Sexvangelicals

We wrap up our series on The Sex Ed We Wish We Had by talking about the final sexual health principle from the work of Doug Braun Harvey and Michael Vigorito: Mutual pleasure. And we’re excited to have our editor extraordinaire, Nicole Marinescu, share her experiences of navigating mutually pleasurable experiences in an age of Tinder, virtual communication, and the growing influence of EMPish (Evangelical, Mormon, and Pentecostal) communities. Nicole provides a simple definition for mutual pleasure: “Caring about the other person or persons that you are having a sexual experience with.” We also talk about the following: Gen-Z and Independence (4:00): Nicole talks about how in growing up with the internet, Gen-Zers have become a ‘hyper-independent’ generation, which can be great in many aspects; however, hinders us in aspects of community, relationships, and mutual pleasure. “When you have this level of independence, working with one another was not a skill that was taught even in elementary school. Independence is a beautiful thing, but when you're not kind of taught to work with people in your community, the people around you, you're not really gonna apply that as you get older. You're not gonna apply that to dating, you're not gonna apply that to sex.” Julia adds “What we know from research is that Gen Z folks are having less partnered sex. Now solo sex and masturbation are fantastic, so keep doing that. But it doesn't sound like your generation has learned good relational skills to move out of the independence into a partnered state in which you can both talk and engage pleasure together.” Tinder (8:00): Nicole shares, “Tinder is an app that commodifies not just sexuality, but the people that you are reduced to your height and the one or two pictures that you have, and you are something that you just say yes or no to.” Jeremiah responds, “That's not mutual. That is one person asserting themselves, asserting their sexuality at the expense of another person. Social media impacted and inhibited the ways and the skills with which people who use social media at high volumes communicate effectively. It also inhibits the ability to move into empathetic spaces in response.” Pleasure (25:00): “I think we find pleasure in the excitement and in this wonderful human connection that you don't have with most people,” Nicole says in response to a question about the difference between meeting people virtually versus in person. Excitement is pleasure to a degree because it not only adds to a potential sexual experience, but it aids in our ability to empathize. With sex and romance becoming more virtual, we lose that excitement and in turn, lose some of our ability to empathize.  Relationships During Times of Transition (31:00): Nicole explains how she and her partner create space for happiness and mutually pleasurable, not only during times of transition, to connect. “I’m talking about specific things we both like, that make us both happy and we'll do that. We'll cook meals together and that makes us so happy. We get to connect and it's not sexual, but you know, we're laughing, we are both following the recipe really poorly. It's a really good point of connection for us.” Julia adds, “The pleasure within sexuality requires a lot of time and intention and communication. That is not easy. Pleasure also exists outside of sexuality.” The Church and Community (45:00): Nicole describes, “The community element of church is something that I think we're missing in a lot of other spaces. But the community element of the church also comes with a lot of guilt and shame. And they tell you, oh, you can talk to us about anything. We can give you guidance, but you talk to them about something and it's. ‘What? That's wrong. No, no, no.’” The Church can and has damaged many people’s ability to be vulnerable by showing them that many of their questions will be met with shame, which in turn can hurt someone's ability to be vulnerable in a relationship.  A huge thanks to Nicole for joining us in this episode! Let’s heal together!

