[SPEAKER_01]: The most dangerous fashion in history is the short, sturdy girl when she sees it.
[SPEAKER_03]: You talk like a sexual predator, and to me that means you are a sexual predator.
[SPEAKER_01]: And showing parts of the body she shouldn't show, things like that post, rape across America.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not scared, it's not the shorts, it's not going brawls.
[SPEAKER_05]: I beg my wife, I don't know how many times.
[SPEAKER_03]: Is she's unconscious?
[SPEAKER_05]: She's asleep for sure.
[SPEAKER_03]: He is speaking as if his wife is a non-human entity, as if she is a flesh-light.
[SPEAKER_04]: You are not allowed to refuse to get physical with your spouse.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's pure misogyny.
[SPEAKER_03]: There is some some pedophilia vibes for sure.
[SPEAKER_03]: Why are we supposed to have like slim boyish hips and no pubic hair and baby voices?
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, yeah, there's a lot to unpack there.
[SPEAKER_06]: I make a very bold claim in your book.
[SPEAKER_06]: Hey, everybody, welcome back to the Prejuice podcast.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm your host, Eric Swizinski.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm a former fundamentalist who now sheds light on the dark side of the church from the pulpit, to the pews, and today I sit down with my friend and sex educator, Erica Smith.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I can assure you you're about to get a better sex education in the next hour or so than I ever got growing up in an independent fundamental Baptist school.
[SPEAKER_06]: We talk about the lies that young women are taught about virginity, the difference between attraction and objectification.
[SPEAKER_06]: I even unearthed Pastor Jack Kyle's sermon on how many skirts cause rape and had a react to that.
[SPEAKER_06]: We talk about improving sexual communication with your spouse, miss about sex toys and vibrators, and so much more.
[SPEAKER_06]: This is going to be a very practical and insightful episode for anyone at any point in their sexual journey, particularly though for those of you who are recovering from purity culture.
[SPEAKER_06]: I know you're really going to enjoy this episode.
[SPEAKER_06]: Be sure to grab a copy of Erica's book, the purity culture recovery guide, and give it a read.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's a worthy addition to anyone's shelf.
[SPEAKER_06]: Let's go ahead and get into today's episode with Erica Smith.
[SPEAKER_08]: Baby, ain't nobody safe In the Bible, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
[SPEAKER_06]: All right, everybody, welcome back to the preacher boy's podcast.
[SPEAKER_06]: Erica, welcome back to the show.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_03]: I had such a great time talking to you before I'm glad you invited me back.
[SPEAKER_06]: I don't know if you're an overthinker like me, but sometimes I reach back out to past guests.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I'm like, I hope they had as good a time as I did the last time that we talked.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, I do remember really enjoying our conversation.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then when you reshare clips of it sometimes, I'm like, yeah, we had a great chat.
[SPEAKER_06]: I was glad you said that before I hit record because sometimes I feel like people get irritated and like that's I don't look like I did six months ago or I changed my perspective.
[SPEAKER_06]: Why would you share this clip or like this is dated and for people like myself when people reshare content of me I'm just like that's good.
[SPEAKER_06]: I had one gem like two years ago and they put it back out let's let's remind people that at one point I said something smart so yes.
[SPEAKER_06]: But luckily with you, you say lots of smart things.
[SPEAKER_06]: So I think we'll have lots of good content from this as well.
[SPEAKER_06]: First and foremost, let's just dive right into it.
[SPEAKER_06]: You make a very bold claim in your book, and I'd like you to unpack it a little bit.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, I can't wait.
[SPEAKER_03]: Which bold claims?
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_06]: You make many bold claims in your book.
[SPEAKER_06]: Let's talk about all of them.
[SPEAKER_06]: You start with this really bold claim that says sexual health cannot exist under purity culture.
[SPEAKER_06]: So can you unpack first, because I think this is important, what is sexual health?
[SPEAKER_06]: And second, why can't it exist in purity culture?
[SPEAKER_03]: Great question.
[SPEAKER_03]: So when I use the term sexual health, I am not just talking about whether or not a person has a sexually transmitted infection or erectile dysfunction or an issue having orgasms.
[SPEAKER_03]: There is a very broad and comprehensive definition of sexual health that I base my.
[SPEAKER_03]: opinions on, and it is from the World Health Organization, and it's quite a, it's a long paragraph, but the gist of it is that sexual health is not just the absence of disease or dysfunction.
[SPEAKER_03]: It also includes things like,
[SPEAKER_03]: your relationship to the topic of sex.
[SPEAKER_03]: Are you comfortable with it?
[SPEAKER_03]: Are you full of shame when it comes to it?
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you have the ability in your life to make your own sexual decisions about your health care about whether or not you have children and how many?
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you have access to good sexual health care?
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you have access to sex education?
[SPEAKER_03]: And also, are you in a situation where you are free to consent to sex you might want to have without coercion without violence?
[SPEAKER_03]: And if you are having sex, is it enjoyable for you?
[SPEAKER_03]: Those are some of the main tenets as to what sexual health actually encompasses.
[SPEAKER_03]: So it's a lot more than just like I took, I peed in a cup and got a test result.
[SPEAKER_06]: So it was a great reframe even for myself like when I hear sexual health, I think like most people it's I don't have an STD, you know what I mean I'd like to say that on the record here on the other side, but that's a great clip about a context, but no like I I always think of as like that as like if you don't have an STD sexually healthy and totally, um,
[SPEAKER_06]: but you had a great reframe in the book where there's many layers like, what do you view it as?
[SPEAKER_06]: Are you free to communicate?
[SPEAKER_06]: Are you free to?
[SPEAKER_06]: Because all the things you just listed, and also you reframe some of the stigma around those that have STDs where it's like, you can still express healthy sexuality.
[SPEAKER_06]: Like, there's not a period at which it's like, game over, you cannot have any sexual health from here on out and it's a really great outline that you give in the book.
[SPEAKER_06]: So I want to talk about the purity culture side because that's what your book is focused on.
[SPEAKER_06]: In the book, I noticed there was a shout out to a documentary that I happened to be involved in.
[SPEAKER_06]: Let us pray where obviously we see the extreme versions of this were being sheltered in purity culture can lead to devastating results.
[SPEAKER_06]: You also reference Chinese happy people, which, you know, people know Pasques, like Chad Harris or Tilevings, Lindsey Williams, involved in that, when you're watching as someone who did not grow up in peer-to-peer culture, and you're watching people try to articulate what they learn in peer-to-peer culture, what are some of the red flags that pop up for you as a sex educator where you go, oh my God, like this is even worse than probably what these people think when they talk about it.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's such a, it's such a good question, like as somebody who, you know, I grew up in the United States of America, so I received some, you know, sort of regressive shaming messages about sexuality because I just think that's in the culture, but the specific ones that come out of fundamentalist religion, especially like fundamentalist Christianity, it's as if I hear people talking
[SPEAKER_03]: They have been essentially groomed from infancy to have this idea of sexuality as a fundamentally dangerous and bad thing, like something that is playing with fire that you always have to keep an eye on, that it's going to
[SPEAKER_03]: irreparably harm you if you do it wrong.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's like a layers of like fear and control that are just like woven in all of these lessons from the very beginning.
