Theology in the Raw - S2 Ep1105: Purity Culture, Female Sexuality, Shame, Body Positivity, Lust, Modesty, and a Theology of Menopause: Dr. Carol Tanksley

Episode Date: August 24, 2023

Dr. Carol Tanksley practiced medicine as an OB-Gyn physician and Reproductive Endocrinologist for over 29 years. While continuing to practice medicine, I also obtained an M.Div. (Master of Divinity), and then a D.Min. (Doctor of Ministry) from Oral Roberts University, focusing on Christian leadership. She’s an author of several books that focus on mental, physical, and sexual health from a Christian perspective. In this episode, we talk about the challenges facing Christian women in the wake of purity culture. We talk about shame, body positivity, challenges to female sexual satisfaction and desire, Christian marriages, lust, modesty and clothing, menopause, and many other topics related to female sexual health:   To learn more, visit https://www.drcarolministries.com/about/ TITR merch: https://form.jotform.com/232197346089162 Noonday: https://chrissprinkle.noondaycollection.com/onlinetrunkshow/?cl=61E75885-36AD-4960-A4D6-E7575EA172FE&onlinetrunkshow

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Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in Raw. My guest today is Dr. Carol Tanksley, who practiced medicine as an OBGYN physician and reproductive endocrinologist for over 29 years. and reproductive endocrinologist for over 29 years. While continuing to practice medicine, she went and got her MDiv or Master of Divinity and her Doctorate of Ministry. And so Dr. Carol is one smart cookie who is an expert in many different areas. She's the author of several books that focus on mental, physical, spiritual, and sexual health from a Christian perspective, focusing primarily on a woman's mental and sexual health. And that is kind of the topic of our conversation. A bit of a warning, I guess, or just to let you know that we do get explicit and we do talk very

frankly about things surrounding sex, women's health, women's sexual health, challenges to female sexuality. So I'll leave it up to your discretion. Again, as always, on Theology in Raw, I do get raw. We do get real. We get honest. But we also try to do so in a tasteful way. We're not trying to be provocative just to provoke people's thinking.

But if there are small children around, you might want to put your earbuds in or at least, you know, listen to it first to kind of see, you know, who around you would benefit from this conversation. So without further ado, I'm really excited about this conversation. We, yeah, yeah, I'll just leave it at that. Super stoked. So please welcome back to we actually recorded a podcast on your channel just like was that last week i was on your channel or it was just like just barely over a week ago and i love the conversation preston and thank you for doing that and then here we are again well I mean, you have so many areas of expertise and I was a little jealous that in the interview, you were interviewing me when I was like, I want to interview you. Then I was like, Hey, I also have a podcast. I can make that happen. So here we are on Theology in the Raw. Well, I listened to most of your episodes. I love Theology in the Raw, and I consider it kind of a, well, an honor. I feel like I'm kind of stepping up to be here with you. the topic of this podcast. And I do want to talk about female sexuality or challenges that women,

Christian women face regarding the topic of sex, specifically in a, and I'll just word it like this, in a post-purity culture, or some might say purity culture. Sometimes I say post and people say press and it's still alive and well. In a purity culture, post-purity culture era. Sometimes I say post and people say Preston, it's still alive and well, in a purity culture, post-purity culture era. And I just, I have more recently in my ministry and life have heard just from so many Christian women that, you know, talk about the various messages they heard growing up in the church and youth group culture, summer camps and everything. And I'm like, oh my gosh, this is a really big issue. And I just found out, I told you this offline, my podcast producer, every like six months, he sends me kind of stats, like demographics. And more than half of my audience are women. I think it was like 56 or 60% or something like

that, which for a male podcast host is, I don't want to say unprecedented, but usually it skews hard in the direction of, you know, the sex of the host. So anyway, so my interest in this topic is obviously not because this is something I personally am going through, although I live with, you know, you know, wife and $2, have another daughter, other house. And I have many friends who tell me this. So anyway, it's not individually. It doesn't affect me as an individual, but it does given the people around me. Anyway, that's a long introduction to this podcast.

But I want my audience to know that I am trying to the best as I can through a lot of ignorance and a lot of naiveness. I'm trying to understand better some of the unintentional or intentional, I would say, maybe harm or shame that certain messages have sent to women. And so that's my motivation here. I don't have a huge agenda. I just know that you have thought deeply on this topic, both as a woman growing up in the church and as an, as a medical doctor, as, as, as a, as a theologian. I mean, you have all these, I don't know how many degrees you have, but you have a degree on like pretty much every discipline I've ever heard of. So

that would be more, that wouldn't quite be right, Preston, but some of my, some of my friends have called me Dr. Doctor. Dr. Doctor. Okay. So, um, I guess my leading question then, well, how about this? How about this? Can you, I don't see, I don't even know exactly what you're going to say here, which is awesome. How would you describe, let's just say to be fair, maybe the pros and cons of this thing we call purity culture. And then I want to get to some specific ways in which Christian women have been hurt, harmed, shamed by some of the messaging. And again, I think at least some, if not most of the messaging has been unintentionally shaming. I don't think a lot of people are like, I really

want to degrade women. I really want them to feel horrible about themselves. Those people exist. I think the main problem is maybe well-intended messaging that, oh my gosh, this is kind of the effect that this statement could have on somebody's self-perception. So yeah, I'll turn it over to you. I've been talking too much already. Just to try and answer that opening question, the positive part of the messages that have usually been in the category called purity culture are that our sexual behavior and the way we carry ourselves as sexual beings makes a difference. God cares about

