Rebecca
Welcome to the BareMarriage Podcast with Rebecca once more. And not Sheila, because Sheila is still having a fantastic time helping out with her new baby granddaughter.

Keith
Yeah

Rebecca
And so dad and I are filling in this week.

Keith
Yep, we’re doing a question and answer section for you.

Rebecca
Yes, because you all like when we do those. Every single time we do one, you say that you love it.

Keith
And people have been asking for one for a while.

Rebecca
Exactly, we haven’t done one in a really long time. So we had so much stuff to talk about that we wanted to talk about. And so now we thought we’d do what you wanted to talk about. What a concept.

Keith
Yes, yes.
And we got a lot of questions from people. I think one of the things that’s interesting too is the podcast has been around for a long time now. And so I think some of these questions have actually been answered in real depth, but it was like a hundred episodes ago. So it’s nice to get to some of a quick recap. Also two things that are going on with us. There’s a lot of personal questions. Yeah, so we’ll talk a little bit about that. Which is really nice that you guys get to hear that because you don’t always hear that personal aspect. Unless you’re part of the Patreon group.

Rebecca
Absolutely, because every now and then I go feral on the Patreon group and just post whatever the heck I’m thinking, whether or not it should be posted and the patrons get to hear that. So if you would like to hear the non double checked by the rest of the team thoughts of Rebecca and my mum.
In all seriousness, the Patreon is the place on the internet where we are able to kind of let loose a little bit and have some community for ourselves as well. Instead of just creating a great community for you guys. It’s also nice that we get to feel connected to you. So if you want to support what we do and give us a very tangible way to keep paying our employees. And keeping the lights on. The Patreon helps with that so much. You get perks from as low as five dollars a month and at eight dollars or more you also get access to the book club that Joanna is running currently.
She’s doing a series with Connor that actually is not about a book but is about an album of music. To which Connor said it’s about physics and therapy. Sign me up. And so they’re doing that currently. That’s the kind of stuff that you can get for eight dollars a month. Exclusive content from the bear marriage team behind the scenes information from our happily never after series. Which is currently being scheduled to be released all of the long form interviews that we did for that. And some reaction videos from me and Joanna to never seen before clips from Emerson Eggsrich. To our people.
Other people have clearly seen these clips. And if you’ve done the conferences you’ve clearly seen the clips. But they didn’t make the cut for the three hour docuseries.

Keith
I know. There’s so much material.

Rebecca
Exactly. So if you want to support us that’s a fantastic way to do it.
We’d love to see you there and we’d love to get to know you better.

Keith
That was great. So ready to get questions?

Rebecca
Yeah.

Keith
We’re trying to do it fast.

Rebecca
Yeah.

Keith
Like because you and I tend to pontificate and talk a lot.

Rebecca
I know

Keith
So we’ll try and keep it snappy. Okay. So the first one is what are your suggestions or resources to help understand logical fallacies?
That’s good. You want to do that one?

Rebecca
Yes.
Okay.
So when I was growing up you guys did the textbook. Fallacy detective.

Keith
The fallacy detective. That’s right. It was cute.

Rebecca
It had a little wiener dog on the front that was wearing a little sleuth coat like Sherlock. Magnifying glass.

Keith
Yes. Very cute.

Rebecca
I don’t know if that one in particular is still in print. But it was really helpful.
But what I would say is there’s so much information just available for free on YouTube. And so many people have put out like whole crash courses on how to identify fallacies or they have whole series out where they do a video on each type of fallacy. And they walk you through like how to spot it.
Examples where it’s not present. Examples where it is present. And I would just Google it. I know that sounds like a silly answer.

Keith
No, but that’s what I was going to say. There’s so much information there. I mean, intro philosophy courses, you know, have it. But you don’t have to take it at a university. You can find that sort of stuff online. What are the typical logical fallacies? I just want to say it’s not the question, but it’s I do think it’s important to mention.
The reason why it’s important to look at logical fallacies and understand them is not just so you can see them in other people’s arguments, right?
Rebecca
Yes.

Keith
Which is why, which is what people think.

Rebecca
Yes.

Keith
But also so you can check yourself. Am I being logical? Exactly. Right?
Because the reason logical fallacies, quotes work is because people want to believe something.
And so something that may be fallacious logic, if it lines up with what they want to believe, it allows you to go, ah, and you latch onto it and you believe it. But if you’re if you know logical fallacies, you can go, wait a minute.
I still believe this, but I know that that is not proving this because that’s not logical in itself. And it helps you to think.

Rebecca
And you can also notice when the things that you believe are actually not backed up by logic.
And then you can reassess, wait, is this something that I should believe or something that I need to reevaluate why I believe it?

Keith
Yeah. You know, because there’s some things that I believe that aren’t based on logic. Yeah. Right? Like faith is not based on logic. It’s based on faith.

Rebecca
Exactly.

Keith
So as people of faith, it’s okay, you know, but but at the same time to say that I can prove, yeah, women shouldn’t be leaders because that or prove that this person or that person, because of these things, it’s better.
So so learn about logical fallacies online, lots of information.

Rebecca
When it comes to Googling, easy things to Google, because I know people say,
okay, but googling, but there’s so much information search intro to logical syllogisms with examples with examples and then search intro to logical fallacies with examples.

Keith
So syllogisms is the actual building blocks of logic.
Yes. Like if a then b, if b then c, therefore, if a then c, you know, that kind of stuff.

Rebecca
It takes talking and turns it into math.

Keith
Yeah.

Rebecca
It’s so fun.

Keith
And we’re already, we shouldn’t keep going because we’re going to just talk all day about that.
Rebecca Exactly.

Keith
Yes. Next question. Okay. Next question. Hold on a second. I mean, I got to, I lost them here.

Rebecca
That’s okay.

Keith
Okay. What is your advice for young adults looking to find or build a healthier church community? It’s so daunting.

Rebecca
It is daunting. Yeah.

Keith
That’s, you want to, do you want to try to take this one?

Rebecca
Ah, yeah. It’s tough.

