Theology in the Raw - 787: #787 - Sex, Female Sexuality, and 50 Shades of Grey: Dr. Juli Slattery

Episode Date: April 13, 2020

Juli Slattery is an expert in all things related to sex, sexuality, purity culture, female sexuality, true intimacy, and sexual discipleship--a super helpful term she unpacks in this thought provoking episode. Preston and Juli talk about a lot of things in this episode that's not often talked about in church, yet absolutely NEEDS to be talked about in church. This episode will be particularly helpful for females, or anyone seeking to understand female sexuality. Dr. Juli Slattery is a clinical psychologist, author, speaker and the president/co-founder of Authentic Intimacy, a ministry dedicated to reclaiming God’s design for sexuality. Every Monday she hosts the podcast Java with Juli, where she and a guest sit down for coffee and honest conversation about relationships, sex, intimacy, pornography, singleness, and God’s design for our sexuality. Juli is the author of ten books, including Finding the Hero in Your Husband, Passion Pursuit, and Rethinking Sexuality. She and her husband Mike are the parents of 3 sons; they live in Akron, Ohio. Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Check out his website prestonsprinkle.com If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review.

Hello, friends, and welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. I have a really amazing guest on the show today, Dr. Julie Slattery. Julie Slattery has a doctorate in psychology from the Florida Institute of Technology. She's a graduate of Wheaton College, Biola University, and the author of 10 books, I think. Yeah, 10 books. She hosts a weekly of 10 books, I think. Yeah, 10 books. She hosts a weekly podcast called Java with Julie. In fact, I think, yeah, I was a guest, I think. I was a guest on that podcast, I think like six months ago. And so Julie, she's been a really, I mean, a significant voice in conversations about sex, sexuality. She, as you will hear, was kind of nurtured in the purity culture and now has some really healthy critiques of that culture. She's the author of a recent book, well, recent, it's two years old, called Rethinking Sexuality, God's Design and Why It Matters. We had a

wonderful conversation about sex. I mean, literally, that's all we talked about sex, all the way from like female sexuality, from pornography, from Fifty Shades of Grey, and why some women are attracted to kind of BDSM stuff. And we talked about, I mean, loads of stuff. We, we even towards the end, we talk about sexual abuse and how to find healing from that. So this was just, I mean, this was, I could have talked to Julie for, for hours. Uh, she's super knowledgeable, super gracious, super wise. And I just find her to be just a partner in this really, um, difficult conversation about sex and sexuality. So yeah, I hope you enjoy the show. If you are blessed or challenged by the show and you want

to support the show, please go to patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw and join my Patreon community where I have over 200 people supporting the theology in the raw ministry. And if you support the show, you get access to premium content in return. I'm recording a couple of different podcasts every month just for my Patreon community. I write a blog every month for my Patreon community. And I typically, you know, there's lots of different avenues people can get ahold of me through email, through the website, through Twitter, through Instagram and Facebook and all these things. And the one that I spend the most energy on is Patreon. So yeah, I try to drop in every now and then and chat with my supporters. So if you want to join the Patreon community, please go to

patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw. And, uh, you know, we're, we're living in crazy times, um, of economic collapse and, you know, worldwide viruses just ripping their way through creation. And it's just, it's crazy times. And it's, it's, it, um, is extra challenging on those of us who, you know, make a living off of speaking at large gatherings, which are really shut down. So, um, I just really appreciate my Patreon community and the support that they're giving me during these really tough times. But I know, I mean, we, gosh, who isn't suffering from what's going on today? I guess the toilet paper, the owner of toilet paper company is doing just fine. Uh, beyond that, um, I think we're all feeling the effects of this virus. So anyway, but we're not

going to talk about the virus in the show. We're going to talk about sex, sex, and more sex. So please welcome to the show, the one and only Dr. Julie Slattery. All right. I am here with my friend, Julie. Julie, thanks so much for being on Theology on the Raw for the first time. Great to be on the show. I've listened to it before, so it's fun to be on it. And last time we were talking, I think I was on your podcast, right? You were.

Yeah. My podcast is Java with Julie. So I came and met you at one of your conferences to learn from you and also to record with you. Yeah, awesome. Well, I've known your name for a long time. You've been in this space of intimacy and sexuality for a while. Can you just tell us just briefly, like what is it that you do? What's your nine to five job-ish thing,

ministry, whatever? And we're in the middle of the corona nightmare right now. So things might look differently now, but when the virus is not spreading, what does your life look like? Yeah, it's different every day, probably like yours, but travel, speaking,

but also a lot of just reading, research on what's happening in the field of sexuality, and then just ministry. A lot of my focus over the last eight years or so has been ministering to women on topics of sexuality, just integrating theology. I'm also a clinical psychologist, so that piece of it with how do we handle the everyday issues that we're facing related to sexuality. So I love the variety of what I get to do from the face to face contact to the writing to me learning and just teaching others. female sexuality? Like, you know, I've done a bit of research into this, but I'm a guy, right? So I'm looking at it from a distance. But how would you let maybe just start like on a 30,000 foot level? What are some unique things about female sexuality? I know that's a general statement, but to somebody, let's just say a guy listening out there, you know, probably the majority of my

