Thread by @sheilagregoire

It's time for the evangelical church to realize that the way we talk about sex and lust and porn poses a danger to women, as the Atlanta shooting all too horrifically showed us--and 8 people, including 7 women, died for it.

Apparently the shooter has said he had a "sex addiction" and the spas were "a temptation ... that he wanted to eliminate." This language sounds a lot like how Every Man's Battle describes the temptation to lust.

Defeating lust involves "bouncing your eyes" away from women. The 1st step is to "make a list of your greatest enemies." Among your potential enemies? Female joggers, or a "female co-worker who tends to dress a little suggestively." Or women at the beach.

newlife.com/emb/bounce-you…

And how do you defeat porn? You transfer your sexual energy to your wife, according to the book. And "Your wife can be a methadone-like fix when your temperature is rising." She's a drug to satiate your sex addiction. If you don't have a wife? Then it's much harder.

Women are either enemies or methadone. Never are they talked about as people made in the image of God. They exist to either tempt men or rescue men. Even the descriptions of women in Every Man's Battle are dehumanizing: "My eyes feasted on this banquet of glistening flesh."

It is not too much of a stretch to see why someone steeped in this kind of language could see women as the enemy--especially certain races of women who are often fetishized in pornography. And when they're the enemy? Then you have to defeat them, with any means necessary.

But it's not just Every Man's Battle that talks about women that way, though it may be the worst. In our new book The Great Sex Rescue, we looked at how the best-selling evangelical sex & marriage books treated sex & women, and it's not pretty.

Women are told that they can't say no to sex. Sheet Music tells women to give husbands hand jobs or oral sex during their periods so that he won't watch porn, or hand jobs during her postpartum phase. Love & Respect tells women he has a need you don't have & you have to fill it.

The Act of Marriage disparages Aunt Matilda, who hates sex because her husband raped her "kicking and screaming" on her wedding night, and has done so ever since. But the book calls the rapist husband "equally unhappy" as his rape victim wife.

Our evangelical resources treat sex as something men need and women have to give. Women's needs and desires are not considered. Love & Respect doesn't even mention that sex should feel good for women too. Neither does Every Man's Battle. Sex is all about men.

Is it any wonder that men grow up with entitlement towards sex, and anger towards women who won't give it to them? Until we start talking about sex being MUTUAL, INTIMATE, and PLEASURABLE for both, rather than as a male entitlement, we'll create a culture dangerous to women.

I feel like I am one of the few marriage authors calling out this dangerous teaching. I so appreciate the support of so many advocates--but I call on publishers & marriage authors to repent of what they have said, and to share healthy, dignified messages instead. THIS MUST STOP.

For more on our survey of 20,000 women, and how evangelical books affected their marital and sexual satisfaction, see The Great Sex Rescue.

https://tolovehonorandvacuum/great-sex-rescue/