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hosted by Dr. Corey Allan

Great Sex Rescue #549

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On the Regular version of today’s show …

Sheila Wray Gregoire joins me as we talk about her newest book, The Great Sex Rescue.

Learn more about Sheila on her site https://tolovehonorandvacuum.com/

On the Xtended version …

A conversation I had with Sheila about the concerns I had regarding her book and the tone of her writing and responses since publication.

Enjoy the show!

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Speaker 1: You are listening to the regular version of Sexy Marriage Radio, SMRnation.com. You've turned on Sexy Marriage radio, where the best sex happens in the marriage bed. Here's your host, Dr. Corey Allen.

Corey Allan: Yeah, you got to plug it in all the way to make it work.

Pam Allan: You have to plug it in. All I heard was like one tone.

Corey Allan: This is Sexy Marriage Radio, where most of the time we have our act together. Sometimes we don't when we're coming on the air, but either way, just like love, and just like marriage, it's a process.

Pam Allan: That's that's why we all like each other so much. Because we're okay with not being perfect.

Corey Allan: I sure hope so. Because I sure like you. Well, speaking of liking, we have a good friend of ours, Dennis Merkas of Melt, the couple's massage courses. Little did you know maybe.

Pam Allan: Little did I know, yes.

Corey Allan: He's hosting a giveaway this Christmas season.

Pam Allan: Okay. That's fun.

Corey Allan: So what it is is if you are a member of Melt, you have an opportunity to submit a ten second video clip of you massaging your partner or they massaging you with one of the techniques.

Pam Allan: Totally g-rated, just use one of his techniques

Corey Allan: Completely. Any of the processes he has taught in his courses, because he's got a bunch of different processes as well as just applying oil. From start to finish, any part of that segment that you want to record, that stays G-rated as you were pointing out, submit it to him, and you get entered into a drawing to possibly win $1,000 dollars.

Pam Allan: Well, that'd be fun for Christmas.

Corey Allan: Who wouldn't want $1,000.

Pam Allan: When's he doing the drawing? Do you know?

Corey Allan: It ends on December 26th, so you don't get it for Christmas. You actually get to celebrate for New Year's, I guess, with it.

Pam Allan: Pay the bills.

Corey Allan: So you've got plenty of weeks to get that process done and submit it to him. And if you want to join in on this, you're going to go to SMRnation.com/meltgiveaway, all one word. And that will get you straight to the process of how you can learn more about it. If you're not a member of Melt, you can also join right there and then submit it, because you could win more, far more than the cost of the membership. Plus, even if you don't win, it's a great way to get your hands on your partner in a good way this Christmas season.

Pam Allan: Well, there's that.

Corey Allan: And we're very grateful for Dennis and the work that he does because he really does help people connect in better ways, which is what we want to do here at Sexy Marriage Radio. And if you like what we got going on, we ask you this holiday season to spread the cheer. Let people know, rate and review the show, but we want Sexy Marriage Radio to be heard as far and wide as possible. Well coming up on today's regular free version of Sexy Marriage Radio is a conversation that I had with Sheila Wray Gregoire on her book that she's got out called the Great Sex Rescue, came out a couple months ago, and she is tackling based on a research project and surveys of over 20,000 women. She's tackling what have been some of the messages that some of the Christian books in the past have brought out that haven't really been helpful. In fact, they might have even been toxic and harmful. And what her research is showing is it has been harmful.
And so she's written a book to spread the word of the message of we've not done this well, and I'll freely admit it. Part of the reason Sex Marriage Radio is still going on for 10 years is having to rework some things based on what we were raised on, or not raised with when it comes to the sex and sexuality topic. Particularly when you're talking about with evangelical Christians. And so in the regular version today, it's Sheila and I talking about her book. And then in the extended content today, which is deeper, longer, and there are no ads, you can subscribe at SMRnation.com/SMRacademy. This is actually a conversation that she and I had prior to recording.

Pam Allan: Just kind of your post.

Corey Allan: It's just the pre-recording conversation where we went a little deeper on what all's gone on since the book was released. Because there's been some backlash, there's been some people taking sides. Some of her audience in the offshoots of are coming to her defense, and some of the people that have been brought out in the book with their work, some people have raised up to try to defend them. And so in some areas it's gotten pretty heated. And so this is just a conversation of what that's gone on because what I want to say from the outset is when it comes to this topic, we all need to do better.

