Theology in the Raw - 857: Understanding Female Sexuality and the Rise in Teen Girls Identifying as Bisexual: Lindsey Snyder

Episode Date: April 12, 2021

In this podcat episode, Preston and Lindsey talk about the beautiful complexity of female sexualtiiy and why so many teen girls today identify as bisexual (as opposed to lesbian or striaght). Lindsey is a a gay Christian woman committed to the historical biblical sexual ethic and is passionate about teaching the Church how to love and disciple LGBT+ people well. She is thrilled to get the opportunity to write content for EQUIP ministries, specifically for and about gay women. Lindsey graduated from Taylor University in 2014 with a BA in Film and Media Production. She is currently working towards a Master's in Social Work. Her goal is to become a counselor and journey with others like her who are navigating the tension between their Christian faith and sexuality. Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Venmo: @Preston-Sprinkle-1 Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Youtube | Preston Sprinkle Check out his website prestonsprinkle.com If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review.

Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. My name is Preston Sprinkle, and my guest for today's show is Lindsay Snyder. Lindsay Snyder works for Equip Ministries. She is the content creator and donor relations officer. She has a degree from Taylor University. She graduated in 2014 with a BA in film and media production. She's currently working towards a master's in social work, and her goal is to become a counselor Taylor University. She graduated in 2014 with a BA in film and media production. She's currently working towards a master's in social work, and her goal is to become a counselor and journey with others like her who are navigating the tension between the Christian faith and sexuality. I came across Lindsay's work because she wrote a series of blogs for Equip Ministries. So equipyourcommunity.org is the website or the URL you can go to, to find

this blog series. And I'm friends with Peter Valk, who was on the show recently, who runs Equip. And Lindsay wrote a series of blogs on female sexuality for Equip Ministries, and they were so good. They were so incredibly good. There's like four or five blogs that she has over the last year, and it talks about the uniqueness, the complexity of female sexuality, both from her own lived experience as somebody who is attracted to the same sex, and also from the perspective of somebody who's really smart and well-read and has done a lot of research on this topic as well. And that's the focus of our time together is talking about the uniqueness, the complexity, and the beauty of female sexuality. And we do get into a topic that I've been wanting to talk about on the show for a

while. And yet it's a topic that for various reasons, I feel a little nervous, just kind of waxing eloquent from my own straight maleness. And that is the topic of the rise in teenage females identifying not as lesbian, but as bisexual or pansexual. We get into that probably the latter half of the show. Talk about why younger females are more likely to identify as bisexual than lesbian or even sometimes straight. I mean, I feel like sometimes the bisexual identity is almost more common than a straight identity among some context among teenage females. If you would like to support the show, you can go to patreon.com forward slash theology in raw support show for as little as five bucks a month, become part of the theology in the raw community and get access to premium content and other goodies that come along with it. Also, this is both a YouTube and an audio podcast. So if you're watching on YouTube, hi, you can see my absolutely hideous monstrosity of a basement that I record in.

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have appreciated on your social media accounts. Okay, let's have a very fascinating and interesting conversation about female sexuality with Lindsay Snyder. Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. My name is Preston. I'm here with a, I mean, I almost said friend, but we've been looking at each other for about two minutes and that's the extent of our face-to-face-ish relationship. But I've known about Lindsay for, I've known about Lindsay for at least over a year and we almost spoke at an event, well, we almost did an event together that got canceled due to COVID. Anyway, Lindsay, so good to have you on Theology in a Raw. Thank you. Thank you. I'm really excited to be here and just share my story and some of my

experiences. Cool. Why don't we start there? Why don't you just give, most people probably haven't heard of your name unless we're getting some people from your ministry. But yeah, tell us your story and we'll go from there. Yeah, always interesting to figure out where to start and how to condense things. But there's always or you often hear, I always felt a little different. And that is the same for me growing up and didn't know what it was. for me, um, growing up and didn't know what it was. Uh, thought all of, um, my friends were just boy crazy and I was the normal one of course. Um, but, uh, yeah, so I remember like going to sleepovers and, uh, friends would be like, oh yeah, I'm looking for this quality in in a guy when i get married and this this quality and i really am attracted to uh guy's eyes or whatever whatever and um i would be like

they'd be like um and what about you like what what qualities are you looking for? And I'd be like, um, all the things you just said, I don't know. Like, yeah. So I was very confused. Um, growing up, uh, I found at 14, around 14, I was attracted to a girl in my youth group. Um, and that was super confusing. I had not heard pretty much anything about sexuality. I had no education around that topic, whether from my parents or my church, really. And so everything was foreign to me. I was very naive and very scared. So I actually told my parents, um, surprisingly, like right at first, and they were like, Oh, it's just a phase. Um, they meant well, of course, I don't want to throw my parents under the bus. Um, but, uh, yeah, they just were like, Oh, it's probably just another of your worries, your anxieties, paranoia. it'll be fine. So I took that on,

um, and really latched onto that for the next 10 years. Um, and I honestly, looking back, don't know how I suppressed it for that long. Um, Lindsay, really quick. Can you give us your, do you mind giving us your age just so we have kind of a general timeframe context here? you might give it to your age just so we have kind of a general timeframe context. Yeah. Yeah. I'm 28. So when I was 14 was when I first really noticed,

uh, attraction to girls. Um, and then 10 years later I kind of came out to myself finally. Um, but yeah, going through high school, college,

