The Great Sex Rescue: The Lies You've Been Taught and How to Recover What God Intended

I don't really have adequate words for this book right now. It was like talking to a reassuring friend and a therapy session all in one. The authors quote many of the most popular teachings in the church regarding sex, and point out the logical conclusions of these beliefs, which reveal them for the toxic beliefs that they are. Each chapter ends with ways to reframe the conversation, so that not only are we confronting the harmful teaching, but we are actively working to rebuild and reshape our thinking and teaching on the subject. Definitely worth reading!

After reading numerous Christian marriage books that only made my marital problems worse (instead of better!) I started seeking out nonreligious marriage help, and that's when things finally began to improve.

Think about that for a moment.

It saddens me to think about how many people have gone through the same thing for years and decades. Friends, this should not be.

This book is a breath of fresh air. It assures me of one VERY important thing that the other "Christian" books never did -- that I am valuable. That I am loved. That I matter. I'm here for more than serving a man's needs. My needs matter too.

They matter. I matter.

If you've been hurt by Christian marriage books, you need to read this now.  If you've never read a Christian marriage book, you need to read this one before you pick up any other.

You matter.

The larger church culture has failed at sexuality and Sheila's book is the corrective. As a man, I was shocked to see how Christian 'classics' on sex had insidious assumptions and harmful teachings in them for both men and women. I could always smell something was wrong, but could never identify it. Sheila has surfaced it, and there is a reckoning coming!

It's rare to find teaching that is so solidly Biblical and down & dirty practical (not THAT kind of dirty!) After 22 years of marriage, I'm finding much of the author's work so restorative and helpful personally, with raising kids, and sharing with others.

My one caveat is the author(s) seem intent on pressing the "why" behind some of the awful teaching in evangelical Christianity back to misappropriated gender roles. As you connect deeper in the author's community, you will find it does tend to veer into lack of any differences between the sexes in role and responsibility. I can't really agree with these conclusions, so if you can get past these, it's great book.

The Great Sex Rescue is designed to correct the harmful expectations in marriage that popular Evangelical Christian marriage books have (perhaps unintentionally) taught. Based on faulty research and opinions, many Christians are taught things that don’t match up with the Biblical principle of Love One Another.

There are many dimensions to intimacy, and this book reframes and rescues many of them, but especially those related to sex and purity. Including duty, respect, faithfulness, pleasure, and much more.

I would recommend it for anyone (both men and women) who’ve been married for any length of time. I would also recommend it to anyone 16+ with a note that it should be discussed with someone trusted. If they’re allowed to read the second half of Judges, then they should be okay with this.

There are some “try this at home” sections meant for married couples only, and some extremely dangerous/hard situations that will need processing. But it also has some extremely beautiful situations, too. The kind that proves Good Men exist and can be found! Excellent role models for those teen boys to look up to and follow after.

Rather than dooming them to ‘Every man’s battle’ and their wives to constant doubt and fear, set them up for success by teaching them to value the whole person. That makes managing expectations in relationships much simpler.

I received an advance copy of the book, but have also preordered 4 copies between Amazon and Baker Bookhouse. I chose to review it here. All thoughts are my own.

Have your church or Christian marriage books ever told you: all men lust, yet women are the ones responsible for men's sexual integrity? Or women don't want sex, yet women have a duty to give their husbands sex when they want it? Or a husband has authority over his wife's body, yet marriage is meant for intimacy and oneness? Has it ever left you scratching your head in confusion and with a sense of cognitive dissonance that you can't quite name?

This book identifies the toxic messages that we've been given that destroy the intimacy that God really intended to give us in marriage - emotional, spiritual and physical. This book is a much needed gift to Christian marriages and the church as a whole. It's like a giant therapy session to undo the damage of so much of what we've been taught by the evangelical church. I cried, I raged, I laughed, and I healed in reading this book. I'm going to read it again, this time with my husband, and maybe a third time to be sure I missed nothing.

If you've ever read marriage books, or if you ever recommend marriage books to anyone, you need this book. So many Christian marriage books are read by women in struggling, difficult or even abusive marriages trying to figure out how to fix it. Many of the best selling Christian marriage books have contributed to the problem. This book is a huge course correction that is much needed to put people on a path of healing.

