Sexvangelicals

This spring, we're answering the most common questions that we receive about sexuality. A lot of questions revolve around our genitals. How are they supposed to look? How are they supposed to function? What happens if they don't function the way that they're "supposed to function"? the In this episode, we challenge three assumptions about our genitals. Your worth as a human being is defined by how your genitals look or function. The thing that lets us know we've had a successful sexual experience is orgasm. The best way to orgasm is through vaginally penetrative sex, which typically only leads to male orgasm. These assumptions generate the orgasm gap, the fact that men orgasm way more than women do. We close the episode by talking about 15 ways that a couple might connect that leads to both partners orgasming. Check out our conversations about these topics: Internalizing Harmful Messaging (2:00): Julia starts us off, " We all internalize messages about our bodies, especially our genitalia. We can't escape it." Vulva Assumptions (6:30): Julia discusses, " First, unlike men who learn that their penis should be as big as possible, women learn that the vagina should be tight and that vulvas that have lean labia are most attractive. Per usual, the message is to take up as little space for women or folks who have vulvas and vaginas." BDE (12:00): Jeremiah notes, " The assumption with BDE is that having a big penis equates to higher assertiveness, higher confidence, higher competence, and ultimately a better man. So, what happens if you don't have a big penis?" Social Constructs (15:00): Julia says, " Ultimately if you're listening to this episode, it doesn't matter if your flaccid penis is one inch long or six inches long. or shorter or smaller. What I learned in my sex therapy training program is, like you said Jeremiah, that the idea of a micropenis is just a social construct." Human Behind the Penis (18:00): Jeremiah shares an excerpt from the book, "Noren is a Swedish photographer who took pictures of men's penises and asked them to describe their relationships with their penises. He writes in his introduction, "Many men have insecurities about how their penises look, and compare themselves with actors from pornography. It creates feelings of shame and insecurity." Messaging Around Genitalia (21:00): Julia discusses, " Vaginal penetration is an important part of the sexual experience for a lot of people, but many people, regardless of orientation, are not having vaginally penetrative sex. When we place the expectation that the best way to orgasm happens through vaginal penetration, we put a lot of pressure on the human anatomy." Erections & ED (24:00): Jeremiah discusses, " So erections are almost exclusively about blood flow moving into and filling what's called the corpus cavernosa. The corpus cavernosa is a spongy material inside the penis. So whenever a man gets anxious, that internalized pressure--men almost always carry pressure and anxiety in our hips, in our core. Whenever a man gets anxious, that internalized pressure manifests through a tightening of the pelvic floor muscles." Erections & ED II (24:30): Julia continues, " If erections biologically are about blood flow into that region of the body, that means a person with a penis could be aroused without an erection. Psychological erection could trigger an erection, or sometimes when a person has an erectile concern, they might have an erection and then very quickly lose it when the anxiety occurs." Pornography is Not Sexual Education (28:00): Julia says, " Without accurate sex education available to children, adolescents, and adults, people only have pornography to turn to. And linking back to what you were saying, Jeremiah, that means men learn a lot of terrible, inaccurate messages about their penises." Viagra (32:00): Jeremiah says, " We see this with Cialis and Viagra as well that one of the side effects of those two drugs is delayed ejaculation or retrograde ejaculation. When it is misappropriately diagnosed, it can provide counter indicative sexual results." Mystified Vulva (35:00): Julia highlights, " The idea that the female orgasm is more elusive combined with the idea that women are inherently less sexual makes it easier to deprioritize orgasms for folks with vulvas. Which contributes to the orgasm gap." Orgasm Gap (36:00): Jeremiah notes, " This misunderstanding and lack of prioritization of female orgasm and how we research sexuality and psychology informs the public's misunderstanding and de-prioritization of female orgasm. For instance, too many men are taught that female orgasm happens through vaginal penetration. It's true for some women, but more often than not, orgasm happens through a combination of ways to stimulate the clitoris." Orgasm Gap Statistics (38:00): Julia shares these (depressing) statistics, " There was a fantastic study a few years ago that asked over 52, 000 people, excellent sample size, about their sexual habits, including orgasm. Straight men reported orgasming 95 percent of the time. Gay and bisexual men reported orgasming 88 percent of the time. The big kicker is for women. Lesbian women orgasmed 86 percent of the time and bisexual and straight women orgasmed 65 percent of the time." Duration (43:00): In sharing 15 tips that women who orgasm more share, Jeremiah notes, " Number two, women who orgasm more have a longer duration of a sexual experience. This gets back to what I was referring to a bit earlier regarding the length of time that it takes for a vulva to lubricate. And more importantly, for psychological arousal to occur." Aftercare (44:00): Julia notes, " Number five, women who orgasm more praise their partner for something they did sexually. We've said this on the podcast before. Aftercare is often the most important part of the sexual experience. Make sure that after a sexual experience, be that 5 minutes, 5 hours, or even 5 days later, you're letting your partner know what you liked." Prolonged Sexual Space (46:00): Jeremiah argues, " However, if you write out what you'd like to have happen sexually, that takes five to ten minutes of visualizing and imagining the context of an ideal sexual experience. Writing out a sexual experience or fantasy or texting it puts you in a prolonged sexual space that allows your body more time, more space, more senses engaged that allow you to get physiologically aroused in a way that sending a dick pic or a boob pic may not." Genitals are not the Star of the Show (55:00): Julia says, " While having our genitals stimulated can feel amazing, most of the contributors to orgasm for women are connected with effective, thorough descriptions of what you'd like to happen to your body, or what you'd like to happen with the relationship outside of your body."

