One of the most frequent questions I get from men is this one: How can I get my wife to understand my sexual needs? He feels like he’s in a sex-starved marriage, and he’s desperate for sex. But the more he talks about sex, the more his wife pulls away. What’s the...
Is frequency of sex related to marital happiness? Like, does having more sex make your marriage better? Well, yes. And also no. It's nuanced. And today Rebecca and I are going to look at the studies, and show you why our approach to sex, and our go-to advice, is so...
Is it fair to call sex a need? We're very much against obligation sex here at Bare Marriage--we've done research that has shown that the obligation sex message results in far worse marital and sexual outcomes, and contributes to abuse rates. But at the same time, is...
Is the Evangelical Church a Safe Place for Women? Today we're joined by Dr. Andrew Bauman, with his new book Safe Church, based on his research into women's experiences in church. He shares with us why so many women have been harmed in evangelicalism, from things like...
What if there's a thread running through obligation sex and normalizing men's lust? Or rather, what if there are multiple threads? When we wrote The Great Sex Rescue, based on our surveys of 20,000 women, we identified four big teachings about sex that are common in...
Sheila here! Recently I saw a great post on Instagram by my friend Shari Smith, who handles a lot of my social media behind the scenes (she’s been a big help with my Facebook page getting hacked this week–PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE follow our new page!). Shari wrote a...
What’s the real reason many women don’t want sex? Whenever we talk about how sex should be mutual, intimate, and pleasurable for both and that the obligation sex message is toxic, the reply we get is something along these lines: without obligation, obviously, women...
When people say they “don’t want” sex tonight, what do they mean? We talked about this on the Bare Marriage podcast last week, but I'd like to elaborate on part of it today. I think we often get confused when people talk about this. They’ll say,“Well, sometimes I have...
"So you think it's okay if women just don't have sex, then?" Whenever we talk about how sex should be mutual, intimate, and pleasurable for both, and that the obligation sex message is toxic, the reply we get is something along these lines--without obligation,...
The 72 Hour Rule is Made Up by Evangelical Authors. Yep. This month on the blog we're "fact checking" common sex beliefs, and one of the biggest ones in evangelical circles is the 72 hour rule: the idea that a wife must have sex with her husband every 72 hours,...
What happens to women’s desire level if their husbands don’t do housework? This month, our series on the blog is going to focus on some new studies that have recently been published in peer reviewed journals. We like keeping up with research, and we shared four new...
Everyday I get emails, comments, and DMs about how our books are changing lives. Before we wrote The Great Sex Rescue and She Deserves Better I had written several other books. But the reaction is so starkly different. I’m hearing over and over again about lives...
Being the higher drive spouse can be really frustrating. You want to connect with your spouse, and you want to have a passionate marriage, but it seems like your spouse doesn't share those same desires. And that can feel like a rejection. This is the last post in the...
How do you initiate sex with your wife without turning her off? We've been working through an obligation sex series for the last few weeks, and one of the big things I've been stressing is that making your spouse feel like they are obligated to have sex has disastrous...
Obligation sex can wreak havoc on us. For last month we’ve been doing a deep dive into obligation sex, looking at the main problems with obligation sex, how it affects women’s bodies, why you don’t need to consent to being used, and more. But as we’re nearing the end...