Pam Allan: Both sides. Yeah.

Corey Allan: Because there's real pain involved with what's gone on with this topic and how it's unfolded in marriages and how in a lot of ways the church has not done a good job. And so that's just a little more behind the scenes conversation.

Pam Allan: Yeah. I mean, that's not a new concept to the show.

Corey Allan: But all the that's coming up on today's show. It's always a pleasure to welcome back to the show Sheila Gregoire of To Love Honor and Vacuum is your online home. So let's just go ahead and get that right out of the gate.

Sheila Gregoire: Actually, when is this airing? When is this airing?

Corey Allan: Well, when do you want this to air?

Sheila Gregoire: Well, because in January it'll be, we're we're transitioning over to baremarriage.com. I don't know when exactly.

Corey Allan: It's a moving target of where you live.

Sheila Gregoire: Yeah. Most people know me as ToLoveHonorAndVacuum.com.

Corey Allan: Okay. But soon to be BareMarriage.com, and I'm assuming that's B-A-R-E, not B-E-A-R.

Sheila Gregoire: Yes.

Corey Allan: Well Sheila, welcome back to the show. It's been far too long since we got a chance to connect again.

Sheila Gregoire: Yeah. Great to be here.

Corey Allan: The reason I'm getting you out here year again. And this is to be upfront with the whole audience. We've done this recording before, and we're going to try it again. Because I made a faux pas and a boneheaded move in my world of trying to keep things simplistic and clutter free. I got rid of the recording that didn't air. So we're doing it again because you've got a book, the Great Sex Rescue, it's out now, we recorded it before, like right when it was coming out. But it's got some material in there because I want to walk through with the audience of how'd this thing come about. And then what's it based on?
Because there's some very valuable paths that you've taken with this because of your experience blogging, having an audience, having access to a lot of information, and as your career has evolved from not just speaking about marriage, but now also being the woman that'll actually talk about sex in marriage a lot more than a lot of women out there that are writing in the marriage world will talk about. So all that's teeing up with the Great Sex Rescue. How did this thing all come about?

Sheila Gregoire: Yeah. Well actually I've been on your show a couple times I think in the past talking about some of my other books. I think we talked about 31 Days to Great Sex or the Good Girls Guide to Great Sex.

Corey Allan: Yeah. Those are the two, you're right.

Sheila Gregoire: Yeah. I'm just trying to remember, but I've been in this sort of sex and marriage world for 13 years now, which is weird. So talking sex and marriage all day, all the time on the blog. And that's what I did for years, is I just tried to say, this is what healthy looks like. This is what healthy looks like. This is how you can boost your marriage. And what I found is that the same questions, the same issues kept coming up. And it was sort of frustrating. We created an orgasm course, we created a boost your libido course. We kept trying to create good information, but we felt like we were hitting a brick wall. And then in January of 2019, I had one of those defining moments in my life. I had a migraine, wasn't feeling well, I was on Twitter, and there was a Twitter discussion going on, a woman saying that she needed respect, not just love. And it reminded me that I actually have that book, Love and Respect in my closet, but I'd never read it.
Because until then, and I know this is going to sound weird, but I had never read marriage books. I just, I'm always afraid of plagiarizing. So I hadn't read a lot of these books. So I went up and I got the book, and being the sex person that I am, I just turned to the sex chapter, which is in in Emerson Eggerich's book, Love and Respect, which is the most used marriage study in North American churches. The sex chapter is in what he needs. So it's not what she needs. It's for the man's needs. And I read that chapter, and I said to my team, I FaceTimed them every few minutes, and every few pages. And it was like a nuclear bomb went off in my living room because I'd never understood what was actually being taught. Because in that book, Emerson Eggerich said, "If your husband is typical, he has a need that you don't have." So men need sex and women don't. He said that the man's need is for physical release. He never mentioned intimacy. He never called it making love.
It was just ejaculation. And he never said a single thing about women being able to feel pleasure too. It was just all you're not to deprive him. And I thought, if this is what's being taught, maybe this is the reason that people are still having issues. And working for me at the time was my daughter who had just finished a degree where she specialized in survey development and psychometrics. And a friend of ours who was at home with a baby, and was looking for something to do. And she has a master's in epidemiology where she focused on statistics. And we're like, why don't we do something about this? So we surveyed over 20,000 women. Largest survey that's ever been done, of Christian women. And asked them everything, about their marital satisfaction, sexual satisfaction. And we gave them a ton of evangelical beliefs that are often taught and said, "Did you ever believe this and were you ever taught this?" And from that, we were able to identify certain teachings that wrecked everything for couples.