audience is probably male, maybe 60%. What are some things about female sexuality that you think that a lot of people maybe don't know or don't realize that might need to know? Yeah, well, I think just probably putting words to what most people already know, female sexuality is complicated. And one of the main ways it's complicated is because one part connects to all the other parts. So, for example, where the average guy would identify, I have an issue with pornography or I have an issue with lust. And they're able to compartmentalize that even to the extent where it's a negative, where what I do on the computer has nothing to do with my marriage. A woman can't compartmentalize anything. And so if she's saying, hey, I have problems in my sexuality, think about it like a huge plate

of spaghetti. Everything touches everything else. So there's aspects of her body image that are involved, just her identity, maybe trauma from the past that she hasn't worked through. And this might be the presenting problem might be, I just can't even enjoy sex with my husband. And as you dig deeper, there's all this stuff underneath that. And so in some ways, female sexuality, I would say, is healthier because we're more apt to connect all those spiritual, emotional pieces to what we're experiencing.

But in other ways, it's so much more complicated, because there's no quick problem solved, just read this book, and everything is good. It takes years of really pursuing growth in your relationship with the Lord and just healing in general. I've often heard because I, you know, I deal primarily in the space of same sex sexuality, that when it comes to female same-sex sexuality, it can become complicated because, well, your spaghetti analogy is, I mean, super helpful because, you know, there's a difference between, say, emotional attraction, intimate attraction, romantic attraction, and even sexual attraction.

Whereas guys, it's kind of like, you know, I'm sexually attracted to this person, not that person. That's kind of the extent. Again, I'm using stereotypes, but for most guys, like you said, it's very easily to think through these different categories. But for women, is it possible for a female to be, say, sexually attracted to guys, but maybe romantically or even intimately or emotionally attracted to girls. And that could be really confusing, right? Especially for a 16-year-old or whatever who looks at another girl and has an emotional kind of spike. And it's like, oh, am I lesbian? Am I bisexual? Like, what am I, you know? Is that at all? No, you're absolutely hitting on something big there, which is why we're seeing sort of an explosion of gender fluidity and sexual interest fluidity and women, young women more than we are in young men, because everything is combined.

And so very few women, I would say even older women would say, I'm sexually attracted to men, but I feel more connected to women because it's all mixed together. We can't discern between what it is to be sexually attracted versus just feeling safe, feeling like that person knows me, I'm comfortable with them. And so it's very easy for women of any age, but particularly younger women who don't really know who they are yet, to say, because I feel closer to my best friend who is a female than I do to guys, I must be bisexual or I must be gay or I need to think about my gender. I would say pretty much any woman would say, yeah, there's definitely been seasons of my life, if not my whole life, where I feel closer emotionally to women than I do to men, even maybe my husband. Because in general, guys just don't get girls.

You know, they don't connect with women the same way women connect with women. And that intimacy can be easily understood as sexualized. Is that because I mean, and this is purely anecdotal. But I feel like it's anecdotal, but I don't think this is an overstatement. When I speak to youth groups, or, you know, junior high groups, high school groups, which I don't do a lot of, but periodically, I would say it's almost more likely that when I meet a teenage female, they come up and talk to me or whatever. I feel like the rate of girls who say they're bisexual is almost higher than those who say they're straight.

Maybe I'm talking about same-sex sexuality, and so maybe those are the ones coming up to me. But it's like, is there an explosion in specifically teenage girls identified as bisexual rather than even straight or lesbian. Are we seeing a spike in that? Yeah, I think we have. Again, it's more anecdotally and just little pieces of evidence that we see coming out with research,

not just in terms of who they're attracted to, but also the explosion of gender fluidity and how they define themselves. And the research has all shown that female sexuality is far more fluid than male sexuality. And so I'm sure you've seen research that will show that a lot of women who identify as gay or bisexual, by the time they reach like their mid-20s or early 30s, they'll have settled into, no, I'm pretty much heterosexual. That was just a time of experimentation.

So it's a whole different animal when you're talking about female sexuality, whether it's gender and sexual attraction, or just how do you figure out how to enjoy sex and how do you get past the things we've experienced, maybe sexual trauma in the past and things like that. It's a far more complicated field in some ways. But like I said earlier, it's also good because women are more likely to make those connections than the average man will be.

Well, I've thought that as I think about like male sexuality and female sexuality, I'm like male sexuality can, it kind of is easy to cheapen sex. Yes, it is. It is. And with women, it's like, it's soen sex. Yes, it is. And with the women, it's like, it's so much more holistic, it seems like. And layered and integrated into the complexity of our humanity, in a sense, you know? And I'm like, well, that's kind of like how sex seems to be designed, not just this thing that's, you know, yeah. Yeah, man, I have so many.

So this is, I guess, on the topic, but a little bit of a detour. Pornography among women. Are we seeing, well, I mean, I've read some studies, and it seems like there is a higher rate. Is that true? And is pornography for women different than how men struggle with it? Yeah, I'd say yes and no. Again, just based on the research that we're seeing, we see like in older generations, there's this traditional kind of stereotype that played out where very few women would be drawn into pornography

or addicted to pornography. They'd be more likely to be pulled into any form of pornography that has a storyline, which is why Fifty Shades of Grey just went crazy. Among women, right? Oh, yeah. I mean, it's the fastest selling book in history. Oh, my God. So why did that happen? Because it was helping women connect sexual desire, which a lot of women have trouble feeling with a romantic storyline. And so a lot of women won't immediately get pulled into pornography unless there is an element of this is connecting me through fantasy with somebody or online sexual chat rooms. You know, they're more likely to want that kind of connection. But that's not always the case.