it. The devil cares about it. Culture cares about it. It matters. And so this isn't something to just put off and consider unimportant. It matters because our behaviors and our attitudes impact both our own selves, the experience we have in the world, our relationship with God, and the people around us. We are not islands. Ever since the Garden of Eden, or at least very, very shortly thereafter, certainly the book of Genesis, since this is a theology podcast, women and sexuality have been an issue. But in the current contemporary world, that has become much more about behaviors than matters of the heart. And I would say that that then becomes part of where the

disconnect or the skewing or the distortion, and in some cases, even harm has come. That applies to both men and women, but applying it specifically to women, the culture at large, at least today, tends to to say when it comes to sex anything goes the church the classic christian sexual ethic which i hold to says that these are sins and these are not sins that it's no outside of marriage and it's yes inside of marriage but the difference preston is that both culture and the church have usually just argued about the sin list. Of course, today, culture says there's nothing on the sin list. There's almost nothing that's taboo. Well, the church says, yeah, there's a lot of things that are on the sin list that are taboo, but it still focuses so much on behavior.

And the part of purity culture that I think has been the biggest problem is that it neglects the matters of the heart, which I would contend Jesus cares about first and most. And in the specific sexual part here, I'm thinking of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus says, you have heard it said, don't commit adultery. I say to you, if you look at a woman to lust after her, you've committed adultery in her heart. The message, the core message there is, it's what's going on in your heart that I care about. Not that behavior doesn't matter,

but when we miss those matters of the heart, we miss both the foundation of who we are as humans and something really, really big that God cares about. Oh, it's so good. What are some concrete ways in which, again, and I'm using generalizations here, but maybe some concrete ways in which some messages, some dominant messages within the purity culture kind of umbrella, um, missed this aspect of, of the heart? Um, was it simply do this, don't do that? Or is there, or is there more to it than that? It's certainly do this, don't do that. But, um, I see this more often with young women than with

young men, although it can impact both. But if you grow up with messages, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, until a certain day, the classic culture, boy meets girl, they fall in love, they don't have sex until their wedding night, and then they do, and it's happily ever after. Really? I have yet to meet a young woman where that was the case. to meet a young woman where that was the case. And so when we only talk about behaviors, marriage is messed up. And that's one. The message about what sexuality and intimacy is meant to be creates a good girl, bad girl list. And if you're in the bad girl, yeah, forgiveness is possible, but I'm still tainted. And if I'm in the good girl, well, then God expects or God promises me a happy marriage. I've seen too often where that's not the case. And when we just make it, And when we just make it, whether I've had intercourse or not, where's the line?

I've seen young women raised in church where they never had intercourse before their wedding night. But the shame around their bodies, about intimacy, about sexual arousal, the shame around all of that is hard to get rid of. And when you have lived with a shame attendant around sex for 10, 20, however many years, if you do get married, then what do you do with it on your wedding night? You can't just dismiss that shame attendant. And it also misses the now over 50% of adults in the U.S. and many other developed countries who are not married. The church's message to unmarried persons has, in my opinion, lacked a lot. And purity culture doesn't have a whole lot to say to unmarried persons. I lived single until I met my husband in my 40s. We had a beautiful marriage for over seven years. I'm living single again now as a widow. What does this whole thing say to me

as an unmarried woman? That's, again, some of the problems with the standard messaging. I want to come back to what you said about singleness, because that is a huge, I think, missing part. It doesn't have a theology of singleness. But you said something, I want to have you tease this out a little bit, that, you know, say for the women, you know, they're told, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Then on the women, I go for it, it's going to be amazing. And it's just, you said it's not easy.

I mean, you said you've yet to meet. Is that just, are you, I'll get, maybe get a little bit specific here, not beyond what we need to, but is it just, it's, it's their shame. So they, or the, it doesn't feel good for the woman. Is it, is it all about, I've been told I just need to please the man. And so it's not even really in it for them or what, what, what are the causes for why on that wedding night that the overwhelming majority, if not a hundred percent of women you've talked to, it just wasn't like an enjoyable experience. Yeah. I don't want to say it's 100% because I

haven't talked to every woman in the world or the country. And I think it very possibly could be. However, women don't get to know their bodies in much of the way the purity culture is talked about. There is also so much pornification of our culture that impacts people who see porn and people who don't. In our culture, some might say over 90% of men have been exposed. And you may know this more than I do, Preston, but at least two thirds of men in surveys say they have been going to porn with some regularity. It's not that different among Christian men. For women, the numbers are lower,

but they are significant. I remember a number I saw not long ago, somewhere around a third of Christian women say they have struggled with porn with some regularity. Now, here's where the purity message doesn't have an answer. Purity makes it all about, okay, I have intercourse or not. Well, I know porn's bad in that standard paradigm, but I'm hooked by it. I don't have any other place to really learn about it. So I've watched it. That makes me dirty. Why do I feel dirty about it?

So that messaging is there. Now, even if I, as a woman, have never watched porn, I get married to a man who has struggled, even if it's in the past with that. His mental templates about who I am as a woman, about my body, about what male and female sexual responses are, about what a woman likes, about what the experience of sex is, is all skewed. His templates in his brain are messed up, even if mine have not been directly. So that creates a disconnect in developing a sexual connection as husband and wife. And then there's the whole OBGYN part of me. A huge number of women who have not previously been sexually active have physical discomfort and often pain when they are starting to have intercourse.