Deconstruction is the process of re-evaluating the worldview and behavioral expectations of a specific community. Talking openly about sexual experiences that exist outside of purity culture dictates is one of the fastest ways that a couple from a high control religious context may begin deconstructing. Season 9 of Sexvangelicals explores ten of the most commonly asked questions that we receive as sex therapists. And it starts with perhaps the most stress-inducing question of all: Can my relationship survive deconstruction? In this episode, we talk about: Relational health assessment (6:00): Jeremiah discusses the assessment they created (along with Maddie) available on Substack Relationship 101: " Ultimately, we're not here to tell you whether or not you should stay married. We don't place a judgment on where your relationship lands as you navigate the sexual and relational impact of deconstruction. We hope that you'll make that choice using your values to guide you, rather than relying on the behavioral expectations of others." Problem Saturated Narratives (11:00): Julia breaks down the assessment title and implications, "The title itself suggests what therapists would call a problem saturated narrative rather than a strength based narrative. Also, the title suggests only a binary outcome. Either the relationship is in trouble or it's not. We ultimately decided to keep this title because this is the language that folks in my practice use when they are worried about their relationship." Actually Talking (14:00): Jeremiah notes: "Talking about sex and sexuality well first means actually talking about it. Many couples that I've seen for therapy have had some of their first conversations about sex in my office … if you followed all the rules and expectations of the church, there wasn't really anything to talk about. The norms of EMPish communities do not leave much room for negotiation or conversation." All Talk (17:00): Julia shares, " So all that to say, talking about sexuality, even talking about sexuality well or well ish, doesn't necessarily translate into the positive experiences of giving or receiving sexual initiation. In all our talking about sex, in all of the book discussions about the Christian books we were reading, we never had conversations about how we actually wanted to initiate or receive initiation for sex. " Narratives Around Physical Pain (20:00): Julia says, " On the topic of physical pain, I truly cannot tell you how often I heard that sex for women hurts the first time. And sometimes it just hurts, even if it's not your first time. That was to be expected in Purity Culture." Young and Married (the Church Group (25:00): Julia reflects on her time in a church group, " It reinforces this idea that you get married young and the best way to be an adult is to be young and married. If you are then a person in a partnership who is deconstructing on your own or you and your partner are deconstructing, you are also potentially embedded within communities that have very strict and stringent expectations. Systems & Pushing Back (27:00): Jeremiah notes, " One of the key themes of working with systems is that when one person changes the system will not change along with you. The system will do whatever it can to push back and to maintain stability and homeostasis." When Religion is No Longer Unifying (30:00): Julia says, " So if you and your partner are noticing that religion or religious spaces are no longer unifying and actually causing strain and conflict, perhaps the relationship needs some support in determining the next steps, whether or not the relationship continues and whether or not the relationship continues to stay in religious spaces." Relationship 101 (33:00): Jeremiah says, "Talk to your partner about your concerns. You are not going through this alone, and your partner is the person closest to your experience." How Do I Find a Therapist (34:00): Julia and Jeremiah discuss their three pillars, " How do I actually find a good therapist or coach? Because it is a super, super daunting process. So I ask folks to consider three different pillars that will hopefully set you up for a positive outcome: Clinical scope of practice. Consider is the relational fit. The third pillar to consider is the logistics pillar. This includes online versus in person work, cost of services. Availability for scheduling. All of this is self explanatory, but necessary to consider."

We are thrilled to re-release part two of our conversation with NPR National Correspondent Sarah McCammon. Sarah is the author of the book The Exvangelicals: Loving, Living, and Leaving the White Evangelical Church. In the age of a second Trump presidency, it's imperative that we discuss the history of the Evangelical Church and politics, purity culture, gender performance, and healing. In part two of our re-release we discuss how there are a lot of memoirs, social media comments, and dialogue about leaving the evangelical church. However, as Sarah says, "you can't really understand the leaving without understanding loving and living the evangelical church." The History of Evangelical Christianity and Politics (5:58): Sarah starts us off, "As s I talk about in the book that meant that had implications for queer people. It had implications for how we were taught about science and about sexuality. And so I've organized the book around all of these themes that for me and a lot of others were tension points, or points of cognitive dissonance or breaking points in some cases." What Religion May Offer (8:13): Sarah says: "It never left me. I think about these questions and this is actually something I'm mostly grateful to my parents and my religious upbringing for, is that I feel like it taught me to think about important things, like what's true, what's good, how should we live, what is our obligation to one another?" Bill Clinton Era and Purity Culture (15:22): uded to in our first interview was the following of rules in the conversation we're having right now. You're talking about a pastor who broke a sexual rule. And you also mentioned that in that Bill Clinton era during the scandal, you were being told to dress modestly, do this, do that, primarily, don't do this." Evangelical Relationships (17:30): Sarah says: "Evangelical Christianity treats relationships like they're a formula. Do X and Y will come out. And that's not just that's not how human beings are." Performing Gender (20:00): Jeremiah offers: "What we've discovered is that evangelicalism is almost exclusively about how well you perform gender." Breaking Down the Title (25:00): Sarah breaks down the title of her book The Exvangelicals: Loving, Living, and Leaving the White Evangelical Church. "The title highlights the nuance of all of this because for good reason, it can be easy to demonize the entire system and the entire system of white evangelicalism has caused all kinds of harm for many different people from many different groups." Grief (26:30): Jeremiah says: "That's also the hard choice that a lot of folks are left with. It's really hard to move through talking about deconstruction sociologically, therapeutically, without talking about grief and without constantly that some of the hard decisions that we've all faced." Connection and Trauma Bonding (32:30): Sarah shares: "You meet the other person who grew up Southern Baptist or grew up evangelical or Pentecostal or whatever, and you wind up like in a corner somewhere like, you know, trauma bonding. And I hope that this book will make it a little bit easier for people to feel like they don't have to hide in the corner. They can just talk to each other and also their nonreligious partners or their colleagues in an appropriate way about who people that you run into who might not understand what this is." Healing Through Storytelling (34:00): Julia says: "I am thankful that you, to repackage some Christian language, decided to hold on to the calling and to tell your story, but also allow folks like me to have my own story seen and reflected by someone else. I personally am a fan of live storytelling events, and that's because I believe that so much healing occurs through the power of the human narrative." Let's heal together!

