How can you tell if a book, website, or even a church is healthy when it comes to sex teaching, or harmful?
My inbox fills up with people asking me what I think of this book, or what I think of that book. And chances are I haven’t read it! I don’t have time to read everything.
But I understand why people are asking. As we’ve been talking so much over the last few years about how many evangelical books actually spread messages about sex that are harmful, people want to make sure they avoid them.
Today I want to give you a tool that will help you uncover whether a resource is healthy or unhealthy when it comes to sex.
Our new book The Great Sex Rescue, which releases March 2, was based on four different types of research:
- Our survey of 20,000 women
- Follow-up intensive interviews and focus groups
- A look at peer-reviewed research in the field
- A review of our top evangelical best-selling books on marriage & sex and seeing what messages they give
The hypothesis that we were testing with our survey was, “Are there teachings that are common in evangelical circles that hurt women’s sexual and marital satisfaction?” So we asked ton of questions about women’s marriages and sex lives, and then asked if they had been taught, or if they believed or had believed, a wide variety of messages.
From that, we were able to identify which messages were really toxic!
Then we combined that with data from other studies, and we now had a picture of what healthy teaching about sex looked like.
So we created a 12-question rubric–a scorecard, so to speak–of healthy teaching when it comes to sex.
Here are the questions that we used:
12-Point Rubric on Healthy Sexuality
Infidelity and Lust:
1. Does the book acknowledge that the blame for a husband’s affair or porn use lies at the feet of the husband, or does it, at least in part, blame the wife?
2. Does the book acknowledge that porn use must be dealt with before a healthy sexual relationship can be built while acknowledging that very few porn habits begun in the internet age are caused by a wife’s refusal to have sex, or does it suggest that the remedy to a porn habit is more frequent sexual activity?
3. Does the book acknowledge the effect of pornography on men’s self-perception, sex drives, and sexual function, or does it ignore porn’s harm to marriages?
4. Does the book frame lust as something both spouses may struggle with, even if men tend to struggle more, or does it state that since all men struggle with lust, it can’t be defeated, and the only way to combat lust is for wives to have sex more and women to dress modestly?
Pleasure and Libido:
5. Does the book acknowledge women’s orgasm and women’s enjoyment of the physical aspects of sex, or does it imply that most or all women do not enjoy sex?
6. Does the book frame sex as something a woman will anticipate and look forward to, or does it frame sex as something she will tend to dread?
7. Does the book describe men’s sexual appetite as healthy but also containable and controllable, or are men’s sexual needs portrayed as ravenous, insatiable, and constant?
8. Does the book acknowledge that in a large minority of marriages, the wife has a higher libido than her husband, or does it oversimplify, implying that virtually all husbands have higher libidos than their wives?
Mutuality:
9. Does the book explain that sex has many purposes, including intimacy, closeness, fun, and physical pleasure for both, or does it portray sex as being primarily about fulfilling his physical need?
10. Does the book stress personal appearance and hygiene equally for both parties, or is far more expected from wives than from husbands, and is it implied that if she does not maintain a level of attractiveness, he may have an affair?
11. Does the book discuss the importance of foreplay and a husband’s role in his wife’s pleasure, or does the book ignore a husband’s responsibility to help his wife feel pleasure?
12. Does the book include reasons why a woman may legitimately say, “Not tonight, honey,” and discuss the concept of marital rape, or does the book say that a woman refusing sex is a sin or fail to recognize rape within its anecdotes?
That’s our starting point. But then what do you do with those questions?
Well, we also created a scoring sheet that helps you score each of the 12 measures on a scale of 0-4.
We’ve got that scoring sheet, plus the scorecard of how all the books rated, available as a free download when you pre-order our book The Great Sex Rescue!
The Great Sex Rescue
Launches March 2!
What if you're NOT the problem with your sex life?
What if the things that you've been taught have messed things up--and what if there's a way to escape these messages?
Welcome to the Great Sex Rescue.