Keith
You know, I, I would say the biggest thing is, is to, if you want to be in a healthy place, then you need to look at how that place is acting and what that place, what that place is doing. Inside the evangelical sphere, it’s all about having the right doctrinal statement. And if a person believes this, then they’re not a Christian. Or if a person accepts this political view, they’re not a Christian. Or that’s what’s, and it’s all about the purity of your belief. And I think that’s how that, that’s really quite sad because, I mean, the Bible literally says, show me your faith without works. And I will show you my faith by my works. Now, our works don’t save us, but our faith is meant to show itself and it’s,
in our works. So if you’re going to a church that has all these great programs and has a wonderful service once a week, but it’s not really touching the community. It’s not doing things in the community. Like, to me, that’s not healthy. Like if, if a church is doing, it’s being the hands of feet of Jesus in the community. And there’s some things in that group that I’m like, well, I don’t believe that. Like that person doesn’t even think that Jesus was physically resurrected. You know, like, I’m like, you know, as an event, as a, as a fundamentalist, I would be like, oh my gosh, I can’t go to church with someone like that feels comfortable. But it’s like, that doesn’t matter if they’re being the hands of feet of Jesus to me as much. Like, I know what I believe about it.

Rebecca
Yes.

Keith
But if I want to only go to a church that has a purity of all these beliefs,
I think that we rule a lot of churches. And we just ended up trying to find a church that looks exactly like ours, except has these healthy things that we want as well.

Rebecca
Yeah.

Keith
But we’re not understanding, well, maybe the reason they don’t have these healthy things is because this is shackling them down.

Rebecca
I think you’re saying is don’t be afraid of the diversity of thought and
yeah, kind of get out of the mindset that if someone disagrees with you, they’re a threat to you.

Keith
Oh, that’s good.

Rebecca
Because I think that’s what Evangelism often teaches us.
And so then we miss out on the beauty of the diversity of Christianity and of the different kinds of ways. I have so many people in my life who are Christians who believe things that I think are just factually completely incorrect and are terrible translations and understandings of the
Bible, some that are too far on the conservative side, some that are too far on the more progressive side in terms of things.
But the thing is when you can connect on, but we’re all on the same mission.
I think that can be really helpful. I also would say my quick lo and that I would say is if you’re in a church that taught you that the rest of the Christian world that doesn’t believe the Bible the same way they do,
don’t really believe the Bible and don’t really care about the Bible and don’t really follow Jesus, don’t measure whether or not another church is a strong Bible believing church by the metric of the church that failed to act like Christ. So if don’t use the measuring stick that was given to you by the damaging church, because you’re measuring it by the standards of the church that did a bad job. And that’s not logical. And you can find very orthodox churches. And I don’t mean orthodox to turn like Eastern Orthodox. Orthodox is not like the idea of these are like the apostles Creed, Nicene Creed, like the core doctrines of Christian, they take those very seriously in a wide range of denominations. And don’t be afraid to try something new and just please don’t measure it by the measuring stick
that you were given by a church that caused you harm. Because it might be that you’re missing out on a great, beautiful community experience because
you were taught to be afraid of them by people who mistreated you.

Keith
Yeah.

Rebecca
I think that’s all I have to say on that.

Keith
That’s a good one. Okay.

Rebecca
We’re working. We’re working so hard to be quick guys.

Keith
That’s a whole podcast.

Rebecca
Okay.

Keith
Is being a complimentary church a deal breaker? Is there a way to serve in peace together?

Rebecca
Yes. Okay. So it’s a deal breaker and there are ways to serve in peace together.

Keith
Okay. Good. So go ahead.

Rebecca
That’s a whole podcast. I’m kidding. No, we can do this. We can do this.
Okay. Two minutes, Rebecca. Oh, we got this.
For me personally, I would never be willing to be under the spiritual leadership of someone who does not believe that I am a full person in Christ.

Keith
Yeah.

Rebecca
That is simply a deal breaker.

Keith
And despite what complimentarians say, if a woman is fully equal to a man, only in so far as there’s no men around, right?
But as soon as like, if there’s men around them, they need to defer to those men, then they’re not really equal to those men.

Rebecca
Exactly.

Keith
You know, so they may say that you’re fully equal, but you’re not, right?

Rebecca
Yes.

Keith
So what would you find there?
Rebecca
Okay. So I just had to make sure I had her name right. I did have her name right. Okay.So there is this amazing, the first authorized female preacher who was Black in the US was Gerina Lee.

Keith
Okay.

Rebecca
She has some of the most amazing essays I’ve ever read. And by the way, she lived in 1783 to 1864.

Keith
Yeah.

Rebecca
So there were Black women getting ordained in 1864. Like before 1864, guys.
So let’s, let’s catch up. But she said, if a man may preach because the Savior died for him, why not a woman seeing that he died for her also?
And her point was, am I not like, is a woman not a person? That was her whole point is like, because we say that because Christ died for man,
he is able to preach, that was their mentality back then. So we’ll then our women not humans, right? Anyway, I love her. She’s amazing.
And I want to do a whole podcast on Gerina Lee at some point.

Keith
That’s good.

Rebecca
She’s just fantastic. And she’s just beautiful writing.
And I love her. Really, really fantastic person in church history.
But I would say that is a deal breaker in terms of Christian community for me. When it comes to service, I think it’s very different.
If our church was doing an event where we were trying to just meet the tangible needs of the community, and there was a church that was complimentary, that wanted to join, that promised
to not like proselytize and inappropriate ways, because the problems that these things go together often, right?
Where it’s like feeding the hungry comes with an asterisk often with churches, where they believe that women should be in leadership.
There’s often very evangelistic mindset when it comes to meeting tangible needs versus just meeting tangible needs and believing that people are not stupid and they know that churches are open on Sunday and they want to show up, they will, right? Like, I think there’s a thing.
I don’t think that that would not be a deal breaker for me in terms of working together in peace as long as they are able to respect the women that are in leadership in other churches, and not to denigrate them and treat them differently and be disrespectful. If they honestly see it as we see it differently, but because you have this position, I’m going to
treat you as you have this position, but in my church, that’s going to happen.
That would be fine. The problem is that happens very rarely. What often happens instead is you get an inter-denominational committees and the complimentary men are not respectful of the women. But if they were able to be, absolutely, we could work in peace.

Keith
This again goes with the healthy community thing for me, the last question we asked, because when we were going to a church that didn’t think the women should be in leadership, as a physician with female physician colleagues and nurse colleagues and people in administration who were in positions of real authority who were women, I couldn’t invite them to our church because there might be a sermon on how women’s role is to submit and not to be leaders. How would I explain that to them? So to me, that’s part of being a healthy church is just fully recognizing everyone in the community. So I mean, I think that I try to be respectful to complimentarians and everything is well too. I think most complimentarians are respectful back.