Today’s episode discusses one of the most challenging dynamics that we see when doing sex therapy with couples where one/both grew up in a religious context: How do you navigate value conversion, the paradigm shifting that happens during therapy, when two people convert their values at different paces? Jimmy Bridges, PhD, therapist extraordinaire at This Space Between, joins us for part two of this extremely important conversation. Jimmy, Julia, and Jeremiah talk about their process of value conversion in their former marriages—spoiler alert: it wasn’t pretty for any of the three of us—as well as: Empathy (5:20): Jimmy explains, “What I'm mostly encouraging folks to do is both get to a place where they're able to really like step into the shoes of the other person. And then that works both ways because it helps with pacing. I think the biggest issue that leads to harm is we're trying to move too fast. Be cognizant of how it's impacting the people connected to you and learn how to step into the shoes.” Finding similarities (10:30): Jimmy continues, “More than not, there's probably more alignment than we think there is in this process of huge transitions, either religiously or like relationally. I think how it gets enacted—behavior versus principle—I think can sometimes confuse us into thinking, oh, my partner's really different than me because they like practice this in a different way. But the value itself might still remain the same.” Anxiety and value conversion (15:30): Jimmy describes processes that impacted his separation from his ex, “I wish I would've advocated for what I was wanting more because there was a fear of like, “Ooh, how is this gonna be perceived?” But I didn't even think at that time, about this is why it's important to me. This is what I do with like couples all the time. Connect it to why it's important to you.” Navigating gender roles and therapy (18:30): Jeremiah notes that adherence to gender roles can interfere with the process of therapy, to which Jimmy responds, “The dilemma of a therapist is how much do I put myself in a position where I'm actually not being culturally competent? Right. And instead, use my position of power to say, Ooh, okay, I can't actually go forward with respecting all of your cultural values if some of those values are going to go against the treatment goals that you came in here asking me to help you with.” The impact of enmeshment (29:20): Jimmy notes, “I think there is quite a lot of enmeshment that occurs relationally because it's being in a way socialized into you from being in an enmeshed church. I think communication skills become more important when you come out of a culture like that are like developing tolerance when you're in the space of tension, so distress tolerance. Find some internal reminders that the family isn't going to collapse. If we're hearing someone talk about something different, that harmony can still be maintained in the face of differences. And what that looks like in communication is something as simple as, “Let me see if I've got you so far, are you saying this, this and this?” At the core of our work at Sexvangelicals is the process of value conversion. If you’re interested in working with us, please give this episode a listen! Let’s heal together!

Last week, in our episode with Kara Haug, we talked about honesty as structures that provide accurate information to individuals and groups about sexuality and relationships. This week, we talk about how to navigate honesty within a relationship, where two people may have similar or differing perspectives, needs, and values. The language that we use to describe this sexual health principle is “shared values”. Doug Braun Harvey, founder of the Harvey Institute, writes: “Values are a source of identifying one’s sexual standards and ethics. Values differences, when honestly and vulnerably shared between partners, can lead to closeness or painful distance. Either way, it is a conversation that brings reality and clarity where couples may have previously chosen avoidance and deception.” We invite our colleague Dr. Jimmy Bridges to talk with us about how to discuss values in relationships. In part 1, we talk about the ways that conservative religions discourage discussion of values using our own experiences—ours within Evangelical circles and Jimmy’s within the Mormon church. We talk about: Language of Sex Ed (8:00): Jimmy says that he was taught about “plumbing,” to which Jeremiah responds, “The language of disgust that's connected with plumbing is where sewage goes. It's where waste goes.” Shame around Masturbation (11:00): “I think most folks, most kids feel [shame] about masturbation. Like you don't need any faith tradition to feel shame about masturbation if you grow up in the United States,” Jimmy describes. The shame around masturbation led to shame around sexuality, and ultimately, himself: “I got pretty good at repressing a ton of like sexual urge, sexual desire, sexual exploration, sexual identity exploration, to where I thought I was getting a good sense of who I was and building this like really strong identity, but the reality was I was losing myself.” Values (23:00): Jimmy shares, “The value of confrontation, self confronting, taking ownership of how I behave and the impact that that has on the world and the people around me actually guides a lot of like what I do in my own personal life and also in my professional life.” Jimmy speaks about how his own values have evolved as a person who has moved through many different religions and as a therapist. and Jeremiah notes “So the idea of value conversion then suggests that values aren't static. Values have the capacity to grow, to evolve.” Therapy and Power (26:00): Jimmy describes that therapists have to be aware of “power and the influence that a therapist and power or position of privilege holds in guiding and shaping people's values.” This can become especially dangerous for folks who grew up in religious contexts, because “coming from religious structures, we are just ingrained in giving our autonomy up to the authority and asking the authority figures to make these decisions for us.” Tune in next week for part two of our interview with Jimmy, where all three of us talk about our experiences navigating shifts in values in our marriages. Let’s heal together!