[SPEAKER_03]: And when I hear stuff like that, it's is remarkable to me that
[SPEAKER_03]: you know, that people sort of claw their way out of that and then have a positive relationship to sex.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I mean, some of the biggest messages that I hear when I'm watching those documentaries that devastate me, like really hurt my heart, are, you know, the expectations
[SPEAKER_03]: of there's just like perfection expected of especially women and girls and the idea that they do not have any agency and no autonomy.
[SPEAKER_03]: So like no bodily autonomy, no ability to make decisions for themselves about things like what they wear, how they date, or what kind of sex they might
[SPEAKER_03]: It's just, yeah, it's really disturbing and, you know, the issues of consent, keeping people in the dark where they don't know that consent is the thing they get to have, where they don't understand that they get to fully make decisions about their own bodies.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's, yeah, that's some of the stuff that I find most disturbing.
[SPEAKER_06]: You said something great that reminds I just watched Louie Thro's documentary on the Manus Fear last night and he made a statement at the end where he said, like, you're saying about how much this is made its way into the culture and into the rums of politics and he was saying, like, we're all moving deeper into the Manus Fear, which is kind of a chilling way to end it.
[SPEAKER_06]: But you kind of just alluded to that with pyrddy culture.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's like you grew up in the United States and so we still got some of that messaging.
[SPEAKER_06]: One of the things I've been kicking around is that as much as the church claims to be countercultural, like that's a big piece of their, you know, claim, they're really not countercultural at all, like they're echoing messages and also feeding messages.
[SPEAKER_06]: When you look at like the core tenants of purity culture, like the virginity, equaling your value, you know, absence, being the best form of sexual protection, you know, all those sorts of things, as someone who is on the outside, are you just going like, yeah, that's the same cultural message is kind of everybody's getting, but with a Christian layer on it, do you think that the religious side is influence in the culture?
[SPEAKER_06]: Like, what's the chicken in the egg kind of?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that's another great question.
[SPEAKER_03]: Purity culture isn't, it's not unique to Christianity, it's found in all major world religions, but also the United States was founded by folks that were bringing European Christian ideals about sexual behavior with them.
[SPEAKER_03]: They had pretty rigid ideas about gender roles and pretty rigid ideas about sexual behavior.
[SPEAKER_03]: And they were horrified by the sexual behavior of some of the indigenous people that were already here.
[SPEAKER_03]: They wrote letters back home about it.
[SPEAKER_03]: They thought that like these people are having sex for pleasure and the women are
[SPEAKER_03]: quote unquote little bit in this, you know, they're doing things that we associate with maleness.
[SPEAKER_03]: So there's always been those values that like the country was founded on and the values of purity culture are from patriarchy.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we live under patriarchy in the United States.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so a lot of the expectations about how men act, how women act, they are not just found in churches,
[SPEAKER_03]: broader across culture, like if you've ever heard a woman be called a slut, slut shaming, that's not unique to Christian purity culture.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's around us in the United States.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you've ever heard anyone talk about, you know, trying to prosecute a rape case or even like trying to bring a rape as to justice, there's all the questions of what was she wearing and what was she doing and how was she behaving inappropriately and tempting him.
[SPEAKER_03]: I hear of people being shamed in medical situations about their sexual behavior.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's, you know, there's a sexual double standard that's pretty broad.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like men are expected to have sexual partners and to seek sexual exploration.
[SPEAKER_03]: And if women do the same, there are a whole litany of words that we call them.
[SPEAKER_03]: So when I say purity culture is all around us, those are the things I'm referring to, and then you can also bring in the fact that in the 1990s, in the early 1990s, there was a big push from the Southern Baptist Convention in the true love weight's folks to get sexual abstinence messaging into high schools and into the lives of a lot of teenagers, and so you were getting
[SPEAKER_03]: Christian messaging about sexuality and sexual values in public high schools that were supposed to be non-religious.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, you know, I've talked to a lot of people who grew up and went to public high school, but they still had abstinence lectures, they still had
[SPEAKER_03]: Some lady from maybe a crisis pregnancy center come in and talk to them about, you know, saving themselves for marriage.
[SPEAKER_03]: So you really don't need to have come from a super fundamentalist background to get what I would call like a much lighter version of purity culture.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yesterday, I posted a video saying we were talking to a sex educator.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's anybody have any harmful things that were taught.
[SPEAKER_06]: And then got so many responses.
[SPEAKER_06]: And it was like, oh, we could do sex education Saturday for about a month.
[SPEAKER_06]: And you might get through all these.
[SPEAKER_06]: Wing, wing, maybe.
[SPEAKER_06]: No.
[SPEAKER_03]: I would collab with you.
[SPEAKER_03]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_06]: No, I got so many comments and we can kind of start in the section of just virginity which is like such a big piece of this puzzle because I knew I was going to get this answer.
[SPEAKER_06]: I knew it was going to like every other answer because it's so mainstream but people started sharing the examples they heard about you know a crumpled rose chewed up gum like that language is so common and I don't remember
[SPEAKER_06]: If I shared this clip with you on our last call, but I'd love to get your response to it because I think it kind of encapsulates the messaging people get, which in this environment, let me pull it up really quick.
[SPEAKER_03]: This man looks like he's got something to say.
[SPEAKER_00]: One wonders.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever happened to Purity.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever happened to that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever happened to the days when girls said, I'm not gonna be touched by every guy.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not gonna walk down the aisle like a filthy dysregun my wedding day.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever happened to that day.
[SPEAKER_00]: I speak no ill against someone who's had difficulty in sin in their past, but from this day forward, it's not wrong when a couple hundred teenagers got up here a few weeks ago and made a purity pledge.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a wonderful thing.
[SPEAKER_06]: That was the pastor of the church where we went to youth conference every year.
[SPEAKER_06]: So that's a personal detail of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's how.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_06]: I mean, when you hear messaging like that, one, I mean, you're hearing echoes of that from clients.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm sure every other day.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_06]: I mean, where do you even start to unpack the level of mental, you know, affect that that has on young girls sitting in those auditoriums?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, he, there's been a lot of metaphors I've heard used to talk about a person, especially a girl who has had a sexual experience, but dirty dish rag is that seems just extra brutal to me.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, it's not even something that was once pretty like a rose, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: It's like just filthy, like disgusting.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm sure that was his intention, which is why he chose that phrase.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, I mean, I can picture young women absorbing that message and what it says to them is that, yeah, you can lose your value and that your main value is as somebody who has not had a sexual experience.
[SPEAKER_03]: And this reminds me of Elizabeth Smart, who I mentioned in the book because she
[SPEAKER_03]: When she was abducted as a 14 year old and she was repeatedly assaulted by her capture, she had absorbed all of the Mormon messaging around purity.
[SPEAKER_03]: And she even said, she said this many times in interviews, but she was like, why would I even fight to be rescued?
[SPEAKER_03]: Because now I am worthless.
[SPEAKER_03]: That was what she was taught.
[SPEAKER_03]: So like that's a pretty extreme example, but I think it's a good example of what kind
[SPEAKER_03]: affect that messaging has on young people, especially on young women, that your worth is so tied up in whether or not you have had sex or been sexually assaulted because there's no distinction made there.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's just like you must remain.
[SPEAKER_03]: a quote unquote pure virgin and then you have your value and then you will be desired as a wife as, you know, a mother, as a community member, but that puts so much on
[SPEAKER_03]: the sexual behavior of you or the people around you that may harm you without your consent.