Rebecca
I think it’s because you’re a dude.

Keith
Maybe. But what I do see is I do see a lot of people saying things that are really disgusting. I’ve seen people posting things about caging women pastors once we’re in charge, like putting women pastors into jail and things like that because they’re not pastors and that’s not a church and that kind of thing.
So it’s hard to have unity with people who are behaving like that.

Rebecca
Yeah, and it’s understanding that as with all things, even among complementary churches, there is a spectrum of health here.
There are people who are overall good willed and healthy people who are just so scared of having the wrong theology. So they’re sent to hell that they can’t consider other viewpoints. But they are like, they’re not the people who want to put pastors in jail for being a woman. And then there’s the Doug Wilsons right. And I would say if our church ever tried to partner with a Doug Wilson type church, I would put my foot down pretty darn hard.
But if it’s just another kind of banal, normal church, that to me would be an issue. I would never be under the spiritual leadership of someone who could not see women as whole beings in Christ. But in terms of like meeting the needs of the community, I’m not going to make other people not have warm clothes and food and shelter because I disagree with the theology of the people who are trying to help. That’s my stance.
Rebecca
I have a question about why I want to do one of the parenting ones.
Because it’s really interesting. Okay, advice for raising young boys age four and under to have a healthy view of sex and gender.

Keith
Okay. Yeah.

Rebecca
Do you want me to? You want me to?

Keith
You want this one

Rebecca
Yeah.
Okay. I have been thinking about this a lot clearly because I have a six and a four year old, Right? And we do some things that I’m not entirely sure how they’re going to turn out. I guess we can run a little randomized controlled trial trial. No, but in all seriousness, sorry, I’m going to be a little bit personal TMI here for people. But I have like a lot of like issues with the female menstrual cycle stuff. So my kids have known from age like two, what a period is.

Keith
Okay.

Rebecca
Because I’m often sick. Like I’m often quite ill and I’m in a lot of pain and I need them to quite frankly be quite sympathetic and empathetic and understand that mommy is simply not able to get up every
20 minutes to get you a snack right now. We will have snack at snack time and we will have food at food time. And mommy’s going to sit down for as much as she can today because now mommy is sick and she’s on a period.
And so they understand that quite a bit. And so I think that there is a level where the female versus the male body has been very
demystified in my house. And I’m hoping that that helps long term.
I know there have been some studies that I read about like just general like seeing the body as neutral can be very beneficial, especially in protection with pornography because there’s a lot less curiosity. But I for the life of me cannot remember where I read that study. So like say I read that study, but like put an asterisk in your head until we can actually find that because it may have just been discussions at my university. I can’t remember.
But that’s kind of one thing is I just I don’t want my kids because we’re being raised in such a porn culture, I don’t want my kids to ever feel like they have to Google something to figure it out. And so my kids understand the general mechanisms of what a period is. And I think it’s also because they freaked out that they see blood by accident. So like and they know kid gives their mom privacy in the bathroom. But I think that there’s that.
I also think that a big one is people don’t realize it, but they sexualize kids a lot.

Keith
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking too is, you know, it’s not really a big issue.
I think the main thing with kids is making them feel comfortable in who they are and that they’re safe to talk to you about things rather than.
And then I think it’s more of us as parents to examine ourselves and what are our views of gender. Like for instance, I grew up in my parents, very loving parents. I don’t have a problem with them at all, but they were very traditional and like boys don’t cry kind of mentality. And I kind of internalize that. And so, you know, like I look at, you know, when I’m
looking at my grandson, I’m very emotional. Tougher on him like I’m like, that’s me. That’s a new thing. That’s not a, you know, like, why do I want him to stop crying? But his sister’s allowed to cry.

Rebecca
Yes.

Keith
You know what I mean? Like, like, so, so I think that, you know, as far as gender goes, I don’t think kids need to have a big lecture about all that stuff. I think you seem to make them feel comfortable with who they are and let them know they can ask you questions. And I think that as they get older, they’ll understand more and I think you need to, any questions that they ask to you, you need to make sure you answer them in a way that’s
developmentally appropriate to their level. Recognizing that a lot of these things that we think are very gender-based are not like at one point, Alex got a bike that was like pink.

Rebecca
Yeah. Pink and purple. He loved that bike

Keith
And to me, like, that kind of made me recoil. Exactly. The non-examine part of my psyche, you kind of like, I’m like, but pink is for girls, right?

Rebecca
He’s gonna get me fun of. Yeah.

Keith
Well, that’s the second question. But, but the first one is like, the biggest for girls, but it’s like, pink is for girls for the last 50 years, right? Because pink was, was not a girl color until like 50 or 60 years ago.

Rebecca
Until like a bit commercialized. Yeah.

Keith
Yeah. So, so like these things are made up ultimately, right? And so, but then the question is, are they going to get made up fun of for this thing? Like he likes pink. Is he getting made fun of? Well, then I think we do need to help him with that. Now that the way of protecting him is not to say, pick it for girls. Don’t be like that. But to say like, okay, like, how do we navigate that? And if other people say things, how do you handle that?

Rebecca
And also, I think we jump to
putting, again, like I said, like about the sexualizing nature of things. I think a lot of times, when we, a lot of people see their young boys especially, and they kind of freak out at everything because boys are so, the penis is right there, guys, they’re going to touch it. And that’s not masturbation when they’re 4, it’s not the same thing. And I think that’s a big thing when people
say like, how do we have like healthy views of this? Is it is it about sexuality?

Rebecca
It’s more gender sex and gender? Okay. Yeah. I think that what I see a lot of times is like, is I just, feeling like people, people see what children are doing that is neutral. And they assign non neutral.

Keith
Yeah, they think that there’s an adult brain inside that child’s body. And there’s not, there’s just a kid, they’re just trying to figure things out.

Rebecca ‘
You are allowed to have

Keith
They’re innocent.

Rebecca
Don’t we, you are allowed to tell your kids, we don’t touch our penis when
other people are around. And that’s have that be a nothing burger and have it not be a discussion about what’s appropriate and purity and everything like that. So oh, hands outside of our pants, that is allowed to just be in your vocabulary and have it be that not a big deal.

Keith
Yeah, I talked
to parents about it the same way I tell you, if they’re picking their nose, exactly. Like, we don’t do that. People don’t like to see that.

