Great Sex Rescue

Wray Gregoire Sheila

Description

What if it's not your fault that sex is bad in your marriage?Based on a groundbreaking in-depth survey of 22,000 Christian women, The Great Sex Rescue unlocks the secrets to what makes some marriages red hot while others fizzle out. Generations of women have grown up with messages about sex that make them feel dirty, used, or invisible, while men have been sold such a cheapened version of sex, they don't know what they're missing. The Great Sex Rescue hopes to turn all of that around, developing a truly biblical view of sex where mutuality, intimacy, and passion reign.The Great Sex Rescue pulls back the curtain on what is happening in Christian bedrooms and exposes the problematic teachings that wreck sex for so many couples--and the good teachings that leave others breathless. In the #metoo and #churchtoo era, not only is this book a long overdue corrective to church culture, it is poised to free thousands of couples from repressive and dissatisfying sex lives so that they can experience the kind of intimacy and wholeness God intended.

Sujets

• Dating

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 02 mars 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781493428809
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Cover
Endorsements
“This book is a groundbreaking look into what true, sacred biblical sexuality is intended to be and the root causes and ideas that damage a couple’s intimacy in marriage. Going straight to Scripture, the authors dig deep into ideologies that draw couples away from God-designed intimacy, and they seek to construct a framework for sexuality that is truly rooted in Scripture and God’s beautiful design, elevating sexuality and marriage to the glory and sacredness it was intended to have. This is a must-read.”
Rachael Denhollander , lawyer, victim advocate, and author of What Is a Girl Worth?
“This book is so incredibly powerful! If you’ve ever read a Christian book on sex and marriage, you owe it to yourself to read this one. Armed with extensive survey data and equipped with compassion and common sense, the authors dismantle the devastating myths long promoted by Christian leaders that have caused untold damage to generations of Christian women. Equal parts distressing and liberating, this book is desperately needed in this moment.”
Kristin Kobes Du Mez , author of Jesus and John Wayne
“I cannot think of a more important book (outside of the Bible) that you must read. This book is the authentic gut punch that the evangelical community needs. This exposes our historic dismal handling of sexuality and gives us a clear path forward to sexual maturity, wholeness, and health. I already want to read it again and will surely be telling my network to purchase this vital guide. Thank you for such a seminal work!”
Andrew J. Bauman , LMHC, cofounder and director of the Christian Counseling Center for Sexual Health and Trauma
“ The Great Sex Rescue is exactly the type of book on sex I would want my college students reading. This next generation has been personally burned by bad Christian sex advice. Both women and men will benefit from The Great Sex Rescue , but I think young adults may benefit most.”
Dr. Heather Thompson Day , author of Confessions of a Christian Wife and professor of communications at Colorado Christian University
“This book should be required reading for all married Christians. Growing up in the evangelical Christian world taught me very little about what a healthy sexual dynamic should look like other than ‘Don’t do it until you’re married. Then do it all the time!’ It’s time we deconstruct the destructive and harmful teachings that have gone unchallenged for so long and embrace a truly cross-centric view of sexuality, and for that I can think of no better resource than this book.”
Travis Albritton , The Practical Christian Podcast
“With Sheila’s years of experience and passionate heart for marriages and individuals struggling with sexual disconnection, her current research provides new insights that speak truthfully and directly to how the world of Christianity has not always provided the support or adequately addressed the hurts of those needing biblical love and direction. I applaud her and her team for their compassion, for their sound research, and for becoming a voice for women who are confused and hurting by what God never meant to be distorted—his design for beautiful and loving sexuality without shame or guilt.”
Sheri Mueller , MA, LCPC, Growthtrac Ministries
Title Page
Copyright Page
© 2021 by Sheila Wray Gregoire, Rebecca Gregoire Lindenbach, and Joanna Sawatsky
Published by Baker Books
a division of Baker Publishing Group
PO Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516–6287
www.bakerbooks.com
Ebook edition created 2021
Ebook corrections 04.13.2021
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
ISBN 978-1-4934-2880-9
Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™
Scripture quotations labeled AMP are from the Amplified® Bible (AMP), copyright © 2015 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.Lockman.org
Scripture quotations labeled KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible.