[SPEAKER_03]: So yeah, that messaging gets in so deep with people and it can affect their, their ability to have like happy, consensual sexual experiences for long into the future.
[SPEAKER_06]: yeah there was a couple examples the listeners gave which was they were taught that if a woman had sex before marriage and were the circumstance her body was no longer a gift to her husband which would spend a lot of time unpacking that phrasing that your entire worth if you sleep with someone and don't marry them you'll be like a used piece of bubble gum no man will want you
[SPEAKER_06]: Someone said when I had my baby, my first child at a wedlock, my dad told me I should give my baby up for adoption and remain single for the rest of my life.
[SPEAKER_06]: I mean, there's there's no shortage of these things and I guess I guess first and foremost like
[SPEAKER_06]: I know there's been a lot set about like virginity is kind of a social construct anyway.
[SPEAKER_06]: Why do you think this messaging has rooted so deeply?
[SPEAKER_06]: I think more than anything this has rooted deeply into the culture.
[SPEAKER_06]: Like I said, even in the manuscript, it's like these dudes talk about like I want to marry a virgin.
[SPEAKER_06]: I want to do this.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_06]: I mean, why do you think that's taken such a stronghold out of all of these messages?
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, it's, it's so misogynist, it's pure misogyny, it's viewing women as having one purpose to you.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that is to be a vehicle for your penis, not your specifically in the larger sense.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_06]: Like, so many great out-of-context clips in this, and this episode already.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, when people are thinking of women that way, they are thinking of women as objects to be acted upon.
[SPEAKER_03]: They are not thinking of women as human beings that get to do their own acting, like thinking I deserve a virgin.
[SPEAKER_03]: Or,
[SPEAKER_03]: The rhetoric that says your body is a gift to your husband.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, that is completely robbing women of agency and humanity.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's just like you're an object.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think it has taken root because it is a deeply misogynist teaching.
[SPEAKER_06]: Do you think there's also, I don't want to, I always go like, there's so many bad things at the surface that it's like, do you need to dive into what it could be?
[SPEAKER_06]: But one of the things that I can't help but shake now as any adult man is that so many of these, when I listen to like, again, in the Dr. Marlons of Science, I got to listen to a 30-year-old guy and he's like, I prefer to marry a virgin.
[SPEAKER_06]: I can't help but shake that there's also a little bit of like a pedophilic level to this too, where it's like, I want a child that I can make my own, and like do you think that's, I don't think that's a stretch, I mean, I think that's a stretch either, honestly, with all
[SPEAKER_03]: pedophilia and the Epstein files and abuse and churches, young people are so vulnerable to sexual predators and, you know, they're a 30-year-old guy.
[SPEAKER_03]: If he's saying he wants to marry a virgin, I don't think he's talking about a 30-year-old woman who has never had a sexual experience, you know?
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm not a betting man, but I would say that's probably true.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I don't think he's probably talking about that.
[SPEAKER_03]: He wants a young woman and a young woman is more likely to have not had this sexual experience.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, yeah, it also brings in for me the thought about that some men, they want
[SPEAKER_03]: They want someone they can mold, you know, they're not looking for equal partners.
[SPEAKER_03]: They're not looking for a woman who is gonna like, you know, join them in some sort of like, we're mutually creating this relationship together.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like they want to lead and to take a young woman who's very impressionable.
[SPEAKER_03]: And yeah, I think you are not at all off with the idea that there is some,
[SPEAKER_03]: some pedophilia vibes for sure.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_06]: Well, I think even the aesthetics that's pushed for, I mean, Tia talks about the funny baby voice, which it's even if you're married to a 50 year old, like she's talking, like a child, she's acting acting dumb, like a child, you know, by design.
[SPEAKER_06]: And also, like I was talking in my wife last night, because I could show, like turning my computer, read this section, but
[SPEAKER_06]: You know, one of the things I was telling her is, like, I remember teenage guys in our Christian school that were like, due to if she doesn't shave down there, like, that's gay.
[SPEAKER_06]: That's like, like having sex with a dude.
[SPEAKER_06]: And it's like, and it's like, even that, which again, we could talk about like 90's beauty standards and all these things for days.
[SPEAKER_06]: But it's like, even that, like, I go, that was embedded in my mind as like, oh, that's, that's gross.
[SPEAKER_06]: Like super young.
[SPEAKER_06]: And then it's like,
[SPEAKER_06]: It's like, once you have like a healthy science here, like, oh, it's kind of gross that like, that's the aesthetic you want, based on the extent like where it's coming from like it's just a very backwards way of viewing everything and the more you realize how many standards are set around looking child like.
[SPEAKER_06]: It is pretty disturbing, so.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's so disturbing and in a sense, I'm so glad we're having this conversation more culturally because I think it's freeing up some women of trying to conform to the beauty standard when you start connecting that why are we supposed to have like slim boyish hips and
[SPEAKER_06]: I wish we could unpack all of it, but I know.
[SPEAKER_06]: I know.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm touring.
[SPEAKER_03]: You and I will do it together.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_06]: So obviously there's like pre-marriage messaging, which we kind of just touched on, which is like, you know, basically you have this one thing that makes you valuable as a girl and
[SPEAKER_06]: you better hold on to it as long as you can until you're married.
[SPEAKER_06]: When you get into conversations about expectations around marriage, I think that teaching also gets pretty gross.
[SPEAKER_06]: This was again listener submitted comments said they were taught that your husband's allowed to do anything that he wants, that there's no such thing as marital rape.
[SPEAKER_06]: I won't show the clip to you because you just shared it, but you just shared the Steven Anderson clip where he talks about this.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like you can kiss once you you may kiss the bride you may do whatever you want with the bride from for eternity You are not allowed to refuse
[SPEAKER_04]: to get physical with your spouse.
[SPEAKER_04]: And look, I do not have to get my wife permission to get physical with her.
[SPEAKER_04]: When I get next to my wife, hey, hey, is this okay, honey?
[SPEAKER_04]: Stop me at any time, honey.
[SPEAKER_04]: Is this me, I kiss you, honey?
[SPEAKER_04]: When the pastor says you may kiss the bride, that's it for the rest of your life.
[SPEAKER_04]: You don't have to get permission each time.
[SPEAKER_04]: You may kiss the bride is like an ongoing permission.
[SPEAKER_04]: And you may do everything else with the pride, too, or the rest of your life.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, we have a bunch of weird little feminist preachers out there, they're like, oh, it's marital rape, oh, you know, famer, when I was born in 1981, this did not exist in America and did not exist in Germany and I didn't check the other 200 countries.
[SPEAKER_04]: But the point is that these pastors that are independent, fundamental, King James Bible believing pastors are preaching something behind their pulpits that even the world didn't even recognize until 25 years ago.
[SPEAKER_06]: And then there was another clip I was going to share as well.
[SPEAKER_06]: This is from Andrew Wilson.
[SPEAKER_06]: I don't know if he's ever came on your radar at all.
[SPEAKER_06]: He's always on the whatever podcast, which is just provides a plethora of really helpful education around these topics.
[SPEAKER_06]: OK.
[SPEAKER_06]: So I can't say if you've never watched that, the whatever podcast.
[SPEAKER_11]: Tantry Wilson's a rapist.
[SPEAKER_11]: I mean, he's admitted on live streams before on his podcast.
[SPEAKER_05]: I've made my wife.
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't know how many times.