We continue with our series on The Sex Education We Wish We Had by talking about the sexual health principle of honesty. Doug Braun-Harvey, of the Harvey Institute, explains: “Sexual health requires open and direct communication with oneself and every sexual partner. Honesty with oneself involves being open to sexual pleasure, sexual experience, and sexual education. Without honesty, sexual relationships will not be able to have effective communication or be able to uphold any of the sexual health principles.” How can we have honest dialogue about sexuality when we’ve been so dishonest with our kids and adolescents about sexual health? To help us answer this, we invite Kara Haug, co-founder of Reframing Our Stories, a business that provides sexual health education, resources and tools for families and communities to normalize conversations around sex and relationship in Sacramento. Kara talks with us about: Mixed Messaging (9:00): Kara shares, “Something that stood out to me was that even in the affirmation of being a dancer, that there was still a sexualization component of you as either a girl or an adolescent that you could dance in church, but literally, God forbid, your nipples show, that there was still this insidious underbelly of purity culture and gendered messaging.” Women’s bodies are treated as subjects that must be debated on, ruled upon, discussed, and punished, instead of just being treated like a human body. Role of Sexuality (20:00): Kara discusses her motivation for her work: “The amount that I saw how sexuality played into people's stories and how it shaped their lives and how it touched so much of our lives that I didn't realize before I think overwhelmed me. And then I just became really sad because I'm like, what we are doing is we are continuing negative cycles that don't need to happen.” The absence of honest conversations and comprehensive sex education leads to unnecessary suffering and grief. Gut Instincts (33:00): Kara talks about how she was taught to go against her instincts: “I was told not to trust my bodily sensations and things like that. And so that's why now recognizing how I feel like I have made decisions against my gut instinct. Every time I teach anyone, I bring in a body element, like from young to old.” To have honest and open conversations about sexuality, we need to be able to trust ourselves, and our bodies first. Grief (34:00): Jeremiah asks, “When families work with you, I imagine that they are often receiving comprehensive sex education for the first time as well. How do you help them navigate the experience in the grief of receiving sex ed for themselves and sharing it with the children at the same time?” We talk about grief quite a bit, and for an important reason: we need to hold space for our younger selves who did have the opportunity to have the same education as our children. It’s important to break those cycles for future generations. Triggers (40:00): Kara reflects, “Your children are your biggest triggers and so as soon as you feel triggered about something, you need to think about why was that triggering? And then you need to think about the root of that and then possibly be willing to get help for that,” Our children can trigger us, but it is up to us to be honest with ourselves and unpack why we were triggered.  We’re Going on a Bear Hunt (43:00): “Nobody likes hard feelings. We don't like them. You know, we don't like feeling like garbage. I say that and I go, but just like the book, we're going on a bear hunt. We can't go over it. We can't go under it. We have to go through it.” Kara speaks about the book, also loved by Julia, for how it is an effective tool for teaching about how we have to push through hardship because we cannot avoid it.  Directness and Respect (50:00):  Julia summarizes the importance of “directness and respect and not sugarcoating hard things that were happening in or outside of family systems.” Children deserve the same honesty and respect as adults. Age-appropriate language and honesty can co-exist, and it is important that children are exposed to honesty young so they can incorporate that into their own mindset and expect the same from others.  Learn more about Kara through her podcast Reframing Our Stories. Let’s heal together!

April is STI Awareness Month. STIs are commonly discussed in sex ed curricula, but typically as a fear-mongering technique to discourage premarital sexuality. We are excited to have Jenelle Pierce, Executive Director of The STI Project, break down the stigma and provide strategies for discussing STIs with partners. The episode begins with this prompt: “A person is beginning to date and is exploring multiple potential dating, sexual, and or romantic relationships. What are some ways to help set initial conversations around STI or pregnancy prevention?” The Value of Honest Communication (2:00): “It’s important to be honest, if you are in any stage of a relationship, even a ‘talking stage’”, Jenelle says. “First of all, communicating the dynamic of that relationship to all your partners, making sure that those who are involved know and are in the same place and are comfortable with that.” Beginning the Conversation (4:00): Julia reflects, “I have many clients who have recently moved out of religious structures that have such specific rules around dating and sexuality and never learned the skills to have a dialogue about sexuality in general and different components about sexuality, including STIs. And those conversations can feel very anxiety provoking for folks.” Many folks who grow up in religious structures typically do not even have a starting point for conversations about sex and sexuality, so it can cause fear and anxiety to even begin that dialogue because of the idea that talking about sex is shameful. Misconceptions About Open Relationships (13:00): Jenelle shares, “The assumption is that they're (people in polyamorous relationships) potentially higher risk and that there are more STIs within those communities. […] But it's actually the other way around. So research tells us that those who have known infections are less likely to transmit their infection than someone who has an unknown infection.” This shows how vital comprehensive sexual education is. People who are more inclined to have honest and open conversations practice safe(r) sex. The Psychology of Disgust (22:00): Jenelle explains, “Disgust is one of the core central emotions that helps us to navigate life in a way that we can be healthy and productive. And so it's a central emotion that's necessary from an evolutionary standpoint. Your risk assessment and disgust sensitivity changes and is dynamic intentionally also to benefit you because we need those relationships. The actual exchange of bacteria that happens when we're in close proximity to one another is good for our immune system and our overall health.” Learn more about Jenelle and The STI Project on Instagram. Let’s heal together!