Scripture quotations labeled NKJV are from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations labeled NLT are from the Holy Bible , New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007, 2013, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
This publication is intended to provide helpful and informative material on the subjects addressed. It is not intended to replace the advice of trained health care professionals.
Some names and details have been changed or presented in composite form in order to protect the privacy of the individuals involved.
Dedication
From Joanna and Rebecca: To our children. May you know how valued and precious you are to Christ and to us, and may you grow up free of the lies that have entangled so many.
From Sheila: To The Act of Marriage ’s Aunt Matilda, and all the women like her. We see you. We hear you. And we are so, so sorry.
Contents
Cover 1
Endorsements 2
Title Page 3
Copyright Page 4
Dedication 5
1. What Happened to Sex? 9
2. Don’t Sleep with Someone You Don’t Know 20
3. Bridging the Orgasm Gap 39
4. Let Me Hear Your Body Talk 61
5. Do You Only Have Eyes for Me? 78
6. Your Spouse Is Not Your Methadone 100
7. I Want You to Want Me 121
8. Becoming More than Roommates 139
9. “Duty Sex” Isn’t Sexy 158
10. When Duty Becomes Coercion 179
11. Just Be Nice 200
12. From Having Intercourse to Making Love 217
13. Where Do We Go from Here? 228
Appendix: The Books We Studied for This Project 243
Acknowledgments 249
Notes 253
Back Ads 269
Back Cover 272
CHAPTER 1 What Happened to Sex?
Sex is a gift from God.
How often have we heard that? It sounds kind of like something your parents would say right after they’ve scarred you by telling you where babies come from.
Or it sounds like something you’re told in premarital counseling, right before your red-faced counselor quickly turns the pages and says, “Now, let’s talk about who wants to do the vacuuming.”
It’s something that your pastor says from the pulpit when he can’t talk about sex too explicitly, but he really, really, really wants everyone to know how great it is. And you’re trying hard not to look his wife in the face while he says it.
But for some of us who have been married for a while, the idea of sex as a gift seems more like that awful Christmas sweater your grandma knit for you in sixth grade that you had to wear for a week even though everybody knew it was lame.
Sure, it’s a gift. But you really would have preferred an Xbox.
Then there are those of you who know it’s a gift. You know sex is amazing. But it feels more like a gift that you got to open, only to be told to wrap it back up and put it on a shelf to keep it safe. It sits up there, still in sight but unused.
Your sex life is up on a shelf.
It’s a gift you’re not allowed to enjoy because your spouse doesn’t see it as a gift. So it’s out of reach, gathering dust, taunting you.
We, the authors of this book, want to tell you up front that we get it.
All of us—Sheila, Rebecca, and Joanna—work on Sheila’s sex and marriage blog, To Love, Honor, and Vacuum . Rebecca (Sheila’s daughter) likes to quip, “It’s the weirdest job you can possibly do with your mom.” When Joanna, an epidemiologist trained in statistics, moved to town, we roped her in too. None of the three of us expected to be talking about sex, orgasms, and erections professionally, but here we are.
We know that Christians, as a whole, do tend to have better sex and happier marriages than people who are not religious. 1 But here’s the thing: just because something is better for the group does not mean you as an individual think it’s anything to write home about (if you were the type to write home about your sex life). We get daily messages from husbands and wives who are desperate because it’s just not working: he can’t figure out how to make sex feel good for her, she’s devastated by his hidden porn use, or they’re both at the end of their rope as they fight for the forty-seventh time about libido differences. Many Christians simply aren’t experiencing amazing, mind-blowing, earth-shattering, great sex.
We want to change that.
I (Sheila) am married to a pediatrician, and one thing the medical world emphasizes is the importance of evidence-based treatments. Before my husband, Keith, puts a child on a new regimen to manage asthma, he wants to know that there have been solid studies that show that this new regimen works.
We’ve got a lot of treatments for sex in the church. There are books, radio broadcasts, blogs, articles, and sermons galore giving advice to couples struggling with unsatisfying sex lives. But have we, as the church, taken the time to ask if any of our treatments even work?
We heard the same questions for years on end from blog readers, so we decided to investigate the sex advice offered in bestselling Christian sex and marriage books. And when we read them, alarm bells went off. We began to wonder, What if our evangelical “treatments” for sex issues make things worse?
We realized that giving healthy information is not enough if people are also consistently consuming bad advice from the wider Christian culture. But we didn’t want to simply put forth a new set of opinions—we wanted