experience guys are scared of talking to girls. They are scared of breaking their heart or their own heart or both. They fear taking things to far. They fear that they may be seen as weirdos for the hobbies they enjoy. They fear being seen as a pervert or being a pervert. They know deep down that being vulnerable hurts, but what to do with your feelings? It can feel embarassing. So people turn to porn. Porn doesnt laugh at you or make demands. It hurts you but it numbs pain. That is what it is like.
And it’s honestly a shame that guys – truly good guys – are so afraid to talk to girls. I honestly think that the toxic evangelical teaching that men are lustful monsters has contributed to this.
This is a problem in and out of christian circles. Another part to it is the fear of meeting someone who will hurt you. Catfishing, character assassination, humiliation heartbreak, etc. It is easy here to tell folks about different issues but that is because people are trustworthy. I know women deal with porn too. I wonder if the rationale for porn use in girls is all that different for why guys use porn. I think it would be similiar.
You speak of good guys. It feels a little odd. I like helping people. I want to be a good guy.
It is also worth noting a lot of guys can talk about say D&D with a girl or about music or things like that. Talking about things like love sex or vulnerabilities can be a lot harder. You dont want to ruin something nice if you have it.
I’m 45 and still single (divorced 20 years). When I got divorced and rededicated my life to the Lord, I unknowingly bought into purity culture and read books like I Kissed Dating Goodbye, When God Writes Your Love Story, And the Bride Wore White, etc. I wanted to do things right the second time around and not have premarital sex like I did before. I tried to do ALL the right “Christian” things so I could get my knight in shining armor, but still hasn’t happened. Sure I believe in saving sex for marriage, but I don’t believe that a woman cannot initiate and leave ALL of the pursuing up to the man (meet halfway in the middle is what I like because to me, that’s mutual) and I don’t think I should save my first kiss for the wedding. But, those books made me think that if I kissed a guy I wasn’t married to or I initiated contact with a guy that I was doing it all wrong and God was not going to bless me.
I remember asking the question, “What if the guy is too shy to make a move?”
The response from some women was this: Well, then he’s not the one. If a man is interested in you, no matter how shy he is, he will make the first move. OR “God designed men to be pursuers. If he doesn’t pursue you, then he’s not into you.”
To some extent, I do believe this but every man is different. For a woman to initiate does not mean the man is passive which is what I’ve been told. “You don’t want a passive man.”
Pursuing someone who is not interested sounds exhausting. Telling someone you are interested is difficult so having someone reciprocate kindly sounds like it would go well.
“I don’t believe that a woman cannot initiate and leave ALL of the pursuing up to the man (meet halfway in the middle is what I like because to me, that’s mutual) and I don’t think I should save my first kiss for the wedding.”
THANK YOU. Thank you for calling this crap out. All it does is make a person feel dirty for having feelings and for wanting to kiss the one they love. For Pete’s sake, kissing before marriage is not the same as sex before marriage! And if you want a novel – not a help book, but a novel – that pushes this very nonsense in spades, look no further than “Inklings” by Melanie Jeschke. Every single thing you mentioned in this quote is used in that novel to beat the reader over the head with.
Hi Laura,
I appreciated reading your comments. I am married, but I am seeing things in a much different light, thanks to Sheila and her podcasts and books. I also read, “No More Christian Nice Girl…” and “Jesus Feminist”. Both books are phenomenal and really take a look at women and how much Jesus LOVES women! We are important and we do need respect and love and should be valued.
This is just my two bits of unsolicited advice to you regarding dating or making the first move, etc: God has made you special with your own personality. Don’t CHANGE your personality to fit in a nice neat American culture Christian female role. (If you are sinning, that is different, I am not talking about sinning here). If you are naturally a take charge, organized, lets get the show on the road person, then that is the person you need to be and the man will be attracted or not attracted to that. Otherwise, it would be fake and not you. I have lived my whole marriage trying to be sweet, quiet, obedient, demure, servant, perfect mom and wife, Bible Study leader, women’s leader and so on and so on and so on. All to the death of me, because I believed, thanks to the evangelical teaching on women, that I had to do everything.
Well, you know what? When God says in the Bible that we each have a part, we each have a role, that means we each have strengths and weaknesses and I can’t be the whole body, I might be an arm or a leg or and arm and a leg, but not everything. That means I can’t be everything in our home either. Husband and wife are to work together as one flesh in the Lord. Lots of give and take.
Be you who God made you to be in all your glory in His glory. Don’t try to ‘be’ someone God didn’t make you. Your beauty will shine out of that. Does that make sense?
Sheila has opened my eyes to new life and confidence not just the sex part, all parts. There is no knight in shining armor, just a humble man trying to stumble his way through life afraid he isn’t good enough for you. None of us are good enough, but we can lift each other up and love and encourage each other.
Best wishes and blessings to you.
Still ‘Love and Respect’ is being recommended! I was watching Christian youtuber Kian Wolfgang and she was recommending it: ‘https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JMBUZLEvE4
It’s ironic because she and her husband are constantly talking about how their marriage is SO HARD, and they’re constantly talking about all their issues (many of which sound typical of people struggling with the power dynamic books like L&R promote). Like I just feel really sorry for her – it seems like she’s drenched in all these harmful teachings and it’s not going well. But instead they just keep trying harder to fit into the mold these books push.
I wish there was a way to get The Great Sex Rescue to her, and to her followers! Any ideas?
I just took a look at the comments on the video and a bunch of people are mentioning my book and pushing back! So that’s great. I think we just need to keep doing that. You could always mention in the comments that you’d like to send her one? See what she says?
Thanks Sheila! Yeah it looks like more people are commenting and she said she’s gonna check out your book!
Also I just wanna note, that I wasn’t meaning to bash her or her husband. They both actually seem like really lovely, godly people who are just struggling a bit with the dynamics prescribed from a lot of these teachings. I also don’t think she would be wanting to cause harm herself by mentioning books like L&R, she herself has been in abusive relationships before so has advocated for women who are in these sorts of situations.