And so how do I navigate that? So it's the physical, emotional, relational, and the spiritual. Because, well, where is God in this? I'm either a good girl or a bad girl. If I'm a good girl, well, why isn't God blessing me with the experience I thought he promised? If I'm a bad girl, he's punishing me. My physical pain, my struggle to disconnect with my husband, all of that. It's a punishment because I haven't toed the line. That's the struggle. line. That's the struggle. Golly, there's so much there. I, yeah. Um, I guess, so how do we,

cause you affirmed, you know, that not having sex before or outside of marriage is a good thing. How, how do we send that message? Cause it's such a catch 22. Like it's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. Okay. Go for it. And it's like, Whoa, I gotta like do it, you know, crank the ship around, you know, on a dime, you know, in a split second. And I've heard a lot of people kind of describe, I've heard men even describe the same thing, which could lead to erectile dysfunction and other things or lack, you know, or just all kinds of performance things, whatever, if you want to word it that way. Um, but I've heard it primarily from women. What's the better message then? How do we say, no, now yes, without saying no and now yes? You know what I mean? What's the best way to message this?

I'll answer that in a couple ways. One, there are many things I do appreciate about John Paul II's theology and the body. I am not Catholic, but I think there is a lot in that messaging, and it has been packaged now for non-Catholic Christians, Protestant Christians, in some of Christopher West's work, I find a lot of goodness there that our Gnostic or Platonic dualism, it's still alive today. The spirit is good, the body is bad. Just that has so seeped into our Western culture that that can be hard to get away from. Plato wasn't Western, but it's still there. Jesus had no struggle with that, by the way. I also want to just comment on that from my own personal experience. I was in my 60s now.

So I was a child during the 60s. The purity culture wasn't a big thing in those days. That came a little later, but I certainly was raised in a church culture where sex was for marriage only no. And then, yes, I also grew up in a home where there was a lot of sexual dysfunction. I won't go into details about that, but it was really messed up. And I came to adulthood with a good left brain belief and knowledge, but a very messed up right brain and soul around intimacy and sexuality. I came to, as a young adult, find myself alone in a hotel room with a married man about to do something I had promised I would never do. He had asked to come up to my hotel room to pray. Yeah, right.

I knew better. He prayed and then it was very clear why he was really there. As God would have it, out of my mouth came the words, I must be about my father's business. I can't do this. My clothes did not come off. Miraculously, he left. But that rocked my world. How could I end up in that situation? Lies I had come to believe, empty places in my soul, wounds I had accumulated.

So I had to do a lot of my own internal work. It was after that, that God brought my loving husband into my life. I wrestled with, was this God's plan for me? Yes, we were moving toward marriage. I knew that my baggage around intimacy and sexuality was still, baggage around intimacy and sexuality was still, I'd done a lot of work, but that was still unfinished and I had more work to do. So in those months coming up to my marriage, I marinated in the Song of Songs. I lost count of how many times I read that book slowly and just all the stuff, perhaps one of the most erotic pieces of literature in history. The anatomy is there. And I could say all the things, if you know just a little bit of the Hebrew imagery, it's all there, sex, and it is unadulterated goodness. I had to marinate in that for months and my internal mental templates changed. My wedding night was beautiful, not perfect, but we had a very intimate,

loving, including sexually intimate marriage prior to when my husband passed away. So part of what I'm saying is that the left brain knowledge is important, but we must include the right brain experiences. That means we talk, we live life together. Men, women, young people, parents, it's part of the disconnect in families today. I'm going to pause for a second. That's quite a lot trying to answer your question. No, no, that's good. I still, is it a matter of, again, I'm thinking specifically of unmarried younger Christians, many of whom, not all, we'll get to that, we'll get to the not all, but many of whom will end up getting married. How do we convey the boundaries of God's design for sex while not conveying this idea that this is something bad that all of a sudden becomes good? How can we reduce this so that they can? Because at the end of the day, I mean, I don't know how, there's no way to get around it. It is a switch that has to flip almost

like two seconds ago, you know, this would have been a sin and now it's a God glorifying thing. Like, how do we flip that switch when just chronologically that is kind of what happens. Again, if you hold to a traditional sexual ethic. Which I do. I think part of it is just making young women's bodies a good thing. It doesn't have to be 100% no to yes. How does a young woman think about as she goes through puberty, her breasts develop, she starts to get genital hair and her genitals start to develop, she starts to have feelings. How do we talk about that? Do we make that a good thing? Again, part of the theology in the body thing,

these human bodies are sexed. We are embodied sexual beings, whether we're having sex or not, regardless of relationship status. We need to be talking about that so that when a woman comes to her wedding night, if she gets married, and we can talk about singles more, but those who do get married, she has looked at her body in the mirror. She's dealt with the shame messages at Instagram and influencers and whatever. This is who God made me. I will

sometimes tell women, married or unmarried, can you stand in front of the mirror naked and bless each part of your body, including what we normally think of as the sexual parts of your body? of your body that that's one piece and then not only in our bible teaching not only do we talk about what scripture i believe wisely says we do not do but can we also create good templates in you we're talking about young women right now Can we create templates in young women's minds for what a good relationship between husband and wife is? Song of Solomon is one place, and that is very physical, very erotic, as well as emotional and spiritual. Can we have married couples in the family of God that have done their hard work, marriage mentoring before and after marriage? If mothers are not in a great position to do so, Titus to women, to use one paradigm,