Rebecca
Exactly. And just make it about, hey,
your penis is where your pee comes out. If you are putting your hands in there and then touching things, you’re putting pee on stuff. So we don’t touch your penis. That’s all we do. And you have this conversation being very neutral. Yeah, neutral is the main term and understanding that, you know, if you’re able to raise your kid to understand that no part of their body is scary, no part of the body also will like be not able to talk about with you.
Yeah. So that’s a big one.

Keith
And use the right words.

Rebecca
Yeah. So that’s, that’s kind of what I,
what I’m trying to do with my kids. So again, I’ll let you know in 13 years.
Okay. What are some dating questions to ask on a first date before the relationship continues?

Keith
Okay. So I have some thoughts on this. Okay. I’m nowhere near dating. I’ve been out of dating for like, yes, very, very long time. But I love this burn the haystack method that I’m hearing about. People are so are saying, I’m so worried, I don’t want to do a wrong impression, that kind of stuff.
But then they have multiple dates and takes five dates before they realize, Oh my gosh, this person doesn’t think I’m a full human being that I should be a submissive doormat, right? Otherwise, I’m not a real woman. That kind of thing. I’m very much a burn the haystack kind of guy.
Yeah. I think that women are wise to do that. For men as well too, I think there’s a lot of expectations out there. Like, some women won’t date men if they’re not six feet tall. If you’re five, 10, just put five, 10. Because you don’t, you don’t want to, you don’t want a woman who’s going to think five, 10, it’s her loss, dude. Like, you know what I mean? Like, just be who you are. And don’t worry about that kind of stuff. You know, yeah, I think, I mean, again, but I’m not a date, I’m not in the dating world. So I don’t know.

Rebecca
But yeah, I think that oftentimes people are afraid that the relation that the person won’t like them back and getting into a I’m not going to give you specific questions. What I’m going to tell you is, it’s not about what questions you ask, it’s about your mindset. Are you more afraid of them not
liking you back or of ending up in a relationship with someone who’s not good for you? Because the second should be more scary. Yeah. And that’s a mindset shift where it’s like, this isn’t about whether or not someone likes you. It’s about whether or not you two work together. And if they don’t
like you, well, then you guys didn’t work together. And so that’s, that’s actually okay.

Keith
Yeah, we should have somebody on the podcast who’s like been in the dating scene.

Rebecca
Yeah, I know we should.

Keith
Because yeah, so we’re trying our best to answer the question, not our not our area of expertise.

Rebecca
We’re going to rapid fire to the personal question that we ask because then I have to go to a rehearsal. So when will we be in the US next?

Keith
Well, not anytime soon.

Rebecca
Currently, things are rough. In the US, there’s a Canadian woman who’s in ICE right now with her seven year old autistic daughter, even though they’re like married. She’s married to an American. Their papers are good till 2030. And she still got detained. We are simply not willing to cross the border right now. There are too many things that are happening to and including two Canadians that are going across the border.

Keith
That’s not the first Canadian.

Rebecca
No, there’s been multiple. There’s been multiple and especially Canadian to go over for work are getting detained more often than we are comfortable with. So we won’t be going to the US in person for a long time until it’s safe to do so. If you are interested in online events with your church, of course, hit us up.
How did you get into birding?

Keith
Oh, I watched the movie called The Big Year. Yes, it’s a comedy. Steve Martin, Jack Black and Owen Wilson. So I thought it would be the most hilarious thing ever. It was okay. It was cute. It was a cute little funny thing. But like the idea of like competitive bird watching was like, Oh, that’s cool. There’s so many birds out there. And I started doing it after that. So it was 2013.

Rebecca
And you’ve always been into nature science and
like, like, I remember like, we’ve always gone camping my whole life. So it’s not like this was a surprise. Like this is totally out of character. I’m like, no, this is kind of a puzzle piece situation. This does in fact make sense. One plus one doesn’t fact equal to. Yeah. Yeah. That’s good.
I did scouts. I did all that stuff. I like those memes are like, choose your fighter. It’s like when
you hit a certain age, it’s like World War two history, word watching, wood whittling. And so that’s like, here’s the bird watching one. Okay. And then we have someone’s asking for fiction book recommendations. I am. I said that as if I was going to answer it as if I had ideas.

Keith
I’m not a
good one of us. I read nonfiction. I’m very much a history, philosophy, science. That kind of stuff is what when I have time to read, that’s usually the stuff I read theology. That’s the stuff I read.

Rebecca
If you’re getting into reading for the first time in a long time, read the Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson. If you are really, these are all to be fantasy, by the way. Oh, no, it’s not. I can give you a sci-fi. If you want a really fun romp, and again, you haven’t really read in a long time,
Project Hail Mary, so fun. And the audiobook is performed excellently. Absolutely.

Keith
I read that on your recommendation. It was really good. Fictions I’ve read recently.

Rebecca
It’s such a fun book. You will laugh,
you will cry, you will read it again. If you are someone who’s read a lot of like one off kind of like romantic literature, and you are trying to figure out like what to do next, and you want something with a little bit more meat on its bones, I highly recommend a Shattered Sea trilogy by Joe Abercrombie was so good. It was so fun. And it’s a really easy reading level. It’s technically
YA. So if you’re used to reading more, I’ll be honest, like the romantasy genre tends to be written at a very low reading, like grade level, which isn’t a problem, not against that. So is the Lion Wish the Wardrobe, and it’s a fantastic book. But yeah, but just just because like sometimes the fantasy recommendations is like, oh wow, that jumped a couple chapters there. But yeah, Joe Abercrombie’s Shattered Sea trilogy was really good. And then if you want something that just whisks you away into magical wonderland, Robin Hobbs books are so beautifully written. The farseer trilogy, I think is the first trilogy, it starts the Assassin’s Apprentice, heart breaking, beautiful, the characters are gorgeous and wonderful. And the it’s a lot of this political intrigue with the fantasy is kind of in the background, but it’s much more about like the journey that the characters go on. So those are some recommendations from me.

Keith
Okay.

Rebecca
Oh, and then the
last personal question, what reactions to your recent books and posts surprised you the most?

Keith
Oh, okay.

Rebecca
Do we have any that you can think of? Oh my goodness.

Keith
Hmm. That’s a tough one.