I like things would, attractions would come up of course, but I would be like, nope, that's gonna go right in that little box that I have in my head and I'm never gonna look at it and hope it'll just go away eventually. Yeah, they're just fear and shame, of course, is just they're powerful motivators, not good ones, but they're powerful. Um, so I think that's how it was just suppressed for so long. And you were raised in a Christian home or like in the church? I was, yes, yes. Um, I grew up with, my parents actually started the church that I like grew up in or it helped start um so it almost felt like I was a pastor's kid yeah um in Nashville or in East Tennessee Morristown I don't know if you've heard of that I was just in I was just in uh Chattanooga Chattanooga Cleveland Tennessee is that close okay that's kind of that's more

south tennessee i guess yeah not quite there but near knoxville okay okay cool yeah so you came out at uh so that you were 24 when you came out to yourself even though you had these desires you're wrestling with stuff did you ever like date guys or date girls during that time or were you a non-dater for 10 years yeah it was very strange um i i would kind of take on around my friends this uh this persona of being like the awkward one um around anything to do with sexuality or dating or anything um I just kind of found a place for myself in be this is gonna sound weird but like being laughed at like um yeah but of course sometimes that would go like too far and I would be like, ouch, that hurt. But I didn't know why exactly.

But yeah, I didn't end up dating. Oh, I went on one date. Sorry. I went on one date with a guy in college and then I was like, no, no. But there was like a desire to date, but it was almost like by suppressing my attraction to women, I was suppressing my sexuality entirely. I just didn't want to look at it at all. Okay. And did you – so if you could reflect back on those, I guess, the 10 years from 14 to 24, and I don't want to go like all Kinsey scale or whatever, but you would say you were not at all attracted to guys, totally 100% was, I guess, a relief to me. Um,

it felt like, oh, maybe I'm getting to be more normal. Um, but then when I, when I finally came out to myself, uh, it was like, I'm sure you've heard of like, it just feels like you're going through puberty all of a sudden. Um, for like, I hadn't, I had suppressed that part of me for so long that it just felt, uh, like everything exploded and I was attracted to like every woman, not really every woman but it was very intense and very um kind of overwhelming and my attraction really shifted towards mostly women until i started dating a guy later on, um, when I was 26. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So what's the last, uh, so the last four years from the time you came out 24 to now you're 28, uh, what's, what are those four years and then wrestling with her, I'm sure your faith and what does this mean for my life and future and my walk with Jesus and all that. So what did those four years look like? Those were, or the first couple of years, especially,

um, were very tumultuous. Um, I couldn't, I didn't really know how to express my emotions at all regarding my attractions, but the only way I could think of was to write and so I I wrote a story um I don't know if you're familiar with the movie Inside Out no okay okay it's a animated Pixar movie and it's basically um about these emotions that are inside someone's head and they have like these uh conversations and they go on this adventure I it sounds really weird to put it that way but I kind of took that concept and applied it to my own life and same-sex like my same-sex attraction or gayness became a character um my anxiety was a character anger anger, depression, different things.

And I wrote this story that ended up being like 50 pages long, um, of just me. I was a character in the story as well. Me interacting with these different parts of myself. Um, and I would bring that into my therapist and we would just, I would just read it out loud to her what I'd written. Um, and that was very healing for me in terms of emotionally being able to process. And then I had to figure out all the theological stuff. And at that point, I really needed to do like a theological deep dive. So I did that because my faith is important to me. And I really needed to know what God thought about this and how I could act. Um, and you know, I thought initially that I knew what the conclusion would be, but I was like, I'm just going to try to be objective about this and, um, hope for the best. Uh, and my hope of course was that I would find that God would bless same-sex relationships, same-sex marriages. That is not what I found. But I went through all the books and all the articles and podcasts uh just searching and searching and

searching i was like i just gotta find one thing that'll make me believe that god's okay with it but i real quick that that that is fascinating i mean yeah you were unless somebody questions the genuineness of what you're saying it can't be like, like you were not wanting to see this. You were really wanting to, like you had lenses on that prevented you from seeing the full light of God's expansive vision for same-sex relationships. Have you wondered why you approaching the scriptures wanting to see something did not see it there, whereas somebody else is approaching the scriptures wanting to see something, did not see it there. Whereas somebody else is approaching the scriptures and sees it a different way. I mean,

