Evangelicals and Sex with Sheila Gregoire

My guest today is Sheila Wray Gregoire is passionate about changing the evangelical conversation about sex! A popular speaker, marriage blogger, and award-winning author of nine books, including The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex, and her latest book, The Great Sex Rescue, she wants to challenge Christians to go beyond pat answers on marriage to reach real intimacy. Sheila believes in authenticity, and gives real solutions to the very real and messy problems women, and couples, can face. She and her husband Keith spend a lot of their time touring North America in an RV, speaking at marriage conferences, hiking, and birdwatching. The parents to two adult daughters, you can usually find her in Belleville, Ontario, where she’s either knitting, blogging, or taking her grandson out for a walk. 

We talk all about what evangelicals got wrong about sex and how create healthier sex and marriage conversations in our churches. Quick content warning: there is discussion of sex and use of frank terms for sex contained in this episode. 

If you want to keep up with Sheila, you can find her online at ...

https://tolovehonorandvacuum.com

https://instagram.com/sheilagregoire

https://facebook.com/sheila.gregoire.books

https://twitter.com/sheilagregoire

Her book The Great Sex Rescue is also for sale now and available at the link in our show notes. https://greatsexrescue.com/

If you enjoyed our discussion, I’d love if you would rate + review on your favorite podcast player. This helps more people to find the show and learn with us. 

Then come on over to social media and let’s talk about it! You can find me on Instagram @kateboyd.co and on Twitter @thekateboyd. And don’t forget to check the show notes to find and follow today’s contributors as well. Thank YOU for joining us, and I’ll see you next time.

If you find yourself in the messy middle as a Christian, you’re not alone, and I’d love to help. I’ve created the Untidy Faith newsletter just for you. Together, we'll navigate the many tensions of the Christian life and in the process find ourselves wandering closer to the Way of Jesus. When you sign up, you'll get a printable version of the Messy Middle Christian manifesto to your inbox today and first access to more Untidy Faith resources as they come out. You can sign up today at kateboyd.co/newsletter

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Transcript

Kate Boyd: 0:08

You're listening to happy and holy. And I'm your host, Kate Boyd. I'm a disciple maker, writer and speaker who is making space in the church for Christians caught in the messy middle, between conservative and progressive. We love Jesus love people, and work with God and each other for a better world. Welcome to the show. If you find yourself in the messy middle as a Christian, you're not alone. And I'd love to help. I've created the untidy faith newsletter just for you. Together, we'll navigate the many tensions of the Christian life and in the process, find ourselves wandering closer to the way of Jesus. When you sign up, you'll get a principle version of the messy middle Christian manifesto sent to your inbox today. And at first access to more untidy faith resources as they come out. You can sign up now at Kate boyd.co slash newsletter. My guest today is Sheila Ray Gregoire. And she is passionate about changing the evangelical conversation about sex. A popular speaker marriage blogger and award winning author of nine books, including the girl Good girls guide to great sex and her latest book, the great sex rescue. She wants to challenge Christians to go beyond Pat answers on marriage to reach real intimacy. She loved believes in authenticity and gives real solutions to the very real and messy problems women and couples can face. She and her husband Keith spend a lot of their time touring North America and an RV speaking at marriage conferences, hiking and birdwatching. And they're the parents to two adult daughters. And you can usually find her in Belleville, Ontario, where she's either knitting blogging or taking her grandson out for a walk. And today we talk about what evangelicals got wrong about sex, and how we can create healthier sex and marriage conversations in our churches. Now, quick content warning before we get started, there is discussion of sex and use of Frank terms for sex contained in this episode. So if you've got littles around that you don't want to hear some of those conversations, then maybe it's not the time. With that said,

Unknown: 2:16

let's dive in. Welcome, Sheila,

Kate Boyd: 2:22

I'm so glad you're here. I'm glad to be here. Thank you for having me. So I follow you on social media. And I know that a few times I've seen you mentioned that you used to think differently about what you teach now and what you wrote about in the great sex rescue. And so I'm curious about that change. Like What Did you sense or hear from people that made you start to think that maybe we need to rethink how we think about sex?