Rebecca
That is a really tough one, because we get so many terrible
takes about our books and our books and so many. And we’re so used to them. So they run off my back like water on a duck. I think nothing’s ever going to top. Was it Denny Burke, who reviewed
the Great Sex Rescue and said that we were that that we didn’t focus enough on conception and that we cared too much about the female orgasm as if the two were at odds. Yeah. That will, I don’t think anything can top that. That was pretty good. That was a pretty good one. I will say personally,
we got a lot of feedback from the Happily Never After YouTube series that I did where I actually heard from at least three people who sent that series to their church or small groups that were currently planning to do the Love and Respect series and they changed what they were doing as a result.
So that surprised me because every time that I hear that people change their minds, I get surprised because I’m getting jaded

Keith
Right.

Rebecca
No, so it’s good. I’m joking a little bit, but it is
always like, oh, okay, there actually are people who are willing to reevaluate and change. And so that was good.

Keith
Yeah. Yeah. I think that’s great. I know.

Rebecca
It’s that’s such a hard question to answer, but it is a good question. So thank you for asking it. Yeah, I think that’s a big one is that the surprises is that people are still willing and that there are still people who just haven’t
heard it yet. I think that that’s really what it is because we’ve been doing this for so long, that it feels to me like everyone knows this. And it’s surprising to be reminded that there are people who are so in their little cloistered bubble that they still haven’t heard it yet. And so then it gives us hope that maybe we can just pop those bubbles. Yes. And we just pop them.

Keith
Yeah.
So we talk about things like every man’s battle and people are like, what’s that? I know. And it’s like, like you didn’t, you weren’t traumatized by that as a teenager.

Rebecca
Or it’s like they did grow up that and they believed it and then they had never heard anyone consider that maybe noticing isn’t lusting. Like we’ve been talking about this for like what seven years now?

Keith
So, no, but I think it’s really interesting when we make a case and people are like, well, no one really believes that, right? Like who really believes that women are supposed to be submissive to their husbands and not a full partner who believes that. And we’re like, just like,

Rebecca
Hey, from your mouth to God, who believes that, right? Then that’s great.

Keith
You know, thank I’m so glad this part of the world that thinks that what we’re saying is unnecessary because nobody would possibly ever believe like
that.

Rebecca
Because it’s so ridiculous.

Keith
That’s that’s what shocks me. And when they’re being sincere, right? Because there are there are places that it’s like, yeah, of course not. Of course, we wouldn’t use the Bible as a weapon. Who would use the Bible as a weapon? That’s crazy. Yeah. It’s nice. It’s nice to know there’s still parts of the world like that. Yeah.

Rebecca
Those are all the questions we’re going to answer this time. We’re going to do some more later. But for now, I’m going to turn it over and me and Joanna are going to talk about a really interesting new paper that just published that we are on where we found some really cool stuff with the modesty
message that has never been reported before.

Okay. And welcome Joanna to the podcast.

Joanna
Hello, everybody. Hello, hello.

Rebecca
And we have some exciting news.

Joanna
We have had so many papers published. Oh my goodness. 2026.
We’re at three since the beginning of this year, which is astounding. Yeah. And I would like to shout out the people who have been supporting us at Good Fruit Faith. Because one of the papers I wrote as the first author, so it was kind of it’s been funded by babies. But the other two have
been given funding through the Good Fruit Faith Research Funding Program. And we’ve actually, that has allowed us to find two new collaborators. Ariel Leonard Hodges paper came out very recently looking at the qualitative side to all of the open-ended questions from the survey we did at Great Sex Rescue, which we will have to talk about another time. But today, we’re back in the world of quantitative research, always fun, which is my bread and butter, as you may know. But Nicole Gallego took the lead on a paper looking at how internalized modesty messaging affects self-esteem and the experience of sexual harassment in church. So super fascinating stuff. And we’re going to dig into it today.

Rebecca
Exactly. I know whenever we talked about the fundraising we do with
Good Fruit Faith that directly allows us to do research like this, which you, I’m going to be real honest, you can’t, there’s, there’s no profit in this.

Joanna
No, it’s free.

Rebecca
It’s not a work where you can, you can, it’s not feasible without the support of people who care about this cause. And so thank you very much for people who have donated. You have made this possible. You have meant that the
conversation can start to change in this area where professionals, people who are actually doing the work on the ground, the new data that’s coming out is actually looking at this stuff, instead of just acting like it either the problem doesn’t exist or casting all of religion under the same umbrella, we’re really, I think, challenging people to break it apart and ask what exactly is going on. So with that in mind, let’s talk about this really cool paper on modesty. Yes.

Joanna
Okay, so first of all, I would just like to nerd out very briefly with how Nicole organized all of the tropes that we looked at. So you and I, Rebecca, I remember you were pregnant with Vivian? Yes. When we came up with the tropes.

Rebecca
I think so.

Joanna
Yes. You were nauseous.
And it’s because I found the online Brio magazine archives. And so that’s where we kind of got a lot of the tropes from was Chantique called stuff in Brio magazine. We were trying to figure out how to get those co-op and fresh as well. Yes.

Joanna
And then we really wanted to make sure because Chantique
had been fussy about how we worded things for great. So first, you we wanted to use her wording for some of them. So I just want us to go through the tropes that we looked at and then you look at the names that Nicole gave them because they’re so good. So Nicole did an awesome job of taking the scale items or like the questions that we had on our survey and then actually coming up with a pithy title for them, which I always just love. It makes me so happy in my heart. I don’t know.

Rebecca
Well, I think it’s really wordy to say the same question over and over and over and over again. It’s good to have those little short forms.

Joanna
Yeah. But it also is a reminder that for me, sometimes you know, you can read the stuff. There are some truly egregious quotes,
but there’s some stuff that’s kind of squishy and it’s hard to catch. And when you actually name it as what it is, take away the religious language, all of the fluff, the feel good additional, battening that’s been put on to it. And you’re like, no, actually, that’s just gender essentialism. It’s it makes it more of a gut punch. So our scale item, first one we have is the boys
will struggle with our visual nature in a way that girls will never understand. And Nicole just called that straight up gender essentialism.

Rebecca
Yes. Which is what it is, right?

Joanna
Yeah, it’s absolutely
true, but it was just really funny. Yep. If you wait to have sex until you are married, you will have the best sex life possible. Oh, that’s essential prosperity. Boys can’t help but lust after a girl who’s dressed like they are trying to incite. And you have a responsibility to protect boys around you by wearing modest clothing. We’re both put under a modesty as a stumbling block. Yeah. That was good.