I guess there's, there's no answer to that. It's just, I'm, I'm fascinated just almost from a psychological perspective on why do some people become convinced of a same sex sexual ethic, a more progressive sexual ethic. And some don't,

you know it can't just be the overwhelming persuasiveness of you know the arguments for you know same-sex marriage um right i don't know right yeah that is a really good and tough question um i could could you like condense that question yeah i don't i don't i'm just yeah yeah i'm just kind of maybe responding um well i guess let me ask like why why weren't you convinced of a same an affirming view a same-sex marital relationship in scripture. Um, of course the cultural context, there were those arguments, um, regarding that, that, that such a thing would not exist. But, um, I ultimately, it was the metaphor of Christ and the church that really solidified probably the theological piece for me um and that was there's something about god and how he relates to us that is about

unity and difference not unity and sameness And there can be differences between people of the same gender, sex. Um, but God also in scripture takes this very, um, he has a very high view of our bodies too um and some of that is a mystery to me uh like i don't know why it's so important but um but yeah the whole the one flesh union and the uh unity indifference and how that's an essential element of who God says he is in relation to us was probably the the clincher for me and I I really didn't like that because I was like I'm doing all this for a metaphor really like? Like, God, can't you just change the metaphor a little bit? Is that really a big deal? But yeah, I'm a very poetic and romantic person,

and so I guess that argument would not work for everyone but um metaphorically like metaphors are very powerful and important to me because they help me make sense of things um and while that metaphor still doesn't make complete sense i knew it was important um and and if we're talking about the nature of god and his relationship to us like that is what we are imaging and like i didn't want to live out the the like a different movie trailer for the movie that we're going to experience in heaven. Um, so. Yeah, I know. That's helpful. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, yeah, I, I, I didn't prepare you for, uh, make sure you come with your theological defense. It just, it's, it's, um, I'm always curious when, cause somebody, you know, the fact that I hold

to a traditional sexual ethic, even though I know my own journey and I know that I held both views with a very open hand and was willing to go with whichever one I found to be most compelling. And I've done that with several other theological positions and changed my view and lost some tribal identities, you know, in certain groups. And I just don't care. Like, I don't – that doesn't drive me to make sure I secure my tribal identity. So I know I approached it with as fair of a perspective as I could have, you know, and we all still have biases and stuff.

But somebody still could say, yeah, you're a straight male and married, all this stuff. You're where you come from, you know, and we all still have biases and stuff, but, but somebody still could say, yeah, you're a straight male and married, all this stuff you're going to come from, you know? Um, so my, my, um, unbiasedness, you know, whatever, um, isn't really convincing for people, but when you come at it and say, I wanted to see this and I have grounds to want to see it. Um, it still didn't. That's, that's always, um, fascinating. And it's just one little footnote, I guess. What's interesting, you brought up the cultural context. Like same-sex marriage wasn't a possibility, so that's why it wasn't even on the table.

That's actually not totally accurate. Yeah, yeah. Well, especially with women. Oftentimes the argument is very male-centered, which is ironic because people that are typically otherwise progressive are relying on a very patriarchal male-centered piece of evidence. They look at all the male same-sex relationships in and around the first century. And most of them are – not all, but a lot of them have these power differentials. But when it comes to female same-sex relationships in the ancient world, we have examples of all kinds of consensual, even marriage-like relationships, both from archaeology and literary evidence and stuff. So yeah, so I don't think that,

I think understanding the cultural context is important, but I think it's often overplayed as people employ that argument. But that's not why we're here, Lindsay. I want to dive into, okay, so you're on the other side of your theological journey. And so what would the next, I guess, the last two years, so that was your first two years, 24 to 26. I'm a numbers guy, so I got to... No, that's great. You fell into this kind of, it sounds like a reluctant, yet clear okay I I feel confident this is God what God desires for me and doesn't desire for me so what are the next two years the last two years of your life

kind of look like in that part of your journey yeah well I was very angry and very very bitter and was like God why did you even bring me on this journey if this is the result like if I can't yeah um it just felt pointless um to find this so-called missing puzzle piece of myself and then it felt like I I had to just hold it instead of putting it in the puzzle forever for the rest of my life um and so it was like wow god you just gave me a bunch of pain to hold when I could have just suppressed it. But of course, suppression was not a permanent solution and would not have been helpful. I can still have times of bitterness and just maladaptive ways of coping.

And yeah, just these things would happen that wouldn't make sense. things would happen that wouldn't make sense um like I think like there was I'll give one example there was one time where I was just doing a really poor job at work because I was just focused on on this coming out journey and I was yeah going to maladaptive coping stuff and I was just doing a really poor job for a long time um and on a particularly terrible day um I got I found out that I got a raise and I was like, wait, this makes no sense whatsoever. And, um, I think somehow God reminded me through that, that he's not like a punitive God in that he, he doesn't love us or give us good things based on our actions all the time. Um, us good things based on our actions all the time, um, and our obedience to him, but that he loves to give good gifts to his children. Um, and it sometimes is not based at all on what we do or

don't do. Um, and I don't know, just things like that, uh, that really showed God's kindness in ways that didn't make sense. So I guess I had the sexuality metaphor piece that didn't make sense that I was angry about. that I was angry about, but there was also this, um, God's kindness on the other end of the spectrum that also didn't make sense, but was true. So I don't know. There was this, this sense of things cannot make sense, but be true at the same time. And so where are you at now? Catch us up to the last couple of weeks or month of, uh, Lindsay's life. Yeah. How are you doing? Um, yeah.