Sheila Gregoire: 2:53

Yeah, well, you know, it's funny, when I started blogging, I was 38 years old. And, and I was a mommy blogger was back in 2008. Blogging was just kind of getting big. And I was writing about, you know, parenting and historic and all the stuff that mommy blogs used to do. And the more I talked about sex, the more my traffic grew. And so I started talking about sex a lot more. And at that point, my husband and I, were speaking at marriage conferences quite a bit in Canada. And we're given this curriculum by family life us, which is what the Canadian family life used, then we don't anymore. But it just kind of had all the typical teachings that we hear in the evangelical world, right? Like, you know, men really need sex and women need affection. And men and women are completely different. Like we're two different beings. And we're totally separate. And so we've been teaching this for years. It's not that I'd ever believed it, but we've been teaching it. So when I'm blogging, I'm starting to blog because this is just where I'm at, you know. And then the more I blogged, the more I started listening to comments are saying, but that's not really what our marriage is, like, you know, so many lemons said, but I'm the one with the higher sex drive. Or, you know, what are you supposed to do when he's not paying any attention to you and you really libido? And so I started thinking about these issues more, and I started reading more, and I started realizing that a lot of advice that we give evangelical world is basically, look, honey, if you have a problem, you just got to pray about it. Just pray harder. We don't have actual help for people. And so I really started changing the way that I talked. And I've always been someone who is much more foreign equal marriage, but I didn't feel like I could speak up about that, because that's not the way Christians talked when I started speaking up about that more and more. I started getting, you know, even more engaged readership. And then around two years ago, I actually sat down and read Love and respect, which is the second best selling marriage book Five Love Languages best. And I was so blown away by how bad it treated sex. And because it's that, you know, if your husband is typical, he has a need that you don't have sex is all for the guy. Husband needs physical release. So sex is just physical. If you don't give it to him, he'll be under a panic attack. And then he might have an affair. And it was it was all threatening to women, there was absolutely nothing about a woman's pleasure, like the zip. It even said, why would you deprive him of something which takes so little time and makes him so happy. So if you're talking about sex taking so little time, I'm pretty sure that you don't understand foreplay. So I'm reading this. And I'm thinking, holy cow, this is like our second biggest bestseller like there's something seriously wrong here. And that started a whole big journey where we just decided, you know, what, we got to listen to women, we have to stop just saying what we think is true, and what's always been taught, and we need to listen to women. So we surveyed 20,000, we figured out what's really going on, and we wrote it up in the great sex rescue.

Kate Boyd: 6:23

Yeah, I love that. And it's so true. I mean, I, I remember, as you know, prior to getting married, and then even as a young married person reading some of the things that were written about sex, and even sort of like the idea that, you know, sex is the conquering of a woman in a way, you know, like the, that it's by nature. And it's just like, it's so bizarre the way that we think about it, or even the way that we sort of define it. And so I kind of want to take a step back in and talk about how we define sex. Because I know that in your book, you sort of lay out a couple of definitions. So I love if you would talk about how how people typically define sex and like how you are moving forward with it.