[SPEAKER_11]: That's a weird thing to admit.
[SPEAKER_05]: Um, no, I'm, I'm fine with it.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're fine saying that you've raped your wife.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, if you think that me rolling over in the morning, and she's asleep and waking her up with sex, is baby.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I mean, she's unconscious.
[SPEAKER_05]: She's asleep for sure.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's unconscious, right?
[SPEAKER_06]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, he's kind of made his name going on podcast like this and just basically confronting found owning feminists is like a rage beta type guy.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, which I almost it's like hard with Steven Anderson or Andrew Wilson or Mark Driscoll because like they love the attention's currency for them and they love getting out there, but it's also like
[SPEAKER_06]: I don't, the reason I show that specific clip is like, he's kind of verbalizing what was kind of at least unspoken statement in a lot of these churches, but also like, I mean, I shared with you our last conversation like just the messaging about like, oh, you have your wife to use for your sexual release, like, was the way it was and I think like,
[SPEAKER_06]: It did remove consent as being necessary, because she can't refuse anything.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, when I listen to that clip of him, which is incredibly shocking, as I'm sure he intended, he is speaking as if his wife is a non-human entity, as if she is a flesh light, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Which is a male sex device for anyone who might not be familiar.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a masturbation sleeve, essentially.
[SPEAKER_03]: And he is,
[SPEAKER_03]: regarding his wife as a masturbation sleeve.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's no talk in that clip about whether or not she wants to have sex, whether or not she's even conscious for sex.
[SPEAKER_03]: And there's certainly no talk about whether or not she enjoys it or gets satisfaction from it as well.
[SPEAKER_03]: So yeah, that is
[SPEAKER_03]: He is completely regarding his human companion as an inanimate object, and you know, you asked me just a minute or two ago about like purity culture being in mainstream America.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I mean, this is the kind of rhetoric that I would also expect from like a non-religious college
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, a couple other listener examples they gave regarding teaching about marriage was if you don't feed a man at home, he'll go out to eat and then someone else that I've written down, but I know someone else said,
[SPEAKER_06]: My man went out was getting up check hot dogs from the dumpster outside the gas station or something like that.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, I mean that myth is super common like if you're not taking care of your man he's going to find someone who will I just that come up a lot.
[SPEAKER_03]: It does.
[SPEAKER_03]: It comes up in several ways, and the like, if you're not giving your husband the enough sex, according to, hey, maybe according to James Dobson or maybe according to the past during your own life, if you're not giving your man enough sex, I've heard that he will go out and look for it elsewhere, or he will turn to pornography, but either way, both of those things fall back on the the wife.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yes, yeah, she's responsible for the actions of the man which I'll dive deeper into in a second Someone put specific time frame on this someone said they were taught that a man needs sex every 72 hours if we fail He treats it becomes addicted to porn.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's our fault.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, that's that's it.
[SPEAKER_06]: Let me ask you this actually because this is kind of a
[SPEAKER_06]: curiosity that, again, my wife were talking about, there's a lot of people that have told us, you know, because people love to give marriage advice, and there's a lot of news.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm solicited perhaps.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm solicited always.
[SPEAKER_06]: You know, we always say, like, we're very happy.
[SPEAKER_06]: We feel like this has been an area for us that, like, we hear horror stories and, like, think in a set we've, like, worked through things together and, like, have had to, don't have many horror stories, which is, which is great.
[SPEAKER_06]: But,
[SPEAKER_06]: We had a lot of people that will say similar things like if you don't do it enough, he's going to go out.
[SPEAKER_06]: But also there's a lot of people who assign sexual health and a marriage to how often and frequent it is.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm curious here perspective on this because I really don't know, like, is there a golden number where it's like, if you're not having sex more than three times a week, like you're in a dry patch and your marriage is in trouble or your relationships in trouble, and what's your thoughts on that?
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm curious to know.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm so glad you asked because I have a lot to say on this topic as a sexuality professional and someone who has familiarized herself with research around this, there is no standard that all that works for all couples or that all couples should be striving toward.
[SPEAKER_03]: Research out there shows that, and again, I don't want anyone to take this as a mandate,
[SPEAKER_03]: are generally happy and couples who have since sex more frequently than that, that frequency has no effect on their happiness together.
[SPEAKER_03]: So those are things that I can back up with research, but based on this idea of how frequent should sex be for a couple, it is so individual to the two people in the marriage.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's like whatever works for both of you.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think it can be really harmful when we try to hit arbitrary goals.
[SPEAKER_03]: I've worked with a lot of women who have actually said to me like, I had sex three times a week, every single week for 20 years, whether I wanted to or not.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I, I'm astounded when I hear that honestly, that is
[SPEAKER_03]: To me, a lot of sex, like three times a week, that is like the sex that I would expect like 25 worlds to be having together.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so I think there comes a point where if we're reaching for an arbitrary number because we've been told that's what the sexual frequency should be that we're actually causing some harm in the marriage.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're going to cause some harm in the
[SPEAKER_03]: It should much more be based on what works for both of you.
[SPEAKER_03]: There are couples that go months without having sex, but if the sex you're having is really good, that is the more important measure.
[SPEAKER_03]: Are you both satisfied?
[SPEAKER_03]: So, say you only have sex once a month or twice a month.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, that can be so healthy.
[SPEAKER_03]: Is the sex good for both people?
[SPEAKER_03]: Is the better measure?
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, because a lot of the advice is like if you guys are struggling like just put it on the calendar and just I'm sure you've heard very soon that's like put it on the counter making a point meant you're going to do it this but you know and next thing you know you're a few minutes in and you're enjoying it and it's like this and I'm sure there's some scenario which that might be helpful actually is I will say that some of the best advice that sex educators and therapists give is about.
[SPEAKER_03]: scheduling sex like it's it's perfectly fine the schedule sex if it's not happening organically people are busy jobs kids all kinds of stuff but it shouldn't you can schedule sex and have a great time with it but it still shouldn't be like we have to put it on the calendar x amount of times a week
[SPEAKER_06]: There was my curious question for myself.
[SPEAKER_06]: Show us that is that is such a common one and and it's like it's one of those ones we were talking about where it's like not to go too deep into our own private life, but it's one of those things where like you go through a period like we aren't doing it every day is our merit, you know, and it's like yeah, and then you start talking like, well are you happy?
[SPEAKER_06]: Did you enjoy the last time?
[SPEAKER_06]: Are you okay?
[SPEAKER_06]: Oh, yeah, work great.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, so it's like maybe the people we know whose marriage is not great that are saying you need to be hitting this quota Probably is in our gold you know gold standard another couple's quota need not be your quota It's really about like are the two of you satisfied are you having a good time is the sex good when you have it
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_06]: Well, um, I'm going to, I want to go into the, um, responsibility a little bit deeper that's put on women.
[SPEAKER_06]: Um, and there's another question that's like a personal curiosity of like how you define this.
[SPEAKER_06]: Um, I, well, I guess I'll start.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'll start here.
[SPEAKER_06]: So when we talk about like, um,
[SPEAKER_06]: You know, women causing men to stumble, women causing men to lust, or men being predatory and like, you know, the verse gets thrown out like it's better pluck out your own eye than to, you know, burn and lust and all these sorts of things.
[SPEAKER_06]: One of the things that I'm curious to get your definition on is, what is the difference between objectifying?