Last March, we had the opportunity of interviewing NPR national correspondent Sarah McCammon discussing the strategy and implementation of rigid conservative values in her book The Exvangelicals: Loving, Living, and Leaving the White Evangelical Church. We are re-releasing both our conversations with Sarah in honor of the paperback release on February 18th. In this episode, we discuss the relationship between Trump and Evangelicals, the rise of religious NONES, why folks stay in EMPish (Evangelical, Mormon, Pentecostal) spaces, and grief around those who leave. These topics, and this book, are more pressing than ever, in the wake of the Trump presidency. Check out our advertisement for our new relationship coaching business, Let's Heal Together! In part 1 of a 2 part interview, Sarah talks with us about: Trump and Evangelicals (8:20): Sarah starts us off: "I think the most obvious reason is that we are seeing and have been seeing for the past several years what appears to be the apex of white evangelical power as a political project. And one of the most important things I wanted to get across in the book is that we didn't get to where we are by accident." Two Target Audiences (14:00): When asked about reaching various audiences Sarah remarks, "I wrote this book really both for people like us with evangelical religious backgrounds and for people like my husband and a lot of my good friends who are aware that this evangelical world exists, certainly, but find it in a lot of ways kind of mystifying." Why Write the Book? (17:00): Sarah says: "Since then I've been asked so many times to explain how Trump happened, to explain white evangelical support for Trump. And I just decided to write a book to try to answer those questions. So I hope for the quote unquote, outsiders it will help to explain that on a really granular level. And for those of us insiders, I hope that they'll feel seen by what I describe." Fear of Judgement (20:00): Julia discusses fear, "Leaving a religious community comes with so much loss. That person might also have the added challenge of moving into more progressive or secular spaces and having a fear of judgment about a particular background. Something that I notice is that when a couple or an individual comes to therapy, particularly sexual health therapy, they have a fear of, "What will this therapist say about me if they know that I chose not to have certain sexual experiences before I got married or whatever else they might have experienced?" Empathy and Honesty (21:30): Julia notes: "Something else that you do so excellently is calling out, for lack of a better way to say it, the harm from the broader institutional structures, particularly the political movement so tied with white evangelicalism, while also humanizing the people who have lived and then moved out of it. That is really difficult to be able to do both." Why People Stay in EMPish Spaces (23:00): Sarah offers: "You get these sort of incredulous questions for people, like "Why would anyone be part of something like this?" When they hear about certain aspects of it. I can't underscore enough how important every human being needs community." Lack of Goodbyes (24:00): Jeremiah shares, "The saying goodbye and the saying goodbye without a proper goodbye. Because most people who leave evangelical spaces don't have a proper goodbye, a mutually agreed upon "Hey, if we're in different spaces, I wish you the best for the next chapter of your life." Most people either get kicked out like I did, or the goodbye is kind of fueled by avoidance." Christianity and Inclusivity (29:00): Sarah says: "I've wondered about a lot and I don't have the answer for how would Christianity be different if it had been much more inclusive over all of its history? If people of color and also women had been included in the same way that many churches have prioritized the voices of mostly white men." Promises Unfulfilled (32:00): Sarah notes: "That's one of the most painful things, is that even when you follow the rules and the formula, it doesn't always work out the way you've been told it will." Salem Witch Trials and Christian Textbooks (33:00): Sarah recounts her research into her former Christian textbooks and discusses the rhetoric: "But then it pivoted to this really weird place and it basically ended the section about the Salem Witch Trials by saying, "You know, all of these explanations ignore one obvious possibility, which is that these women really were demon possessed." I'm sure that I would have glossed over that. But today I look back and I go, wait a second, you were saying that women were witches and it's like all of these really subtle ideas about how the family should look, and who women are." Let's heal together!