Corey Allan: And that's that's the great thing that you've done is because this is something that's beyond, because that's what, the experience I've got with the Christian marriage books. And just marriage books in general in a lot of ways are one, they come from people that aren't clinicians or researchers or statisticians or journalists even, because even journalists have a different kind of standard. It's just, somebody's like, you know what? I got a voice. This matters because it impacted me. And so here you go, let's put it out there as this is it. This is the right way. So you've kind of gone the other route of recognizing, and this is a lot of what you've done throughout a lot of your writing, this is how it's evolved as I've followed along with you.
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You've you've gone the route of wait, there's something here, let's explore and go deeper. Let's talk more specifically about this. Let's be a lot more tactical in the way we go about it, rather than let's just throw this against the wall and see if it fits. Because I think a lot of times my experience with the church is these are the issues that we don't want to talk about. So when we do, it's just a tacit throw it out there and hope that that satisfies it. It's like the whole, we have a marriage ministry. Really? What does that mean? Oh, we do a conference every three years. That's not a marriage ministry.

Sheila Gregoire: And in the conference we say the same things. Be kind to each other, know each other's love language and have sex a lot.

Corey Allan: Right. Perfect okay. Let's go eat. So that's the thing I love is the premise that you've built this off of is now all of a sudden you've got actual data of the pain. You've got actual data of the abuse. You've got actual data of the neglect, of the power disparity, because you even jumped on the idea of the orgasm gap in this book. So you're not alone in this because Lori Mince, who's not a Christian in her writing, but there's several, that's what their mission is, is we're trying to close and bridge that gap. But what did you find? Because I do want to jump into the research of what you found of what were some of the things that jumped out to you that you found from this survey?

Sheila Gregoire: Yeah. So the orgasm gap in the evangelical world we believe is greater than the orgasm gap in the secular world. It's hard to measure, because it depends how you measure frequency. So we couldn't make one to one app comparisons. It's a little bit apples to oranges, but from all of the large scale surveys that we looked at, it does look like evangelical women orgasm less. Which is scary, because I thought it was the opposite.

Corey Allan: Really? What made you think it would be the opposite?

Sheila Gregoire: Because women rate, this is kind of an aside, but evangelical women rate their sexual satisfaction as higher than secular women outside the church, but they orgasm less. And so the question is, why do they rate it higher? I would love to do a follow-up survey on that. We tend to rate our marital satisfaction higher as well, even though we may identify much deeper problems. So I think the issue in the evangelical church is women have so much been told that your marriage and your sex life is your identity, that we tend to rate it higher and we don't have as much of a critical eye on it. So that's an aside.

Corey Allan: So it's kind of, because I think this is an important aside, because this is kind of the stuff I'm seeing too, is there's this element of, I can blanket statement the entirety of the thing and totally ignore the nuances within it, and that's an incongruence if you think about it objectively, and most people wouldn't even do that. It's like, well hold on. I haven't even thought about it. And that's kind of the mission in the voice you guys are giving with this is to realize, wait, hold on. Maybe we do need to examine some of these messages. Maybe we need to realize they are incredibly harmful. Maybe we need, and that starts to get into a deeper understanding of, let's not just be so flippant about some of this or so cavalier about some of this when there are some big things that must be addressed.

Sheila Gregoire: Yep. Yep. So let's take the orgasm gap. Okay. So after we did this survey, after the book was out, we actually did survey men. So we have a book, the Good Guy's Guide to Great Sex is coming out in March. And that includes our survey data of guys. And so we did verify, we were guessing in the Great Sex Rescue based on other surveys. So we had 95% of men almost always, or always orgasm during a sexual encounter. And that is what we found when we did the survey. So 95% of men. And roughly 48% of women almost always, or always orgasm. So that's a 47 point orgasm gap. And now there a lot of women still orgasm frequently or half the time or whatever, but it's not as much. And there's a significant number that just don't orgasm.
At all. And so this gets back to the Christian advice to just have sex. We're supposed to have sex, just have sex, just have sex. You need to have a lot of sex. But what is sex? Because if I were to say to you, "Did you have sex last night?" What you're thinking I'm asking or what most people would think I'm asking, you probably wouldn't because you know this more than most people, but is like, did you put your penis inside her vagina, move around until you climax. And that's our definition of sex.