Rebecca
And we specifically, I remember when we wrote the survey, we specifically wanted to attack that idea from both angles to see if to as kind of a bit of a test to make sure that we were measuring what we thought we were measuring.

Joanna
So yeah. And then we have girls who dress immodestly are worse than those who don’t. And man, the one that the label that Nicole put on this one was such a gut punch. She called it gendered surveillance. The sense that like you’re looking at it. I mean, I remember doing this, right? Like looking around and looking at the girls and judging them not by their character, not by how they acted, but just by the clothing that they were.

Rebecca
Well, I mean, all that thing in Seeker Keep it Girl about are you presenting yourself as a trashable styrofoam cup versus a china tea cup versus a ceramic mug, right? I mean, literally the very opening thing in Seeker Keep it Girl was judge and see which of your friends is the trashiest.

Joanna
Yeah. Yep. Yep. Exactly. And that creates a lot of competition and
judgment within the female gender, right? So we aren’t able to have coalesce, right? And use our collective power. Okay. And then this one, however, might be, I don’t know, the gendered surveillance
one I really love, but this one might be my favorite. Everyone will recognize our wonderful internalized misogyny measure, which is girls talk too much.

Rebecca
Yes.

Joanna
And Nicole put a really interesting label on this one. She called it inner modesty.

Rebecca
Inner modesty interesting. I like that’s interesting. Yeah.

Joanna
So I do want to I’m going to read that what house she described it here,
because I think it’s helped. Yeah. Here she says that modesty goes beyond clothing choices and reflects attitude toward female sexuality and broader social interactions in general, often emphasizing a demure or just submissive demeanor.

Rebecca
Mm hmm. Yeah. Right. I love that. That’s so interesting. Whereas not just enough for women to cover up on the outside, they have to
cover up the inside too.

Joanna
Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And we talked in she deserves better about me being told. And we did Bible Quizzing. And I was kind of the typically in my district, Western Pennsylvania, I was the top girl in the district. Yes. And there were a lot of very competitive voice, a lot of whom
I knew I would never be able to beat. And some of them I was competitive with some of them I wasn’t. But I remember an adult saying that it was really good for me to practice coming in second.
Yeah. And not having a you know what? Yeah, your brain isn’t as freakish and amazing as some of the other kids like it’s fine. It’s fine. That wasn’t the conversation. It was yeah, your needs matter less than ones. Yep. No matter what, it’s good that you don’t expect that you’ll be able to
be first because your job is to not be first.

Rebecca
Mm hmm. Yeah. And not in the we need to learn to
manage disappointment better. It’s good to practice coming in second. That’s not what we meant. No, no, it was for her for her. Yeah. The boys were not told it was good to practice coming in second.

Joanna
No, no, even though, frankly, they needed to practice way more than I did.

Rebecca
Absolutely. Now in this paper, one of the things that we were asking was what are the effects on the modesty message on girls?

Joanna
Mm hmm. But we actually also looked at indirectly how it seems to be affecting the boys
in those girls’ churches too, which is what was so what I find so interesting about this particular paper. Yeah. So I want to just quickly go over the fact that, oh, guess what, modesty messaging when it’s internalized is associated with lower self-esteem. Yes. Which is exactly what we would expect. We talked about it a lot. So just we have that sound in the literature.
We’ve got that’s kind of all we need to say about it.

Rebecca
Oh, you’ve all read she deserves better. And if you haven’t read she deserves better yet, please go buy she deserves better and read it. It’s right and on YouTube, you can see that it’s above my right shoulder here. You can you can go buy it on Amazon. You can buy it out of your local bookstore. You can order it on wherever you want. Link for she deserves better will be in the description. But we do talk a lot about 0the self-esteem and the effects on girls in she deserves better. Yeah. And so we’re going to be we’re not going to be focusing on that as much in this podcast because for many of you, it is a rehashing of what we already found in our book. But we did talk about stuff stuff in this paper that is not really delved
into in she deserves better. And that is the impact of growing up in a modesty emphasized environment on young boys.

Joanna
Mm hmm. Yes. So essentially we did was we looked at was there a higher rate of being sexually harassed in church as a minor if girls had high internalized modesty messaging for a high imm scores or low. And we found that yes, when you control for church attendance, which is important because more church attendance was actually protective from being sexually
harassed in churches of minor. But you do have more time at risk for longer your church. So I was glad that I always say that

Rebecca
That does actually make sense because quite frankly the kids who
are at church all the time, their parents are also likely at church all of the time. And the surveillance for them is going to be a lot higher versus kids who attend church regularly, but not constantly who maybe they go without their parents. Maybe they went because they’re friend invited them from church and they are kind of a higher risk unaccompanied minor quite frankly
in this church setting. And so I think that actually does make sense quite a bit.

Joanna
Awesome. But essentially in that the the model that Nicole ran, she found that there was an increased risk of being sexually harassed as a minor in church. If you had high immm versus low immm when we control for church attendance in high school. So it seems as though and this makes
complete sense, right? Like we were recording this. It’s been what a couple of days, less than a week since we hadn’t the latest Duggar arrest about child molestation, right? That family blamed women
for men’s sexual misdeeds.

Rebecca
Yeah. And put the responsibility of men’s purity on the girls. The Nike thing is still so weird. So the girls had to yell Nike or not yell. I know, but say Nike
is kind of like a code word for the boys to look down. So they didn’t see boobs. Yeah. Or a girl in a tight dress or something like that. Like that is really, really weird.

Joanna ]
Yeah. Mm hmm. Exactly. And so in that kind of a context, it makes sense that there is a number one, you’re not asking boys to be better, right? You’re not actually socializing them to act in the way that we would want them to. We’re victim blading.

Rebecca
Yep.