Letting the dust settle allows us to step out of the reactionary space and evaluate our own lives and relationships. In our final episode of the series "How to Practice Social Justice Without Being a Jackass", Julia and Jeremiah talk about how to make decisions based on values that are important to you and your family system. A proactive process, rather than reactive process, also makes it easier to make relationships with people who align with your values. Check out our conversations about: Reflections on the Democratic Party (9:00): Julia kicks us off, " The Democratic Party could actually learn a lot from the Republican Party, not in terms of its values, but in terms of its organization and structure...The Democratic Party does not have an effective strategy or media structure for communicating its purpose and values to the larger public let alone its voting base So that advocates can share these values and purposes." Sexual Health & Politics (12:00): Julia notes, " The reality is that our work as relationship therapists and sexual health educators is inherently political work. Now more than ever. And ultimately, I will argue politics is about relationships. Whether those relationships exist on a macro, meso, or micro level." Participating in Public Education (15:00): Jeremiah shares, "[I was] talking with my sister earlier today about some of the fears that she has about how the state of Texas is enforcing white Christian nationalism into its school systems. And she's made the decision to protest and to have some different ways of engaging my niece into the school system. The fact that conservative policy makers, education makers in Texas, in the state of Texas, are enforcing these values, are putting my sister and a lot of people in these really hard positions about whether or not I want to participate in the public school system." PACT (19:00): Julia and Jeremiah discuss PACT ( Psychobiological Approach to Couples Therapy) throughout the episode, referencing the book In Each Other's Care, written by Stan Tatkin, the developer of PACT. EMPish Folks & Mission Statements (22:00): Jeremiah discusses working with a couple who were both former missionaries and incorporating models from PACT, " The idea of a mission statement or a purpose statement that they have a lot of experience with that, but so often the mission or purpose statement was written on behalf of other people, with the couple being the vehicle for meeting those goals. As opposed to the couple writing their own mission statement together in a way that they can define and move towards the goals that they set for themselves." Reckoning with the Election Aftermath Interpersonally (24:00): Julia says, "Many folks in our audience or client caseload are reckoning with the aftermath of the election In part, by reflecting on the ways that the values of Christian nationalism may have previously informed part of their relational foundation with a spouse or a partner. Now these folks are perhaps developing a new relational value set for the first time, separate from more conservative religious values, within the larger political sphere." Relationship Anarchy (27:00): Julia defines, " A real quick nuts and bolts definition is that relationship anarchy suggests that each relationship has its own purpose. And in the case of long term committed relationship, each relationship probably has multiple purposes. The smorgasbord that I named earlier lists about 25 different potential purposes for a relationship. These include, but are certainly not limited to, emotional support, empathy…" Shared Purpose (30:00): Jeremiah defines, " To summarize, shared purpose: A written purpose statement holds us to prioritizing a particular way of living and existing during a particular season so you don't end up like me on social media, pulled in 50 different directions and completely exhausted." Needing More than Vibes (34:00): Julia says, " I love some Obama vibes. However, we can't run on vibes. Now, Obama had some excellent policy. However, many people didn't necessarily know what that policy was. They were attracted to his vibes." Values (39:00): Jeremiah notes, " I have the value of nuance. And making sure that any sort of conversation that we have that we're able to name the different variables that might be at play in any given situation … As we consider and reconsider both the purpose of our relationship and also some professional opportunities that we'll talk about in a bit. Especially, the cultural and social shifts that are coming with the Trump presidency." Shared Vision (40:00): Julia discusses, " The final way we want to let the dust settle is through reorganization. Specifically, finding people who align with your shared vision and rules of governance. This may be a multi week, if not multi month process. Developing relationships requires a huge amount of emotional, practical, and sometimes financial labor. The people who share those values with you want a similar world as you. And they want to treat other people in similar ways that you want to treat other people. But they may have a different purpose than you have." Motivational Speeches (44:00): Jeremiah says, " The audience and panelists used phrases like organizing and community engagement, but rather than giving practical applications for how we can do that in our own communities, and even in this conference, the conversation veered into soliloquies about hope and courage as broad topics. Motivational speeches are not nearly as effective as the people who give motivational speeches think they are." Shared Vision, Different Lane (46:00): Julia shares, " I cannot tolerate social media. So that is a lane I do not want to be in. However, I love that Tim Whitaker is doing it. I love that other folks are actually creating real life strategies for that. So I can say, awesome, Tim, that's your lane. I literally asked him at the end of the conference. What can I do to support that? And he asked us, "What can I do to support your work and your lane? Which is both different from his, but still has a shared vision for what the outcome of the next four years could be." Letting the Dust Settle (49:00): Julia says, " Letting the dust settle allows us to step out of the reactionary space and evaluate our own lives and relationships. Specifically the shared purpose, vision, and principles of governance or how we enact our purpose. Be that in our intimate partnerships or be that in our communities. Often doing that by yourself or in a private space with your partner can allow you to more thoroughly name what your purpose is for this upcoming season in a responsive sort of way rather than a reactionary way." Who We Are (50:00): Jeremiah adds, " The goal is to say who we are, as opposed to highlighting who or what we are not. "