Corey Allan: Absolutely. That is what's been passed down and just culturalized as far as that's what the word means.

Sheila Gregoire: Exactly. You've had sex when you've had intercourse. And so we define sex as intercourse. The problem with that is that she could be lying there making a grocery list in her head. She could be lying there in emotional turmoil feeling used. She could even be in physical pain and it would still count as having sex. And so our definition of sex excludes her experience. And that's not what the Bible does. But that's what our definition of sex does. And so when Christian resources talk about the importance of having sex, and in our minds, we're thinking intercourse, then we're asking a lot of women to do something which does nothing for them. And we're telling them that is supposed to make you feel close to your husband. And what's happening is a whole lot of women are feeling really used, and see sex is something really awful.

Corey Allan: Right. And there's so there's an aversion to it or it becomes obligatory, which you even have some comments in there about the idea of obligation sex is harmful, not just sterile or neutral. There's more to it than that. There's there's a deeper component in here.

Sheila Gregoire: Yeah. Yeah. And actually the obligation sex message, so what we did was we measured a whole bunch of beliefs. And when I say beliefs, I'm not talking biblical beliefs necessary. I'm talking like extra biblical stuff, because I do believe in a biblical sexual ethic. I do believe that sex is meant for marriage. I do believe that sex is an important part of marriage. All of that, I'm totally on board with.

Corey Allan: Which is interesting Sheila, because some of this, and this is one of the things that comes to my mind. We were talking before we started recording officially on just how this has unfolded and the church as part of a microcosm of the culture, because culture even believes that too, that maybe it's not marriage, but it continues to bear out in culture and society that monogamous long-term relationships are where satisfaction sexual and otherwise go up, and are the highest. And so I think there is an element, fundamental as humans. We understand that. But then there's a biblical component that adds another layer of sacredness, another layer of profoundness and oneness and knowing, and being known that I think even should magnify it, which that's what you're kind of basing this off of. It seems like that should make sense, that both would flourish in this, but that's not the case all the time.

Sheila Gregoire: Yeah, exactly. And actually I love what you said about knowing. So if I could just pick up on that for a minute. When we're looking at what is the biblical definition of sex, if you look at Genesis 4, there's this funny verse. And it says, Adam knew his wife Eve, and they conceived a son. And I remember being 13 years old and you're laughing at that verse. Because it sounds like God's embarrassed of saying the real word. But when you look at the root, the Hebrew root there, it's the same Hebrew word route to know that David uses when he says search me and know me, oh God. It's like this deep intimate knowing. And that means that it's a joining of two people. It's deeply intimate. Both people matter. So biblically we know sex is intimate. We know sex is pleasurable for both from Song of Solomon.
I mean, heck, the woman talks more than the man does in Song of Solomon. She's had having a good time. Okay. And then we know in 1 Corinthians 7, that it's totally mutual. So when we look at the way the Bible portrays sex, it's this intimate mutual pleasurable experience for both. That doesn't mean that it's just intercourse. Because when we looked at the women who could reach orgasm, so this is the women that are frequently orgasmic. Most of them do not reach orgasm through intercourse alone, or even through intercourse at all. Most women find other routes to orgasm much more reliable.

Corey Allan: Right. Because the clitoris is the most reliable route to consistently achieving orgasm. That's also just out there in a lot of culture.

Sheila Gregoire: And there's ways that you can make it easier during intercourse. And I talk about that in my orgasm course. The point is, intercourse is not the end all and be all. But when we define sex that way, then what often happens is women feel like we're broken when sex doesn't work for us. When intercourse doesn't do anything for us. And we feel selfish if we want more, and often he says that we're selfish if we want more, because you should be acting just like me. And so we see sex from the male point of view. And that's where a lot of these negative beliefs that we measured come in. Like I said, they're not biblical, but they tend to see sex from a male point of view. I kind of see them like Lord of the Rings, like the one ring to rule them all. They're all related right to that one line from Love and Respect. When Emerson Eggerich says, "If your husband's typical, he has a need you don't have."

Corey Allan: That you don't have, which is totally wrong.

