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Finding a healthy church after being hurt is hard — especially when toxic churches have learned to hide what they really believe. This week, Rebecca and I walk you through our evidence-based, step-by-step method for evaluating a church's website before you ever step through the door. From homepage vibes to staff pages, statement of beliefs to membership covenants, we'll show you exactly what to look for — and what to run from.

We're also sharing real examples from actual church websites, some of them from well-known names you'll recognize, so you can train your eye to spot the difference between a church that genuinely welcomes you and one that just wants to slot you into a hierarchy. And we're connecting it all to our brand-new peer-reviewed study on internalized modesty messaging — because finding a healthy church isn't just nice to have. For girls especially, it can make all the difference.

GET OUR TEMPLATE to Vet Your Church's Website

TO SUPPORT US: 

• Join our Patreon for as little as $5 a month to support our work (and get access to the book club!)
• And check out our Merch, or any of our courses!
• Give to the Good Fruit Faith Initiative of the Bosko Foundation
• Join our email list!

LINKS MENTIONED: 

• Our article about risk of sexual harassment in the Scientific Study of Religion Journal

Support the show

Join Sheila at Bare Marriage.com!

Check out her books:

• The Great Sex Rescue 
• She Deserves Better
• The Marriage You Want and the Study Guide
•  The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex
•  and The Good Guy's Guide to Great Sex

And she has an Orgasm Course and a Libido course too!

Check out all her courses, FREE resources, social media, books, and so much more at Sheila's LinkTree.

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A close look at how Every Man’s Battle ignores the impact of predation on women and girls–and is just plain creepy! Plus a new study on hostile/benevolent sexism when it comes to tradwife content. It’s our podcast and Friday RoundUp in one!

Our podcast we wanted to air this week just wasn’t ready in time–so we decided to record our Friday RoundUp a day early, and run it as this week’s podcast. So if you’re used to listening to our podcast, remember that on YouTube every week we also have a 20 minute unfiltered, unscripted Friday Roundup!

TO SUPPORT US: 

• Join our Patreon for as little as $5 a month to support our work (and get access to the book club!)
• And check out our Merch, or any of our courses!
• Give to the Good Fruit Faith Initiative of the Bosko Foundation
• Join our email list!

LINKS MENTIONED: 

• Our post on the two Every Man’s Battle excerpts
• The Facebook post people were commenting on
• The article on the new tradwife study
• Our download on the problems with Every Man’s Battle
• Our download on the problems with Every Young Man’s Battle
• Subscribe to our YouTube channel so you don't miss all the regular Friday roundups!
  
  

Support the show

Join Sheila at Bare Marriage.com!

Check out her books:

• The Great Sex Rescue 
• She Deserves Better
• The Marriage You Want and the Study Guide
•  The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex
•  and The Good Guy's Guide to Great Sex

And she has an Orgasm Course and a Libido course too!

Check out all her courses, FREE resources, social media, books, and so much more at Sheila's LinkTree.

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Keith and Rebecca are taking over the podcast this week and are answering your questions — from how to find a healthy church community to whether complementarianism is a dealbreaker. They're refreshingly honest and a little funny about it. Then Joanna joins to dig into a brand-new peer-reviewed paper on how internalized modesty messaging affects girls' self-esteem and their risk of being sexually harassed in church as minors. What they found is both unsurprising and deeply sobering: environments that emphasize modesty messaging don't just harm girls, they actually groom boys into predatory behavior. It's research that needs to get out of their little corner of the internet and into the broader conversation, and your support made it possible.

TO SUPPORT US: 

• Join our Patreon for as little as $5 a month to support our work (and get access to the book club!)
• And check out our Merch, or any of our courses!
• Give to the Good Fruit Faith Initiative of the Bosko Foundation
• Join our email list!

LINKS MENTIONED: 

• Love & Respect Docuseries
• Book suggestions from Rebecca: Mistborn Series by Brandon Sanderson
• Project Hail Mary - Andy Weir
• Shattered Sea Trilogy - Joe Abercrombie
• Farseer Trilogy - Robin Hobb
• (Join The Patreon for our great book club for more!)

Support the show

Join Sheila at Bare Marriage.com!

Check out her books:

• The Great Sex Rescue 
• She Deserves Better
• The Marriage You Want and the Study Guide
•  The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex
•  and The Good Guy's Guide to Great Sex

And she has an Orgasm Course and a Libido course too!

Check out all her courses, FREE resources, social media, books, and so much more at Sheila's LinkTree.

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What does it mean to have realistic expectations of a spouse with ADHD? How does gender play into how ADHD impacts a relationship? And what do accommodations actually look like—versus what do they not look like in a healthy marriage?

This week Rebecca talks about her own diagnosis of ADHD with her father Keith (a pediatrician) and good friend Daniel Forsythe (a licensed psychotherapist who works with neurodiverse marriages frequently) to dig down to discuss what the evidence actually says is possible, the risk of “caregiver burnout”, and more as Rebecca picks the brains of the actual professionals so we can all land in an evidence-based place!

THANKS TO OUR SPONSOR:

To Heal or Harm: Scripture's Use as Poison or Medicine for Abuse Survivors by Dr. Steven Tracy. How to refute it when Bible verses are weaponized!

TO SUPPORT US: 

• Join our Patreon for as little as $5 a month to support our work (and get access to the book club!)
• And check out our Merch, or any of our courses!
• Give to the Good Fruit Faith Initiative of the Bosko Foundation
• Join our email list!

LINKS MENTIONED: 

• Study regarding impact of ADHD on women versus men in adulthood
• Write-up on how we falsely believe that ADHD is easier on women
• Study on how a messy home impacts women versus men’s social standing and who we intrinsically believe is “responsible” for cleaning
• The Marriage You Want book
• Is It You, Me, or Adult ADHD? 
• A more therapeutic book about counselling practices for marriages working with ADHD: 

Support the show

Join Sheila at Bare Marriage.com!