We close our series on How to Practice Social Justice This Election Season with a two part episode called "Letting the Dust Settle". We now know the outcome of the election. For many folks, there's an enormous amount of fear, anxiety, and dread about the behavior and decisions of the incoming administration. There's also a tendency, especially on social media, to respond to every negative step that the Trump administration makes. In these two episodes, we distinguish between a reactive sense of urgency and a grounded sense of urgency. And the most important characteristic of a grounded sense of urgency is taking the space that you need to grieve in a way that's most fitting for you. In this episode, Julia and Jeremiah talk about: Defining Grief (8:00): Julia discusses, "As a reminder, the stages of grief developed by Elizabeth Kubler Ross are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. It's important to remember that these stages are not linear...Grief often starts with a fantasy outcome not being met." How Grief Looks (11:00): Jeremiah shares, "One of the big parts of grief for me is fear. I'm terrified about what's going to come in the next couple of years and looking at statistics, looking at what other people are writing about helps me pretend anyway, like I have a sense of control over the completely uncontrollable outcome from election night." Funding & Media (16:00): Julia covers, "Local news and media companies also receive the majority of their funding from conservative groups. So when Republicans complain about the mainstream liberal media being more dominant, that is simply not true. You and I have discussed in the last few days that there are no equivalent structures that support liberal media and values." Advocacy & Funding (20:00): Julia highlights, "Our limited resources do not allow us to always do the advocacy work that we would like to do. And we're seeing the disparity between our lack of resources and the resources that funded the Trump campaign and other more conservative platforms. Grieving acknowledges not just the individual impacts, but the communal impacts of a negative outcome." A Vote for Trump (26:00): Jeremiah explains, "Another way to say what you're saying from my perspective, a vote for Trump is the equivalent of my house being on fire., you being aware that my house is on fire, and you choosing not to do a damn thing about it because you want to protect your own interests rather than actually being my goddamn neighbor." Love Thy Neighbor (27:00): Julia says, "People feel betrayed, particularly people who voted for Kamala Harris, whose rights depended on her election, and know people they loved, including family, did not support them. The biggest source of betrayal is that folks who taught me to love my neighbor, to treat my neighbor as I wanted to be treated, to do justice and love goodness and walk humbly, are the most consistent source of folks who voted for Trump." Fear on the Horizon (34:00): Jeremiah says, "I've noticed a lot of similarity between the last few weeks and the first few weeks of the COVID pandemic. A lot of fear. A lot of uncertainty, a sense that something really harmful in society changing is on the horizon. We are not alone (35:00): Julia shares, "I experience a deep sense of sadness and grief for these people who I love, but in a way that pulls me closer into relationships with them. A few weeks ago, you and I had some meaningful conversations with a few women in the exvangelical world. And while I leave these interactions with a lot more information to process, I also feel held by these folks in a way that reminds me that whatever crazy shit happens in the first hundred days of the Trump administration and beyond, I'm not alone." Family Estrangement (37:00): Jeremiah discusses, "For most folks who decide to go no contact though, that decision comes after years of attempting to negotiate and renegotiate new family expectations to no avail. The decision to go no contact is seldom an impulsive one. But, going back to the definition, family estrangement refers to a myriad of options that someone can make to diminish communication and contact, often out of a recognition that values and needs no longer align." Conversations Post-Election (40:00): Julia says, "A conversation with direct language in which you say, Here is what happened. This is how you voted. And the consequence of this is that. For example, I am no longer going to share with you about my fertility journey, given limited access to abortion care." Two-Choice Dilemma (41:00): Jeremiah continues, "The two choice dilemma. You have two hard things. You can't have both, you have to pick one. And as we talk about in relationship therapy, holding people in that two choice dilemma is an emotionally exhausting, painful process. Both for, in this case, the family member who voted for Trump and the family member who voted for Harris." Evangelical Political Alignments (44:00): Julia notes, "We have to sit with that grief. We have to reckon with it. It's by no means the first time that we've seen Evangelicals align with abhorrent behaviors from politicians and lawmakers. But each time there's a part of me that hopes maybe this is the moment that the evangelicals who I love will realize that the behavior of the Republican Party do not align with the behaviors And once again, I and others are devastated by the outcome here." Mental Health First (48:00): Jeremiah says, "From a personal standpoint, your mental health and your relational health is really, really important. So, if that means getting off of social media and risk losing some of the tech capital that comes with that in terms of likes and engagement, Do that. Your mental health is really, really important."