Titus 2 women, to use one parody. Women who will walk young women through becoming a woman in the body of Christ. I'm trying to say things that are appropriate for podcasts, but yet still be really real and raw. And this is, I will remember to give a disclaimer at the front, just so people know that this is, we're talking about sensitive material. So I don't want to, obviously we're being tasteful, but I don't mind being as specific as we need to be. So this is theology in a raw that people expect and they're perfectly fine with it. And I think the church has erred so hard on not talking about stuff that I don't mind swinging the pendulum a little bit in the other direction, again, in a tasteful, Christ-honoring way. What are some... This actually... So just so I want to repeat back just so I make sure I

understand. So, well, to answer my question through summarizing what you said, flipping the switch from no, no, no to yes and not making that... And even framing it that way isn't even the right way of framing it, but you're saying we could maybe alleviate some of the sexual dysfunction or sexual, maybe even pain, whether it's emotional or possibly even physical, if we reinforce body positivity or to put it another way, if we just get rid of some of the ways we're shaming or producing or adding to shame that women feel with their bodies growing up in the church, you know, just early on. What are some, first of all, is that kind of like that focusing on the positive, well, body positivity? I know it's kind of a secular term, but I think Christians should be the first one to have, you know, we are embodied creatures. We should have a theology of body positivity. What are some unintentional ways in which the church or Christian messages have, and again, I want to say unintentional, produced shame among young Christian women? One place I know is 1 Corinthians 7.

I believe that has been weaponized, and most of the time unintentionally. It has been wielded as a weapon, whether the message is subtle or explicit for young women in marriage teachings, that once you get married, you better give your husband sex, or he may look for it elsewhere. If you're not cooking in the kitchen, somebody else is going to. Making young women feel responsible for their someday-to-be-husband's sex life. Wrong. And specifically for 1 Corinthians 7, and just I'll paraphrase, the way Paul says it is, for the husband, your body does not belong to you, but it belongs to your wife. For the wife, your body does not belong to you.

It belongs to the husband. That's a simple paraphrase. And we could get deeper into the text. I don't have the text in front of me. But the message there is that I do not have agency over my body. That's the way too often young women have heard it. And evil has weaponized that. Ever since the Garden of Eden, Satan has wielded a war against Eve and her daughters.

Spiritual warfare and all of that, I believe in that, and that's not the topic for today. But look at, through the millennia, what assaults women have experienced against their femininity, against their genitals. And we could spend a long time there. Satan hates what women are and represent. A woman in her body, in her sexuality, nurtures life in a unique way.

In being able to conceive, give birth, breastfeed, nurture life. And that is a characteristic of a woman, whether she gives birth or not. The devil is all about death. So a woman's ability to nurture life is something the devil can't do. And that's among the ways he hates women. So the assault on first Corinthians, the way evil has weaponized first Corinthians seven, that has been baptized in the Christian church, making women responsible for men's sexuality. That is wrong.

Look at the whole of the New Testament. Is there any other place in scripture ever, anywhere, where anyone, man, woman, young, old, is given license to demand their own rights. Never, ever, anywhere. That is anti the posture of Jesus. And usually men have taken 1 Corinthians 7 and demanded sex from their wives. I'm stereotyping here.

Sure. I'm stereotyping here, as a religious duty for the man's self-gratification. That is anti-everything Jesus and the New Testament Christianity stands for. You hear me getting a little passionate about that. Keep going. This is so helpful. I never heard it framed in that theological way. And that is truly profound, I think. I mean, that Satan is all about death and the women's body in particular

just radiates life. Again, not that it always will result in that or whatever. I mean, we have infertility and age limitations, so on. But it still symbolizes signals that God has designed, God is for life, and he has created half the human population to radiate this symbol of life. And that alone, Satan hates that. That's jarring. And wow. Gosh. Okay., we have a spiritual, I didn't think we were going to go here. So, we have spiritual warfare kind of integrated in the whole shaming of women's bodies. The very aspects of women's bodies that should be the opposite of shame, Satan is using to turn into shame.

That's kind of horrifying. Okay. So, that the woman is being Christian in the church, generally speaking, oftentimes Christian women are made to feel like you are kind of, you're responsible for your future husbands or husbands, you know, sex drive, sex issues or whatever. What about clothing? Because I know that's another big one. This is something I've talked to, you know, a lot of my daughters and teenage girls and their friends and everything. And like that, that's something that that's a big deal.

Like there's a lot of messaging around clothing that for one that drives my daughters crazy. It's just feels like a very much a double standard. Like whenever you, if I'd even said modesty, we just think women, right. I mean, just think, okay, we automatically picture like, okay, a woman dressing, you know, showing too much skin or whatever. But it's like modesty is a virtue for all of humanity. So, I mean, why do we just single out women here? So that's one area that kind of doubles standard. But what are some other ways, I guess, in which how we even talk about modesty, clothing, dress, especially the young Christian women that can, again, unintentionally produce shame.

Let me talk about the clothing thing for a minute and just all about that. And I would want to frame this as more than clothing per se. I think probably every woman realizes that she is giving a red light, yellow light, or green light to every other human being. And we're talking about cross sex here for a moment. I learned this in part after coming out of that hotel room with a married man. And then as I met my husband, he wanted me and enjoyed me. And this was not a demand. I felt incredibly cherished. But he enjoyed me looking feminine.