For example, read these quotes from chapter 10, When Duty Becomes Coercion:

"Nothing could have prepared us for how many horrific stories of marital rape we heard in the one-on-one interviews for this book... But the evangelical culture must confront what these women endured... because the obligation-sex message was a fundamental part of how their husbands viewed them as wives."

"...far too many Christian books include incidents of marital rape or other forms of sexual assault and then dismiss these incidents as unimportant."

"Abusive men are using our evangelical resources as weapons. That’s why Christian resources simply must do better. Not one of the books we looked at, except our secular control book, John Gottman’s The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, even mentioned the idea of consent."

This book has many quotes taken directly from best-selling evangelical marriage books that give a clear picture of the extent to which women are seen as objects to be used for men's sexual pleasure. We see that especially as these authors so frequently propose the solution to so many marriage problems is just she needs to give him more sex. It displays a perspective of men's entitlement to women's bodies that does not consider her needs as a person but rather as an object to be used. For example chapter 6 quotes Every Man's Battle:

"The authors actually say, “Your wife can be a methadone-like fix when your temperature is rising.” And to women, they advise, “Once he tells you he’s going cold turkey, be like a merciful vial of methadone for him.”

This perspective of objectification of women ultimately finds its roots in the whole gender-based hierarchy in the church (politely euphemized as complementarianism). When men believe their gender entitles them to power and authority over women and they are entitled to women's submission, which is the core distinguishing tenant of the gender hierarchy (complementarian) view, the natural next step is to believe they are also entitled to women's bodies. Women are seen as having less personal autonomy than men, less spiritual authority than men, less decision making power than men. And where an entire people group is just a little less than, objectification is the natural next step.

The Great Sex Rescue instead leads the reader through a Christ honoring view of marriage that is mutually personal, mutually pleasurable, mutually pure, mutually prioritized, mutually pressure free, mutually puts the other first, and mutually passionate. A beautiful oneness results.

Chapter 13 says, "Part of being a ministry leader is shepherding the sheep, and that includes protecting the sheep from things that harm." This book does exactly that.

After I read the endorsement by Rachel Denhollander, I expected this book would have something important and true to say. It does.

The book is really three books in one: an analysis of the treatment of sex in some of the most popular evangelical marriage books; the results of a survey of 20,000 evangelical wives about their sexual and general marital satisfaction; and practical counsel to couples about the path to a mutually fulfilling sex life. Each of the three contributions is worthy of discussion.

CRITIQUE OF THE EVANGELICAL MARRIAGE LITERATURE

First, the book presents an absolutely brilliant analysis of how the treatment of sex in popular evangelical marriage books works against a wife’s sexual fulfillment. This critique is long overdue. Gregoire painstakingly documents how the evangelical literature shortchanges women by failing to discuss female sexual response. I am a former volunteer for Love and Respect Ministries. Ten years ago, I approached Emerson Eggerichs about his failure to address a wife's sexual satisfaction and provided suggestions about material to add. He dismissed my concerns, but told me that he would address sex more thoroughly in his next book. And, what did he say in that book? Well, to justify his one-sided teaching of unconditional sexual submission by the wife and omission of any reference to her sexual satisfaction, he argued that when Paul writes in I Corinthians 7:4 that “the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife”, Paul is referencing a wife’s desire for conversation, not her desire for sex! (See, The Love and Respect Experience, Chapters 20 and 31.) I quit, and have no regrets about walking away from a ministry that distorts Scripture.

Several Amazon reviewers who disagree with Gregoire’s concerns about the Love and Respect book have pointed to Eggerichs’ reliance on the work of highly regarded marriage therapist and researcher, Dr. John Gottman. Now, Eggerichs describes what he calls a Crazy Cycle, in which wives show criticism and contempt, to which husbands respond by stonewalling and withdrawing. It is true that Gottman finds wives are more prone to criticism and contempt, while husbands are more prone to stonewalling and withdrawing. These are Gottman's 'four horsemen'. They destroy marital intimacy, and both Gottman and Eggerichs agree that they are to be avoided. Both also agree that when a husband fails to include his wife in decision making, she often responds with criticism and contempt. Where they disagree is the solution. Gottman believes there should be egalitarian decision-making. Eggerichs argues that by God’s design, men are hierarchical. So, the only way for a wife to be heard is through her respect, which includes unconditional submission. Gregoire is correct when she states that Gottman and Eggerichs are not on the same page.