And we're seeing that particularly with younger women who just have a similar draw to pornography than as men have traditionally had, where it's just they see something exciting, stimulating. Their brain starts reacting to that with dopamine and other chemicals that just reinforce this is where I can find pleasure, this is where I can find escape. But again, women are also more apt, as we talked about, to be able to identify, I'm looking at porn because I'm lonely. I'm looking at porn because I'm bored, where you ask a man why he's looking at it, and he'll be like, I don't know. I just like it. So women are more apt to tie it to what's happening emotionally with them.

Gosh, that's, yeah, that's fast. So what I don't understand is with, I haven't read the book or watched the movie, probably won't, Fifty Shades of Grey. Although in my research, I do find myself having to, you know, pay attention to stuff that I normally wouldn't, just so I'm familiar with it. But yeah, not much of an interest there. But isn't Fifty Shades of Grey, doesn't it have some pretty abusive like BDSM stuff? And what's the draw for women in that?

Like, it's not just like some romantic, you know, novel or something, some steamy novel, it's like, it seems like, again, I'm not familiar, but it seems like really unhealthy, like that someone would be so drawn to this. Is that? Yeah, it's good. I actually did quite a bit of research on this when it first came out. Dana Gresh and I wrote a book called Pulling Back the Shades. And that book actually gets into why are women reading Fifty Shades of Grey? Why are we drawn to it? And absolutely, you've got the enticing sexuality, but it is mixed with BDSM, which is, you know, bonded sadism, masochism. I can't remember the last one.

You get it. Masochism i can't remember the last one you get it um but but yes but basically uh the storyline is that there's this young amazingly handsome man who's like in his late 20s and earning millions of dollars again here we go with fantasy but he also has abuse in his past and one of the ways that he acts that out is he has a red room of pain and he has contracts with women that basically give him permission to engage sexually and some bondage activities and so he and the main character fall in love and it's this tension of she really loves him she's a virgin when she meets him uh and he introduces her to all this this bondage type sexuality

which in the novel and the series of novels turns out to be very romantic and again this is fantasy and one of the things we talked about in 50 shades are pulling back the shades is we have to understand the difference between fiction and fantasy fiction is something that could conceivably happen. Fantasy is something that takes us out of the realm of the natural world, which, you know, like Star Wars, where we know we're entering a different galaxy, the rules are different.

In sexual fantasy, we've got to realize that the author, without telling us, is taking us into a world where reality, this couldn't happen. So in reality, you can't fall in love with a man who has a red rim of pain and is engaging in bondage type things and abiding by a contract where you have a safe word and this becomes a loving romantic relationship. But we're pulled into it for a lot of reasons. You know, one of them, which is a theory, which I think has a lot of validity, is we live in a society where men are very passive. And there's a part of a woman's heart that wants a man who's going to take charge

and who's going to say, okay, I'm making a decision. I'm stronger than you. I'm going to entice you with my strength, but somehow also protect you. And so I think even that element of this young man who is taking charge and even overdoing it taps into some of the desires of a woman's heart that we don't talk about very often in today's culture. So you think the backdrop of male passivity in this day and age might have nurtured the sales of the book? I do. And it's not just me, like Barbara Walters, they were talking about this on The View when Fifty Shades of Grey was really big. And she said this, she said, let's just say when you go home, you want a man to be a man. And there are a lot of secular voices that are saying there's something very romantic about a man's strength and a man just taking charge.

But again, in our culture, you never hear that. We're not allowed to say that, right? But it's funny because, yeah, I, again, anecdotally, people I talk to, I'm married to my wife. We have four daughters, teenage daughters. And I'm, you know, in the work that I do, I'm around men and women equally. And I would say it's probably true with the majority of women that I talk to. So my wife, who is incredibly capable, like she literally just got done building a house in our backyard, an art studio.

Like she's out there with my chop saw, hammer, nails, screw gun. She put in windows. I tell people, she's a very capable, independent kind of woman. she's a very capable, independent kind of woman. And she would be the first one to say, I want a man who's going to be a man and, yeah, make the decision and take charge. And she can't stand male passivity, even though she's, again, you would expect somebody who's very kind of like capable and independent

to maybe, you know, walk over a man or whatever. She's like, no, I'm the first one to say, if I walk in the room, I would much rather have a man take charge. But yeah, if he's not going to step up, I can do it. Yeah. And, and I think in some ways it takes a very confident, capable, secure woman to say that because she's not threatened by male power. She's actually inviting it. But, but these, these dynamics are so messed up in our culture

that we don't even know how to give voice to what we want. And so I think Fifty Shades of Grey tapped into something that is curious, and we're not really sure why we're so drawn to it. I wonder how many people have boughten the book while we're talking. I hope not. Some people are like, I'm not supposed to be drawn to this, but I need to read this book. No, I would encourage you to read Pulling Back the Shades instead. I read all three books of Fifty Shades of Grey just so that I could write the book. I wouldn't recommend that you read it.

I actually was really worried about reading it and prayed a lot about it and actually read it on my knees just as a posture of prayer because I didn't want, you know, there's just a lot of bad stuff in there. I didn't want it to take plant in my heart, in my mind. I forget, was it a male or female author? Is it a male author? It was a female author. It was a female. Okay. So that, wow.

