Teaching modesty messages makes church more dangerous for teen girls. That's what our newest paper, out in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, shows. It's based on our dataset for our book She Deserves Better, and the lead author on it (Nicole Gallego)...
We've got a new research paper on modesty messaging coming out! We've been working behind the scenes on a number of different peer reviewed papers, and we have another one to tell you about today regarding modesty messaging and sexual harassment in church. Plus Keith...
What if purity culture taught you to shrink? And you did--literally? I read Anna Rollins' book Famished lately, and I was so enthralled by her story (and her writing). She was describing what it was like growing up in purity culture, and how all the stress and rules...
We want our kids to grow up with healthy views of sexuality. We certainly don't want them to end up with the hangups that many of their millennial/Gen x parents had because of purity culture. But sometimes we can end up going too far in the other direction, and...
The world our kids inhabit changes about every eight years now. With tech and culture changes, the world is speeding ahead as it never has before, and the world our kids are living in is very, very different from the one you grew up in. We're living in different...
We need to have an awkward conversation about an awkward conversation. Kids need to know about sex. And they need to know about it from you. That doesn't mean that you have to do anything perfectly, or that it's not allowed to be awkward. It just means it has to...
What happens when we tell girls that “boys will want to push your sexual boundaries”? That's one of the toxic teachings that we measured in both our books The Great Sex Rescue and She Deserves Better! If you haven't read them yet, you should! This week we're...
Is being a good wife in conflict with being a good mom? And what does it look like to prioritize your marriage? Episode 270 of Bare Marriage!
Last Sunday, a disturbing video went viral of a teen girl apologizing for being pregnant in front of her church. It was an Apostolic church in Virginia. After her confession. The congregation applauded, but then the pastor got up and chastised them, saying that no one...
Has gentle parenting been given a bad rap? For good reason? We had an amazing podcast last week with Wendy Snyder from Fresh Start Families, and this Tuesday we're doing a FREE webinar with Wendy to talk about how to parent with both kindness and firmness. It's all...
We know that parenting is the biggest responsibility we will ever have. But we've been told such different things about the nature of that responsibility. If you grew up in an evangelical church, chances are you were told that a parent's job is to teach them to obey,...
Are teen girls responsible for helping teen boys fit in? There's a disturbing trend I've noticed lately where, when a disturbed man goes on a killing spree, the blame is often put on the girls who wouldn't give him the time of day. I wrote a few thoughts about that...
A few years ago, one of our podcasts on the harm of the modesty message caused a ruckus online. And so I asked people, "if you were ever sexually assaulted in church, what were you wearing?" I had so many heartbreaking responses, and I turned them into a post. I...
Nobody wants to pass on sexual shame to their kids! Being able to talk to your kids about sex without giving them the message that they should be ashamed of this part of themselves is such a gift you can give your kids. That's why we created The Whole Story, a course...
Shame from our preteen introduction to sex is horrible. None of us wants shame about sex or about puberty, but a lot of us are carrying it. And how can we make sure we don't pass it on to our kids? One of the big messages at Bare Marriage is that it is possible to...