Sheila Gregoire: 7:15

Right, okay, so if I were to say to you, did you have sex last night? Which I'm not asking, I do not expect you to answer. But if I were to ask you, ask you. Chances are you're thinking something very specific in your head. Like when you hear that question, did they have sex? what you're thinking I'm asking is did he put his penis into her vagina and move around until he climaxed? Right That tends to be how extra sex. What I would like to argue is that that is not the way the Bible talks about sex. What that is, is intercourse, which might be a part of sex, but it's not the whole thing. Because if you think that is your definition of sex, then let's think about what we're really saying. So in that definition, he gets to climax. But she could be lying there making a grocery list in her head, he or she could be lying there in emotional turmoil, or she could be lying there in total pain, and it would still count as sex. And so when we're telling people sex is an important part of marriage. And what we define sex as is him moving around to the climaxes. Then like her liar, and taking becomes this, this moral imperative. And it's like she's not considered at all. Yeah. And that's not the way the Bible talks about it. Like, I find it bizarre, because, you know, in Genesis four, there's this really funny verse that we tend to laugh at. But I think it's actually quite formative, because it says, Adam, news wife Eve, and they can see the sun. And we think, oh, God is just embarrassed of saying sex. So he's just using a different euphemism. But I don't think that's what's going on. Because the Hebrew where there is this is this word is this deep longing for intimacy and connection. And it's the same word that David uses in the Psalms when he says searched me and know me Oh, God, like and so I think the Bible is saying, yo, sex isn't just physical Merson, encourage love and respect. A husband hasn't made her physical release. No, buddy, like sex. Sex is this deep longing for connection. So it's intimate. And then we know from Song of Solomon that it's it's deeply pleasurable for both and both of them are getting pleasure. It's not just him. And then we know from First Corinthians seven, those do not deprive verses which are so often used as weapons, that it's something that's totally tool. And so in the Bible, we have this picture of intimate pleasure. And mutual. And yet the we'll talk about it. It's totally one sided. And her pleasure in her experience is like a bone, but it's not necessary. And so we're totally missing the picture of what of what it's supposed to be.

Kate Boyd: 10:16

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And so I remember when I was getting married, the two books that were recommended to me were intended for pleasure, and his knees hurt needs. And so, you know, intended for pleasure I found helpful, because, you know, I didn't receive very much sex education growing up. So there was some good things there. But his needs her needs. I remember feeling how transactional the whole, like a whole relationship was in that, and I know others that you've read through, like love and respect, and every man's battle. And, you know, even myself having to sort of like on, tangle some of those things that I learned, you know, over my now decade of marriage. Um, but I'm curious, in serving all of those reading all of that, what are some of the things? I think we've touched on some of them? What are some of the things that are harmful, that have been communicated from these, like, very popular books that people take in?

Sheila Gregoire: 11:21

Yeah, so what we did was we surveyed 20,000 women, and the first thing that we did, it was a really long survey, and it was totally invasive, like we got, we got totally personal up there. Personally, thank you to everyone who took the survey, really appreciate it. But we asked women about their marital satisfaction, and there's sexual satisfaction first, so that we didn't prime them. You know, we tried to figure out how happy they were in their marriage, how satisfied they were sexually. And then after we got those baseline results, we then asked, we then presented them with a whole bunch of different evangelical teachings. And we asked you believe this. And were you ever taught this at two different points in your life, so when you were younger, and now and then what we were able to do was we were able to compare if people believed it, and if they didn't, how did that affect their marital and sexual satisfaction, so it's pretty cool. And then after we had those results, we figured out which teachings were harmful. And we created a list of 12 have a rubric of 12 marks of healthy sexuality teaching. And we applied that rubric to 13, evangelical scholars to see how they fared. And the ones that you all mentioned. Like they all did really badly. Yeah, there were some that didn't really well, gift of sex by the patters is amazing. Like 47 out of 48 really good book. boundaries in marriage scored really well. Sacred marriage scored well. So it's not like they're all terrible. I just want to say like, like, yes, gifts are good, right out there. Yes. And yes, and we didn't, we didn't look at any of mine. My books are very good, but for obvious reasons, we didn't look at mine. So I will just say that, um, but you know, but but as we looked at this, we were able to identify some key beliefs that really do do harm. And one of the ones that's the most harmful, is this idea that a woman is obligated to give her husband sex when he wants it. That's probably the most harmful. Yeah. Because if you think about it, if sex is supposed to be this deep knowing of each other, then it means that both people have to matter. Like when you're having sex, both people are coming to the table or to the bed or whatever. And both people's needs are being considered. But as soon as you turn sex into an obligation, what you're really saying is, your needs don't matter. He has the right to use you when he wants. And that belief causes women sexual satisfaction to plummet, and even worse, it causes lemmens rates of sexual pain to skyrocket. And what a lot of people don't realize is that in the Christian world, our rates of vaginismus, which is primary sexual pain among women are twice as high as the general population. And we never talked about it. Well, most people don't even know the word vaginismus. But 22% of women, Christian women have suffered it 7% to the point that penetrations possible. Wow.