Pre-Order Now! (Helps us out a ton)
And if you email your receipt, we'll send you a special pre-order BONUS
Time to Pre-Order
Day(s)
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Hour(s)
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Minute(s)
:
Second(s)
Our pre-order bonuses include:
- Our complete rubric, including our scoresheet to help you apply it to other resources
- Our scorecard, where we scored 13 evangelical resources and one secular control book (John Gottman’s 7 Principles for Making Marriage Work)
- Four examples of harmful teachings about sex, with several data points for how these teachings affect orgasm rates, intimacy, and more
- Ways to rescue and reframe common things we say, so that we don’t spread harmful messages. Instead of saying, “men are visually stimulated”, “guys watch porn when they don’t get sex at home,” or “boys will want to push your sexual boundaries,” for instance, we show how you can reframe these messages in a healthy, biblical way.
Want to know how Love & Respect scored? His Needs, Her Needs? The Act of Marriage? Sheet Music? Find out which resources scored the worst, and which ones scored the best (and there were some really good ones!).
And as you’re looking at the rubric and the scorecard, just a reminder that, even after being warned, Focus on the Family called Love & Respect a “biblically sound and empowering message for wives.” Check out my statement in response to theirs–their statement is linked in it.
The scorecard and complete scoring sheet aren’t even in the book–so these are genuine extras you won’t get there, but we want to make available. And they’re just fascinating to look through.
Our goal is that people will be empowered to look at resources with a discerning eye.
By showing you what healthy and unhealthy look like, hopefully people will be able to judge marriage books and sex books for themselves. And if a book doesn’t get a “healthy” rating, then you shouldn’t be using it or recommending it or studying it in a group study. (And, again, several did get healthy ratings!).
Who should use this rubric?
Anyone who wants to make sure the stuff they’re reading and recommending is healthy! But here’s how we’re hoping it will be used:
- Church librarians will laminate and post the rubric so people can be made aware of what healthy teaching looks like
- Women’s Bible study leaders won’t suggest a book to study before looking at whether it’s healthy or not
- Pastors will use the rubric to vet the materials they recommend
- Counselors will use the rubric not only to vet materials, but also to teach those they counsel how to identify harmful/helpful messages
- Youth group leaders will make sure the messages they spread are healthy, like we talked about Monday on our post on how to ensure youth groups talk about sex in a healthy way
- Marriage teachers/speakers will make sure their messages line up with what’s healthy
- Regular people will use the rubric to be discerning about the books they study and recommend, and to help identify where they’ve been believing harmful messages, too.
Let’s all get in the habit of being discerning, and asking: “does this book actually treat women’s sexuality in a healthy way?”
So how do you get the pre-order bonuses?
It’s simple! Just email or forward me your receipt, a screenshot of your order, anything really–and we’ll send you the link to download this!
Baker Books (our publisher) did a great job formatting all of this, and I’m excited for you all to see it.
Send in your receipt to get your rubric, scorecard, rescuing & reframing chart, and more!
Just forward me your original receipt, or attach a screen shot in your email. And we’ll get you that download right away!
Church, it’s okay to demand better.
It’s okay to ask publishers and authors to teach about sex well, in a way that doesn’t harm.
Over the next few weeks, we’re going to look at individual teachings that have harmed people’s sex lives and have hurt women’s sexuality. It’ll be kind of like having a big pre-launch party for The Great Sex Rescue! And then we’ll have some Facebook Lives and more as we get ready for the date.
But this isn’t really about just selling books.
This is about a deeper invitation to do this better. This is a call for health. Jesus came so that we may have life to the full. He wants abundance for us. So there is absolutely no reason, and no excuse, for resources that claim his name to end up stealing great sex from couples. It’s time to demand more.
It’s time to change the conversation.
I hope this rubric can be one tiny step towards that goal!
The Healthy Sexuality Series
Leading up to the release of The Great Sex Rescue on March 2, we'll be looking at one harmful teaching a week, and point to how we can talk about this better.