Well, I do want to mention that I did have a few, um, experiences with dating guys, uh, through the past several years. Um, at first I, I was like, Oh, well, I guess I might as well try a dating guy and see what happens um and I didn't expect anything to happen but to my surprise I I was not initially physically attracted to my ex-boyfriend but then I was which was also a super confusing experience for me because I was like, wait, I thought I was gay. Like, why? How? Am I forcing this? But I wasn't. And so then I just felt like a fraud kind of. So there's that whole piece.

and then my second experience with dating was with a well I don't want to get too much into other people's stories but I don't want you to blow confidentiality if you're trying to protect somebody

not at all that's what I was thinking let's not go there Um, I don't want you to blow confidentiality if you're trying to protect somebody. No, not at all. Not at all. No. Yeah. That's what, that's why I was thinking like, yeah, let's not go there. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah.

Yeah. Um, so that, I guess that's a good segue into what I really want to talk to you about. Uh, not, not, that sounds so bad. I don't care about your story. I just want, um, but your story is so intertwined with this topic of female sexuality, the complexity of female sexuality, the uniqueness. And to quote a phrase that psychologists often, even having an interest in female sexuality and the flexibility of it compared to typical male sexuality, you know, that, you know, I'll never forget. I was taking my kids to, um, some sporting, I think they were rock climbing

or something. And I was sitting there, um, you know, reading a book and I was reading, um, you know reading a book and i was reading um um sexual fluidity understanding a woman's love and desire by lisa diamond and it has this kind of picture of this woman on the front a little bit like sensual and i'm reading this book and i'm getting this that's it that's it it is such a profound book um and i'm reading this and getting strange looks, you know. I'm like, no, really, I'm not that guy. I'm another that guy, you know, who you wouldn't understand anyway. Right, another that guy. I was blown away.

For those who aren't familiar with this book, Lisa Diamond is a lesbian psychologist who specializes in female sexual orientation. And this study is a result of a 10-year following of 100 women. I think all of them at the beginning identified as non-straight. Some were like, I mean, whatever. They weren't straight. And all throughout those 10 years, to her dismay almost, like I think, don't quote me on this, but it was something like only 3% of them had the same identity because she'd check in every two years and say,

all right. And how were they identified at the beginning? Only like 3% had the same identity 10 years later. And a lot of them that had non-straight kind of attractions, whether it was bisexual or same-sex, those flexed and were fluid. And exactly what you said, to your surprise. I wasn't trying to do this. It's just something happened. Like I met a guy who wasn't a jerk or just a different kind of guy or whatever.

Like I didn't want to like – all of a sudden I felt kind of attracted maybe on an emotional level to a guy. And then maybe that led to more physical or sexual, maybe not, but there was just, there was shifts and changes. Did you, okay. So I'll let this say, kind of set it up for the audience. I mean, so that, and then I find out that that's fairly, um, like her work's very widely accepted and there's, she's not the only one saying this. When you read that book, did that – does that resonate with you? Because I just – for me, it's like I'm looking at it from a distance. I want to know like how did you react.

Right. So I'm actually just now – I should have read this a long time ago, but I'm just now reading it. Oh, OK. Yeah. So but I did come across like this particular paragraph that I was like, huh, this. Yeah, this sounds like me, where it says that for women with non-exclusive attractions, fixed identities may never completely succeed in representing the complicated situation specific and sometimes relationship specific nature of their sexual self concepts. and sometimes relationship specific nature of their sexual self-concepts perhaps for these women adopting a flexible changeable identity is the most mature adaptive way of understanding their sexuality um in such cases even a bisexual identity may not capture the complexity of their desires and i was like huh yeah that makes a lot of sense to me. Um, and is uncomfortable because I'm like, it should be that my sexual orientation should be fixed. And I don't know, there's something in me that is like, um, otherwise I'm a fraud or otherwise I am just kidding myself. And so that's the feeling that arises within me. But in actuality, that is more what it's like, what I just read.

Well, that feeling of a fraud that only, again, kind of thinking out loud here, but that is only the case if you come at this with a prior assumption kind of handed to us from culture that you are either gay or straight and if you're gay that's just a monolithic kind of thing and if you're straight that's and yeah there's some that are bisexual that are both but even that sometimes i think i understand that bisexuality doesn't appreciate even the flexibility or fluidity there right Right, right. And so I could imagine. And then there is this push to have an identity. Who are you? Which sexual category do you fit into?

You must fit into one. Find it. Discover who you are. And I think that whole. Even in order. Yeah. Even in order to belong. Yeah.