Kate Boyd: 14:27

Goodness, um, I mean, it's amazing. I think. I think we've just been learning this year and years before, how much we how many things that we don't talk about, and how hard that is? on all of us?

Sheila Gregoire: 14:50

Yeah, totally. And I think and I think that when you don't, when you don't talk

Unknown: 14:56

about the fact

Sheila Gregoire: 14:58

that sex is not Not just for men, like, like when we don't tell teenage girls that they have sexual needs to when we only present to teenage girls, that boys are going to push your sexual boundaries that all boys lust, and you need to be careful that you don't cause them to stumble, like the way, the way that we discount women's sexuality to teenage girls, and the way that we make girls feel like they're threats to boys really sets marriage marriages up for failure in the future.

Kate Boyd: 15:36

Yeah, so along with those things, what were some of the big ideas that emerged from your surveys as to the problems with how evangelicals have relate to sex or have been taught sex? Mm hmm. I mean, like the Oh, we found four big teachings that really harmed but I would say the one is overall, like over all of them, is this idea that sex is something that men want, and women don't. Um, and the books have scored the worst on our on our rubric all talked about libido is something which men have and women don't. So women need affection. Men need sex, you know. And then the funny thing is, they spent all of this time telling women, they're obligated to have sex. So it's like, okay, Look, guys, you spend your life telling women you don't want and need sex? And Has anyone ever heard about fulfilling prophecies like, women, hey, you don't like sex, and then they get married. And lo and behold, they don't like sex. And so now what we have to do is we have to tell women, you have to have sex. So it's like they tell women you don't like sex, and because that women don't like sex. And so now, we have to spend the rest of our time telling women, you need to have sex no matter what. And what would happen, if we just took a huge step back. And we started talking about sex is something which is for both people. And you know, because this whole idea of men need sex and women don't, it's not even true, right? Like, first of all, God made all of us with a drive for intimacy, and with the drive for physical release, right, like, he made us all with a drive for intimacy for both emotional and physical intimacy, and everyone's gonna feel that like one to a greater extent, but we still felt like, if some people like drinking a glass of water before they eat, and some people like drinking water while they eat, we wouldn't say one person has a need for water, and one person has a need for food. Right? But we tend to talk about like sex as if it's for men and affection, like it's for women. And that really makes men feel like I'm not allowed to have any needs except for sex. And so they tend to take all of the needs for intimacy and in sexualize them, which isn't healthy for men. But it also makes women feel like there's something wrong with me if I want sex. But you know, it's only in 58% of marriages that men have the higher sex drive. And about 23% of marriages, it's shared. And in 19%, she has the higher sex drive. So when all of these books talk about sex as a man's need, they're missing out almost half of people. Bomb, and it's, it's really problematic. Yeah. So we've talked about, you know, what sex is meant to be? And we've talked about some of the problems. I'm curious. What you would say, is, why is it so important that we, that we start to get this part right that we start making some changes?