Joanna
And we are providing an excuse for men as well. So this is a great way to

Rebecca
while also training the boys to be hyper aware of sexual stimuli. Mm hmm. I think that’s the part that I see that I think is often not talked about. It’s like when you’re constantly talking about modesty and that girls need to cover up and that boys are going to look at them, you’re in essence just training these kids to be hyper vigilant of sexual stimuli that they may
have just never noticed before. Or like, of course they would notice, but they may not have been as salient. Right. You’re in, you’re turning up the intensity in essence of what they’re seeing because you’re telling them it’s dangerous. Here’s an example. I have gone snorkeling tons of times,
right? I love the ocean. I love reefs. Any chance that we get, I go snorkeling as much as I can. I have recently realized that I have swam with a lot of the fish that are like the number one reason for injuries for snorkelers and never realized it because I didn’t know what fish they were.
Now when I’m snorkeling, I’m going to be very, very aware when I see a triggerfish coming around me because before I was like, oh, look how cool it’s like darting around and I’m like, it was probably like trying to scare me off. I’m going to be really, really aware of that in future because I’ve been told now, hey, be careful around these things, right? Versus, and I think
a lot of the habits, I love those fish. I noticed them. I thought they were really pretty, but I didn’t see them as a threat and then they just kind of washed over me. I do think there’s a similar thing that can happen with modesty where like kids can just notice bodies and it can be some
that they notice, but it doesn’t get them the guttural fear response that causes them to fixate in the same way.

Joanna
Exactly. It is really complicated, right? So for example, we know that the guy who owns Victoria’s Secret is in the Epstein files, right? Like that’s really gross. That’s a thing for all of us to deconstruct that women’s bodies have been used for the… Anyway, it’s a whole thing. So I’m not saying that I’m like, yay, Victoria’s Secret, the best and most non-problematic store that has ever existed. No. Nor am I saying that it’s wrong for a teenage boy to walk through them all and become aroused when he sees… That’s… Also fine. But what I’m saying is I remember the framing of walking by the Victoria’s Secret when I was in high school was like you were going
into a warzone.

Rebecca
Yes.

Joanna
And now the singer and they’re like, it’s fine. It’s like, yeah, it’s kind of it’s kind of gross that you’re being manipulated in this way by frankly disgusting old men. So make of that what you will. But we do have to go to the mall. You’re going to be completely fine and having it just be chill, right? That difference in how it’s framed. It’s like, yeah, maybe you get an erection and like…

Rebecca
Yeah, it’s going to go down. What goes up must come down.

Joanna
Yeah. Yeah.

Rebecca
I think that’s the thing is I think that what ends up happening is we create this intense fear culture around sex, like this fear culture around arousal. And so then when it happens, it feels like it’s out of our control. I know the same thing happens with pornography. Sam Perry found right that. Evangel Christians, I think you found we’re more likely to label their porn use as an addiction than non-Christian people who had the same level of
porn use.

Joanna
Yep.

Rebecca
Because these things are talked about in such a fear way, it feels bigger than it is. And as a result, often Christians have a harder time quitting porn as well, because they feel that there’s more shame, there’s more guilt, there’s more fear attached to it. And so it has more of a grip because it has more salience. Salience is again, just about intensity, just about how strongly you feel something. And so you have these boys. So these girls
are being raised in this culture. They’re being told, boys are going to look. This is, it’s all around them. Boys are being bombarded by sexual images and you have to help them because you are their sister in Christ and they’re your brothers in Christ and you need to cover up and
don’t be like those girls out there who are just trying to get attention with their bodies because you are your body is a temple and you know that and you and implying like you’re a better person than them and the good girls and guys want good modest girls. The kind of girl a guy wants to marry is not going to be out there in a skin tight dress. That’s super short. She’s going to be dressing with the Lord in mind and as a as a holy woman, right? These are the messages that we got growing up. You know, if you wear that short dress, you put a noose around the spiritual life of that guy who sees you all those types of things.

Joanna
That’s a Brio quote.

Rebecca
That’s a Brio magazine one.
And so then these guys are also being raised in that environment. And then they are then this is the next the next thing is that we found that the peer-on-peer sexual harassment was also much higher for the respondents themselves had higher internalized modesty messages, which implies and is therefore assumed that it was taught more in their spaces.
Yeah.

Joanna
So essentially who was the one who was doing the sexual harassing? It was teenage boys. Mm-hmm. Right. Which is really sad.

Rebecca
It is. And we’re talking about minors here too.

Joanna
Like, oh yeah, we, there’s another minor. Yeah.

Rebecca
Yeah. Some of those minors can be 17. Some of those are going to be 13-14 as well. Like, and this is where it gets really complicated, right? And a lot of this stuff and you look at this and you picture these young boys who are going through puberty who are in essence being groomed into
predation. And that is the word. It is groomed. The boys are being groomed too. And the girls are the victims.

Joanna
Mm-hmm.

Rebecca
And the boys are, but the boys are also being victimized. Mm-hmm. And it’s
very tricky. And it’s very tricky. And it’s awful.

Joanna
Yep. So. Yep. And you can imagine how a man who grew up with that grooming, that history of having been brought up to act out sexually, right?
That man grows up.

Rebecca
Mm-hmm.

Joanna
Is he going to be willing to deconstruct? Yes. Right. Is he going to be
willing to self-reflex? Because that would be really awful to have to deal with what he did in his adolescence. Even if, like, a lot of the guys I presume, a lot of them will have continued on the pathway. Let’s be clear. But there’s also a solid percent who, like, get some maturity, have a frontal lobe and knock it off. Right? Because we all did cringy things. I am not equating all of the cringy things that we did as adolescents with sexual harassment. Let me be.

Rebecca’
No no no

Joanna
The stuff I pulled as a high schooler, I would not have done at 21. Yeah. Because I had it like, right? And so the challenge is that even if they have matured and don’t do that anymore, are they going to be willing to say, whoa, that was super inappropriate. That was not cool how the people who I respect treated me and how I then treated other people. That’s a lot for somebody to have to hash out. And some people are going to be brave enough and have enough that they’re enough psychological suffering that it’s going to be worth it for them to do that. For a lot of people, it’s not.