Right. And identity is a key. It's a key to open the door to belong. Yeah. Right. And identity is a key. It's a key to open the door to belong to a certain community. And that's just, I just, in my growing understanding, sexuality is just way more complicated. And I hesitate saying flexible, but I'm going to say it. I mean, Dan, I think we appreciate. And I know half the audience right now is in the back of their mind. They're thinking, okay, so is conversion therapy,

is that where you guys are going? Is this a resurrection of ex-gay? And she addresses this and she says the massive difference is everything I'm talking about happens unintentionally through environmental shifts and changes in relationships. This is not you even trying to change your sexuality or somebody else even more so trying to change it right it's it's just the natural flow and rhythm and complexity of life is that how you understand the difference maybe there because i don't yeah for sure yeah like if i was trying to force myself

or if someone else tried to force me that that would have zero effect. I am positive on my sexual orientation. Um, because yeah, uh, even with the example of my ex, just, it was so shocking to me, um, that I developed attraction. that I developed attraction. Yeah, it was very much an organic thing. Why is it that... Well, let me say, it seems like most women I meet, and this is anecdotally, I'm sure there's studies on this, but I would say most, in my experience, more than 50% of women I meet that are same sex attracted on some level

have had some kind of like bad experience with men, bad, you know, maybe it's been an abusive situation. Maybe it's just been a jerk of men in their life. Maybe they, I don't know. Like I, that, that's been my, has that been your majority? Like in your, in your talk to other women, I guess. And then I would love to hear your thoughts on that if you feel like you've had a negative view of men in your past that might have played some i don't want to say played some role i'm not gonna make that

connection yet i just it's an interesting observation um yeah um i would i would say it's kind of mixed. I know a lot of gay women, bisexual women, queer women who have had really bad experiences with men. Some very traumatic. Others just a bunch of negative interactions. But then I know some others who have not necessarily had that, um, and have had good experiences with men in their life and have developed really solid friendships. Um, and so I, I, I wouldn't see that as like a rule, but maybe as prop, like a more often than not. Yeah. Maybe. And I want to be so careful and just to be, hopefully this is clear. I'm not suggesting that every person who's same-sex attracted, it's connected to some environmental thing.

I mean, I feel like I've said that so many times in writing in public that I shouldn't say it again. But if someone's listening for the first time, I am not at all saying that. Because I know a lot of straight people that have had really negative interactions with the opposite sex and are still straight. So you can't draw a correlation. I just wonder, in some cases, well um i i just wonder in some cases well certainly it's true in some you have to say in some cases right there has been um you know when somebody meets somebody of the opposite sex that is very different and embodies more of a christ-like kind of posture that that would be that it would be more likely for them to cultivate

a kind of attraction to that person than not if they've had negative experiences. Yeah. And for me personally, I did not necessarily have tons of negative experiences with guys before dating guys. I would say after dating guys I did so I I'm kind of I'm kind of working through now I'm working through this weird like new bitterness I have towards guys um yeah it's it's strange but um but yeah so it definitely wasn't the case for me that I was influenced by that initially. I might be influenced a little bit by it now, to be honest. But yeah. now and here's here's here's a question i've been wanting to ask somebody and it's the main one of the main reasons why i want to have you on because i i read your stuff i think you have such a

help helpful and healthy and thoughtful perspective on this um my question is this why does it seem and i think it's even been justified by the statistics now why does it Why is it that there has been I would say a fairly strong increase among teenage females identifying as not lesbian, not straight, but bisexual or some might even say pansexual. I don't know if people who identify as pan

would be able to identify the difference necessarily because that deals with like theological anthropology and a view of human nature that most teenagers haven't, you haven't read Foucault. First of all, am I right to say, man, it seems like there's a lot, compared to five, ten years ago, a lot more teenage females identifying as bi or pan than ever before, and why is that?

identifying as bi or pan than ever before and why is that um yeah yeah i think that is true um in my experience i didn't know anyone who was bi or like in high school um yeah there was just a rare thing to hear about anyone being any woman being bi um but now like i work so i work with an organization equip and we do hear quite often parents um bring up that their uh daughters are experiencing um and identifying as bisexual and, that's just been a really common experience lately. And so, um, why that is, I think one reason is that it's just becoming and more even admirable to be open about your sexuality and to be who you are, be, yeah, to not hide that. And I think, yeah, it's just less scary to come out as bi. Um, I think another reason does have to do with the sexual fluidity piece, um, that,

Yeah, that it's just female sexuality is so to find a term that can kind of try to encompass all of those experiences. Yeah. Can you unpack the complexity like when you say it's complex um yeah help us understand that so i i don't want to make blanket statements but um i in in general what I see anyway, is that often, um, like if we compare, uh, male sexuality and female sexuality, for instance, like male sexuality is typically, I would say driven primarily by physical attraction. Um, I did a lot of research for one of my posts on this. Um, and yeah, for women, uh, determining sexual orientation feels very different. Um, so generally it's much more nuanced and more holistic even initially so like an initial attraction is likely not to be just a physical one but also emotional or social or it's just there's more factors um in play and

so in that sense it is more complicated um i think uh and then there's a sense of a sense of men have this strong, what is called like a category specific sexual arousal pattern, which is very clear to that, that they're aroused by either one, one sex or the other sex and it's there's just a clear differential um but yeah there's there's been studies that show that even most straight women are equally sexually aroused by both men and women so it's just like there's a lot of science even behind the fluidity piece and the arousal and attraction that is super complicated. I don't know if that answers your question. I love that you're talking about male sexuality. I'm talking about female that answers your question. It's so funny. I love that you're talking about male sexuality. I'm talking about female sexuality.