And we'll launch each new teaching in our podcasts! So these are the topics coming up:
- The Gatekeeping Message: Boys will want to push your sexual boundaries, so girls are responsible for stopping boys from going too far
- The All Men Struggle with Lust message: Why Every Man's Battle Backfires (January 28)
- Have Sex So He Won't Lust/Watch Porn: Why Women Aren't Methadone (February 4)
- The Obligation Sex Message: Turning Sex from a Knowing to an Owing Makes it Ugly (February 11)
- "He Has a Need You Don't Have": Why Talking about sex like it's only a man's need becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy (February 18)
- The Entitlement Message around Sex: Can't we just be nice? (February 25)
And don't forget to pre-order The Great Sex Rescue! Send us your receipt and we'll send you pre-order bonuses!
Sheila Wray Gregoire
Founder of To Love, Honor and Vacuum
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Sheila Wray Gregoire has been married for 29 years and happily married for 24! She loves traveling around North America with her hubby in their RV, giving her signature "Girl Talk" about sex and marriage. And she's written 7 books. About sex and marriage. See a theme here? Plus she knits. Even in line at the grocery store.
I have left another “christian” marriage blog because, thanks to Sheila’s research and voice, I am recognizing more and more toxicity! In just the past week, one of the male commenters totally crossed lines and made highly inappropriate comments/suggestions to me. The last one actually made me sick to my stomach and I almost threw up from disgust and a feeling of violation.
I checked back quick today and yet another inappropriate post by the blogger was made. That was confirmation plus!
Thank you, Sheila!
I’m so sorry you had that experience on another blog. Wow. Unfortunately, I’m not surprised. So glad you’re here with us. <3 🙂
You’re so welcome! And that email you sent me last week about that inappropriate blog post? I recorded a segment with Andrew Bauman set to go right before Valentine’s Day when we tackle it. So thanks for sending that my way!
I look forward to it, Sheila! I need to look at Andrew’s resources. This weekend I am purging my bookshelves and kindle of these toxic resources. Definitely interested In the emotional maturity series!
Oh oh oh, quick fun story! I was putting new shelving in hubby’s man cave to surprise him, but had to move some piles. Underneath I found one of those fundamentalist books for men from Vision Forum I had given him hoping it would “wake him up.” Well, he skimmed through it, tossed it in the corner, only to be found by me nearly a decade later, damp, mildewy, and ruined.
I was so glad to throw it away!!
Hubby has always been more egalitarian than me and always questioned evangelicalism and my following of it and fundamentalism. I actually apologised to him about it. Our marriage is so much better now that it is more egalitarian.
That’s wonderful! It must have been very rewarding to throw it in the trash!
Is there a way to preorder the book NOT through Amazon? We have been trying to support smaller businesses with online shopping recently.
You can preorder it directly from the publisher here: http://bakerpublishinggroup.com/books/the-great-sex-rescue/403570 but small businesses normally don’t do preorders unfortunately!!
Does your country have an online Christian bookstore? You can preorder through one in the UK, so it might be worth searching where you live.
Great suggestion! Thanks! It is actually on sale at christianbook.com right now, about $5 cheaper than amazon.
Oh, that’s awesome to know! I’ll try to put a Christianbook.com link in it!
I see Rebecca already answered, but I’ve heard of this company that supports small bookstores. It’s like Amazon in that you can order whatever you want, but then a local bookstore fulfills it. It sounds neat. I’m going to investigate it!
While there’s no single perfect way to determine if any resource is good, that’s a very good common sense list and set of guidelines.
There seems to be a common theme to those twelve points. They combine to say that the idea of “Women exist to serve. Men exist to be served” is a toxic and unhealthy way of looking at love, sex and marriage.
Yep! Exactly.
Thank you Sheila. Have a great weekend all.
You, too, Phil!
Thanks for the great download and a way to put my frustrations into words! The inclusion of the positive 7 Principles for Making Marriage Work makes me wonder how secular marriage books fare. Do you find many are unbiblically extreme the other way, or do they have better wisdom than most Christian books?