Rebecca
And they are just going to go find a church that’s also preaching these modesty messages so that even if anyone ever found out what they did, they know they’re safe because they can blame the woman. And that’s… And that’s… It sounds awful. But that is backed up by pretty much what we found where in churches where girls have internalized modesty messaging at a higher levels, sexual harassment from people while they are minors goes up from all age groups. It was also from the adults in the congregation as well. And so what we think is happening is the young boys, the pre-pubescent boys, are being groomed into becoming predators by being around this high fear, high shame culture that increases gender essentialism and trains men to believe that they are not able to be sexually in control of themselves. And then you have preaching that attracts the kinds of people who have been predators towards people or who have predatory tendencies. And you in essence has just given them this pre-groomed group of teenage girls who have been systematically taught that if someone lasts after them, it’s her fault. And then we’re shocked when the rates of harassment and abuse go up. And here’s the thing, as we’re wrapping up this segment, we’re not saying, and we’ve said this before because everyone always asks this whenever we talk about modesty, we are not saying that there’s not a way to talk about clothing choices that is respectful and healthy and beneficial. So there are, there are many ways lots of places do it. Absolutely. The issue is that it’s been paired with, it’s been paired with the wrong thing for so long. It’s been seen as a sexual issue in terms of how we can protect men. And even when we people say that it’s no, it’s because we know how men are so we have to protect our girls. I’m like, but that’s not what you mean. Because then whenever a man does something, you blame the girl. Like, I would, I would believe that if it were evangelical Christians, who were the ones who were like out there loudly protecting the women who had been assaulted. And that’s not what happens. What happens is they say, well, well, she was asking for it. So like, we’re not buying the whole is to protect the girls thing. What we’re, what we’re saying is we’re, we’re trying to make like, easier for the men. We’re trying to make it so that the men don’t have to change because the girls bear the risk, we can make the girls change. And that’s what’s happening. And that’s not acceptable. It’s not appropriate. It’s not a Christ like way. It’s not Christ like to tell people who don’t have the
power and who are at risk and who are vulnerable to sacrifice even more while the people who actually are the ones who are perpetuating the harm get to just walk off scot-free. That’s not actually the biblical way of doing things. And so we can stop. We can stop.

Joanna
Yeah. Exactly.

Rebecca
Flat out. We can stop. Yeah. It’s not fair to the 13 year old girl. It’s not fair to the 13 year old boy in the congregation either. And it’s, it’s just bad for everyone. Yep. Yep.

Joanna
And again, it’s, I think so much of the problem is that we’re equating how we dress with our worst. Yeah. As opposed to seeing it as a sartorial choice. Yes. It’s just the stakes need to be so much lower. It’s just a shirt.
But that’s exactly it. The stakes just need to be lower. The stakes need to be lower about, yeah, clothing about sexual attraction, about sexual feelings about all these things.

Rebecca
And I, I mean, we could even go on for an hour about how this would all tie into like religious group velocity with like intrusive sexual thoughts as well for a lot of people in the church. And like there’s, there’s so much that this gets into where we’ve made things so much scarier than they need to be. And then in doing so, we then created problems that then reinforce the beliefs that this is scary. So we’ve created a problem that the solution is the thing that created the problem. And so then it keeps on snowballing. And then when you say you could just have not done that, no one believes you, but the data is there. It’s like, if you don’t teach this to kids, we see less of this stuff happening to it’s just, yeah, it’s, it’s, and it makes sense. It makes sense, guys, it makes sense.

Joanna
Yeah. Yeah. And again, like it’s just not hard. It’s easy to just as a
quick, how do we do this better? Talk about clothing choices in terms of function. Right. So we choose our swimwear based on the function where we are, what kind of swimming we are doing. Yep. Are we going to be in a high UV environment? And are we pasty? I wear a lot of swim leggings. And the other one, actually, I had the best discussions of modesty agencies that teenager, because we did Bible quizzing and you have to lean forward quite far to trigger your seat. They used butt buzzers. It was a whole thing. Really weird. We could, Rebecca and I could do a two woman comedy show just about Bible quizzing and we could, we could bring the house down. It’d be great. But I remember leaning forward and having my shirt date and a woman came up to me and was like, hello, FYI. And that was ideal. That’s not what I wanted. It’s like, you don’t want your bra to be visible. I don’t want your bra to be. No one here. You know, we want the girls to fall out. Nobody wanted that. No. And so I changed my shirt. Yeah. And that was all that happened. It was super chill.

Rebecca
And it wasn’t like Joanna, the 60 year old men who are watching the grandchildren quiz are distracted by the open shirt. No, it’s just, hey, just so you know, your shirt’s not appropriate for quizzing. It’s like, oh, thank you. Exactly. I think that’s such a big difference, right? It’s such a big difference when it’s about how is this serving you rather than how is this making everyone look at you and judge you and find you come up short? Because that really is what the modesty message said. And I love
Nicole’s little title of gender surveillance because that really is what a lot of this comes down to as well as this idea that we can judge and watch and assign motive and blame and worth to someone based on whether or not they are fitting the right social role.

Joanna
And essentially, what happens
is that again, this is a patriarchal system and women in patriarchy. Yeah, you can’t ever have the same social status as the men, but you can be close by pushing other women down. And that’s how you do it, right? That’s how you survive in a patriarchal system. There have always been and will always be female collaborators. Yeah. And modesty is a really key way to do that. And
we just can’t. We simply do we do not do that in this in this house. We do not put other women down
in this.

Rebecca
Absolutely. Thank you so much, Joanna, for talking through the new paper. And thank you so much to everyone who has donated and who has supported our work in this. It really is making a difference. We are seeing people sharing our work and discussing our work. And it’s very, very cool that we get to be a part of the reason why the conversation is changing in this area.
And I do want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for supporting us along the way. Yeah.

Joanna
And then lastly, we also really need to thank Nicole.

Rebecca
Yes.

Joanna
Her amazing job writing a paper, running all the analyses and doing tons of background research into the history of how modesty has been discussed.

Rebecca
She was amazing.

Joanna
She did such a good job. She’s incredible at a lit review. Like, oh my goodness, I wish I had her chops. I know we’ve been we’ve been talking about that and just just gushing over the job that she just so thorough. I know. It’s so amazing. Someone detail oriented. Wow.
Yes. No, Nicole. Nicole has been fantastic. And it’s because of your support that we’ve been able to partner with and find people like her. So thank you so much. This needs to get outside of our little group of three. And it’s wonderful to see that happening. Yeah.

Thank you so much for joining us this week on the Bare Marriage podcast. I hope you enjoyed the
conversation that I had with Keith where we answered your questions and also digging deeper into the research with Joanna. Remember, if you want to get more unfiltered access to our team, you can join us at our Patreon group at patreon.com slash baremarriage. The link will be in the description where you can get access to an exclusive Facebook group and unfiltered podcasts and book clubs from me, Joanna and a myriad of guests and people and baremarriage accomplices. So I hope that you’ve enjoyed our podcast today and we will see you next time on the BareMarriage podcast. Goodbye.

Joanna
Bye.