Sheila Gregoire: Yes. So that's the one that sort of is over everything. But all of the beliefs that we looked at stem from that, and the obligation sex message is probably the most harmful one we measured. And it's the idea that a woman is obligated to give her husband sex when he wants it. 43% of women said they were taught this before they were married. And 39% said that they got married believing it. And when women believe the obligation sex message, just as an illustration of how bad this is, their chance of experiencing vaginismus or primary sexual pain increases to the same extent as if they had been abused. And what a lot of people don't know, well, first of all, people don't even know the word vaginismus. Everyone knows erectile dysfunction, right? You watch Price is Right, you know erectile dysfunction.

Corey Allan: Well, to be fair, if you're members of SMR Nation, you know of the word vaginismus, because we've covered it several times through the years of the show.

Sheila Gregoire: Which is awesome. But most people don't know it. We all know erectile dysfunction. We don't know vaginismus. Vaginismus is way more common, at least in couples under 40. And we measured an incidence rate of about 22.6%, with 7% having penetration difficult, if not impossible. And that is roughly twice the rate of the general population. And we've known for 50 to 60 years that religious conservatives, so Muslims, Jews, Christians, religious conservatives experienced vaginismus at twice the rate of the general population.

Corey Allan: Right. And because of the stigma, the fear, there's a lot of different things that are, because this isn't being taught.

Sheila Gregoire: It was thought that it was mostly because of shame about sex. And interestingly, I didn't think that's what it was. And we kind of disproved that. We didn't go into a lot of detail in the book. But when you look at the denominations of the people who have vaginismus, they weren't heavily related to vaginismus. And when you looked at like some of the theological beliefs, they weren't heavily related to vaginismus. And you can imagine that what you'd heard in a youth group, in an Anglican church would be very different from what you hear in youth group in an independent fundamentalist Baptist church. It's not necessarily about the shame of sex. What it is is a lot of these other messages that we identify. And specifically, the obligation sex message was the worst. So this feeling that I'm not my own, I don't matter, because abuse basically says I have the right to use you however I want. You're inconsequential. You're here for me just to use.
But our bodies interpret the obligation sex message in the same way. Our bodies interpret it as trauma. And that's not the only reason we have vaginismus, there's also a lot of physical causes, and it's a very multifaceted complicated problem.

Corey Allan: Absolutely it is. But it also, we can't discount the importance of the anxiety that's associated with it, that helps create it because it's not just, oh, I need to get dilators because there's also anxiety associated with the message and everything. Because that's kind of the same concept of, I've heard of too many times of women that go to the doc about it who's not prepared. And he's like, "Oh this is probably what you need to do." And she's like, "Oh, okay." And then it's this whole medical procedure that's rather than no, hold on. This is a completely different holistic thing that's going on where there's multiple things, not just one.

Sheila Gregoire: Yeah. Yeah. And we're actually speaking. Pelvic floor physiotherapists have just loved our books. So we're speaking at the American Physiotherapist Convention in February and presenting on our vaginismus findings to help pelvic floor physiotherapists understand some of the screening tools for beliefs that it isn't, among heavily religious conservatives, there's a lot of beliefs that contribute to it. And the obligation sex message is one of those big ones. And it's just, it's very prevalent in evangelical circles. And it's a misuse, I think of 1 Corinthians 7, the do not deprive verses, and so people say, "Well, the Bible says you're not to deprive, so you have to have sex." But yeah. Okay. But what is it that we're not supposed to deprive each other of?
And people think, "Well, sex equals intercourse." So we're not allowed to deprive each other of intercourse. But if she's experiencing intercourse is something which is traumatic, where she's not reaching orgasm, she is already being deprived. The verse doesn't even apply. It's like we can't even think about applying ` Corinthians 7 until we have a sex life which is characterized by mutuality, intimacy and pleasure for both. Because if it's not characterized by those three things, then you're both already being deprived.

Corey Allan: Right. Right. Because then you have to ask the more courageous questions of is the sex we're having even worth wanting?

Sheila Gregoire: Exactly.

Corey Allan: And that's on both sides. That's the whole weight. This is something we've landed on for a while of, and I really believe this is both sides, but women, I think have a more finely attuned radar in this regard than men maybe. But it does apply to both that a woman is very able to recognize the times when a husband just wants to have sex or wants to have sex with her. Because there's a difference. Absolutely. And that's where I think there's this importance on calling out that in men too, of realizing dude, what are you after here? What are you really looking for here? Who is she for you, to you, alongside you?
Where is she in this whole equation? Because that's on both sides. It's not just women need to stand up and when there's pain speak up, and really ask themselves the bigger questions, what are the messages that I've taught that are just harmful to me? Men need to ask the same questions of, wait, how am I perpetuating this unknowingly even, because I bought into it. And I'm continually causing havoc because not only do I bring it to my wife, I talk about it with the other guys, or it's joked about, rather than no, no, no, no, no. There's a deeper thing going on for all of us that needs to be addressed.

