I want @garyLthomas (& @Zondervan!) to know that for an untold number of women, his words in Married Sex are triggering trauma responses & great anguish this week. We. are. tired. We are so, SO tired of being told that men desperately need sex & we don't. 1/9
We are SO tired of being told that our bodies have an almost-mystical power over men & that we need to use our sexuality strategically to retain our husbands' affection. We are so tired of being treated like a separate species primarily defined by our sex appeal. 2/9
I want @garyLthomas to know what it's like to be a woman suffering with vaginismus/dyspareunia & forcing herself through agonizing pain & hours of dilator therapy every week in sheer terror that the man she loves will leave her if she can't fulfill his sexual expectations. 3/9
I want @garyLthomas to sit with that pain, that fear, & that sense of helplessness, & to understand that the weary tropes he uses in this book are perpetuating that anguish for yet more women. 4/9
I want @garyLthomas to recognize that scaring women into performing sexually by threatening them with the collapse of their marriages leads to serious trauma, insecurity, & an inability to trust their husbands—even when their husbands *aren't* raging sex machines. 5/9
I want @garyLthomas to understand that when women aren't excited about sex, it's really no wonder given the way women have historically been victimized by sex, forced into sex, & (by people like him) taught to see sex as a man's need & a woman's responsibility. 6/9
I want @garyLthomas to recognize that trying to frighten women into sex by warning them that their husbands will resent them if they don't do it is a cruel dismissal of the way women's sexuality & sexual pleasure has been almost entirely overlooked for hundreds of years. 7/9
I want @garyLthomas to understand that loads of women are already trying to like sex with a frantic desperation made more excruciating by books like his, but that the power to make sex good for women doesn't primarily rest with women but with men. 8/9
Most of all, I want @garyLthomas & the other authors & creators of Christian marriage resources to please, please listen. Listen to women. There are so many of us saying the same things again & again & again. Don't our stories matter? 9/9
I'm grateful for everyone's input, & I want to specifically thank those who have weighed in about the very prevalent but underdiscussed issue of women with higher sex drives than their partners. Just wrote a follow-up thread about that:
"I don't think sacrificial sex is ever appropriate," I told my husband yesterday. And he said, "Of course not! Anyone who can enjoy having sex with someone who is making a sacrifice to participate with them has got some issues." 1/8
In his new book Married Sex, @garyLthomas acknowledges that "obligation sex" is a poor long-term strategy for relationships, & that problems arise when a woman feels she must have sex to prevent her husband from cheating on her or turning to degrading pornography. 2/8
Yet he goes on to spend pages of the book explaining just how much men need sex, just how much their identity is rooted in it, & how they are bound to resent their wives for withholding it or not enjoying it. In other words: obligation sex is bad but also you *are* obligated. 3/8
Yesterday's thread has been generating conversation & I have something to add. Although one of the most pressing issues produced by evangelical marriage resources is the horror of women being pressured into sex even though sex is...1/8
...not enjoyable for them, the tone taken by these authors also creates a second issue that deserves more attention: the continuous messaging telling women "God didn't design us to like sex as much as men" is frustrating & isolating to so many women for whom it rings untrue. 2/8
Among the women in my age bracket with whom I have discussed sex, the majority actually consider themselves to have a higher sex drive than their husbands & tend to be the ones experiencing sexual rejection. I personally recall how distressing it was for me in my young...3/8