[SPEAKER_06]: women, or objectifying anyone, I guess this could go with either, either way.
[SPEAKER_06]: What sort of objectifying and just sexually desiring somebody?
[SPEAKER_06]: Because, or is there, I mean, because that's the part for me that I get annoyed with with people that leave fundamentalism is like, there's some people that go like the,
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm super feminist now and like if you even express that a woman is hot or sexy it's like you're an objectifying you know sexist massage and it's like no I might just be a heterosexual male that you know it's like
[SPEAKER_06]: Sorry, you know, but also on the other hand like there are certainly situations where I'm out with dudes and it gets like creepy or they're like oh dude like look at me and it's it like it's almost like you know what you see it But it's like hard to define like where does like the normal sexual traction like oh look at her or look at him versus like I'm doing something that is like very weird and like Objectification and a very unhealthy way
[SPEAKER_03]: This is something that comes up a lot when I work with men and I have worked with a lot of men who were so conditioned by purity culture to not experience sexual desire aka lust that they're terrified of their own desire and I like to emphasize that
[SPEAKER_03]: finding other people attractive is natural.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is how we are wired.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's even the science behind it.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's hard to pinpoint like why we're attracted to people exactly or like it's not something that's under our control.
[SPEAKER_03]: is the observation that somebody is attractive or a desire we feel for them, but what is under our control is how we act about it.
[SPEAKER_03]: So that to me is the difference.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I say this is a woman, you know,
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm attracted to all kinds of people.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm a queer woman, I'm attracted to men, women, like lots of people, and I can recognize immediately that I am flagging someone as attractive, and to me that's not objectification.
[SPEAKER_03]: Even if I see them and I think damn, yeah, like that's still not objectification.
[SPEAKER_03]: It would become objectification if I
[SPEAKER_03]: make it their problem if I say something to them if I take away their agency and their ability to consent to being involved in it for some reason.
[SPEAKER_03]: So like if you spot a hot woman who's jogging down the street and you have eyes and you think, damn, that is not a terrible thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a terrible thing if you roll down your car window and say something disgusting to her.
[SPEAKER_06]: Damn.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, it's like, we all, you know, not everyone, because I know there are different levels of of a sexuality and some people do not look at someone in an immediately registered desire, which is just a natural variation on being human, but for many of us, we can.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I call a caught people all the time.
[SPEAKER_03]: They're hot people everywhere.
[SPEAKER_03]: I say this to my friends.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm like, you know, like, have you looked around?
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, they're gorgeous people in this world.
[SPEAKER_03]: But when we see them and we recognize they're, they're rousing us even, we then have a decision to make.
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you...
[SPEAKER_03]: File that away in your brain and just think, well, I love that I just got to appreciate a beautiful woman or do you turn to your buddy and save the things I do to her possibly within your shot of her so that to me is the difference it's like if we're still
[SPEAKER_03]: I see hot people and I still regard them as humans.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not going to make them uncomfortable.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not going to take away their agency.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not going to remove their ability to consent.
[SPEAKER_03]: Basically, I don't make it there.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't make it known to them or make it their issue, I will say.
[SPEAKER_06]: I guess the answer was in the question, which is like,
[SPEAKER_06]: remembering their humaneness and not making an object of them, which is what objectify means.
[SPEAKER_06]: I guess in the definition, it's kind of there.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I really want people to loosen up on themselves about feeling bad about desiring others, or feeling bad about, especially if you're like, well, I'm in a monogamous relationship.
[SPEAKER_03]: I shouldn't be looking at this girl at the gym.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is something that is hard to control.
[SPEAKER_03]: Therefore, I mean, it's like you can't control what you find desirable, honestly.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like there have even been studies where we see if people can change their sexual fantasies.
[SPEAKER_03]: And there's not a good way to do that.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's research saying that like you can't really do that.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I think it's just like you have the responsibility to not make other people uncomfortable.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a response before you're thinking about it, which, you know, yeah, and I think for dudes, this is like an area where like there's so much guilt and shame around this.
[SPEAKER_06]: I mean, as I could use to be a thulter, God, you know, take my eyesight.
[SPEAKER_06]: If I keep looking, you know, it's like that sort of stuff.
[SPEAKER_06]: You know, and hearing messaging, I remember hearing the messaging from people where it's like, if you look out the car window and there's a billboard with a, because obviously billboards have just hardcore pornography on the monitor.
[SPEAKER_06]: if you if you look at the window at a billboard, you know, that first glance when you didn't know it's there, that's not sin, but if you look back at it, like that sin, it's like that kind of stuff is crazy and especially you said, like, there's a track to people everywhere and you're going to mentally go, like, you're going to at least clock, like, oh, that person's attractive.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm not, I'm not, even if you're married, I've almost 10 years of
[SPEAKER_06]: Jacob Ballorty is an attractive dude, you know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_06]: Like I'm not gonna sit there if my wife goes like glances and then glances back, I get it, it's Jacob Ballorty.
[SPEAKER_06]: But like I also am not threatened that she's like gonna go find Jacob Ballorty.
[SPEAKER_06]: You know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_06]: Like there's some level of trust there.
[SPEAKER_06]: You know the same way, if I clock somebody, like
[SPEAKER_06]: in a health relationship.
[SPEAKER_06]: She's not going like, oh, there's other people in this world.
[SPEAKER_06]: You know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_06]: This is a huge, and you know, ending situation here.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I even like to reframe it as like, to me, it's a joyful part of being human.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, I appreciate beauty and nature.
[SPEAKER_03]: I appreciate sunset, I appreciate the ocean.
[SPEAKER_03]: I can certainly appreciate if a hot person smiles at me at the coffee shop.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's just like, that to me is a natural part of the beauty of being alive.
[SPEAKER_03]: And, and I do think that, yeah, it doesn't have to feel like such a heavy weight on us, or that we are doing something bad or shameful by finding others attractive.
[SPEAKER_03]: I honestly think that, especially in our younger years, when we're looking around, like, it's information for us, like, who am I drawn to?
[SPEAKER_03]: Who do I feel?
[SPEAKER_03]: Who do I feel, you know, like moved by essentially?
[SPEAKER_03]: And if you shut all that stuff down for yourself intentionally, it can be really difficult to trust, and I know that trusting yourself is not something you're supposed to do.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you were raised in a high-controller-ligen, but you know, you've got to learn to trust yourself and looking around and being like, oh yeah, like, I'm kind of interested in that person.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like that's a good thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's knowledge about yourself.
[SPEAKER_06]: Well, flipping this over back to the the women's side of this, I mean, men are taught not to look, but women are taught that they are the cause of men's lust as one of listener comments, someone says that they were taught to dress modestly, not to make men stumble, but we're still sexually harassed at 15 wearing a baptist school uniform.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_06]: And their pants that it was our fault.
[SPEAKER_06]: Someone said, you know, sex is sinful if you're raped, it's your fault, it's because you're closed, it's because you're behavior.
[SPEAKER_06]: Again, this is a huge cultural message.
[SPEAKER_06]: The what was she wearing has been in court cases.
[SPEAKER_06]: I mean, it's been, it's come up.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm going to pull up a clip.
[SPEAKER_06]: This is from Jack Hiles, who you've saw on the list, probably.
[SPEAKER_06]: really big name and fundamental circles for a long time and kind of set a lot of these standards that have carried on in the Baptist world at least for a long time.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I found a sermon titled mini skirts in light of the Bible, which feels like a sermon tailor made for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Ew!