Sheila Gregoire: And I think so often for men too, they sexualize their emotional needs. So if you're feeling bored, lonely, stressed, tired, anxious, because men often aren't encouraged to name or experience emotions, then that turns into sexual frustration. And we would do a lot better and grow a lot healthier sex lives if we could grow emotionally so that we could connect on an emotional level. Men and women together, yes. But also each of us in with ourselves and with God, because I think many of us are running away from our emotions.

Corey Allan: No, absolutely. And that's kind of the whole, I'm just trying to get away or numb or make pain go away rather than seeking something deeper, meaningful, more profound, more real, which actually is the path towards actually creating being known, and knowing, which there's that little sophisticated wait, but that's the way we actually do it. And it's scary as can be. So before we run out of time, Sheila, is there another component that you've landed on in this, that now that it's out for a while and you're getting feedback that the message is really impacting that's worth noting?

Sheila Gregoire: One thing that has surprised us is how many men have read the book. We've always thought, "Okay, well, men don't read books written by women." Because that's what our publishers tell us and everything, but actually, probably a third of our reviews are from guys and they're really appreciating it. And so many men are telling us that they felt very set free by our chapters on lust and porn, because one of the messages that we measured too, was the idea that all men struggle with lust. It's every man's battle. Very harmful message to women. Orgasm rates go down, libido goes down, arousal goes down, marital satisfaction goes down, just generally all around rotten message. And it's the one message that harms women if they were taught it, even if they never believed it, just being in a church environment where this is being taught, even if you never buy into it has really negative repercussions. But it really hurts guys too.
And I think one of the main ways, and this is the main point of our chapter is that we've talked about lust in the wrong way. Because basically we've criminalized male sexuality, noticing is not lusting. Jesus said, "Whoever looks at a woman with lust in his heart." So there's two things there. Looking as a deliberate action, and lusting is deliberate mindset. So you've got a deliberate action paired with a deliberate mindset. Seeing someone is beautiful is not lusting. Noticing someone is beautiful is not lusting. And yet I think it starts in early teens where we begin to tell boys that they need to avert their eyes. They need to bounce their eyes. They need to be careful where they look, they need to guard their eyes. And that sees women as sex objects and dangerous. And it makes them view themselves as shameful and incapable of acting correctly. Because if every time you get a sexual feeling, that's thought of as lust, how can you ever win?

Corey Allan: Right. There's immediate shame. And it's that whole spiral that's just vicious.

Sheila Gregoire: Yeah. And so one thing that we try to do throughout the book is we identify the harmful teaching and then we say, "Here's what we can say instead." And we do this rescuing and reframing thing. And what I would say to teenage guys, and teenage girls actually is look, lust is something lots of people struggle with. But noticing is not lusting. Don't worry about that. But if you do notice someone is beautiful, that's okay. It's okay to have sexual feelings. But then what you need to do is make sure that you treat that person with the utmost respect. And work on treating them with respect. And the easiest way to get over lust is to view other people as whole people made in the image of God.

Corey Allan: As people, not an object.

Sheila Gregoire: As people. Not body parts. And the problem is that every man's battle route to getting rid of lust, still views women as body parts, the whole bounce your eyes thing, Jesus, didn't refuse to look at women. Jesus chose to truly see women. And I think that if we could talk to guys about how, hey, she might be beautiful, but you can still talk to her. You can still see her as a sister in Christ, and make that the expectation as opposed to making her into something which is dangerous and fearful and vampire, whatever it might be. We'd get a lot further ahead. Because I think we've made so many men so paranoid. And here's a little sneak peek. This one's not in the Great Sex Rescue, but it's in the Good Guy's Guide to Great Sex coming up.
So I'll share this with you. I haven't shared it with a lot of people yet, but when we did our in-depth survey of men, what we found is that 75% of men say they struggle with lust on a daily basis. But when you drill down on that, only slightly over half of them do anything, including think or fantasize that portrays any lust at all. So the majority of people, well, not quite the majority, but almost half of those who think they struggle with lust don't seem to do anything. They don't have a problem talking to women as whole people. They don't have a problem not staring at women. They don't have a problem with intrusive thoughts afterwards. They don't have a problem with porn. They don't have these problems. And so it's like, I don't think they're struggling with lust. I think they're just men. But we have made it to-

Corey Allan: We've made it to where all of a sudden now it's not acceptable.