The third principle of sexual health, according to Doug Braun-Harvey and Michael Vigorito, and part of the sex education we wish we had is effective, non fear mongering conversations around sexually transmitted infections, HIV, and pregnancy. Jenelle Pierce, the Executive Director of the STI Project, joins us for the next two episodes to share how we can have greater education, awareness, and dialogue around sexually transmitted infections. In this episode, Jenelle shares her personal story with us. Not surprisingly, purity culture is at the room of this." The Pervasiveness of Purity Culture (6:00): Jenelle speaks to us about how even though her parents were not the hyper-religious type, the conservative area she grew up in Michigan influenced her ideas around and about sex. “I was really involved in a youth group at the time and I loved going to youth group and I actually was on board with the idea that I think I might try and save myself, quote unquote till marriage. That of course didn't end up happening and was a lot of the source of shame. I felt very much like, this is a result of my bad behavior and I'm deserving of this. And this is how I'm being punished by God and I will never be worthy and I'm less than.” When proper sex education is absent, it makes sense that someone would think an STI is a divine punishment. Medical Misinformation or Lack of Information (20:00): Janelle talks about the lack of information she got after her diagnosis. “The severity, duration, all of those things did dissipate over time, but mine was a very kind of traditional outbreak and experience. My doctor told me that it was the “worst case that I've ever seen”. There was no, this is super common. The first outbreak, is oftentimes really severe, but after your body builds up antibodies, it will start to suppress, you know, no education, no literature. So then I'm thinking, well, if someone who's a medical practitioner who in theory sees this somewhat frequently, I didn't even understand how common it was at the time, and of course, he was certainly not going to substantiate that for me.” Shaming and Sharing (37:00): Jenelle and Jeremiah reflect on the implications of the phrase “Thank you for sharing your story,” and the fine line between acknowledging vulnerability and assuming culpability and shame. Dialogue (45:00): “It’s not just like I have this STI I status I need to disclose. It's that I wanna talk about these things around sexual health and safer sex because I had an experience that opened my mind. That looks like, “I'm curious about what you need. I'm curious about what you'd like to do around safer sex or sexual health. I'm curious when you were last tested, cause here's when I was tested here was, here were the results of my tests.” And all of those things are important because the person who is initiating the conversation their safety, comfort, and body is just as important as the person who is receiving that information and then reciprocating the dialogue in return. So that's, the onus gets put on the person who has the thing, you know, like the thing that they need to share. It's all parties that are responsible for this.” To finish off this episode, Jenelle talks about what a conversation about sexual health and safety should look like. The dialogue is a two-way stream, and not just on the person initiating it. Check out next week’s episode to learn more about specific ways that this dialogue can look.

