Baptist News covered The Great Sex Rescue–and had a great interview with a pastor!
One of our frustrations with publicity for The Great Sex Rescue is that mainstream American Christian outlets (magazines, websites, radio shows, etc.) won’t cover it.
In other countries, the opposite is the case! Faith Today, Canada’s evangelical magazine, jumped on Great Sex Rescue immediately and had a review and then later a favorable article. Premier Christian Network Radio in the UK had me on several shows, and Woman Alive UK featured The Great Sex Rescue. Big Australian Christian radio shows have also featured us.
But in the U.S., we’ve mostly been featured on hundreds and hundreds of small podcasts, and in the more progressive media, like Fathom Mag, Relevant, and Sojourners. The biggest mainstream Christian radio shows won’t touch us, nor will the biggest Christian magazines (though Kate Shellnutt from Christianity Today has mentioned us several times in other articles!).
When you do the largest study that’s ever been done of Christian women’s marital and sexual satisfaction, you’d think more news outlets would be interested in it. But in the U.S., there’s largely been an embargo in mainstream media, likely because we challenge the evangelical industrial complex by calling out some of our bestsellers and holding them to account.
So I was thrilled when Baptist News decided to do an article on our book after the one year anniversary.
After explaining all about the book, and our study and our findings, they write this:
A Dallas-area minister said his encounter with The Great Sex Rescue last year transformed his preaching and teaching about sex as well as his relationship with his wife.
“All of a sudden, we became very well aware that we had heard and believed some things that were not based in truth,” said Brian Treadaway, senior pastor at Vertical Church in Ovilla, Texas.
One of those things was a classic belief identified in the book, he said. “For many, many years it was just an understood principle that every man struggles with lust and therefore you might as well adjust and give in, and that you are always going to battle with this. I just believed that was going to be my lot in life. From the wife’s side, the subtext was that it was her responsibility to provide intimacy for the husband so he won’t lust. And if he does, it pretty much is your fault.”
Treadaway said he had taught from some of the books identified as red flags in Gregoire’s project. “I taught all those things, that this is just the way it’s going to be.”
But that all has been transformed since reading The Great Sex Rescue, he said. “It has revolutionized how we counsel and how I preach and teach.”
And it has deepened his marriage, as well, he added. “It led into a lot of open conversations and transformed our relationship. Some of those discussions were difficult and painful, but they became very joyful and fruitful.”
That’s just so encouraging to hear! And please, read the whole article. It’s great (and super encouraging for us).
A number of people have sent me Pastor Treadaway’s sermons when he’s mentioned the book, too, and it sounds like the book is having quite the impact in his church! They’ve also used our FREE 8-week video study that goes along with the book in a woman’s group, and I heard this from one of the leaders:
My Pastor’s wife and I led a study on The Great Sex Rescue with a group of women. We used your 8 week video course to help us facilitate conversation. We also had it at her house to make it more comfortable and inviting. We made every lady a binder with printouts of the questions and room to write notes, so they could keep everything in one place. When I tell you this was a life-changing study, I mean it. All of the ladies came from different backgrounds in life, but had all heard the same messages growing up. This really opened up their eyes to the reality that there is something better for their lives as wives. We even had a mom/daughter duo taking the class together! It was just absolutely beautiful to see how God moved in these ladies and how their minds were turned on. They were actually able to start thinking about these issues for themselves! We are planning to do the study again soon with another group of women.
I love hearing how The Great Sex Rescue is transforming whole communities. And I love that it’s spreading so much, even if big websites keep up their embargo on us.
Because freedom always wins out! And God is doing such a big movement right now in the evangelical church, of which Great Sex Rescue is only a very small part. But God is shaking things up, because we’ve gone so far off course with how we treat each other and how we view sex and marriage and power. And I think the shaking will continue until something new is birthed and people have a safe place to worship Him in spirit and in truth once again.
So thank you to Baptist News for covering this! Thank you to Vertical Church for being so open and humble. And thank you to all who are spreading the word!
And if you want to lead a group of friends through our 8 week study, you can access it right here!
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.
Sheila Wray Gregoire
Founder of To Love, Honor and Vacuum
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Yay, that is wonderful news!!
‘And it has deepened his marriage, as well, he added. “It led into a lot of open conversations and transformed our relationship. Some of those discussions were difficult and painful, but they became very joyful and fruitful.” ‘
The longer your book is out and as more people are able to put the hard stuff into practice and make real, healthy changes to their relationships (which takes time), the more it will gain momentum and expand into other spheres of influence. Many people (especially the “powers that be”) have their backs up and choose to stick with unhealthy yet familiar teachings.