I know. Is this the sunrise? This is what I'm reading in the studies. But that's – no, I think it's great. No, I think when you describe male sexuality, again, I like that you said typically. When we say male sexuality, female sexuality, we're talking about generalities. But it does seem to be a pretty i don't know the percentages but when we say generally speaking men are this way that

might be you know 80 90 percent or something don't quote me on the percentages but it's it's it's a lot when women same thing when it comes to sexuality with other things i think there's less extreme kind of commonalities. But yeah, so when I read the studies, and I'm married to my wife, I have three teenage daughters, I have a ministry that I interact with people on this a lot. So yeah, this is my full-time job

to have these kind of, to try to understand. And from what I understand, when I try to understand female sexuality, the lines between romantic, sexual, emotional, intimate attraction, or even admiration, or even jealousy, like those lines are really fuzzy. So if I look at a dude with his shirt off, and he's super chiseled, he's just in shape, good looking dude, you know, just jawline. He's a couple of tats, you know, like I'm like, dude, that dude is ripped, you know,

but that it's, it's a, it's a, there's a clear line dividing between kind of admiration, maybe even some jealousy and, oh dude, I find this guy sexually attractive to me from what i've heard that those lines with women are a little blurry you know every woman is gonna most women are gonna be able to very much admire the physical beauty or even personality of another woman and being able to separate that admiration maybe jealousy maybe even man, what would it be like to have boobs like that? Or like, man, her legs or look at her butt, you know? And like the line between what I would do maybe to another man in admiration and what a woman recognizes, I think is a little fuzzier or like, or even emotional. And again, I want to stop in just

30 seconds because I don't want to speak beyond. I don't want to get over my skis here. Or even if you have like a deep, intimate, emotional bonding with another woman. Maybe you're hugging. You're holding hands. Maybe it's the other person sharing a real hard time. They're crying. And then you just feel this deep sense of like, man, this is deeply intimate and I'm bonding with this other person.

The line between that and a sexual desire, it can be a lot blurry too. Am I describing that in a way that maybe resonates? Yeah, especially your second point with the emotional and romantic sexual, the lines being blurred between like being envious or jealous of a person's appearance versus, um, being attracted to them, like wanting to be with them. I, I think that's less less my experience um okay but I have definitely heard from other people that they do get confused in regards to that sometimes um like am I really attracted like want to be with this person physically sexually or am I just i want to be them um yeah like yeah so i've definitely heard that before um it has not been my experience um but but the second one definitely resonates with me. The emotional, the line between having emotional intimacy versus a sexual desire.

Okay. Yeah. And I think there's, there's a natural, like our culture is more accepting of women being affectionate with each other in really public ways and in deeper ways than it is culturally acceptable for men, which I think is ridiculous, but, um, yeah, but, uh, I think, um, I don't know. I want to be careful about this conversation too, because the thing I would never want any parent to do is to forbid like their daughters to

have friendships like deep friendships with other girls um because I think that's often a tendency when when they hear like oh no the lines lines can be blurred so much that this could happen. There's a tendency for parents to be like, oh no, we got to step back and we got to monitor our daughters, make sure they're not getting into too much physical contact. I don't know. How do you balance that though? Because I 100% agree that would be a yeah, I a hundred percent. I agree. That would be a terrible,

like to start cutting off friendships or whatever. At the same time, if you do have a kid that is, I don't know, in a very, maybe progressive culture at school and where, you know, 20% of the girls might be,

you know, a bisexual, pansexual or exploring or whatever. And, and your daughter might, is in that environment and, and they're going to be influenced by that. And they have a have a sleepover with a bunch of girls and it's like you know 20 years ago you were like oh cool you know and now it's like well i should be maybe as cautious

about a sleepover with a bunch of girls i would my daughter going to sleep over with a bunch of guys maybe not as much but like um yeah i mean anything can kind of happen and again i don't want to like i'm a parent so i get the balance you know but like i don't know you overly guard your kids that's destructive you throw them out into the sea of culture in 2021 and that's also can be irresponsible so i don't know how you parents do it i uh i i don't know it's just the balance is so tricky right yeah yeah i i don't yeah we we're not doing it we're literally just shooting from the hip i mean we us early on we made a policy as parents no sleepovers period it's just not um we're we're, we're, we're weirdly like conservative in some ways and very progressive in some ways with our parenting. So like,

like two of my four kids have tattoos and they're under 18. We watch crazy movies, you know, my oldest daughter has gauges and, and you know, and we home, but we homeschool our kids and my kids aren't allowed to have social media my teenage daughters don't have any social media so it's like we have these weird kind of blend of like puritanical stuff but then we'll be blaring acdc you know and dancing and stuff so i i don't know like i i i wanna and we don't have sleepovers and and we are we are very involved in friendships.