And he would sometimes let me know what he particularly enjoyed. And because I felt so cherished, it was a joy to do that. I was certainly looking more sexy than I had before I met my husband in that season. But I also realized that I could look sexy to my husband and still give a very clear red light to every other man. I was giving a green light to my husband. And that's a lot of an internal thing. I think the women listening to and watching us right now will probably understand very clearly what I'm talking about. By that, I do not mean that if you as a woman have been sexually assaulted, it is your fault. Please hear me there. I am not saying that. I am just saying, though women sin in two ways. And I use sin very broadly here. On the one hand, using that beauty to manipulate and control and get something for

myself. There's plenty of women that do that. Look at the seductress in Proverbs that the young man is warned against, for example. And there's plenty of that theologically. So women using their bodies, their sexuality to manipulate and control. And on the other side, it is just as anti to who God made me as a woman to hide that, to denigrate it, to bring it down and not bring that beauty to the world. Beauty in the sense of a sunset. You can look at a sunset and enjoy and you want to be drawn into it, but it's not in the sense of I want to consume that for myself. It's not in the sense of lust. Now, lust exists out there, but I'm talking about the internal posture

of a woman displaying my beauty, not to get something from a man or anybody, but just because that is who God made me is very different than displaying my beauty to manipulate and control and get something. This is so helpful. And yeah, in some of the very helpful corrections toward purity culture, there can be like anything, a pendulum swing that goes maybe a little too far because you would have to have your head in the sand and not think that like,

you have this thing called seduction and many women are really good at it and you can use your body to, as a source of power to get something you want from heterosexual men or gay women, you know, whatever. So we would have to say, like, if we just say like, no, we can't even talk about that, that doesn't exist. And I think that's just psychologically and sociologically naive. I love the distinction you're making because sometimes we would just stop there. Women, your bodies can be used to seduce men. Don't do that, period. Let's move on to the next conversation. But you're bringing another set of coins saying, but your bodies are

created, you are created beautiful inside and out. There's a powerful beauty here that can be put on display in a very godly way. It doesn't mean you just cover up, just cover it up because you don't want to seduce. That's that skewed message that we used to do, right? I just like to think in really specific, concrete terms. Is it simply a matter of the heart? Could one woman be wearing the same exact outfit as another woman and one could be doing it seductively and one couldn't? Or is there really some cultural signals?

Yeah, absolutely. It is not about the amount of skin you show or how tight your clothes are. Although that certainly could play a role. But again, I think probably every woman here who's listening or watching knows what it's like to display a green light to somebody she's not married to. Is that something most women, if not all, could think? You know when you've crossed that line. Now, can that be skewed and can there be shame involved? Absolutely. And I do want to caution here. But yes, I think we have also, evil has conflated sexual desire and

lust. Okay. Yeah. And in some ways they are so conflated, we have a very hard time separating them. And maybe I'll just throw this in here. Lust is not about wanting sex. James, I'm forgetting the exact reference, that you may consume it upon your lust. The Bible often uses that word in a very non-sexual way. Lust is about, I want what I want for my own self-gratification to use as long as I want for my own pleasure, everything else be blank. That's lust. Sexual desire is godly. It's healthy. As Christopher West says, Jesus did not come to squelch Eros, but to redeem it. That's good. And so some of that parsing out and how do we help people with this? We're talking about women right now.

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merch tab. See, I've had some conversations with my friends about this. What constitutes lust? Is it admiring the beauty of a woman who's not your wife? Is it even like, not just admiring the beauty, because I could admire, say, the beauty of a man. Like, wow, that dude's a really good-looking guy. But that's going to be different for me as a straight person if I say the exact same thing towards a woman. There still is an underlying sexual attraction that is creating a lens through which I see beauty in, in the opposite sex. Um, but when does that pass over to lust? But you're,

and I've heard some people say that we use lust a little too generally, like, like, um, like you can admire as a heterosexual man, you know, I could deeply admire the beauty of another woman and not be lusting after her. Because I'm not, even in my heart, wanting to gratify myself even from how I'm looking at her or whatever. But I can still admire the beauty in this person created in God's image. Is that, I mean, I get all nerdy theology, but... Yeah, I would consider the boundary to be somewhere around. Admiring another human's body, male or female, is admiring part of God's good creation. When I want to consume that for myself, it turns into something damaging and lustful. Stereotypically, a man is driving down the street. He sees a beautiful woman walking. His eyes follow her. Great. That's admiring part

of God's good creation. If he suddenly starts imagining taking off her clothes and being in bed with her and wanting her for himself to consume it for his pleasure that's lustful i would also say that the same principle holds in marriage many women know what it's like to be lusted for by their husbands and that is just as wrong when a husband wants a wife to consume her for himself that's lust again it's hard to parse this out for most of us because evil has so conflated that. When sex becomes about self-gratification rather than mutually building the relationship, there are plenty of women who have experienced that kind of damaging sexual relationship in marriage among Christians.