In general, I’m sad to say, secular books tend to be healthier because they focus on peer-reviewed research and on what we know is emotionally healthy behaviour. The problem with many books with a Christian label on them is that they start from the wrong premise. They start from the premise that men are owed sex, and that men must be respected regardless, even if they don’t say so overtly. And everything flows from there. The problem is that those two premises are inherently emotionally unhealthy. I also believe that they are not biblical, and we show why in The Great Sex Rescue. I believe that a proper biblical ethic would create books that are supremely healthy, even more so than secular resources. But right now, it is mostly secular resources that are even looking at what healthy behaviour looks like. Christian books tend to care less about healthy behaviour and more about marriage doctrine (and what I would call problematic marriage doctrine at that), and it can lead to a lot of problems. My prayer is that people will realize that the problematic marriage doctrine bears such terrible fruit that it will cause them to go back to the Bible and see what Scripture really says about marriage and emotional health.
I downloaded the bonuses and I am very surprised that “Sacred marriage” rated so high. I found it at a friend’s house last summer and since I remembered you talked nicely of it, I read it.
Half of it (if not more) is full of christian blabla that doesn’t bring anything to the conversation. No, women are not labelled inferior, but they sure are pictured as pretty little things who care about their kids while their (strong) husbands provide (money, house, holidays…) and has a need to conquer and try new things.
I think it is in that book that they say that men get “less” out of social interaction with their kids. Hence why men are better off working outside the house while women should wipe butts and bake apple pie.
I have, thankfully, never read anything worse than that, since I was raised in a secular home and became christian as a young adult. But honestly ? This kind of books only lays ground for worse things, such as those you describe from “Love and Respect”.
I am sick and tired of people trying to put christians (men, women, single, married…) inside small boxes. Before I started following your blog, almost eight years ago, I thought that I had to give up my brain to become a “real” christian. You are the one who showed me that I can continue being myself, learning and growing while still following Jesus, and that it actually is part of the christian life.
I honestly do not even condone books such as “Sacred marriage”. People should get out of their christian bubbles before writing books about marriage. Or they should subtitle it “aimed at submissive stay-at-home christian wives who do not want to shake the boat”.
Purplecandy, one thing we did was ONLY rate the books on how they talked about sex. We didn’t rate the books on how they talked about marriage, or conflict resolution, or any of those other things. We tried to say this on the handout, too–that this isn’t an endorsement about what these books say about marriage, but only the sexual part of the conversation (since that’s all we were looking at in The Great Sex Rescue).
One day I’d like to create a rubric on healthy marriage teaching, and then see how our bestsellers rate! But, yes, I am only endorsing what they say about sex; our rubric isn’t meant for anything else.
One thing I’ve noticed is that often Christian books start with premises that are unhealthy, and build from there, and that results in an unhealthy book. For instance, many Christian books (not referring to anything specific here, just in general) start with these premises:
* The husband has authority/power over the wife
* The husband is entitled to sex
* Divorce is a sin and the worst thing you can do
But it’s pretty much impossible to write a healthy book if those are your underlying premises. I hope that I can help people identify, “what are the premises that underlie this book?” as a way to judge whether it’s healthy.
I think a proper focus should be:
Does the book point to Jesus as everyone’s main authority?
Does the book value everyone’s safety and emotional, physical, and spiritual health and safety?
Does the book teach how to have real intimacy, where each person feels seen and heard?
Then we’d get further!
Yes, agree with you 100%. You can’t build a healthy argument from faulty premises.
Thank you again for all that you do !
Hello! Has anyone read the book Holy Sex by Michael Pearl? Just wondering how it would score?
Michael Pearl? Guaranteed to be a 0 I would think! I’ve never read anything remotely healthy from the Pearls, but I haven’t read that one, so I don’t truly know. i do know that that their books Created To be His Helpmeet and To Train Up a Child both enable abuse–either wife abuse or child abuse. (I linked my articles about those books there).
But if you pre-order The Great Sex Rescue, you’ll get access to our rubric and scoring sheet, so you can score the book yourself, too! Just pre-order, then send us your receipt (the instructions are at that link).
Are there any marriage/sex books that you do recommend (besides your own, of course!) I feel like I remember at least one you said scored well, but I don’t recall the name.
Gift of Sex by the Penners is just excellent! Boundaries in Marriage is really good, too. We’re going to put up a page on greatsexrescue.com soon where we have our recommended lists, because there are some good ones!