Yeah. That makes, okay. Interesting. Yeah. Tell me about, so your latest book is Rethinking Sexuality, God's Design and Why It Matters. And you've used this phrase, sexual discipleship, or what's the phrase you use? Is that it? Yes. Sexual discipleship. Yeah. Can you unpack that a little bit? And I want to, I want to tether this to the purity movement and where you see maybe some pros

and cons with, with that movement. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So rethinking sexuality and really this idea of sexual discipleship came out of the ministry that I've been doing with women really across the country on sexual issues. And what I realized is that even Christian women who do their Bible studies are very engaged in church, love the Lord, they really didn't know how to have a biblical response to sexual questions, whether it be something like, my husband's looking at

pornography. I don't know how to respond. I have no sexual desire in marriage. I'm a single woman. I don't know what to do with my sexual desire. On and on. Where was God when I was abused? All the questions that we get. And it dawned on me that we don't know how to think biblically about our sexuality. At best, the church has taught us what to think about specific sexual issues, like don't have sex before marriage or male and female matter, you know, the kind of topics you're tackling. But they haven't taught us how to think about sexuality. They haven't given us a framework or a worldview

that helps us understand why sex even matters. Whereas the culture has done a great job at that. Everyone can answer any sexual question from the cultural perspective because they've discipled us in our sexuality. Where at best the church has done maybe some education or had sort of this problem solving approach of let's just create groups for people that are hurting. But sexual discipleship is more this idea that sexuality isn't a problem we have to solve. It's a territory we have to reclaim. We have to reclaim the narrative. And very few, if like any Christians could tell you, what is the narrative of why our sexuality matters from a biblical perspective? And so it's, it's really an all of life call to maturity in our understanding of biblical sexuality and how we apply that in our own lives, as well as how we minister to others. how we minister to others. You mentioned this so good. How would you unpack, and I'm sure you do this in the book, but yeah, I guess let's talk about the biblical narrative. What is the two

minute pitch of what is God's design for sexuality? What's the purpose of sex? Is it just for pleasure? Is it just, you know, is it for procreation, all the above or whatever? Like, how would you articulate? Yeah, if you don't mind, if I can set this up a little bit, just by talking about two other narratives that I think are good to contrast it with. Because we all are walking around with a narrative about our sexuality and most of us aren't even conscious of it. So the predominant narrative in our world is a cultural narrative that's based on humanism. And it says that sexuality matters because it's a key part of our identity. And if you want to be a whole self-actualized person, you need to experiment and look inward to find out what is going to make you happy sexually.

You can't be a whole mature person unless you do that, which is why in our culture, it's considered unloving and even immoral to get in the way of somebody's sexual experimentation. So that's the narrative that most of us are swimming in. And it's why when we open the Bible, it doesn't make sense that God would say, don't do this or save sex until marriage. How are you going to experiment if you follow those rules? Can I dig into that a little bit? Because every now and then I get this question at conferences that I do. The question is typically framed like this. Since we know from science that since we know from science that we,

we like it's unhealthy to suppress our sexuality, that we kind of need sexual expression to flourish. Therefore, isn't it inhuman to call, you know, call somebody to celibacy or whatever to repress their sexuality. Now there's so many assumptions built in. Is, is there,

are there some studies from science, whatever, which doesn't bother me at all because there's, that, science is so politically driven that it all, you know, you have to read a thousand studies before you get your arms around it. But is there that, is there a movement within the science, scientific study of sexuality that says it's actually unhealthy for a human to repress their sexuality? And as a psychologist, what would you say about that? Yeah, I would say that there's a narrative of that. But there is very little research that would back that up. Now, certainly you can look at conservative families or environments that don't handle sexual dysfunction or sin or desires well.

And we'll talk about the second narrative in a minute that kind of, I think, identifies that. And certainly you can point to research that says, okay, if a kid is experiencing same-sex desire and we put them through, you know, this really repressive kind of situation and people reject them, they're at higher risk for depression and suicide. But Preston, actually, what's interesting is the scientific research is more compelling to say that when we give people sexual freedom, they're more likely to experience depression, anxiety, and suicide. Like there's a ton of research coming out that is saying the more,

particularly for women, and again, I study women, the more sexual partners a woman has in her lifetime, the more likely she is to experience depression, low self-esteem, shame, you know, all these things that actually don't even go away if she gets into a committed married relationship. Yeah. Mark Ragnaris, that book Cheap Sex, I think deals with that extensively. Yep. Premarital Sex in America. He did another book like that. The book Hooked. But it's just they're gathering research that are showing from the scientific perspective that actually the research goes against the cultural narrative.

Wow. But we value our freedom so much that we don't want to hear that. Yeah. Okay. So you did the cultural narrative. And yeah, what are the hear that. Yeah. Okay. So you did the cultural narrative and yeah. What are the other lenses? Yeah. The second narrative is what many of us probably grew up with, which is the purity narrative. And the purity narrative certainly is within evangelical Christianity,

but also we find it in Mormonism and Catholicism, but it essentially says that your sexuality is important because it's this moral category. And if you want to please God, you will not only save sex for marriage, but you will not be sexual until you get married. You shouldn't have sexual thoughts, desires, longings. Those are bad. And if you can manage to not be sexual during your teen years and early adult years, God will bring this wonderful spouse for you and you'll automatically have this shame-free, wonderful sexual pleasure. But if you do mess up, you know, depending on your religious background, we'll say, well, you have a second chance. There's a second virginity, but you're kind of always on plan B. And so there's a lot of shame around that. And I would say that we underestimate the power of that purity narrative in all of our teaching in the church around sexuality.