[SPEAKER_01]: They put on clothes to cover their bodies, to teach them from being assaulted, then if they take off that covering, I wonder if maybe they're asking for someone.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you think that may be it?
[SPEAKER_01]: uh... policemen were asked this question the miniscurts uh... insight rate and is the increase in crimes against women calls for the miniscurts in the sixty-one largest citizen america ninety-two percent of all the police officers said yes miniscurts calls
[SPEAKER_01]: Right now, you say, well, you've found a lot of features.
[SPEAKER_01]: All we're talking about gets miniscurs.
[SPEAKER_01]: All we're talking about the policemen.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're talking about getting miniscurs too.
[SPEAKER_01]: 92% of the policemen in Chicago, in New York City, in Los Angeles, in Dallas, in Atlanta, in Denver, 92% of them, in 61 largest cities in America.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that might include him, and I'm not sure, in the top 61.
[SPEAKER_01]: But 92% said, yes, only 8% said it had no effect.
[SPEAKER_01]: on the crimes against women.
[SPEAKER_01]: 83% of the placement in these 61 cities said, the most dangerous fashion in history is the short-skirted girl when she's seated.
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't laugh at me while I'm preaching on this fellas.
[SPEAKER_01]: When I'm preaching about indecency in America,
[SPEAKER_01]: When I'm preaching about trying to get you to get the girls to act like ladies and so forth, you ought to be crying instead of laughing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, if I say something funny, you laugh at it.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I talk about a girl sitting down and showing parts of the body she shouldn't show.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I talk about things like that causing rape across America and wrecking the lives of our boys and girls.
[SPEAKER_01]: don't you think that's smart and funny?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's sad and tragic.
[SPEAKER_03]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you agree, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: You're this was done.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, totally.
[SPEAKER_03]: Cozyne.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_06]: I believe this was the mid 70s from what I didn't say.
[SPEAKER_06]: So it was on a sermon archive site.
[SPEAKER_06]: So it didn't have the date.
[SPEAKER_06]: But all the stories who was citing were like 70s, like mid 70s.
[SPEAKER_06]: And based on the record, it sounds somewhere between like early 80s and mid 70s.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's kind of
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, that was, you know, right.
[SPEAKER_03]: That was the time period I think that's interesting to look at because we had the sexual revolution and women getting the right to terminate a pregnancy in 1973 and the rise of more birth control and women having the ability to open a bank account for themselves.
[SPEAKER_03]: So yeah, that's the backdrop that this man is speaking against.
[SPEAKER_03]: everything that he just made up those statistics off the top of his head honestly, um, but he spoke in such a way where it made it sound like many skirts, the inanimate object were rapists, like the mini skirt is responsible for raping women, not men.
[SPEAKER_03]: When I hear sermons like this, what I see or what I hear are, this man is telling us of his desires and what he thinks.
[SPEAKER_03]: are excuses to violate women.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like that, like so many, when I hear clips like this, I'm like, you talk like a sexual predator.
[SPEAKER_03]: And to me, that means you are a sexual predator.
[SPEAKER_03]: He's not saying, I, this is what other men might be thinking, or maybe he tries to frame it that way.
[SPEAKER_03]: But no, this is what he is thinking.
[SPEAKER_03]: He seems to think that
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, this is once again, like women are not humans, women are in an amid objects.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I have to think, like, people get sexually assaulted all the time, regardless of whatever they're wearing.
[SPEAKER_03]: Old women get sexually assaulted.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Small children get sexually assaulted.
[SPEAKER_03]: Muslim women in full garb.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like we know it's not about the clothes.
[SPEAKER_03]: The clothes are an excuse.
[SPEAKER_03]: And yeah, I just I hate that this message has been so widespread for people because yeah, it's not the skirts.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not the shorts.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not going brawles.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not those things.
[SPEAKER_06]: One of the things I was curious about from your perspective to, and I know this comes up from parents all the time, is like, there's two truths that parents are holding, especially parents of young girls, unfortunately, is that you don't want to,
[SPEAKER_06]: sexualize them by forcing them to wear certain clothing because like you don't want to put them purity culture messaging like don't flaunt your stuff at you know six you know like which is which is the messaging that we all got growing up right right
[SPEAKER_06]: on the other hand of this that concerns me with the work that I do is like I know there are absolute freaks that are walking around, that are taking pictures, that are taking videos, and it does make you second-guess, like do I let you wear these shorts or this tank top or this thing that is not sexual because by nature you're a child, but also
[SPEAKER_06]: There might be a creepy dude at a splash pad.
[SPEAKER_06]: And like, how do you navigate those things the way that's not putting sexual shame and the oneness of this on the child?
[SPEAKER_06]: But also is understanding that like, we do live in a world where like, there's dude snap and pictures of kids of grown women, like, I mean, how do you address that in the way that's like, healthy and protective and not unhealthy and like, oh, if you walk out the door like that, you know, it's you, you know, your cause and the social.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, this is so difficult and you know, I just want to be clear that there isn't an easy answer to this.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is a multi-faceted nuanced issue.
[SPEAKER_03]: On one hand, yes, we do not want girls, young girls to think that they are responsible for the way men may look at them, but I know you also
[SPEAKER_03]: If you have a daughter, you want to protect her.
[SPEAKER_03]: Of course, I think that this is where, for me, like sex education at a young age comes in and I want to be clear for any listener.
[SPEAKER_03]: When I say sex education at a young age, when you're a child, it is not teaching you about how to have sex or the details of the sex act.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is teaching you things like your body belongs to you.
[SPEAKER_03]: teaching your kids about stranger danger, teaching your kids, hey, we don't keep secrets.
[SPEAKER_03]: So if an adult ever asks you to keep a secret, you don't do that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Or if an adult asks you for your help, that's also a red flag.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like adults are going to ask kids for help.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I think there's some situational awareness that should be taught to young children, like
[SPEAKER_03]: And also as a parent, situational awareness, you know, if you are at the splash pad with your kid and you notice a creepy man about you know that's not your daughter's fault.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's the fault of the creepy man and it would be totally within your right to say something to the creepy man.
[SPEAKER_03]: So teaching young children regardless of their gender that they're the bosses of their body, nobody else gets to touch their body.
[SPEAKER_03]: you know, with the exceptions of like your doctor, your parents who are helping you with hygiene, like that's a, that's a side conversation.
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, but yeah, like, you know, when a kid goes to the pool, we're going to let them wear a bathing suit.
[SPEAKER_03]: Little kids should be allowed to wear shorts.
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, little kids should be allowed to wear tank tops, not putting the shame on them means,
[SPEAKER_03]: not trying to keep them covered up all the time and giving them the freedom to make decisions about what they wear within what feels reasonable to you.
[SPEAKER_03]: And as a parent, of course you still get the final say when you have a small child.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I do think that beyond clothing, the most important issue is giving your children education from a young age about consent, about strangers, about how it's so inappropriate if an adult ever asks you questions about XYZ, or tries to take you off somewhere, or tries to take a picture of you like,
[SPEAKER_03]: those things are more protective for a kid, then covering them up in a long skirt would ever be.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, well, it's the example, I know people will share it.