We want to cultivate healthy friendships with our kids. And if it's not, if it's an unhealthy friendship, which let's just be honest, the majority of teenagers in this day and age are not pushing each other towards Jesus, you know. And so we hang out with a lot of adults too. Like our kids get along really well with 20 something year olds or even 50 year olds. Sometimes they don't resonate with 15 or 16 year olds because they're not on social media. So when they're hanging out and the other person just staring at their phone, they're like,

cool. Can I go? You know, obviously I don't need to be here. Such different interests, such a different culture that even they're growing up in really it sounds like it's weird it's it's yeah it's it's um parenting in this gen z parenting is is is a challenge yeah anyway um how would you speak to a parent right now i I imagine there's several dozen, maybe even hundreds of parents listening

who might have a teenager who did come out as a bisexual, pansexual, probably coupled with maybe non-binary or genderqueer. Um, cause I know the gender cat with teenagers, the gender and sexual categories are often blurred. Um, very few lesbians. There's a lot of blur. A lot of blur. I don't probably very few have a 15 year old that came out as a lesbian. That's kind of an old woman thing in this day and age. Seems like, how would you counsel the parent whose kid recently came out as bisexual, pansexual? Yeah. Um, so I think first of all, again, I don't want to make blanket statements, but, um, because each person is an individual who has different experiences will respond in different ways. even before you find out that your child is identifying as bisexual, before all of that happens, it's so much better to be proactive than reactive. And so just teaching from an early age, like about sexuality and in ways that are full of grace and truth equally, which of course is a

balance that is hard for everyone. Um, but not shying away from those conversations, um, in age appropriate ways, I think is just super helpful. Um, and I don't see it often. So it's like, I imagine it would be super helpful, but I don't really, I haven't really seen it. Um, but sadly, but, um, yeah, Yeah, just fostering a love and a love for God and a desire to follow him even when it's really hard. And to even be open about some of your own things that you have had to sacrifice and how hard it is. And like just fostering more of a open communication around those topics from an early age. But once, if you feel like that hasn't happened, I think it gets a lot harder, but it's not, like, impossible to communicate with your child about these things. I. I can see that it like someone, a parent may be tempted to help their daughter like.

Come back to the conclusion that they're straight, that they that they're just in a phase that they're just confused. Um, that's not a good approach to take or say. Not at all. Not at all. Um, but, uh, even if I just add that this is theology in a raw, so I do stuff that's kind of uncut and I should probably maybe regret it later, but like, let me just say it, even if they are confused and even if they will be married to two kids in 10 years, like don't, don't, don't,

don't assume that and don't react according to that possibility. And think, yeah. And think about like, what are you communicating to your daughter by framing it in that way? Is it the hope of heterosexual marriage? You're putting a lot of hope in heterosexual marriage at that point. So good, yeah. And yeah, what if your daughter actually is gay or bisexual?

Maybe actually think about that and, and how doubting and pushing away those sexual identity questions could end up like destroying trust in the relationship. So, um, yeah, so definitely not, the answer is not, um, pushing your child towards straightness or saying straightness, your child towards straightness or saying straightness, I guess, um, or saying it's just a phase. Um, cause it, it feels invalidating for sure. Yeah, totally. Have you, have you seen parents, you know, obviously don't need names or anything, but have you seen parents do that approach and it typically results very negatively? Oh yeah. It backfires too. And they've had to deal with the fallout of that um and it's very hard once you've broken trust to rebuild it it's not impossible but it's just yeah break it in the first place if you can um yeah and then Yeah. And then I think sometimes pastors or parents can like even maybe doubt the confusion that they're that girls are experiencing. Like, well, don't you know if you're attracted to guys exclusively or girls exclusively?

Like, shouldn't it be clear? Like, there's a lack of understanding, again, about what female sexuality is like and how it is confusing um and it's okay if your daughter is expressed is expressing confusion it's okay if they're not expressing confusion and they think they know and they might know that they are bisexual lesbian um i guess not usually lesbian in this age, but yeah, that confusion is a normal experience. Right. Do you think it would be helpful to – I'm just going to create an imaginary scenario that I know for some of my audience is not too imaginary, but your 15 year old daughter comes out as comes home and says, mom,

dad, I'm bisexual. Um, and then the parent receives them with love and care. Thanks for telling me. I know it's, you know, it's a big part of you.

Thank you for entrusting me with, with, uh, your, your identity and, and, uh, love you always be here for you.

Want to help you navigate what this looks like in your life, you know? Um, and then the parent, I would think should maybe go and do some educate themselves maybe on female sexuality, understand. And then do you think it would be good for the parent to come back and maybe even help their kid understand? Again, teenage female. Understand the maybe complexity of female sexuality and help them maybe even understand the categories of romantic. Kind of the stuff we talked about, you know, like some of these categories can be blurry and it's natural for you to experience these emotions. Yeah.