We’re continuing our series on The Sex Ed We Wish We Had, rooted in the six sexual health principles of Doug Braun-Harvey. The second principle is non-exploitation (5:00), “when a person leverages their power and control to receive sexual gratification. The outcome is sex that is ruthless and insensitive to the feelings of a partner and family members. The outcome encompasses unwanted, harsh, or cruel nomination or taking advantage of a person who is mentally incapable to use their cognitive and emotional capacity. To give or not give consent.” We commonly talk about exploitation from the perspective of individuals leveraging their individual power and control to receive sexual gratification. On this, and in future episodes, we acknowledge that individuals who exploit are commonly enacting cultural and societal directives to exploit. As such, we are holding both systems and individuals accountable. We’re excited to have our colleague and friend Amber Wood as our guest. She talks with us about the exploitation of queer people in the church, including: Your Goodness is God (13:00): “I was raised that anything good in you is God. That's not you. Your humanity essentially is bad. And so if I take away my belief in God or my belief in Jesus, if I take that away, I'm just now trying to figure out who I am because all my identity that was good. Well, that had to be God. Anything that's bad, well that's just your sinful nature, right? So what exists when you take that away?” Amber shares how the Southern Baptist Church taught that all your goodness is God and all your badness is you. Erasure in the Church (15:00): Amber reflects on how homosexuality was not even condemned, it was never mentioned. “I don't remember them ever really talking about queerness. It was so black and white in scripture to the point of just like, I wouldn't commit adultery or I wouldn't rob a bank. I'm not going to have a same-sex relationship. It wasn't something that was taught about in lessons.” Amber shares her story about not being able to identify what a crush on women even felt like because there was no vocabulary ever given for that. Erasure spurs feelings of confusion and non-belonging without ever giving a label so many people feel more lost. Jeremiah summarizes, “The assumption that if we don't talk about something, people will just like make the assumption, oh, well I don't need to explore that.” (21:00)  Guilt Around Masturbation (31:00): Amber shares her guilt around masturbation: “I was tormented by that. I felt like that was my horrible thing and I felt so much guilt and shame for it. Now I can look back and be like, no one took the time to really talk to you and educate you and, and support you in that,” This is heartbreaking because these feelings could have been non-existent if proper sex education was taught and available. The conversation about comprehensive sex education is a theme throughout Sexvangelicals because so many painful feelings stem from inaccurate or non-existent sex education. Developmental Delays (48:00): Amber explains, “With some clients that I have who come out later in life, their developmental level of building relationships is more at a junior high level now. So the immaturity part of that is trying to navigate that. Plus their entire self-worth and how they view themselves is all messed up. Yeah. That puts them at bigger risk of being in unhealthy relationships, because they don't understand who they are, what they are outside of what they were raised to believe.” Julia and Jeremiah talk about the impact of those developmental delays on the stability of relationships. Amber closes with a message of hope: “I'm seeing more acceptance and less of a stigma. The LGBTQ community is just normal. And so it gives me hope that they will then raise their children to where they're accepting and they don't have to go through this. That gives me hope that, that maybe this is changing.” Let’s heal together!

We're continuing our conversation about consent on Sexvangelicals. Julia made a comment on this week’s episode that consent is simultaneously easy and extremely difficult to navigate. I mean, we want consent to be an easy, straightforward thing. And when there are clear intentions to use sexuality as a way to physically and emotionally hurt and violate other people, the line between consent and non-consent becomes pretty straightforward. However, if we think about consent not as attorneys do, as a yes/no binary, consent was or wasn’t given, but more as a relational process, a dialogue, a conversation, here’s where things become a bit more complicated. We continue to talk about the nuances of consent in part 2 of our episode. We also provide Relationship 101 on how to use some of the principles of consent in your sexual relationships. Expressing desire (7:45): Julia says, “Because being able to express desire for sexuality is an important part of consent. Consent is the negotiation of pleasure.” Unfortunately, due to the shaming of sexuality in the church and performance of gender roles, neither she nor her ex were able to communicate their desire for sexuality, to the detriment of the relationship. The church’s myths about consent (12:00): We name three myths about consent. 1) The frequency of sex and the performance of sex is an indicator of relational health (12:45). 2) Men are expected to take over, and women want men to take over (17:30). 3) Men are sexual aggressors, and women are expected to be passive recipients (24:00). Relationship 101: How to practice affirmative consent, particularly if talking about sex is new (31:30): We name five specific tips. 1) Plan a time and place (31:50). 2) Pick a specific topic and use specific resources to help out, if necessary (32:30). 3) Set a limit to the amount of time you talk about this (34:25). 4) Celebrate the ends of conversations together (35:15). 5) Use a safe word if things get too overwhelming (37:05). Julia concludes, “You might even be apprehensive about having a conversation about sex, so check in along the way.” Consent is ultimately about conversation and dialogue, not just during the actual sexual experience, but before and after genital play happens. Let’s heal together!