Many of us are wary of “marriage” resources due to past bad experiences. Even I was a bit trepidatious at reading your book even though I was familiar with your passion for leading women and men into marital freedom via this website.
The male-centric teachings offer immediate “results”- sex, but with longer term damage to repair. You offer longer-term results- healing of body, mind, and soul, which *includes* great sex, and a closer relationship with Jesus. That usually takes time, God’s time. So very glad TGSR team of writers has this milestone though finally! Congratulations!
I am reminded of Diane Langberg’s observation that “Much has been said throughout the centuries about what it means to be female. Men have said most of it.”
This should be an all your book covers; finally, the voices of 20,000 women to combat the centuries of men telling us about ourselves.
I mean this tongue in cheek, but Sheila, you’ve exposed just how terrible conservative evangelical men are in bed and you expect them to platform your book??? I do find it hilarious (and you’re probably relieved) that they cannot write horrible reviews of it like they do of Kristin and Allison’s books. I mean, what are they gonna say, criticize you for not giving enough credit to the whopping 48% of husbands who do care to satisfy their wives?
I have been reading Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex for a research project recently, she published it in 1949 yet the overlaps with today’s evangelical culture are disturbing, from how ignorant the young women are on their wedding night and how traumatizing the experience often is to how they owe their husbands “bed-service” (sex) and “house-service” (housework). The following line I came upon yesterday particularly reminded me of your work: “Many women, indeed, become mothers and grandmothers without ever having experienced pleasure or even arousal.”
Oh, wow, that’s a good line! I should read that book.
It’s enormous (my edition has over 700 pages), but if you want the gist of what your own research also shows: Part II, Volume II, Chapter 5, called “The Married Woman.”
Think about it. If your Sunday school class has eight couples, then statistically speaking, one of the wives seldom or NEVER orgasms (12 percent, per TGSR page 41).
And men “can’t tell” when their wives orgasm? Or when they’re even aroused? Hmm, methinks the men dost need to spend a bit—well, OK, a LOT—more time on the clitoris-endowed member of the marriage, and maybe, just maybe, a little less time making sure he get his.
How many of these authors, pastor, and teachers subscribe to the “servant leadership” model for Christian men? And how many are failing massively to be servants to their wives and lead their wives to the same sexual pleasure that the men more or less take for granted?
It sounds a lot more like the “leaders” are too busy getting “servants” to serve. But that must be OK, because that’s what men have decided, and of course men being specially endowed with the gift of teaching, which apparently is actually just a penis and not a gift of the Holy Spirit given to whomever He wishes to give it to, have all the knowledge and answers for this and every other area of life.
This is excellent news, and it shows how your work, your teaching, and the GSR will grow organically — one church, one pastor, one congregation at a time. Don’t worry about the bigger, more mainstream organizations and media outlets. The longer they refuse to see the truth, the more foolish they will appear. It’s sad that in the meantime, they will continue to harm marriages (for both men and women), but given time, they will be forced to come around or lose their following — and the money that goes with it. I predict they won’t like that.
I’m Catholic and have never even been exposed to this type of teaching about sex. The only thing I was ever taught about sex as part of religious training was: Don’t do it before you’re married. (They were really, really, really serious about that, but that was it.) I can’t understand why anyone would want to tell women “you have to…” “you owe it to…” etc. From what I have read in multiple sources — and with my own husband — is that husbands would like a wife who is enthusiastic about sex. If you tell her she “has to…”, that takes all the fun out of it. Like “you have to eat your spinach” or “you have to scrub the bathtub” or “you have to get your wisdom teeth extracted.”
Anyway, Yay Sheila! Yay team!
I’ve said before on a separate post, it amazes me how the Catholic church – which the evangelical church has slammed for DECADES – has a far better grasp on sex and marriage, while the evangelicals are pushing these toxic teachings. Like I’ve said, it’s one reason among many why I get so angry whenever I hear and see evangelicals slam our Catholic brothers and sisters.
Congratulations!! That’s a really great article and I love the pastor’s story.
American evangelicals are often too tied up in the culture. Sixty years ago, the anti-Christian sexual revolution tied two things together: women’s rights and abortion/premarital sex. This is nonsense: there is nothing about abortion that helps women be rocket scientists or be in marriages where they matter. But the sexual revolution proponents tied them together, and in response, American evangelicals tied them together, too.
Sixty years later, they are still stuck in it. We all joke that Sheila is actually Catholic, but the real thing is that she’s Canadian and doesn’t have a church that is primarily reacting against the culture. You can’t lead people to Jesus by walking backwards, staring at the culture and saying “none of that.” You eventually have to turn yourself around and figure our what God is asking of you.
Well said!