I do have two concerns with some of Gregoire’s critiques. As I see it, the basic problem with the evangelical literature is that little-to-nothing is said about female sexual response, not that what is said about husbands is wrong. Gregoire carefully documents the many ways in which female sexuality is ignored in standard evangelical counsel. But, in her critiques of evangelical treatment of male sexuality and preferences, I think she often sets up straw men. For example, Gregoire is critical of counsel that encourages frequent intercourse. Yet she acknowledges that both spouses should prioritize sex, that spouses should be giving and not selfish, and that a wife’s receptive sexuality implies arousal should not be a prerequisite to her initial ‘yes’ to her husband. If all of that is true, then what exactly is wrong with the standard evangelical counsel that a wise wife should have an attitude of responsiveness to her husband?

The second is that Gregoire’s focus unwittingly results in women looking better than men. Gregoire correctly points out that while, on average, men are more visually oriented than women, the average is not representative of all individuals in the group. Not all men are visually oriented, and some women are visually oriented. So, a more accurate statement is to talk about characteristics of people, rather than characteristics of men versus women. The problem is that the Purity Culture issues Gregoire addresses such as lust and porn usage are generally bigger struggles for men than for women. While it’s not Gregoire’s intent, women come across as looking better than men. I don’t think that either gender has a monopoly on purity or sin. Rather, the issues that are bigger struggles for women (e.g., the fluidity of female sexuality) aren’t yet discussed in the writing of the authors Gregoire critiques.

SURVEY

I have no doubt about the ability of the author team to properly analyze survey data. However, I do have two concerns about the survey. As others have pointed out, the survey isn’t based on a random sample of evangelical wives. In addition, sex is a sensitive topic. Survey respondents have a tendency to protect themselves by giving socially acceptable answers to sensitive questions, even if those answers aren’t truthful. As a result, survey researchers have developed special survey techniques for eliciting accurate responses to questions about topics like sex. There wasn’t any indication that the authors used such techniques. For these two reasons, I doubt the survey results are publishable in an academic journal.

What does this mean to me as an academic researcher? Well, typical of other authors with successful marriage ministries, Sheila Wray Gregoire has spent thousands of hours talking with wives about sexual and marital satisfaction. Also typical of other authors, her writing is , in part, based on the stories she hears. Those stories are also consistent with her survey results. I, personally, wouldn’t be comfortable quoting the survey statistics cited in the book. But, the narratives she presents resonate with me. One of them reflects my personal experience, and others reflect what I hear from the evangelical women I know. So, I believe the general tendencies documented in the survey to be true. More importantly, Gregoire’s critique of the evangelical marriage literature stands on its own. The survey is not necessary; the arguments she makes speak for themselves. Because concerns about the survey do not invalidate the arguments, critics of Gregoire’s book need to engage with her arguments. Citing the non-randomness of the survey is not sufficient to discredit what Gregoire has to say.

PRACTICAL COUNSEL TO COUPLES

Third, each chapter concludes with practical counsel to couples about how to have a mutually fulfilling sex life. The counsel is lovely, but I have some concerns. The first is the placement of the counsel at the end of each chapter’s critiques. The critiques have an extremely negative tone because evangelical writing is as bad as Gregoire says it is! But, I think Gregoire is also too critical of the literature’s counsel to wives about their husbands’ preferences. Because Gregoire’s practical, how-to’s come at the end of a negative barrage, then even when the barrage is spot on, it’s awfully difficult for wives to have empathy for their husbands’ perspectives. I think it would have been better to place the critique and the counsel in separate sections of the book or separate books.

Additionally, Gregoire is not a sex therapist. I would be much more comfortable with what she says if she co-authored with sex therapists, if she frequently quoted respected sex therapists, if she advertised that she had an advisory board that included prominent sex therapists, etc. (Aside: I cringed as she set herself up as an expert qualified to critique a book written by two of the most respected evangelical sex therapists in the country, Dr. Cliff and Joyce Penner. They should be asked to critique her books; not vice versa.)

Not all struggling couples can afford sex therapy. But, Gregoire could do much to promote books written by top sex therapists, for example, Dr. Doug Rosenau’s Total Intimacy, or Laurie Watson’s Wanting Sex Again, along with the Penners’ materials. Here, I can’t fault only Gregoire. In fact, at the meta level, the problem with the evangelical marriage literature is that counsel on sex is coming from other than sex therapists. Lay people like Gregoire, Eggerichs, Leman, Arterburn, etc., tend to over-generalize from their own experiences. As a result, they tell part of the truth. Too often, however, part of the truth is a half-truth. Sex therapists have the knowledge and experience to advocate from a broader perspective.