I would say, can we keep going there? I would say a fairly high percentage, would you? I mean, you work with a lot of women. Is that a very common thing where a Christian woman inside marriage even feels used by their husband? Yes. Very common. Very common. In fact, that's often one of the things a woman will come to me and express. I've been a good Christian wife for X years, 20, 30, maybe more. And I hate sex because I always feel used by my husband. Yes, a huge percentage. And the first Corinthians seven weaponization plays into that, but I have experienced the other side. And I know there are others who have during my marriage to my husband, he saw me as very sexy. That surprised me. I never thought of myself as a sexy woman. He saw me as very sexy and that that did something to my soul, but it was not that he wanted me to, he didn't want to consume me

for himself. It was about the connection. It was about cherishing. I felt cherished. And I know sadly, there are many, many women who have not been blessed to experience being cherished. For you women who are listening or watching, I grieve with you about that, because that is what God designed you to be, is to be cherished. And when a woman is cherished, there is a lot of joy in bringing herself sexually to her husband if she's married. I also want to say, having been married, that the experience of being cherished also helps me in how I carry myself the rest of my life. I have had that kind of cherishing love. And it's a nourishing thing for forever. I also know many women have never experienced that. I believe that is among the things that a woman can experience from God.

I'm thinking right now of Isaiah 54, I believe, your maker is your husband. Certainly that was the people of Israel and God. Yes. And now Christ in the church, but there is a personal application of that. And I learned, thankfully, before I married my husband, what it was like to experience God as my husband. And now again, it's a part of my life with God that is incredibly precious. It's a part of my life with God that is incredibly precious. It is not sexual, but it is eros. As Christopher West describes, it's experiencing being desired, not to consume, but to thrive. And it nourishes the soul. I think both men and women have aspects of that, but especially a woman's soul.

Is it as simple? I'm just thinking in like concrete scenarios, like it is as simple as a husband telling his wife that he finds her sexy, you know, and really pouring it on, you know, without, therefore, let's go jump upstairs, you know, like without it being kind of a stepping stone to get sex, but just, I just find you sexy, period. Let's make dinner together or something like that. Is that, I'm just thinking like, would that be a simple way to desire your wife without lusting after her and using her as a self-gratification while still finding her sexy? Yeah. Great question, Preston. And I think being told she's sexy for many women can be a good

thing. I also want to say that for some, in fact, a significant number of women, that may also be very painful and bring up wounds. So, yes, because being sexy for a lot of women has meant being exploited, assaulted, raped, abused. Yes. And that's a whole nother conversation, but huge numbers of women being told that means harm. If I had been told that by my husband 10 years prior, it might've triggered me more than nourished me. So here's a bigger picture for husbands.

Touch your wife's heart before touching her body, desire her, not her body. She will know the difference. Care about what matters to her. Um, I, I, I tell married people, if it matters to your spouse, it should matter to you. I think husbands more often struggle with emotional literacy, communication, being with, that matters. And a woman knows the difference. A woman is going to be able to tell whether you are just after her body or whether you are wanting to connect with her soul. Yeah. You need to send me a bill from our counseling session here. This is so incredibly helpful. I am curious while we're on the topic of maybe when I say older Christian women, I mean, Christian women who have been married 10, 15, 20, 25 years, what are some things that,

I guess we're already kind of there, but like, what are some other things that come up kind of like, again, deep into the marriage that maybe are kind of coming up seemingly out of nowhere, you know? Or because it's one that I could totally understand that kind of that, you know, newlywed Christian woman dealing with kind of shame and this stuff and like those fresh carryovers from her single and now married life. But like, what are some things that may be laid dormant that are common among older Christian women that come up later? Menopause is a big time of life when some of these things crop up. First of all, a woman's body is changing and a woman's sense of who she is as a woman can become different

because the hormones are swinging. Sometimes she doesn't know her own mind or body. In other words, it can feel foreign to her because things can feel so different. Also, her season of life is very commonly changing. In the typical picture, as you've described, woman got married. They've been together for a long time, they maybe have had kids, now their kids are out of the house. And who's this man I'm waking up to? Do I even know you or like you? The empty nest years are looking very lonely.

And if we've been living as roommates, well, this isn't looking so good now. I don't have anything else to pour myself into. That can be part of it. I've also seen frequently that sexual harm tends to rear its head at that time. A woman may have put up with things that are just kind of so-so with her husband and hasn't ever really wanted to rock the boat, and now she just can't stomach it any longer. Messages that she developed around sex and what her body is good for, the physical changes too. We are embodied creatures and a woman's body goes through a transition around menopause. It's a season. It's not a day. It's a season.

it's a season. It's not a day. It's a season. But just the emotional and spiritual implications of that, it's a process for a woman. So I often tell middle-aged women in that season of life, the things that haven't been dealt with, you can't stuff them any longer. And that's okay. It's not that you were refusing to deal with them in the past. You had good reasons that that wasn't an appropriate season. But now you just can't not deal with it any longer. And sexual harm is a big part of that, whether that was in the marriage or before. So it could be sexual harm decades before that wasn't either acknowledged or just kind of pushed down or sometimes just subconsciously. I've heard of stories coming up where women in their 30s or 40s through counseling or therapy would ever realize like, oh my gosh, I was actually assaulted as a five-year-old or something. That's, gosh.

Real quick, what are the general ages of menopause? Are we talking? Average age is 51. In other words, the last menstrual period is what the term menopause means. And the average age for the last menstrual period is 51. But anywhere from about 45 to 53, 54. But it's a transition. Some women will go through that transition within maybe six months. Some women, it may last several years. That transition period is where the hormone swings are greater. Periods become less regular. Then they stop. And a lot of women have hot flashes and stuff like that. So hormones are kind of like... The highs are higher. The lows are lower. And then finally, once the ovaries do stop functioning

at the last menstrual period, then there's just no hormones and her body feels that. And the menstrual periods, they don't just stop automatically. It's like, it'll kind of gradually drift off. Is that, I could Google this and I don't know why I'm talking on theology, but it's- Hey, I'm an OBGYN.