We don't realize that that is a stream that is fighting against the cultural narrative. And most people feel like they have to choose one or the other. And if I choose a purity narrative, what about my friends that have been sexually abused? Like, where do they fit? And how about my friends that are LGBTQ? Like, the purity narrative doesn't even address those issues. How far can I go in a dating relationship without breaking the rules?

And it's really a very legalistic, almost prosperity gospel view of God, where if you follow the rules, God's going to give you happiness. And if you don't, you're kind of always under the shame. And I meet with women who are in their 50s or 60s who are still And I meet with women who are in their 50s or 60s who are still experiencing guilt and shame because they slept with somebody in their teen years. Even though they've been in the church, they'd say, I feel forgiven. But they'd also say, I've never been able to experience sexual pleasure with my husband because I never felt like I deserved it because I messed up. Wow. Wow. Wow.

You, I mean, you were around during the purity culture when it was happening. You know, it's funny, I grew up, that was when I was nurtured in the late 90s, early 2000s. But I never even was aware of it. I didn't really realize what the purity culture was until afterwards. And maybe that's true for most people. But were you like an advocate of it when it was in the 90s? Or where were you when it was happening? I'm curious. Oh, yeah, I was.

I mean, I got married in 94. And I was very much a product of that early kind of purity narrative. And my story actually flows very consistently with a lot of women that I meet, where I was raised in a Christian home, you know, the good Christian girl, didn't have sex until marriage. And I share about this a lot through our resources, but sex in my marriage was just horrible for the first 15 years. A lot of pain during sex. And part of that purity narrative was just, I carried that on with, well, I guess this is just something I have to grin and bear. And it's for my husband's pleasure.

And if I'm a dutiful wife, I need to meet his needs, even if it's painful for me. And I'm a clinical psychologist at this point, you know, counseling couples. And, but this is, this was all that was out there from a Christian perspective. And there's no help. There's no, you know, counseling couples. And, but this is, this was all that was out there from a Christian perspective. Uh, and there's no help. There's no, you know, you get together with other wives and a lot of wives are that way. Yeah. You just kind of have to do it because it's your duty. Um, and, and so just even the work that God has called me to has done a lot of healing in my life and my marriage. I had no idea, first of all, how much I believe that purity narrative. And second of all, how destructive it was even in my own life. And certainly in the women that I minister to.

Wow. Okay. So the third, the third narrative, the discipleship narrative. So you have to feel the tension of those first two, I think, to appreciate the third. discipleship so you have to feel the tension of those first two i think to appreciate the third but the third is really based on this idea that sex matters the reason it's so important is because it's a physical way that god has given us to understand an aspect of his love his covenant love that god loves us passionately he loves us based on his faithfulness and his promise. He loves us jealously. And all of that is written into our bodies and our sexuality. Now, there have been some people, you know, Christopher West,

I don't know if you're familiar with him. Yeah, yeah, of course, yeah. Great, great writer. He just came out with a book called Our Bodies Tell God's Story. That's based on Pope John Paul's teaching the theology of the body. But I think what he stumbled on here is really key. And it's central to understand the biblical narrative of sexuality. That sex is so sacred and so important and actually so part of who we are.

is so sacred and so important and actually so part of who we are because it's the physical way that we understand the draw to and the celebration of covenant love. And so one way to put it is that the gospel is actually written within our sexuality. And people don't, don't know this narrative first of all, because it it's like the first time you hear it, you're like, what did she just say? Like, I got to unwrap that.

And it's hard. It's complicated. But if you look all throughout Scripture from Genesis to Revelation, you will see that most often sex is used as a metaphor of God's pursuit, his covenant love with his people, his call for them to faithfully and passionately love him. You know, in the Old Testament and New Testament, even in the language, the word that's used for sex in the Old Testament, the word yadah, is the same word that's used to describe intimate knowledge of God. So this is like something that I've been studying

for really the last five or six years and understanding more and more and more and how it changes the way you view everything related to sexuality when you get this. But part of that narrative is also understanding because sex is so powerful and so holy, it's constantly under satanic attack. And so all of us, I believe, have sexual brokenness.

You know, it doesn't matter what your story is. This beautiful metaphor that's written in our bodies has been distorted at some level in some ways for all of us. It's not just the people that are addicted to pornography or that, you know, identify as LGBTQ, you know, the purity narrative says some of us are broken and some of us are whole. The biblical narrative says all of us are broken and all of us need God to bring truth and redemption and healing into our sexuality. There's that famous quote, I think it's wrongly attributed to Chesterton, that every man who rings the bell of a brothel is searching for God. I don't know the original. It's not

Chesterton. I did some research. No, you're right. Same. Yeah, I did the same. And somebody else actually said it, but he gets the credit. And I can't remember the guy who originally said it either. But does that kind of summarize a lot of what West is doing, Christopher West, and that kind of connecting our sexuality really explicitly to our relationship with God and our longing for God. Yeah, I would say that's the highest level view, but there's so much more to it that even within our bodies, and this has been really fun for me to research as a psychologist, even within our bodies, there's evidence of our physicality, you know, like our anatomy mirroring Christ in the church sexually. You know, like, for example, you think about the male anatomy and sexuality initiates and penetrates.