Sheila Gregoire: 18:45

I just think that there's there's so much pain going on in marriages, and there's so much distance, and there's so much disappointment, because we get married with all of these expectations. And, you know, sex is supposed to be this wonderful thing. And for a lot of women especially it's not, it really isn't. One of our big findings was that we have a 47 point orgasm gap. And what I mean by that is it 95% of men almost always are always reach orgasm in a sexual encounter, but only about 48% of women do. So that's a 47 point orgasm gap. Yeah. And so here you are, and you're, you know, the church has told you forever, just wait until you're married sex is going to be incredible if you do it right. You know, if you don't mess up before you're married, you're going to get these this whole future amazing sexual rewards and a lot of people don't and then there's just so much disappointment people feel ripped off. People feel like my spouse doesn't understand me and and then this this distance that forms and we're really missing out on the richness that we're supposed to have and the intimacy and the enjoyment that we're supposed to have And I think the teachings that we have really fuel a lot of selfishness on the part of men especially, but also a lot of fear and distrust on the part of women, which doesn't need to be there. And this is, this is one of the things that I want people to really get my favorite reviews of the great sex rescuer for men, because so many guys have said, you know, this book is the first book that has treated me like I'm a human being. Because we don't man, but like everyone accuses us of man bashing, because we're saying, Hey, guys, like you need to pay attention to your wives. But actually, what we're really doing in this book is we're saying, look, men are not sexual animals. Like men are not sex zombies, who are going to have an affair, if they don't get sex every 72 hours, there's not something awful that happens at our 73 that causes men to suddenly, you know, to, to lust and, and watch porn or something like that, like men are more than that. And men do not want women to have sex that have duty or obligation. Like, we found that so many women believe this. So many women went into marriage feeling like I am obligated to give my husband sex, or else he's gonna have an affair or watch porn or be tempted to lust and all of this. So my role as a woman is to help him defeat sin. But men were actually given the same messages, right? Men don't read the books. Men don't go to the conferences, Unless Unless a guy read every man's battle, which a lot of guys did, okay, they would have gotten some of those messages there. But a lot of men haven't read this stuff. And so they have no idea that this is what women have been told. And so we talked to so many women in our focus groups who said, like, I spent 10 years thinking that I needed to keep my husband from sin and feel like sex was an obligation and hating sex. And when I finally sat down with my husband and talked to him about it, he was he was so shocked. And he was like, I don't want you to do that. And it was like our marriage suddenly changed. Like, I love the story that one of my favorite stories was a woman named Kate told us that when she got married, she had sex like clockwork, every 72 hours. And so many of our books tell tell women, they have to do that sheet music powervr praying wife, every man's battle. Like a lot of books talk about the 72 hour rule, like it's a thing. We tried to figure out where it came from, because you hear it at women's calm to hear it everywhere. We looked in the medical literature, there's absolutely nothing about 72 hours like after that he gets physically uncomfortable. Couldn't find it in any academic literature, we've finally traced it back to 1977 to a book that James Dobson wrote. But that's it like it's nothing scientific or medical. It was just something james dobson thought of in 1977. And everybody's repeated it since so there's nothing to it, okay. But she got married, kay got married, and she initiated sex every 72 hours. And after a couple of years, she just felt really unloved and undesired because her husband never initiated. And she went to him. And she was like, do you even find me attractive? Like, I just feel like you never tried anything with me. And I have all the responsibility for our sex life. And he looked totally shocked. And he said, I was just trying to keep up with you. And she said, Well, what do you mean? And he said, Well, I mean, you seem to want sex all the time. And so she explained the 72 hour rule to him, and he said, I have never heard of that. That's not a thing. And so they decided together that they would only initiate when someone actually wanted it. And they've settled into a really great pattern of about, like, you know, once once a week or so, and they're totally happy. And he initiate sometimes now and she initiate sometimes now, and it's fine. But she had no idea that that was not what he wanted. And he had no idea what she was doing.

Kate Boyd: 24:12

It's amazing. And just the way that the Yeah, the conversations between the two sexes are so different in the same space. Mm hmm. It's just wild to me. Yep. Yep. So how do we start to reclaim the conversation and start restoring healthier ideas? What are like some maybe like baby steps, that or that we should start thinking about, you know, or implementing in church in the church.