Do you think a parent should do that? Yeah. or yeah do you think a parent should do that yeah I think it's dependent probably on the relationship prior to um that coming out experience if the relationship has been one of openness and um vulnerability then yeah I think it would be great to like ask your child hey i've been i've been researching this stuff about um just female sexuality and wanted to see what you thought about it do you want to do you want to talk about it sometime um i think that would be a non-threatening way to approach the topic and if they say no then okay that's yeah that's fine to give them that option of saying no. But then if there is a history of not really being open or vulnerable with these things,

that probably closes the door to approaching with that in that way. approaching with that in that way. Or even I would say, I've seen this back, well, especially with teenagers, sometimes kids are really turned off by parents that are too teachy. Sure. And they might even receive the same, we've seen this happen. We might even receive the same thing. They might receive the same exact thing from just somebody else, you know, who might say yeah we've had this you know we're like our kid will come home and

like tell us something like well you know you've been telling you that for years and yes and sometimes it's good that's a good point too like sometimes some of the more difficult and vulnerable teachings can't come from as much as it feels like it should. It can't come from the parent. Yeah. Um, because, uh,

teenagers just have a tendency not to be receptive to parents. It seems like in general. Yeah. Um, I mean, that was my experience uh i like if my if my parents would have come to me and been like been been studying about female sexuality i mean in my context i i mean they wouldn't do that but if they did I would have been like um let's not can we not have that discussion yeah yeah I think probably I mean I know in my own context we have

and part of it I get you know the advantage of this is what I do full-time I've been doing it for a while our kids are kind of involved They've heard me give talks and stuff. So for us, having open conversations about sex and sexuality has been a little easier. Until now, it's just the rhythm of our natural conversation. So if they did have questions or thoughts, it would be so natural for them to talk about it. But man, I'll be the first one to admit, if this wasn't my full-time gig or whatever, those are hard conversations.

It's so embarrassing for a parent and the kid gets awkward and you get awkward. It's not easy at all, you know. But if that has been kind of more of a rhythm prior, I love what you said about rather than just reacting,

but like having laid the groundwork for these kind of conversations. Yeah, if the groundwork for right these kind of conversations um yeah if the groundwork is late it's a lot easier yeah but unfortunately a lot of the parents that i hear uh are expressing these concerns have not laid the groundwork um so it is more of a reactive response um and so i think just finding ways that would be helpful in that space is probably good too. One more last question and then we'll let you go. Do you know,

cause they're like kind of along the same lines though. Like do you know any resources, maybe YouTube videos or something where a t where a parent could go to to send their kid who might be that mitigating voice that helps them navigate their own sexuality in lieu of maybe um a parental conversation that might not be the kids not ready for like who is there something a parent can just go to to say all right well then watch this or read this or besides your blogs i mean your blogs are amazing but sometimes kids don't read blogs but uh yeah and the blogs are really a lot yeah yeah to be able to i feel like it's more helpful for parents than like a 15 year

old right yeah it's definitely directed towards parents and pastors more but oh man I wish that there was a resource I could point to um I mean I think the best thing is to find just an older maybe an older uh gay christian same-sex attracted christian who has been through some of this stuff and, and has walked through these, this part of the journey. Um, and to just bring up to your child that, um, Hey, I know this friend, like, I know it's super awkward to talk to me about this stuff, but if you ever do want to talk about, um, sexuality to, um, someone I know such and such person, the, the hard part is sometimes parents don't know, uh, um, any gay Christians in their life, even though they probably,

they probably do. They just don't know know but they know yeah um but i think that would have been really helpful for me um just i'm imagining like a christian gay side b woman um older than me who i could just talk to and, um, who, who I knew, like shared some of my lived experience, um, could be really helpful. So yeah,

the problem, the difficulty is finding those people probably all the more to come full circle. All the more reason why I think churches should create context where the people who are in their congregation, who have this lived experience, who are walking in faithfulness,

have yet another amazing ministry opportunity to be those places where the pastor can point parents saying, hey, you got to talk to this person or this person. They would love to talk to your kid and help you navigate this relationship. Cause that lived experience, especially with kids carry so much weight and rightly so. Right. I mean, yeah.

Who, who wants to talk to their straight parents, you know, about their bisexuality. Why not talk to a woman who's been living this? You're not going to understand this at all. Why am I trying? Lindsay, thank you so much for being on Theology in a Raw. Honestly, I've been waiting a year to have this conversation with you. So yeah, I encourage people to go check out Equip Ministries. We just had Peter Falk on the show, the president of your organization. But yeah, your blog series, it's called Kiss the Girls, right?

On the Equip website? That is one of the blog titles. Oh, one of them, okay. The series is just by women for women. By women for women, okay. Okay, yeah. Yeah. Cool.

Well, thanks so much for being on the show. Yeah, thank you so much.