No, I have a doctor right in front of me. Some women, it will just month, month, month, month, month, and stop, but that's probably not most average for the last few years before menopause. Many women will experience their periods being less regular. If it was every month on the dot, same day every month, well, it might be three weeks this month and six weeks next time. And so that variation in timing, also the heaviness of the period, whether it's really light one time, really heavy another time, bleeding a little bit at other times. Sometimes

that will get to the point of a woman that goes six, eight months without a period. And then, oh yeah, here's another big one before it finally ends. I mean, these are, I mean, between all of that, what you explained, so all the whole biological challenges, then you have oftentimes that's probably connected with empty nesting, which can have really huge challenges. And then you add in possible buried issues within the marriage, before the marriage, whatever. I mean, is it common for women, Christian women, especially in the late 40s, early 50s, to just be coming to you for counseling and therapy? Is that really a uniquely challenging time for women? It is. And I do see a lot of women during that transition. They may come to me feeling sexually disconnected from their husband. They may come to me because sex itself has become painful,

which is quite common after menopause and very treatable. Why is that? Can you explain why that would be? The ovaries make estrogen during a woman's reproductive life from the time of puberty until menopause. After menopause, the amount of estrogen in a woman's body naturally decreases by about 90%. So after menopause, she only has about 10% of the estrogen present in her body. The genital tissue becomes very easily irritated and it's like rubbing sandpaper. Lubrication doesn't happen the same. And so intercourse becomes quite painful. Arousal takes longer and intercourse itself becomes painful.

That is all treatable, but it does create new challenges for probably most marriages. So libido goes down. Does estrogen affect female libido the same way testosterone does male libido? Is it that simple? It is more complicated, but here's another thing. There's a significant subset of women where libido actually increases around menopause. And a couple of things, I don't know that there's great scientific study to correlate it directly, but percentage-wise, the amount of testosterone that a woman's ovaries

make, although it's a lot less than estrogen and a lot less than men, percentage-wise that testosterone falls less than estrogen does. It only falls about 50%. So the balance, there's more testosterone per estrogen after menopause than there was before. Some women experience that as an increase in sexual desire. There's also the whole thing of, I don't have to think about birth control. I don't have to think about periods, glory be. And so just there, some women experience that with great freedom. That's less than half, but a not insignificant number of women will actually experience an increase during that time, which may be temporary. But many women who experience a decrease in libido, that can be related to estrogen. And it's kind of all of the above, because all these other things

really play into it. It makes me wonder, whenever I look at the science, the biology, I always want to ask the theological questions, like, why did God make it this way? Have you thought as a theologian and a medical doctor, I mean, have you connected those dots? Like, what's the function of having... I mean, in a sense it would... And my Catholic brothers and sisters would kind of roll their eyes and say, well, obviously. It does seem to connect a person, a woman's, we're talking about women, sexual experience with having babies, right? Like when that time has passed, it would make sense if the libido would go down. Again, if God places a high premium on procreation as at least one, one reason why he created sexual relationships.

Again, I'm thinking out loud here. Have you thought through other, I mean, or connecting the science to biology? So the theological implications of menopause? Yeah, I guess so, yeah. I did not wake up this morning thinking on theology, I'm going to be talking about the theological implications of menopause, but here we are. of menopause, but here we are. One of them, I think, is a true generativity that women can experience once the ability to conceive is passed. And that generativity is much broader than conceiving, delivering, and nourishing a child. And so removing that part of the driver, I think speaks to how women after menopause have an increased freedom in ministering to life, their families, the body of Christ, the world as a whole. I am experiencing, I would say my best decade ever. I miss my husband,

but the most fruitful decade of my life. As far as the change in libido, I think part of it likely is that the meaning of sex does become a bit different. meaning of sex does become a bit different. We know that among married couples where they have pursued intimacy physically, emotionally, and spiritually over the decades, sex can continue into 80s, 90s. We also know it may be less frequent. It may be less explosive, but the sense of satisfaction can actually be greatest in old age. And by that, I don't mean the rush of hormones at orgasm, although that can still happen, but the meaning of it between a husband and wife who have had that kind of life together. And we know this from

sociological research. The bonding can be very, very strong, even more than before menopause. So the non-physical aspects of sex, I believe, become larger in the later years than during a woman's reproductive year, since we're talking about women. So the release is oxytocin, the bonding hormone. So you're saying even if libido is down, even if the rush of hormones is maybe not as intense, there still is, I'm asking, I guess, is there still this release of oxytocin or whatever that creates an even thicker bond the older you get? Yes, it is. And here's something else I've seen. The women who do not want sex after menopause, almost all of them that I have spoken with, it is not related so much to a physical change, although they notice changes in their body. Almost always, it's related to unfinished business in their

marriage. And it often is, they experienced being objectified by their husband, they were lusted after, and they're tired of it. So would that be the most common psychological hang up of all the options? In my experience for women in midlife, I would say that's at the top. Is that more common? For those who don't want sex. Is that more common among Christian couples than non or is this a across the board issue? I don't have a lot of personal experience with those who don't call themselves Christians. I think it's significant there too, although I just can't speak from personal experience. But I think it is because the implications are less only about this is a duty, although that can add a lot of guilt to a Christian woman. And 1 Corinthians 7 can be a