We've tried to hold two seemingly oppositional positions during our podcast series "How to Practice Social Justice This Election Season Without Being a Jackass". 1) We do not support fascism, most notably showcased by the 2024 Republican Party. 2) We support having relationships with people who think differently (and may vote differently) than we do. To help us navigate this, we invited Sarah and Nippy from the A Little Bit Culty Podcast to join us. They talk with us about the parallels between leaving NXIVM and leaving the Evangelical Church/Republican Party. And they also talk about ways that Progressive folks can effectively dialogue with folks leaving harmful organizations. We also talk about ways that Progressive folks can get in their own way. Parallel Process & Christian Nationalism (3:00): Jeremiah starts us off, "21st century Christian nationalism relies on creating an us versus them perspective around a number of political issues, such as abortion, religious liberty, culture wars, and a libertarian economic structure. Sometimes in order to understand something, it's helpful to talk about a parallel process. How does what's happening in one organization or system repeat or mirror itself in another system?" Progressive Circles & Moral Superiority (5:00): Jeremiah says, "Progressive circles have their own version of moral superiority, and also the ensuing avoidance of hard conversations. Nippy, Sarah, and I talk about how structures in progressive circles prevent healthy dialogue and the ultimate humanization of everyone." Proselytizing (10:00): Sarah shares, "I knew that we were pushing NXIVM and that we were proselytizing. The thing that we're pushing is Keith, right? And here I am, like judging Jehovah's witnesses going door to door, when we were doing our version of that hosting networking parties where we could also recruit." Breaking the Delusion (13:00): Nippy describes, "I felt like NXIVM was a great idea, bringing ethics to the world and those sorts of things. Once your wife comes to you and says she's been branded and lied to and coerced, all that delusion immediately evaporated and like, we're not doing that. My delusion was revealed to me abruptly. And so I was immediately on a mission to protect my family." Struggling to Assert (20:00): Sarah says, "So after we left NXIVM, I was very much averse to telling anyone that they needed to do anything. Teachings of NXIVM were often like, "You have no needs other than survival needs, right? There's no emotional needs, there's no connections, safety, security, support. Those are all things that you've made up based on your own trauma and deficiencies." So for me to come out and be like, express any of those things was even hard. So I was grappling with that." Creating Change (28:00): Jeremiah reflects, "It's really, really beautiful to listen to both of you talk about and make reflections on like, this is how I wanted to use my own emotional experience to both communicate what was going on and also the hope that that would create change in a larger system. And in some cases it did for both of you, it seems." Reaching Out (31:00): Sarah and Nippy recall an interaction, where Nippy tells Sarah, "There's going to come a time where you have to like, walk over the dead bodies and you're not going to be able to help everybody." Sarah responds, "Like, and I was really trying to help everybody." Parallel Process (35:00): Jeremiah notes, "Nippy, what you're describing again, just wanting to name the parallel process going on in the larger system as more and more information comes out about the Trump administration and the corruption at minimum that that's happened with that, that the doubling down that's happened with a larger group of people. Just wanted to keep in mind that as we're having this conversation, that there's a larger kind of macro version of that going on." Not Defining (38:00): Jeremiah continues, "Julia and I are both therapists first who happen to study Christian nationalism. One of the ways I think that the field of psychology has really harmed 21st century discourse is through the language of diagnosis and the utilization of diagnosis as a weapon of power. You're in a cult. You are racist. You are fill in the blank without defining what that actually means." No Nuance (40:00): Nippy says, "Whatever group presents themselves, it's kind of a, you're with me or against me. Us versus them. They don't really leave room for nuance. And in the last four or five years, you've seen it in climate change. You've seen it in politics. All these things that are coming up right now demand that you take a side if you don't then you're somehow guilty of some sort of internal crime." Exiting a High Control Group & Covid (46:00): Sarah says, "Ccoming out of a high control group--you, me, Nippy, and your listeners all did this. Okay. Now we're free. We don't have anything controlling us. Let's just say, let's take an example of COVID. That happened. And my first instinct was, "Wait, you're going to tell me what to do to my body again? Go f--- yourself". And people go, "Oh, you're an anti-vaxxer." And I'm going, "Wait, you're calling me a name. You're putting me in the us versus them. I don't like that one bit." And it was very easy for people to know if they understood my story, why I would be a little bit defensive." Informed Decisions (48:00): Jeremiah notes, "Understanding that any sort of decision that we make, there's a lot of tensions that are there. And it's important to talk about those, not from the perspective, say, of positioning myself in one group, but from the perspective of helping people to understand, these are really complicated things that we're working through that have relational impacts that have family impacts. And we need to talk about the nuances of them so that people can make more informed decisions." Deconstruction (56:00): Sarah discusses, "I had a friend say, "What if a little bit of that [information about Keith] is true?" That was a bit of dissonance. It was like sort of cracking the plate … Of course you wouldn't be here if there weren't good things. You're not willing to look at the bad. And I realized that that was true somewhere in the back of my mind. So I see that right now, both sides aren't willing to look at whatever side they've chosen has done some shady shit."