Sheila Gregoire: 24:46

First of all, we need to stop portraying sex in marriage as a way to stop sin, because that tends to be the way that we talk about it that a woman provides Sex is the bulwark against a husband's astronomical temptation to sin in any number of ways. And we do that for teenagers too, right? Like, like we just, we just changed the emphasis a little bit like teenage girls are responsible for stopping teenage boys from sending. One of the one of the messages that we found was really harmful in marriage was actually a message the girls were taught as teenagers, which is the idea that boys will push your sexual boundaries. When girls believe that as teenagers that has really negative effects on their ability to orgasm as adult women marriage. And one of the things we do in the book is we talk about how to rescue and reframe these messages. So instead of telling girls boys will push your sexual boundaries, because a lot of you might be thinking, Well, yeah, but boy as well, but there's a healthy way to talk about it. And there's an unhealthy way. Yeah, so boys will push girls sexual boundaries is unhealthy, saying to kids look, having sexual feelings is normal. But you need to make decisions about what's really wise for you to do. So everybody needs to have their own boundaries, you need to know what those are. And it's important that you are responsible for sticking to your own boundaries. But it's even more important that you respect the boundaries of the person that you're with. And if somebody does not respect your boundaries, that is a red flag that there's something wrong with the relationship.

Unknown: 26:24

Yeah. You know,

Sheila Gregoire: 26:26

and that's a healthy way to talk about telling girls, boys are going to push your sexual boundaries, think about what happens then like, okay, so shotzi felden, in her book for young women only. She talked about a survey question, and I don't actually believe this was a valid survey question. And I also don't believe the way she interpreted it was valid. So I'm going to tell you what the results but I'm not saying accurate, okay. Okay. But what she, what she said in her book was that 82% of teenage boys feel a little ability and little responsibility to stop in a makeout situation. Well, if she's, so she says to girl, so if you want to stop, it's better to not even start. And boys are going to need your help to stop. And this is the message that's been given to girls, boys can't stop, they pass a point over, turn, they don't feel the need to stop the way you do. They're going to want to push your boundaries, and so you're responsible for not making it go too far. Now aside for the whole date rape issue, which is like a huge issue there. Imagine what's going on in a girl's brain. When you're when you're in a makeup situation, then, like whether you're a teenager or even when you're engaged, you know, if you're trying to wait for marriage you're making out and what she's thinking is, is he getting too excited? Do I need to stop now? Are we going too far. And so she's not actually experiencing what's happening in her body, she's totally concentrating on what he's experiencing and making sure that it doesn't go anywhere. So she's trained herself to divorce her mind from her body and to not feel because she's the gatekeeper. Yeah. And then when she gets married, she has no idea how to integrate with her body again. And that's a huge thing that a lot of women have to learn, and they've never learned they don't learn, they don't know how to get aroused. And that's one of the big reasons is because we've given this gatekeeper message. And there's just better ways to talk about how to honor your own boundaries than making women feel responsible for boys sin. So that's like, so we do this for teenagers, but we also do it for marriage. Right? Like we tell women, there was a focus on the family show in 2019 that we quote in the great sex rescue where one of the hosts says, you know, the reason that men are watching porn, one of the reasons they're watching porn is because when they're not getting enough sex at home, like the idea that you have sex, so he doesn't watch porn, and you have sex, so he doesn't have an affair. every man's battle says about lust. Like once he quits cold turkey, then wives be like a merciful vial of methadone for him. Yeah, like can you think of anything is dehumanizing is that hey, ladies, your methadone for your husband sex addiction. Like, and then it even says, you know, before he quit last, he was coming to you for five bowls of sexual gratification a week, and now he's coming to you for 10 bowls. And this is supposed to be a good thing. Like, what is this?

Unknown: 29:35

Yeah,

Sheila Gregoire: 29:35

there's nothing about intimacy. It's just all about sex as a way to cure his lust problem. And you know what, what we found is all of those messages, you know that men struggle with lust. It's every man's battle that you need to have sex to keep them from watching porn. Those are all highly correlated with really bad sex for women and really bad trust in their husbands and worst marital satisfaction. I mean, it's just battle round. And so we need to get back to Hey, guys, you know what the Bible says you're responsible for your own sin. Yeah. And so deal with it, and then learn how to love your wife.