After our month-long foray into the disturbing literature from the Evangelical Christian publishing industry, we continue our new series The Sex Ed We Wish We Had. Last month, we interviewed Doug Braun-Harvey, who describes the six sexual health principles that we and many other sexual health providers use as their rubric for co-creating healthy sexual encounters. We begin with a two-part series on consent, which, to quote the Harvey Institute (8:40): “Consent means voluntary cooperation communicates permission to try and reach sexual satisfaction and intimacy with willing partners. Consent transforms the act of sex from invasion, intrusion, or violation into an act of transformation. Establishing consent throughout each step of a sexual interaction provides each sexual partner space for sexual safety and pleasure that's consistent with their sexual desire.” We also address: Consent in Church and the Country (9:50): “Consent in our country has been about folks, primarily men, getting as far as they can sexually while escaping rape allegations or charges. Similar to the church, American culture has given women the responsibility of gatekeeping men's sexuality. While keeping themselves safe from violence,” Jeremiah says. Consent is a tool used by men to absolve themselves from any hurt or crime they may have committed. It is not seen as something that should be intrinsically tied to sex. Julia then makes the connection that, “so often the Christian Church establishes themselves as countercultural. However, in terms of sexuality, the status of so many sexual health principles are quite similar. Within and outside of church walls, we have long taught women best practices for avoiding assault.” The conversation around consent usually centers around the metaphor of wearing a bulletproof vest instead of just banning guns.  The Process of Affirmative Consent (11:55): “Learn that consent is the proactive negotiation of pleasure. To catch onto this concept, a religious university in Ohio was the first to develop a model for affirmative consent.” Julia notes as we give props to a Christian institution on this podcast for probably the first time. They then list the seven principles of affirmative consent:  Explicitness. A yes must be expressed verbally. Voluntariness. The yes must be given voluntarily without pressure or coercion.   Ability to consent. Intoxicated people, people under a certain age are unable to give consent. A shift of responsibility. They mean the person who initiates the sexual act has the responsibility to obtain the consent of all participants in non-coercive ways. Freedom from presumption. Consent must be obtained repeatedly for each new sexual act. Informedness. All participants must know what consent is being given for, in particular, when we think about the role of the receiver, what would it be like to have a sexual experience where the initiator says, hey, this is what I want to kind of work through. Revocability. A previously given consent can be withdrawn at any time.  These seven principles are without nuance, which we will dive into next, but still are a strong framework and guide to affirmative consent. As well as, great starting points and rules for someone to follow.  The Simplifying of Consent (15:40): “Consent is actually very complicated. Even in more progressive circles, I've noticed this impulse to try and make consent as simple as possible. We actually have so many different contextual factors to take into account with each sexual scenario. With each of the seven principles, we can't actually package consent into a simple formula.” Julia adds to the conversation about affirmative consent, saying that even though this is a great framework, consent cannot be distilled into a simple idea. It is okay that consent is nuanced and complicated, and that is what they are exploring today. Heteronormativity (21:00): “Heteronormativity relies on narratives about how men and women enact sexuality differently inside the church. As we talked about in reading the Butler series and in the seven deadly sexual sins according to the church, but also outside of the church, we have the false narrative that men are inherently more sexual and that women have the duty to perform sexuality according to the socialized norms of what men crave sexual,” Jeremiah says. We explore the effects of heteronormativity throughout different episodes, but pertaining to the idea of consent, this heteronormative dynamic affects how consent is given and received. Many women in heterosexual relationships feel the need to say yes, and many men feel the need to initiate sex, even if they do not want to have sex.  Sex Therapist Training and Consent (31): Jeremiah talks about his experience how, in one of his sex therapy training classes, he learned what consent actually looked like, and also how his heterosexual relationship fit into a larger context within society. “I was also so stuck in the emotional cycle of protecting my ex at the time, that I didn't have the wherewithal to realize the larger societal context for our relational interaction. But in this particular class, I internalized this.” He then talks about his experience unpacking much of the ingrained ideology about martial consent within the context of Christianity.  Christianity and Consent (39): “The most heartbreaking part is that we were both trying hard to be the best partners that we could be, and the patterns that developed from our best efforts, which were modeled to us by Christian culture and Christian leaders were strong contributors to our divorce and set the stage for both of us to have years of non-consensual sexual experiences," Julia talks about how Christianity establishes that consent happens only once at the altar, and never again. This has negative repercussions as sex does not equal an enjoyable and safe experience for the people involved, but quite the opposite.  These are hard conversations to have, and next week, we’ll talk more about Julia’s experience navigating sexuality and consent in her marriage, before concluding with some Relationship 101. Let’s heal together!