[SPEAKER_06]: Because I know this was super common.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's like, your brothers are in the house, like cover up or your uncles coming over and you're dead.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, you're dead, like, and I love the rhetoric that I've seen lately, which is like, if you have someone coming to your house, we have to tell your child to cover up.
[SPEAKER_06]: that person shouldn't be coming to your house, you know, it's kind of like a great thing, but but as always, there's like a balance there of like, you know, what you do to protect versus what you do to like actively, you know, bring shame into this situation.
[SPEAKER_06]: I know we're in the home stretch here.
[SPEAKER_06]: I've got so many questions, but I'll I'll I'll try to get into this.
[SPEAKER_06]: We've talked about a lot of problems.
[SPEAKER_06]: There's a lot of people who are now going, and hopefully are picking up your book and going like, I want to start.
[SPEAKER_06]: like educating myself to make up for all the things that was not educated in.
[SPEAKER_06]: And so again, a couple of listener comments, people said, you know, the day before marriage, I was taught sex is sinful and disgusting, day of marriage.
[SPEAKER_06]: Ah, sex is great, you know, like you have to flip that switch.
[SPEAKER_06]: They said the most harmful thing they were taught about sex is not being taught about it at all.
[SPEAKER_06]: Someone said they figured out what sex was through the dictionary, which is probably not comprehensive sex
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, we're seeing this in so many, so many levels, but first and foremost, if someone is listening to this and going, I want to take my first step into understanding sex, into educating myself, what is step one or what is step two after the step one abying your book.
[SPEAKER_03]: I love this question.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that my step two is, if you have picked up my book, allow yourself to start at whatever point in the book feels most comfortable to you, or that you're most curious about.
[SPEAKER_03]: The first couple chapters I use to sort of explain purity culture and how it can be harmful.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I do that because for two reasons, one,
[SPEAKER_03]: It's also like my book might be picked up by therapists or educators that don't know that much about purity culture, but also for people who did grow up in it.
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to reaffirm that if you're thinking, oh, it wasn't that bad, it may validate you to understand that.
[SPEAKER_03]: that it can be very harmful so that what you're experiencing was legitimate.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not just you.
[SPEAKER_03]: I would also say take your time.
[SPEAKER_03]: You're not going to learn everything about sexuality just by reading the book.
[SPEAKER_03]: I learn new things about sex and sexuality all the time and this has been my career for 25 years now.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's the kind of topic where we can always learn about.
[SPEAKER_03]: But for the books specifically, I tried to pick out topics that people raise impurity culture tend to struggle with the most.
[SPEAKER_03]: So there's a chapter on pornography.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's a chapter on abortion.
[SPEAKER_03]: I break down things like desire and pleasure and masturbation and how to communicate with sexual partners.
[SPEAKER_03]: And there are also exercises in the book you can do to sort of evaluate your own feelings on things.
[SPEAKER_03]: relax, you're not going to undo all of it in a day or even a month.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a long game getting comfortable with the topics, but curiosity is your best friend, like allow yourself to be curious, and if you do have my book, you might want to skip some chapters that you're not ready for, and that's totally fine.
[SPEAKER_03]: You might be like, uh, I think I can only, I'm not ready for this yet.
[SPEAKER_03]: like put it down and let yourself settle and think about it some more and about like what you're feeling.
[SPEAKER_03]: I would never want someone to like force themselves through the book and feel overwhelmed.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I really say like take your time be gentle with yourself and understand that like
[SPEAKER_03]: Overall, I want people to know that sexuality is so much bigger and richer than you were led to believe, and then it can also be a source of joy in your life, or at the very least, it can be neutral.
[SPEAKER_03]: It doesn't have to be scary.
[SPEAKER_03]: It can just be a neutral fact of your humanity.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's one thing I appreciate about your work, too, is like, you're not necessarily pushing people to a specific, I'm sorry I'm going to tell you something about your book is about her book and I said it's like non-prescriptive self-help.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's like, don't have to do all these things.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I feel like your work is similar.
[SPEAKER_06]: You express in the book like, it doesn't mean you're going to end up at this point and I think for someone who's like,
[SPEAKER_06]: you know, while I am still religious and I want to still do this and it's like it's like reading Eric as book is not going to make you end up in a, you know, ethically non monogamous polycule, you know, it's like they don't go down.
[SPEAKER_06]: It might.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you do, I love that for you, but if you just want to be in your monogamous marriage with the partner you've been with since 1980 and you want to maybe just have a little bit better communication with that partner.
[SPEAKER_03]: can help with that too.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_06]: And that's the thing is like anywhere in that range, it can help you with something.
[SPEAKER_06]: And one of the questions I had under this section, we're watching a secret live, some Mormon wives right now, a big plot point in season one is, uh,
[SPEAKER_06]: the scandal of Whitney advertising a sex toy.
[SPEAKER_06]: Should she take this brand deal?
[SPEAKER_06]: Should she not?
[SPEAKER_06]: And it kind of speaks to you like how I think a lot of people in the general public were like the why is this controversial but religious circles this is extremely controversial.
[SPEAKER_06]: Can you just address like the stigma around
[SPEAKER_06]: that topic and like why it's such a scary thing, why it can be a helpful thing for people, why it's not something that's just for single people, it could be something that can help come up like, can you just unpack?
[SPEAKER_06]: And again, that's like one of those last questions like that's an episode.
[SPEAKER_06]: But for people that are like, you know, we thought sex was, you get married, it's missionary and it's only for preparation.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's like introducing pleasure.
[SPEAKER_06]: What is that actually
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, this is another great question.
[SPEAKER_03]: Sex toys or any sort of device that's used to enhance your sexual experience.
[SPEAKER_06]: They turn their shine tannery in the middle of the show performance.
[SPEAKER_03]: Sexual.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I know there is stigma because there tends to be this idea that they're unnatural somehow, that you should be, if you're receiving pleasure, it should be from your partner's body.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, it should only come from your partner, not a plastic thing, you know, but sex toys are not competition for your partner.
[SPEAKER_03]: I like to think of them.
[SPEAKER_03]: They are tools, like any other tool that can be used to
[SPEAKER_03]: help you have a good experience or enhance an experience.
[SPEAKER_03]: And in particular, vibrators, vibrators, they move at speeds that humans can't replicate, and therefore sometimes they make orgasm more accessible to women.
[SPEAKER_03]: and that is something I don't want people to feel shame about.
[SPEAKER_03]: There are lots of women who can only orgasm if using a vibrator and sometimes feel like well I should be able to have an orgasm just because my husband or my partner is, you know, doing their thing with their hands or their
[SPEAKER_03]: That's one way to have an orgasm, but there isn't a hierarchy, so if you need a toy to help you out, that's perfectly fine, and if your partner needs a toy to help them out, I want to say that it doesn't mean that you're deficient, and it doesn't mean that your ego should be bruised.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's more like think about it in a more generous way.
[SPEAKER_03]: Don't you want your partner to have more pleasure?
[SPEAKER_03]: wouldn't you want it to be increased her well-being?
[SPEAKER_03]: And if you're thinking, well, a sex toy takes away my masculinity or a sex toy takes away my use, it doesn't.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not human connection.
[SPEAKER_03]: Sex with your partner is about so much more than whether or not they have an orgasm in that moment.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's the humanity of another person that a sex toy isn't going to replicate.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a tool.
[SPEAKER_03]: It gets a job done, and it can be very fun and very useful.