The female anatomy responds and receives. And then, you know, a seed is planted, which gives life. That's the same thing that happens with Christ in the church. You know, he initiates and we respond and receive the pods of the Holy Spirit. And out of that abiding comes fruit and reproduction. And so that's just one element of it. But there's so much to this, Preston, that yes, it includes our longings, our sexual longings are really rooted in a more significant longing. But the breakdown of why gender matters, why

covenant matters, why just sleeping around ultimately isn't going to get you what you want is because this design is written in every cell of our bodies. Well, that's, you know, when I teach about marriage and same-sex sexuality and stuff, I always go back to creation in Genesis 1 and 2. And it's fascinating that, you know, God created us male and female. And then He says, in His image, He created us, or God created us in His image, in the image of God, He created us male and female. He created us. There's just an interplay between bearing God's image and our male and femaleness, our biological sex is somehow significantly connected to bearing God's image. And then in Genesis 2, you know, it all comes together in this one flesh union. themes of creation, God, bearing his image, sex, sexed embodiment, even marriage covenant coming

together, that they're all woven together in the creation narrative. So that one of the, you know, you know, people say, well, you know, they ask me, why is same sex relationships? Well, why did God say no to that? And I guess part of my response at least is because the unity within difference is woven into the fabric of creation so that you are living in line with the flow of creation or, you know, as Hauerwas says, with the grain of the universe, which is a very kind of stoic way of talking about it. But that living in line with the created order is an intrinsic good, if you will. Like that is a good within itself to be living in line with creation. And those are categories we just don't really have today.

But I mean, ancient philosophers had them. That was thing like how can we how can we live with the grain of the universe um so i don't know yeah i what you're saying resonate with i mean you're putting it in ways that i i haven't expressed in my own mind but it's very much resonates with with what i see as well yeah it's it's a lot harder to teach than just save sex until marriage yeah But, you know, the way that I talk about it is, if you're a parent, so am I. You know, when our kids hit about three, they constantly ask the question, why? And they never stop asking the question, why, even when they get older. And if you're a lazy parent, you just keep saying, because I said so. But you're never giving a reason. You're never growing and maturing. And I think traditionally, the church has always answered the question why

around sex with because the Bible says so. Like, here's the verse that says this. Let's argue about that verse instead of answering the why. And the why is critical for us to grow and develop and to understand God's heart. And also to get past asking the question, is this like, we only talk about sexual morality in the church. We need to talk about sexual maturity, that all of us are called on this journey of groaning towards, with the help of the Holy Spirit, what sex was intended to be and what it was intended to teach us about the nature of God. And so I think there's a lot of work to do that the pain in our culture is bringing up. But when we get too focused on one problem or one issue, we miss this larger picture that God is calling us all to, whether you're single or married, regardless of what your past is, regardless of what your struggles might be.

There's one of my favorite books. Oh, there it is. Jonathan Grant, Divine Sex. Have you read that one? I haven't. I'll have to get that one. It's this one. Okay, it looks good. He's a compelling vision for Christian relationships in a hyper-sexualized age. It's one of the best. In fact, as you're talking, I'm like, I want to go back and read this again. It's been probably three years. He's a pastor, I think, in New Zealand. Yeah.

But super. It's just, it captures a lot of what you're talking about, just this Christian vision for what sex is for rather than kind of like purity culture stuff or the cultural stuff. Yeah, it's super, super helpful. There's such a need in the church for people to understand this, right? I mean, when you're sharing your message, do you find people resonating or are they kind of like, man, I don't even really know what categories you're talking about? No, it's been really exciting. You know, I've had five or six years to try to learn how to communicate this in a way that people can understand and find metaphors, analogies, stories. And it's been really exciting that it's just giving people a totally different

way of thinking. And, uh, and it's changing how they view, uh, all the issues around sexuality, including their own struggles, um, including their own woundedness. It gives them a framework to it. Even how do I interact with my neighbor who disagrees with me on all these topics? So it's been really, really fun. Yeah. And just to show, to show them that, you know, at the end of the day, all ministry is bringing people to Jesus, regardless of what the topic that we start with it's how do we,

how do we bring people to God, to the heart of God? And I think sex has been used to keep people from God. And the most exciting thing is to see them actually pursue God, because now they're beginning to see his heart for this topic that, for many of them, has represented so much pain. That's great. I have a couple more questions. I want to talk about abuse. You've mentioned abuse a few times. I want to talk about that. But before, so when people say, what is the purpose of sex? I typically give kind of a threefold response. or communion or bonding maybe would be,

and procreation. How would you, and that's, you know, there's different ways of framing it. How would you respond to that? If someone says, well, what's the purpose of sex? Why did God create sex? Well, you know, I think first of all, it's like, what's the purpose of having sex or of being sexual? And that there's a big difference because if we're just talking about like pleasure, bonding and procreation, what does that say to the single Christian who is still a sexual person? And so we've got to understand that our sexuality is God's way

of reminding us that we were not created to do life alone. And sexual desire draws us, as you mentioned, to pursue a relationship. Being in a committed relationship requires a lot of sacrifice. What could possibly drive us toward wanting to sacrifice like that? Well, sexual desires are a pretty compelling force. And I'm not just saying the desire to have sex, but sexual desire is I want to share my life with somebody. I want to share my body with somebody. I want to be fully known. And so our sexuality is that larger drive. And ultimately, the purpose is to make us pursue relationship, both here on earth and metaphorically to pursue intimacy with God. So real quick, so with a single person, would you say, and I've heard Wesley Hill talk about this,

that I think he, I don't want the words in his mouth, but I think he has said, you know, he's a celibate Christian who's gay, that his sexuality drives him to even non-erotic intimacy. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. So sexuality is not just about having sex with somebody. If you look at, for example, what happens when we're sexually awakened in adolescence, we're no longer content just to be with our families.