This week, we finish our third and final installment in our series reading Joshua Butler’s “Beautiful Union.” This book was initially endorsed, then quickly recalled, by the Gospel Coalition. In the final part of Chapter One, we get to read how Butler compares the vulva to a “bus depot, how Jesus was supposedly a 33-year-old virgin, and how Butler uses citations incorrectly. In all seriousness, this messaging by Butler is not new, just repackaged for 2023. You could have realistically picked up a book like this in 2013, 2003, and 1993 and the same message would be clear: Don’t. Have. Sex. (Unless you are married, then it’s okay!) He stays true to Evangelical beliefs by making it clear that Queer people do not exist and reinforcing the binary that you can only be single or married. We hope you enjoy this episode where we read yet another book repacking the same purity culture values again!  Sex Workers and Therapists (9:00)  “Therapy is the selling of a relationship. And a sexual experience regardless of the length of time, regardless of when the relationship stops or ends, is the selling of a relationship. Now the relationship involves the bodies. Rather than an emotional and psychological connection, but still the selling of a relationship,” Julia says in response to how Butler describes sex work. She draws the comparison between Therapists and Sex Workers in an interesting fashion, and says how the two are not so different! Repacking Rape Culture (16:00) “He's creating this double bind in which he is simultaneously describing rape as a sin while setting up a context in which that is an unavoidable sin due to the nature of genitalia, excusing the violence and then wrapping it in the language in which that's an inversion of giving. Nothing about that is giving, and the language of inversion does not excuse that.” The central idea in rape culture, that men are just too horny to control themselves. Both misogyny and misandry are at play here because rape is violent and without excuse, yet he is giving an excuse.  Sex is a Relational Experience (22:00) “Nowhere in this book so far has Joshua Butler suggested anything about sex being a relational experience. A relational experience being two people communicating about what they want regarding a particular experience.” Jeremiah notes how Butler has not mentioned at any point how sex is a communicative experience involving actual people and feelings. Evangelicals have a unique ability to sterilize sex whilst also not using the words penis, vagina, vulva, clitoris and so on. They put sex on a pedestal without taking into consideration that actual people having that sex.  Relentless Pursuer (32:00) “He's making the assumption that God is the relentless pursuer. That whether you want God or not, he's gonna keep pursuing you, even violating boundary norms. Which if that's your theology, that's fine, but if you want to make a parallel process between that and the way that men should pursue women, again, one more representation of rape culture.” Jesus as the relentless pursuer has the same ring to it as the guy who won’t stop harassing the girl who doesn’t want to go on a date with him. Queer Erasure (35:00) “How did he erase the queer community so much? That this isn't even mentioned as a sin, which is of course so disturbing.” Julia responds. This idea of don’t ask, don’t tell is reinforced here because Butler doesn’t even mention being gay as a sin, he just ignores the existence of queerness!  Single Like Jesus (51:00) “They use singleness as a euphemism for celibacy. And this is another classic move. We are absolutely effing obsessed with sex. And then the afterthought is, don't worry if you aren't having sexual experiences, you are equal in your humanity. This is an idea that happens outside of Christian circles as well,” Julia talks about the Christian idea that you can only be single and celibate or married and have sex. Christians leave no room for those of us who are single AND having sex or those of us who are in a non-marital relationship AND having sex.  Concluding thoughts (1:05) “I’m angry. I'm angry that men and women continue to be encouraged to hold onto these insanely rigid positions as Butler has described” Jeremiah finishes off this episode with a sentiment I think we can all hold on to, anger. It is ridiculous that this messaging is still prevalent in 2023, but it is. There is always hope, as Julia points out because the Gospel Coalition got well-deserved backlash on this. Even though this book is still set to be published, we hope that the Gospel Coalition getting flack for this is not a one-time occurrence.