For many Exvangelicals, there's an enormous pressure to move into spaces of advocacy for civil rights, especially two weeks before the 2024 Presidential Election. However, advocacy can easily replicate systems of criticism, moral superiority, and shaming, especially when there's un- or under-addressed fear, trauma, anger. We're thrilled to have Sally Gary and Karen Keen from Centerpeace to talk with us about how to navigate the tension between advocacy and healing part of our series How to Practice Social Justice This Election Season Without Being a Jackass. Centerpeace is a supportive space for LGBTQ+ folks who desire a continued relationship with the church and Christianity. We talk with Sally and Karen about: Classic Therapists (4:00): Jeremiah kicks us off, "I think becoming a therapist was a way of bypassing personal healing. Classic therapists. Now, obviously I didn't recognize that at the time. I was 23. I had very little reason that the idea that I wanted to do relationship therapy was because of my own family of origin." Evangelism (6:00): Julia notes, "Karen discusses how the true root of evangelism is the sharing of good news. However, in fundamentalist spaces, evangelism has become a form of coercion and control, and those who don't conform receive criticism and rejection. If we're not careful when we move out of those harmful religious spaces, we might be prone to enacting those same communication strategies." Infighting (11:00): Julia describes, "So you're ultimately describing how folks within the same field of study with different specialties use infighting to criticize each other when ultimately we could be working together. Advancing sexual health as a whole through education, through counseling, through therapy, but we're too stuck in our own superiority to get above that or get through that." Evangelical Families (19:00): Karen shares, "I don't see myself as against the evangelical family that has raised me. I see myself in conversation with, wrestling with that family. And in terms of the difference between healing and advocacy, I think one way to tell whether we need to focus on healing or on advocacy is what comes up in us emotionally, what's in our chest, what's in our gut and our stomach. And if we are feeling a pit in the stomach, if we are feeling a bitterness, a rage, then probably I'm going to want to look at how can I heal, which is going to be more with a supportive restorative community versus advocacy." Advocacy v. Healing (21:00): Sally says, "For me, the difference is about a personal space versus a public space. Healing space is very personal and any advocacy that I might be a part of needs to arise out of that healing. And, I know in my own life there had to be a lot of healing before I could take on any kind of advocacy role." Food for Thought (25:00): Julia asks, "What's the difference in advocacy when we are looking at systems that can be particularly harmful? And then what does that look like when we're having conversations with the people that we love, who we share our holidays and our houses with? I'm sure that we'll probably talk about that a little bit later, but that's good food for thought." Obligation to Advocate (28:00): Karen says, "One of the ways that I can see, okay, I need to maybe step back, is if that resentment is coming up, and if I'm feeling like I'm operating out of pressure, rather than choice, sometimes I start to feel like, oh, I don't have a choice, I just have to do this, and I start to feel this pit in my stomach, and it feels like obligation." Reclaiming Evangelism (31:00): Karen states, "I want to reclaim the word evangelism because it's good news … Where it went wrong is when it wasn't, 'I'm so excited about this. Let me tell you what I'm excited about.' It was, 'let me coerce you. Let me manipulate. Let me assert my dogma indoctrination on you and my moral superiority.' Which is not evangelism. Evangelism is a way of life. It's a lived embodied way that I am." Listening First (35:00): Sally discusses, "Jesus said the most important things were to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and to love your neighbor as yourself … I care more about learning that and listening to your story and getting to know you and what is really important to you, than I do cramming what I think down your throat." Relationships (42:00): Jeremiah notes, "I'm also reminded that Julia, the work that you and I do in relationship therapy is ultimately about navigating differences. How can two people be clear about what they align on, but not necessarily have the expectation that they align on everything, which, I think at their worse, conservative evangelical communities can encourage, and how can we encourage folks in a relationship to navigate even to celebrate some of the differences that they have. And we talk about that on a dyadic level." Centerpeace Conference (44:00): Sally discusses, "There is a specific call to respect other people's views and to listen to those views that we're not there to argue. We're not there to express those disagreements in that context. This is a space for LGBTQ plus Christians to come who have been wounded by those kinds of arguments, who have literally been removed from family, from churches and are still longing. And that's the theme of our conference is the fact that we are still desirous of relationship with God, relationship with the church, to find a faith community to be a part of. That's what those 500 people are coming to look for." Groundwork from Minute 1 (45:00): Jeremiah highlights, "I love the intentionality about saying that. Not just night one, but also like minute one. These are the ground rules in therapy. We call this the battle for structure. These are the ground rules. We're going to be nice. Disrespect is not going to be tolerated. I really appreciate that as a starting space for how you navigate differences in large groups of people." Supporting LGBTQ+ College Students (54:00): Sally shares, "It was for LGBTQ students on campus. They met once a week at my home in the evening, and it was absolutely beautiful, and I learned so much from those students. I began listening to their stories, and I realized, okay, if I'm going to really understand this, the number one thing to say is tell me more. Tell me more about who you are and how you got where you are. And I began to listen and I realized very early on that this is not as simplistic as I was led to believe. The cookie cutter answers I had been given in the 90s from Christian sources that were again, best motives trying to help, but we're, yeah, but were not helpful at all." Thank God We All Grow (1:00:00): Julia shares, "I remember listening to an interview with Hillary Clinton and, and the interviewer was really asking what I thought were poor questions about stances that she had previously had on gay marriage. And of course, Hillary Clinton supports gay marriage, but she didn't at one point in the 90s.Of course, I don't want to minimize or invalidate the history of folks who have not had civil rights, and at one point in the interview, you could tell that Hillary Clinton was getting frustrated, and she said some version of, Thank God we all can grow and evolve." Need for Growth (1:03:00): Karen says, "Because it took me a long time to where I am to get to an affirming place and there are things that I said that were not good, they were harmful. I thought I was doing good, but was keeping people trapped and I had to see that I was trapped too to be able to stop using my own words to trap others. But I think that there's some of the stridency I can see on the left or the right, the frustration that there needs to be growth is really a remnant of that conservative fundamentalism" Advocacy in Relationship (1:08:00): Karen notes, "When you add on to that, the stress of advocacy work, the stress of the confrontations, the emotional, spiritual abuse that comes at you, the holding and listening to pain day after day after day of people who are maybe suicidal or who have been pushed out and trying to be a space. That I think we're still sorting out how to care well for that trauma that comes from advocacy work in order to protect our marriage to not, because I think it's very easy if we don't recognize that if we don't recognize the triggers and the traumas that are going on, we can turn against each other." Reflecting (1:15:00): Jeremiah ends us off, "That was a really, really special experience to reflect on, some of the things that I missed. when I was 20 and, and getting to grieve that a little bit, but also getting to celebrate with Sally and to see just the beautiful work that she and Karen are doing with Centerpeace. It was a big honor."