Sheila Gregoire: Yeah. It's okay to notice that a woman is beautiful. You can notice a woman is beautiful. You can notice a woman has a good chest, and then go on with your day and not think anything more of it. And you haven't sinned.

Corey Allan: Or notice that and still carry on a conversation looking her in the eyes.

Sheila Gregoire: Yeah. But we've made it this huge big deal. And as soon as you make something into a huge big deal, it becomes a huge big deal. And that's, I think one of the big reasons why men and women have a difficult time having relationships, normal platonic co-working co-laborers in Christ relationships in the church is because we've sexualized absolutely everything. When it doesn't need to be.

Corey Allan: No, that's so true, Sheila. So how, obviously, since you're teeing this up, how can people find not only the Great Sex Rescue, but the Good Guy's guide that's coming and you kind of dangle it out there so delicately, well done. Tell people how they can find you.

Sheila Gregoire: Yeah. So depending on when this airs, either BareMarriage.com or just go to ToLoveHonorAndVacuum.com, because it will forward to the right, so go to ToLoveHonorVacuum.com. And all our books are there. If you go to Amazon, Great Sex Rescue's there, Good Guy's Guide to Great Sex is available for pre-order as is the totally revamped Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex. It's 10 years old in March. And I completely rewrote it with our new survey results and different emphasis. So yeah, still the same structure, but yeah, it's just a lot of new stuff. So I'm really excited about that as well.

Corey Allan: That's good. Well, Sheila, it's been great to catch up with you again, and thank you for the mission and the message of we've got to just call some stuff out, because that message needs to ring loud and true that maybe it's unintended consequences. Maybe it's consequences that were intended, but either way, motive doesn't matter as much as the fact that what's the fallout of it? Because the impact is pain. And there's struggle that's ongoing and regularly happening, because there's not enough voices speaking up about, wait, we got to have the courage to ask some questions about what is this creating? Is really helpful? Is this really God honoring? Is this really marriage honoring? Is this spouse honoring? And I'm hoping we can figure out ways to have more and more aligning among all of the brotherhood, for sure. But in even just the world at large, to see it as that there's pain that's being perpetrated in a lot of different ways that we need to all stand up and do you better.

Sheila Gregoire: Yeah. Exactly. And I hope that the church acknowledges it because people are seeing it and there's a new way forward. And I'm really excited by how well the book's being received, but also by how the conversation is changing. And so I hope that that continues to happen and that we really can find health. Because that's what God wants for us. We should have the best sex of everybody, because we know God. So come on, let's go do it.

Corey Allan: Thanks again, Sheila.

Sheila Gregoire: Thank you.

Corey Allan: So Pam, it's not at all surprising that the message that we try to address regularly here at Sexy Marriage Radio, and that other authors and podcasters and bloggers and preachers and pastors and counselors and everybody tries to address when it comes to our topic of sex and sexuality, it's anxiety provoking enough even if you don't add some of the shame and guilt that religion tends to do.

Sheila Gregoire: It is, yes.

Corey Allan: On the topic, right?

Sheila Gregoire: True. That's exactly right.

Corey Allan: And even somebody that's coming in with a clean experience, if you will, it's still anxiety provoking. And it's still, you're nervous, to say the leas when you get naked with somebody else.

Sheila Gregoire: Right, right. Yeah, no kidding.

Corey Allan: And that can even have in marriage. You've been married for years and years and years, and all of a sudden it's like, I still got butterflies. I still have this uncertainty. How's this going to go? I think of that as that's just a confirmation more and more of, we all need to grow up. We all need to be a little more mature in how we handle the topic. Not just on a global scale or a platform scale like we have, but on an individual level, how do I give honor to it? How do I give dignity to it? How do I give respect to it? That's what we want to have ring true. Well, this has been Sexy Marriage Radio. If we left something undone, please let us know. (214) 702-9565, or feedback@sexymarriageradio.com. We'll see you next time.