Kate Boyd: 30:14

Yeah, I feel like, of all the issues I've talked to people about on this show, or just in life, I find that this sort of, like, lack of focus on mutuality, is kind of at the root of a lot of them, whether that's how we, you know, handle singles in the church, or we handle friendship and leadership, and, and even, you know, marriages and sexual relationships within that. And so it's really interesting how we have this thread that I don't know, apparently needs to be rewired. And how we start to think about so many issues, because so much of what we do affects each other. And we're just not thinking about it like that.

Sheila Gregoire: 31:02

Totally. And I think that that's what's really missing is this emphasis on the fact that sex, whenever you see it as anything other than mutual, you're missing the whole point. Because it's if it is supposed to be this deep knowing, then you can't see it as just something where one person has a need. No, it's like our marriage has a need. And let's see how we can love each other and honor each other through this, but it means that both of us have to matter. Yeah, um, and the way that we talk about sex, we talk about it in such transactional terms. And, like, even even the way that we often talk about the first Corinthians seven passage is really problematic. Because in in that passage, it I think it's probably the second most weaponized passage in Scripture against women, you know, the first one would be women submit to your husbands like, that is used to get women to do all kinds of things. And I'm not saying those verses aren't real, I just don't think it means what a lot of people think it means. But the other verses that get really weaponized are this do not deprive right, do not deprive each other. And if you actually look at what passage is saying, that's an hottie emphasis, we're missing the whole point. Because the very first thing it says is the husband must fulfill his marital duties to his wife, and the wife must fulfill her marital duties to her husband. So first of all, the husband, like the wife, the wife's needs are mentioned first, okay. And that says that, you know, that the wife, the wife's body does not belong to her alone, but also the husband, the husband spotted, not blind him alone, but also to the wife. And we tend to gloss over that. But what we forget is that this was written at a time when husbands and Roman times had complete authority over the wife's bodies to the point that they could murder them and not be prosecuted. So a husband literally owned his wife's body. And in the middle of that, Paul writes, that wives have authority over their husbands bodies in the same way that husbands have authority of their wives by so that was, that was absolutely revolutionary, and we don't see it that way. And that is actually the only place in scripture where authority and marriage is is specifically mentioned. And when it is, it's totally mutual. So we're talking about a completely mutual experience, and then it says, Do not deprive each other. Yeah. And yet, what does it mean by deprive again, it goes back to the definition of sex. It's not talking about one sided intercourse. If it were, she's already being deprived, like, like one sided intercourse does. It's talking about mutual pleasurable, intimate sex. And if we understand that, that is what biblical sex is, then if you've been having one sided intercourse, where she gets nothing out of it for 10 years, you're already depriving her. So it's not the fact that intercourse is happening that makes a marriage. Okay. Yeah, it's, it's, it's a healthy sexual relationship. That's mutual. Yeah. Gosh,

Kate Boyd: 34:15

so much to think about. And thank you for the work you've done. And I, I at least pray that it sets a lot of women and even men men free in in, you know, reframing the conversations that we have. So thanks for joining me.

Sheila Gregoire: 34:35

Yeah, and you can see the grade sex rescue anywhere. It's all over our website. It's a love, honor and vacuum calm, get it on Amazon or whatever. But I really do hope and pray that it just changes the evangelical conversation about sex because it's time that we started doing this, right.

Kate Boyd: 34:49

Yes, it is. Thanks so much. If you want to keep up with Sheila, you can find her online at To love, honor and vacuum.com and you can also find her on Instagram and Twitter at Sheila Gregoire. And on Facebook at Sheila Gregoire books. Her book the great sex sex rescue, which is on my list for this summer is also for sale now and we've got it available at the link in our show notes, or just go to great sex rescue.com if you enjoyed our conversation, I would love it if you would rate and review on your favorite podcast player that helps more people to find the show and to learn with us. And come on over to social media and let's talk about it. You can find me on Instagram at Kate Boyd ko and on Twitter at beat Kate Boyd. And don't forget to check the show notes to find and follow Sheila and and keep up with her. And thank you for joining us. I will see you