One of the biggest sources of stress this election season has been the publication of Project 2025. As we continue our series How to Do Social Justice This Election Season Without Being a Jackass, we recognize that many of the policies in Project 2025 are dehumanizing, as well as unwise. While the content inside Project 2025 is infuriating, it's nonetheless imperative that we familiarize ourselves with it, while also taking care to communicate effectively about its dangers. To help us, we invite Andra Watkins, author of the Substack How Project 2025 Will Ruin Your Life. Andra is one of the leading experts on Project 2025, and she talks with us about: Jackass-dom in Liberal Spaces (2:30): Jeremiah kicks us off, "One of the themes that we've talked about in this podcast is moral superiority and virtue signaling, and this episode could easily kind of move into virtue signaling and moral superiority because one of the ways that liberal groups and progressive groups move into those kind of jackass spaces is through the specific way that knowledge and information gets communicated." Weaponizing Education (5:00): Julia notes, "In this episode and in all episodes of this series, we are trying to walk that really difficult line between the importance and power of education and knowledge without weaponizing that as a tool to further create harm." Undaunted Courage (21:00): Andra talks about, "I was really fortunate in the first book that I picked up, Undaunted Courage. It's just one of the best books I've ever read, and it presented this very different picture of that expedition [Lewis & Clark]. I was like, if I could have learned all this when I was 13, I would have majored in history because this is fascinating because the youngest guy that went on the expedition was just 15 years old." Pushback in Deconstruction (23:00): Jeremiah notes, "So often the experiences of deconstruction, the pushbacks happen in relationships. And Andra, you were talking about the relationship that you have with your mom, some of the pushback that you have. And we want to keep that in mind throughout this episode and name that, but also know that there is a mutually reciprocal relationship between education and pushing back against the family relationships, pushing back against the mythology." Withholding Information (26:00): Julia says, "When we think about sex education, we think about it in more explicit terms around sexuality or relationships. But I think that the sex education the church didn't want you to have can now expand into the Lewis and Clark expedition and, and all the other parts of history that point to facets of our humanity, including relationships, including sexuality that are intentionally withheld from teenagers and adolescents who are learning." Project 2025 (31:00): In detailing her inspiration for the substack Andra says, "I was reading along. And I said, this is a Bible verse that I'm reading. It's not presented that way, but this is almost verbatim, a Bible verse." God's Law Because God is Perfect (34:00): Andra says, "They all use this same lens though, to say America is a Christian nation. America is a white Christian nation. We need to use the Bible as the basis of our laws. That's what the founders meant for the Bible to be our law, not man's law. And we have to override anything that violates God's law like abortion, even though abortion is not in the Bible. That's how they justify all of those stances to themselves … I was taught you never compromise because it's God's law and God is perfect. God knows all we can't ever give an inch." Expertise (37:00): Andra shares, "Expertise by life experience and that's really what gives me my expertise. Americans don't respect that as much. It's not uncommon for me in left leaning circles to be introduced as a self proclaimed survivor of Christian nationalism. Like there's some reason to question whether I really am." Indoctrination (40:00): Andra says, "I don't think a lot of Americans realize that when you sit in a pew and listen to this for 40 or 50 years, many of you are very, very radicalized in their thinking. So having had adult experience with watching people that I knew who were still in that world and how they had morphed and changed over time because of this dogma. All of that experience and study of Project 2025 and the groups involved I felt like that was enough to claim to be an expert. And so many people who write about Christian nationalism have no pain or trauma or suffering from it. They didn't grow up in it. They just became curious about it." Dog Whistles (45:00): Jeremiah says, "That's good information about considering Colleen Hoover. First of all, considering it quote "pornography". Second of all, what Project 2025 says about pornography. And third of all the dog whistle for pornography that this is actually about domestic abuse and at what point does that then get into like the banned books and get thrown in like the critical race theory?" Dealing with Trolls (51:00): Andra says, "I got some trolling commentary in the past couple of weeks and they were upset that I was calling Republicans, fascist Republicans, because they were Republican. So they took issue with my name calling. And so I explained to them what fascism is and what it looks like. And gave examples in the United States of where it's happening. And said, if it hurts your feelings that I'm calling Republicans fascists, then, you know, I'd encourage you to educate yourself a little better about what fascism is." Staying Grounded (54:00): Julia notes, "What I'm hearing and learning from you is that education can also keep you grounded when the understandable and justified emotions that you're feeling might threaten to hijack you. You're not ignoring those emotions, which is equally dangerous. You're allowing them to be present. You're sitting with them. You're honoring them. I think anger is a highly important emotion to respect, especially in terms of advocacy. And when you wait those 24 hours, when you can bring your work back to the education that you do, that can be helpful personally, but ultimately that's what. It has the power to, to change conversations and ultimately to change policy."