It's like you have a drive to pursue intimacy relationship. And for girls, it's I want to make friends. I want to share my secrets with them. It's the romantic longings that they may have. Men may experience it more in their bodies just because that's how they're wired. But because of sexual drive, man's going to put down, boy's going to put down the Xbox controller and say, there's got to be more to life than this. I need a relationship. And so absolutely, the fullness of that expression here on earth is marriage and sexual intimacy. But there are other expressions of it here on earth, including as a woman, part of my sexuality is I have a desire to nurture, whether that's my own children or

nurture within the family of God. I have a desire to be a mother at some level, whether that's spiritually or physically. That's part of being sexual. I have a drive to share intimately with my friends. That's not sexualized, but it's part of my sexuality. And so I think one of the reasons we get confused is because we're only defining our sexuality as having sex. Instead of, you know, in some ways, like I don't want to freak people out by this, but when you look at David's intimacy with the Lord, how he danced before the Lord with all of his might, you know, there's a sense to which it wasn't sexual, but that's the deepest emotion and affection that he ever felt was towards the living God. And so if sex is a metaphor, there's no sex or marriage in heaven. It's a metaphor that's supposed to prepare

us for the ultimate wedding ceremony, the ultimate union. And so, you know, that's, again, a lot to chew on. But we can't have informed conversations about sexuality unless we define it as broader than just the purpose of having sex. Well, this is something, again, a lot of my celibate gay friends have helped me understand or, you know, tried to help me understand. You know, I'm still trying to get my mind around it. But when we read when they would say, you know, when when you reduce even same sex sexuality to just a desire to have sex with somebody the same sex,. It cheapens and minimizes the holistic nature of our experience. And even, and this is where some Christians, same-sex attracted Christians have

gotten, or are I think misunderstood or just not understood by some more straight conservatives when they say there are aspects of my same-sex sexuality that are good or, say, drive me to good things. So like my, you know, like even Wes Hill and others would say, my need for non-erotic same-sex intimacy, hanging out with other guys in a very intimate, deep way that's not sexual is still shaped by my same-sex sexuality. Because my same-sex sexuality isn't just about having sex. There's several minutes throughout the week when, yeah, that's what I, you know, it flares up.

But I'm always, you know, 24-7, my same-sex sexuality is part of who I am. So is that kind of what you, I mean, would you? Yeah, I would say it's not even the same-sex sexuality. It's just the fact that we're sexual people. Okay. And so I would say even within marriage, a heterosexual marriage, sex is very much cheapened in most Christian marriages. Yeah.

Because it's measured by how often did we do it? Are we compatible? Was it good sex? It's not measured by is God using our longings and even the obstacles, the things we fight about sexually to draw us into deeper intimacy, being known. And so like when I speak to married couples, I'll talk about the difference between being sexually active together and being sexually intimate. And I can't tell you how many people sexually active together and being sexually intimate. And I can't tell you how many people will come up and say,

we've been married for like 30 years, and I don't think we've ever experienced sexual intimacy. Wow. Because we've reduced sex and sexuality to the act, instead of understanding the underlying purpose behind the act. Which is due both to the cultural narrative and the purity culture. Because the purity culture adopts the cultural narrative. It just adds a footnote, wait until you're married. But it kind of takes on a lot of the underlying assumptions about what sex is in a sense. Yeah. I mean, I think we do a disservice to gay Christians, to single Christians by saying, you have to practice self-denial, but when you

get married, like self-denial goes out the window. You can have as much sex as you want, as long as it's with your spouse. Whereas a lot of sex that Christian married couples are having really is just about lust. It's not at all putting our desires under the Lordship of Christ, having it tempered by what it is to love each other and to give to each other and so in and really a healthy mature biblical marriage sex within marriage requires the same amount of self-denial as it does actually with a single person yeah all right let's the last topic i want to talk about is abuse. Why don't we start with what percentage of people have been abused, male and female?

And then I would love for you to just put your psychologist hat on and just speak to our audience who have experienced sexual abuse and what kind of counsel can you give them? Yeah. Well, we don't have accurate numbers on this because we can only go by self-report. But based on the self-reporting numbers we get, most people would estimate that one in three women have been sexually abused and one in about five or six men have been sexually abused, which is far more people than I think most of us assume. And I think that those rates are going to continue to go up in the younger generations, even though we have more conversation about it. We also are raising generations that are basically giving young people freedom to have whatever they want sexually. And there's fewer boundaries.