weapon. But I think that the paradigm of what evil has done with men-women relationships and the objectification of women and lust for men, I don't think that's exclusive to Christian couples. I do feel like there is, I mean, it seems to me like there's a much more heightened awareness to these issues in the church. A lot more work that needs to be done, but I feel like some of this stuff, maybe through the Me Too movement and Church Too, and things are being talked about more than maybe they ever have. And some of the unintentional damages of purity culture are being addressed very thoroughly. There's lots of stuff written on it, lots of people talking about it. culture being addressed very thoroughly. There's lots of stuff written on it, lots of people talking about it. So I wonder, because the conversation is happening more frequently,

is that maybe also alerting women to being in touch with connecting these dots? Rather than, I don't know why I feel like I don't want to have sex with my husband to like, yeah, I'm tired of, you know, I heard this woman on a podcast and like, yeah, that's how I felt for 25 years or whatever. I wonder if that's kind of contributing to it too. I think it is. I think the good side of the Church Too movement helped the body of Christ get beyond the, oh, it's just them. That there's work we need to do in our own house, which is still true. It's not done.

And like you said, more yet needs to be done. For a long time, maybe forever, it really didn't seem okay that women talked about this stuff. And so hearing about it just makes, I think, a lot of women more aware that maybe it doesn't have to be like this. And I think that's a good thing. Another thing I would say is the Church Too movement, among the things it has said is we focused so much on behavior. And when you miss the matters of the heart, those matters of the heart catch up, whether it's men or women. But we've got to keep bringing the matters of the heart catch up, whether it's men or women. But we've got to keep bringing the matters of the heart to play in all of this. Okay.

This is so good. I just saw the time. We're getting pretty long here. We're over an hour. But I do want to just hear your maybe brief thoughts on singleness because that was a door we opened and promised we'd go down. But let's come back full circle to what are some ways in which purity messages have not had at all, kind of not acknowledged singleness, and what's the best way we can do to kind of correct that? kind of correct that? Purity messages don't have much at all to say about singleness, which is perhaps one of the biggest tragedies. If I don't want to get married, if I am exclusively same-sex attracted and choose to follow the traditional Christian sexual ethic, if there's just no spouse available, or like me, married seven years and the rest of my life has been single. Purity message doesn't really have anything to say to me at all.

So how are some of the ways we counter that? I think we need a much more robust theology of singleness in the church. Danny Trujillo has done some great work on that recently with her book. I believe you've talked with her. She's awesome. And it's an area that is ripe for a lot of important conversations and work. Separate from sexual attraction, although that's important, but just am I a second-class Christian because I am not married? am I a second class Christian because I am not married? Was I a second class Christian until my wedding night? And have I slipped in status now that I'm a widow? I think the vast majority of

people would say no, but I have heard, especially women, one wrote to me and said, I get the message all the time that only married people really are part of the bride of Christ. And that as a single person, I can't understand that. So I'm no good. And that in her context had been said explicitly, which makes me angry, but we, we need leaders who are not married to men and women, uh, to talk about this. I think conversations around it, such as this, are really important. And then for the individual single person, we need intimacy. You can thrive without sex. Jesus did. But you cannot thrive without intimacy. but you cannot thrive without intimacy. And we as a body of Christ need to do a better job at facilitating single person's intimacy with others, not sexual, but it's a huge area where

there's a great need and a lot of ministry that can be done. And I'm not saying this is church leaders. Okay. Now put you in a small group of other singles. No, this is individual people in the first time, maybe, don't quote me on the fact check me on this, but never before in the history of human civilization have you seen such a high percentage of single people of marital age, 20 to 40, that are still single. Maybe they'll always be single. Maybe they get married as you did in your 40s. But is that, I mean, more than 50, it's like a huge percentage. And my response to that is a church that doesn't have a much better theology of singleness is going to be profoundly irrelevant for reaching a pretty good chunk of the population. We are, and this is pejoratively said, and I don't mean it pejoratively,

but we failed 50% of the people we are seeking to minister to. We can do better. Yeah, it was in 2014, Pew Research first put out a statistic that there were more unmarried adults than married adults. And that statistic has been bantied about, and there's lots of ways to look at it. There's different other statistics that say, you know, it's a little bit less than half or a little bit more than half. Either way, that's a lot. Even if it's 40%. I mean, that's a lot more than – if you look around at all the adults 20 to – or let's just say 25 to 40 in our church, how many would be single?

I mean, probably a much lower percentage than the general population. But yeah, this is, it's a, one simple, this is such a, I mean, minuscule thing we can do in our language change to make a big difference is not when we talk to young people, when we talk about this topic, when we talk in general, not say when you get married, but if you get married, that little simple if, or I like to be a little more theological, like if God is calling you into marriage, then X, Y, and Z. And if not, here's some things to think about, whatever. But just acknowledging the existence and not every will inevitably get married is – and I see it all – I mean, I'll catch myself saying when we though I like, it's at the forefront of my brain. So I think we just need to just rewire our rhetoric and just, you know, um, I think that'd

go a long way. Wow. Um, well, Carol, this has been a fantastic conversation. Um, thank you so much. I love your honesty and your candidness. I, I, I just, I don't like speaking in code, so I'm glad we were able to talk frankly. And I hope people weren't freaked out about some of our explicit language. But again, it's not just tasteful. I'm a fan of just, let's just talk very freely. Obviously, there's age-specific stuff, and I gave a caveat at the beginning of the podcast, so I think we're good. But thank you so much for what you do. This has been absolutely fascinating. I have loved it. Abundantly thrilled to have this conversation.

Thanks so much, Preston. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network.