Gregoire implicitly acknowledges this. At a couple of places in the book, she offers blanket apologies for mistakes – and, presumably, resulting harm – from her past teaching. I commend her humility here and hope that the authors whose books she analyzes follow her lead.

So when I first heard about this book, I was intrigued. Sex is something rarely discussed in the church, especially beyond the phrase, ‘Don’t have it.’ I grew up in purity culture and in very traditional evangelical environment, but sex was always something I’ve been into talking about and learning about how it can be talked about in healthy ways, particularly within evangelical culture.

Y’all. This book does it. Sheila Gregoire and her team absolutely nail it. From their survey of over 20,000 women to their rubric ranking various evangelical resources, this book is a treasure trove of information, both data and anecdotal driven. If you’re married, it gives great resources and tips on how to use the information to better your own marriage and sex life. If you’re like me and single, it gives you a solid foundation for what to look for in any future relationships/marriages.

Absolutely a must read for everyone in the church. If you were raised in purity culture, you should read this book. If you are a part of - or a leader within - the evangelical church, you should read this book. If you’re married and want to live your best sex life, you should read this book. If you’re single, even, you should read this book. Cannot recommend enough.

This book resolved years of frustration in my marriage and gave me the answers I was looking for. It has helped me reverse a lifetime of false teaching and indoctrination. “Every Man’s Battle” and “Love & Respect” were so destructive to my marriage and this book explained why. A must read! Share it with all your friends and pastors!

Did you grown up in purity culture? Read this book
Do you know what erectile dysfunction is but not vaginismus? Read this book
Do you have a different libido than your spouse? Read this book
Do you give (or receive) “duty sex”? Read this book
Do you want more for your marriage? Read this book
Do you struggle (or have a partner that struggles) with porn? Read this book
Do you want to have an orgasm (or give your spouse an orgasm)? Read this book
Does sex feel like coercion? Read this book
Do you withhold sex? Read this book
Do you pressure your spouse for sex? Read this book
Did you grow up with damaging messages from the church about sex? READ THIS BOOK

In short, any Christian marriage—even the ones where you enjoy sex together—will gain insight into one of the best things about being married. I cannot recommend this book enough. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Ignore the reviews about this being "Feminist drivel", "Bible twisting" or "man bashing". Nothing could be further from the truth!! This book is a call to do better, raise the bar and speak truth!

I am so, SO thankful for all of the hard work and heart work that went into this book. It's blunt, it's honest and it's shining a light in the darkness of previous Evangelical teachings. I honestly don't understand how the major Evangelical platforms can get something so beautiful so messed up, but it's time to tear down the lies.

Sheila has done an *excellent* job with her survey. Gathering data from over 20,000 women to find out what teachings/ideas have been harmful in their marriage and on women's sex lives in particular. She tackles some pretty well-known teachings that were brought up over and over again is being hurtful and toxic. She addresses the problematic teachings that the church has latched on to and does a beautiful job reframing things in light of true Biblical teaching. Sex is a beautiful gift from God to a husband and a wife to be mutually enjoyed, mutually pleasurable and mutually fulfilling.

This book wasn't written to accuse other authors, but to shed light on the damage that previous Christian marriage/sex books have caused. This is a message that needs to be heard.

My husband and I are so blessed to have an amazing marriage. We are always looking to better ourselves and our marriage, so we dove into The Great Sex Rescue together. WOW. We didn't think our sex life needed rescuing but as we took turns reading the book aloud to each other we had so many great conversations! We discussed how many of the current marriage teachings and pre-marriage teachings (purity culture) are actually so destructive to a Godly marriage (and to women's sexuality in particular) and how they seem to cause more harm than good in the long run. So many great realizations and ah-ha moments, but we also felt saddened over how many people have been hurt, and marriages destroyed, through some of these popular teachings that have been accepted and encouraged in the church... it breaks my heart... imagine how much more so it breaks the heart of God.

I will be buying extra copies to give away and recommending this book to everyone!

I'm so thankful for this resource. For my daughter's, for my sisters, for my friends and for myself.

If you are debating whether or not you should buy this book, do it, you won't regret it!