[SPEAKER_03]: An ideally think of it as your collaborator.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, my wife had mentioned that question.
[SPEAKER_06]: That was a her question in there because it's something.
[SPEAKER_06]: She would hear a lot from people where it's like,
[SPEAKER_06]: either from men who are like, you know, I don't feel like I'm enough to be clear, not from me.
[SPEAKER_06]: No, but she would hear from other men who are meant, you know, where it's like the messaging she would get is like, people would do something and their husband goes like, offended.
[SPEAKER_06]: Like, okay, well, then you take care of it and they leave.
[SPEAKER_06]: You know, it's like, it's like, to me, I was the amount last night I had never thought about like this, but I was like, it's the same thing as like,
[SPEAKER_06]: you want to be on a comfortable mattress.
[SPEAKER_06]: You want to be using soft pillows.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's like, you use a hair dryer because air drying your hair takes too long.
[SPEAKER_06]: Right, not for me.
[SPEAKER_06]: Takes about few seconds, but no, it's like, and I think also two another really cool thing is like part of the,
[SPEAKER_06]: At least for me, maybe this is how you're projecting on to everybody.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's like, I think one of the most beautiful things about sexual experiences is that you're being vulnerable and showing what brings you pleasure.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I think like, if someone's sharing that with you, like, it's not something you need to be offended and like storm out and be like, oh, it's not me.
[SPEAKER_06]: You know, it's like, it could still be you, plus you could be part of it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and I think, you know, not just in purity culture and in religion, but this is another sort of, I think a broader culture idea is that you should be enough for your partner and that if you use a sex toy, you're somehow just
[SPEAKER_03]: there's dysfunction and your relationship or, you know, that all sexual pleasure should be only caused by the person you're married to.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that to me, my personal belief is that it's you get to, you get to be more expansive than that.
[SPEAKER_06]: if someone's in a relationship and this is something that happens in deconstruction with faith where it's like, I'm questioning my faith, my partner's not.
[SPEAKER_06]: And so it kind of restricts like, do I just not going to church and let my partner go by themselves?
[SPEAKER_06]: Do I do it?
[SPEAKER_06]: There's so many layers, sex is a huge one for this, especially for people that have a religious sexual effect where
[SPEAKER_06]: you know, your partner is questioning, trying these things that are outside the limits of what the other partners interested in, but they're been together for 10 years under religious umbrella.
[SPEAKER_06]: If one person's going like, I want to introduce toys or I'm questioning my sexual preferences or I'm wanting to try these things.
[SPEAKER_06]: How much should you wait for a partner to come along the journey with you?
[SPEAKER_06]: You know, like do you heat an ultimatum of like it?
[SPEAKER_06]: I don't want that's off limits because we're together and I'm not gonna be married to someone that's doing that like Because my advice I wouldn't think would just be like, oh, just leave, you know, like leave a partner of ten years, but also you have one life and like
[SPEAKER_06]: If you're starting to feel like, oh, I've never been sexually satisfied for 10 years, and I'm starting to realize, why?
[SPEAKER_06]: Like, what's your advice people navigating that?
[SPEAKER_06]: And I'm sure there might be a lot listening, that might be something that can't.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, it's hard to give like a generally prescriptive answer to this because every marriage and every relationship is so different.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I have seen people make different decisions about this.
[SPEAKER_03]: So for example, one of my favorite couples that I work with,
[SPEAKER_03]: um, they're both in their early 60s and they were raised quite religiously and they are being more free and experimental in their sex life together.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's so beautiful to be hold.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I know it was driven a bit more by one partner than the other, but they have such a strong loving foundation and genuinely,
[SPEAKER_03]: just want the best for each other.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so the less I'd say the partner that was brought along a bit is willing to be curious, is willing to also expand their comfort level.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's really cool.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I love seeing that happen.
[SPEAKER_03]: And for them, that has worked really well.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I've definitely
[SPEAKER_03]: I haven't been sexually satisfied and my partner is unwilling or not going to do that as so I think it's so much less about that specific issue and more about the foundation of the marriage under it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Because in the example of the couple I work with, they have such a solid loving foundation where they want to make each other better, and they want to make each other's lives better.
[SPEAKER_03]: So even though the one person is more sexually adventurous, the other one has found ways to integrate it as well and to come along for some of it, but also hold boundaries when they're not that interested in everything.
[SPEAKER_03]: But then some other people are like,
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, my partner is is unwilling to budge at all.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that is how they are in the rest of the marriage, too.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I think that's something to look at.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's like, what's going on underneath?
[SPEAKER_03]: What's the foundation of that relationship?
[SPEAKER_03]: And for some people, leaving is the right option.
[SPEAKER_03]: And really only you know that.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, it's probably not as simple as, oh, a sex toy or a position.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's probably a communication issue that's much deeper that you should explore.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, or if her partners on willingness to grow with you, you know, if you see that happening in other areas of the relationship, that's that's a big one.
[SPEAKER_06]: So, let's super helpful.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's crazy.
[SPEAKER_06]: I had 10 clips.
[SPEAKER_06]: I got through three.
[SPEAKER_03]: What did you do a part two, Eric?
[SPEAKER_06]: We should do a part two.
[SPEAKER_03]: I totally do a part two with you.
[SPEAKER_06]: I was going to wrap it fire and be like, here's five horrible things.
[SPEAKER_06]: Can you watch it?
[SPEAKER_03]: I wanted to be these clips.
[SPEAKER_03]: So we could definitely do a part two if you want to.
[SPEAKER_06]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_06]: I think that's a great idea.
[SPEAKER_06]: But for now, if somebody wants to grab a copy of your book, where can they do that?
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, I guess it's only, and where can they follow you for all of your content online?
[SPEAKER_03]: Sure, so my book is, it came out from Bloomsbury Publishing.
[SPEAKER_03]: So it's available on the Bloomsbury Publishing website if you Google the Purity Culture Recovery Guide.
[SPEAKER_03]: You can buy it anywhere you buy a book.
[SPEAKER_03]: So if you're an Amazon shopper, if you're a bookshop.org person, and I want to say it's available in hardcover, ebook, and also audio book.
[SPEAKER_03]: So if you prefer to listen, that is an option for you.
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, my work is purity culture dropout.com is my website, so you can find me there and that's how you would find out how to like work with me or purchase a class recording, um, I am active on Instagram at EricaSmith.educates and yeah, so that's my, that is my main platform, Instagram and Threads both under the same name.
[SPEAKER_06]: Well, this was a great conversation, but we have to dive a little deeper than our last one, just because we've already gotten all the get to know each other out of the way.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, I like that you used this as like, how about you provide some good sex ed for my audience.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, this is, I love it.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is really fun.
[SPEAKER_06]: Awesome.
[SPEAKER_06]: Boy, I will definitely get a part two on the, I guess part three on the calendar, if you look at that way, just talk about more of this.
[SPEAKER_06]: But thank you so much for doing this and for a bit of listening.
[SPEAKER_06]: Grab a copy of the book and I'll see you in the next episode.
[SPEAKER_06]: You've been listening to the Preja Boys podcast hosted by Eric Squizinski.
[SPEAKER_06]: The intro music, Bible Belt, was performed by Lou Ridley.
[SPEAKER_07]: We are gathered here today It's a praise to the Holy Father Feel the glory of His name Anyone can worship here So long as you act straight Pay your ties and follow rules Even the ones God didn't make