And so it's always been a huge problem. It's going to continue to be a huge problem. For those who have experienced sexual trauma, I think the first thing that I just want to say is that I'm so sorry. Because we talk about sexual abuse in terms of the Me Too movement or the numbers of people or percentage of people, but having walked with people who have been sexually traumatized, there are just no words to describe the impact of that and how for many of you it just cascades into years of shame and of hiding and of questions. And I think that's very true for anyone who's been sexually traumatized,

but I think even particularly for men more because we are less likely to acknowledge it or talk about it for men. It's assumed to be a woman's issue. for men. It's assumed to be a woman's issue. So the levels of shame and damage that are done in sexual abuse, like you're probably familiar with Dr. Dan Allender, who has done so much research on this. And he says that the return on investment for evil is greater with sexual abuse than anything else in the world. In other words, if the devil wants to destroy something with the least amount of effort, he'll use sexual abuse. Because in the span of 30 seconds, a person's life and just understanding of safety and even the trust in their own bodies is undone. And that can yield the impact for years to come. And so I also want to say in

light of that, that with Dan's work and so many other people's work, healing is possible and redemption is possible. So don't hear me say this like it's a life sentence. I truly believe that this like it's a life sentence you know i truly believe that god can redeem anything nothing is too great for him to heal and i've known women who have been uh sexually abused since the time they were babies and trafficked and i've gotten to see um the lord's healing power in their lives babies that's i mean gosh yeah that's that's i yeah um i i that's not part of my story or my wife's story or um i've got several friends that that's part of their story and so it's it's it's a journey for me to even wrap my mind around that i mean i i don't have a category for what it is to even experience it let alone be on the perpetrator side. Like I just don't, even that, that's a whole nother conversation.

Like what would drive somebody to do, to violate somebody in that way? Is it true that like those who have been hurt end up hurting? Like, like most people who are abusers have been abused. Is that, is that true? And what's the psychology behind that? I mean, Well, there's lots of it. And, you know, I think, first of all, your sexuality has been awakened at a young age. We actually have on our job with Julie's show a few months ago, I interviewed somebody who was a sex offender. And he describes in detail, like how he was abused as a child, he didn't know what to do with those feelings and thoughts.

His sexuality is awakened. And so as a teenager, he starts acting out on younger boys. And then the shame cycle continues. Like he can't tell anyone. He can't get help. You know, he actually spent six years in prison. But yeah, very much the case and not just typical of what we think about, like that kind of story, but also a lot of the women that I've worked with that have pretty severe sexual trauma at some point in their healing will say, I've acted out on other people, like as a teenager, as a young adult, and they have to deal with just how do I carry that shame? And so it's profound. But I would say, you know, I don't know the research to it,

but I would say a very, very high percentage, if not all, sex offenders were once themselves the victims, which I think is important to give us empathy that when you're talking about a sex offender, you're also probably talking about a man or a woman who themselves have been pretty traumatically victimized. So you're saying sex offenders, obviously we always think of just a man and I'm sure it's a much, much higher percentage. Are you saying though that there are women who have been abused who end up abusing others? Yeah.

And part of the reason we always say man is because we define sexual abuse as a rape or, you know, incest or things that involve penetration. experts in the field will very much more broadly identify sexual abuse as being sexualized in some way by somebody older with authority in a coercive way. So a female might sexually abuse somebody, a child or an adolescent, by being more enticing, by making comments, by touching, whereas we might not automatically say that sexual abuse, it is sexual abuse. And so it's more subtle. It's awakening somebody else's sexuality. Right. And so what's, how to, well, I guess you kind of addressed it, but I mean, how does somebody

heal from that? I mean, that profound shame and just the, how that affects your sexuality. Is it, if somebody has been a victim of abuses, are they likely to carry that with them? I mean, for their life, like to not really fully move beyond that or? Yeah. Well, you know, first of all, I'm going to say that all of us have baggage that we, we deal with. And so I don't want the person who's been sexually abused to like to add on and say, well, you'll never be whole. As I said earlier, we all have brokenness, even from the purity narrative that we've worked through.

But if you have been sexually abused, I think you need to recognize that there needs to be spiritual healing as well as emotional or psychological healing, that we understand more and more about the impact of sexual trauma on the body, like even body memories, flashbacks. For a lot of people, they really don't remember their sexual abuse or start to deal with it until they hit like the 30s or 40s. Sometimes it's when your own children reach the age that you were when you were abused. It's like the flashbacks are more powerful. There's more of this urge to walk through

those memories now. And there's a real need to do that. And so I would encourage you to find a Christian counselor who is trauma-informed, who understands what it is to heal from trauma, but also to recognize that this is, you know, sexuality is a spiritual battleground and Satan plants lies in our hearts during episodes like sexual abuse. And a lot of the work is actually recognizing those lies, like the lie that I'll never be whole again. I'm always going to be dirty.

A man will only love me if I give him sex. Like those kind of lies, that's part of your healing too, of really pursuing the truth of who Jesus is and him speaking truth into those places. Julie, this has been so incredibly helpful. Again, your book is Rethinking Sexuality, God's Design and Why It Matters. I would highly encourage people to check it out. I have it here in front of me, and I'm skimming the pages and the table of contents, and it's just, yeah, it unpacks, I think, a lot of what we've been talking about. So thanks so much for what you do.

There's not a lot of us in this field, so I feel just kind of a camaraderie. It's good to know that somebody else is dealing in similar areas. So thanks so much for the work that you do, for your writing, your speaking. And thanks for being on the show. Well, you too. I'm praying for you and cheering for you because the workers are few and the harvest is great. Thank you so much. Thanks for being on the show.

Take care.