Check out her books:

• The Great Sex Rescue 
• She Deserves Better
• The Marriage You Want and the Study Guide
•  The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex
•  and The Good Guy's Guide to Great Sex

And she has an Orgasm Course and a Libido course too!

Check out all her courses, FREE resources, social media, books, and so much more at Sheila's LinkTree.

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What if the reason so many women struggle with desire, arousal, and orgasm has nothing to do with their bodies—and everything to do with what they were taught before they even wanted to be sexual? In this episode, Rebecca and I pull together research and real-life stories to trace a thread that runs from how we raise our daughters, to what happens on the wedding night, to why so many women are secretly faking it.

THANKS TO OUR SPONSOR:

To Heal or Harm: Scripture's Use as Poison or Medicine for Abuse Survivors by Dr. Steven Tracy. How to refute it when Bible verses are weaponized!

TO SUPPORT US: 

• Join our Patreon for as little as $5 a month to support our work (and get access to the book club!)
• And check out our Merch, or any of our courses!
• Give to the Good Fruit Faith Initiative of the Bosko Foundation
• Join our email list!

LINKS MENTIONED: 

• Our Orgasm Course and Boost Your Libido Course
• Love and Respect Docu-Series
• Research Paper: "Sexual Passion in Adolescence: Examining Its Transmission Through Mothers"
• Research Paper: "Do Women Withhold Honest Sexual Communication When They Believe Their Partner's Manhood Is Threatened?"
• Instagram Thread by Ally Jolie (somatic psychologist, UK)
• Podcast episode on men projecting sexual attention-seeking onto girls

Support the show

Join Sheila at Bare Marriage.com!

Check out her books:

• The Great Sex Rescue 
• She Deserves Better
• The Marriage You Want and the Study Guide
•  The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex
•  and The Good Guy's Guide to Great Sex

And she has an Orgasm Course and a Libido course too!

Check out all her courses, FREE resources, social media, books, and so much more at Sheila's LinkTree.

Send us Fan Mail

Jay Stringer, licensed therapist and author of Unwanted, is back to talk about his brand new book Desire: The Longings Inside Us and the New Science of How We Love, Heal, and Grow. Together, we unpack why so many of us — especially those from church backgrounds — were taught to fear and suppress our desires rather than develop them. We dig into enmeshment, the "provisional self," why differentiation is actually the secret to intimacy and a healthy sex life, and why low libido is never just a libido problem. If you've ever felt broken, empty, or like you don't even know what you want anymore, this conversation is for you.

TO SUPPORT US: 

• Join our Patreon for as little as $5 a month to support our work
• And check out our Merch, or any of our courses!
• Give to the Good Fruit Faith Initiative of the Bosko Foundation
• Join our email list!

LINKS MENTIONED: 

• Get Jay Stringer's book Desire
• Get Jay's book Unwanted
• Follow Jay on Instagram
• Sheila's book The Marriage You Want, and the video curriculum that goes with it

Support the show

Join Sheila at Bare Marriage.com!

Check out her books:

• The Great Sex Rescue 
• She Deserves Better
• The Marriage You Want and the Study Guide
•  The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex
•  and The Good Guy's Guide to Great Sex

And she has an Orgasm Course and a Libido course too!

Check out all her courses, FREE resources, social media, books, and so much more at Sheila's LinkTree.

Send us Fan Mail

Anna Rollins grew up as the kind of girl who took her faith seriously — and that's exactly why it hurt her so much. In this conversation, Anna and I dig into her memoir Famished: On Food, Sex, and Growing Up as a Good Girl, where she traces how purity culture's messages about desire, self-denial, and the body quietly fueled decades of disordered eating, compulsive exercise, and sexual pain. What strikes me most is that Anna's parents were loving, her church wasn't overtly abusive — and yet the cumulative message she absorbed was shrink yourself.  I think this conversation is going to resonate deeply with so many of you.

THANKS TO OUR SPONSOR:

To Heal or Harm: Scripture's Use as Poison or Medicine for Abuse Survivors by Dr. Steven Tracy. How to refute it when Bible verses are weaponized! https://amzn.to/4rSYkZu

TO SUPPORT US: 

• Join our Patreon for as little as $5 a month to support our work
• And check out our Merch, or any of our courses!
• Give to the Good Fruit Faith Initiative of the Bosko Foundation
• Join our email list!

LINKS MENTIONED: 

• Get Anna Rollins' book Famished
• Follow Anna on Substack
• Watch our Love & Respect Docuseries 
• The Portuguese version of The Great Sex Rescue
• The Chinese version of The Great Sex Rescue
• The Spanish version of The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex

Support the show

Join Sheila at Bare Marriage.com!

Check out her books:

• The Great Sex Rescue 
• She Deserves Better
• The Marriage You Want and the Study Guide
•  The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex
•  and The Good Guy's Guide to Great Sex

And she has an Orgasm Course and a Libido course too!

Check out all her courses, FREE resources, social media, books, and so much more at Sheila's LinkTree.

Send us Fan Mail

Rebecca, Joanna, and I are pulling back the curtain on what went into making the Love & Respect docuseries — including the things that didn't make the final cut.

From the bizarre Nazi torture illustration Emerson used to keep women in bad marriages, to the genuinely heartbreaking story of a little boy watching his father abuse his mother, this episode gets raw and honest about why we've been fighting this battle for seven years. We also share the stunning survey results from a church in Florida that show exactly what happens when love-and-respect-style teaching takes root in a community. And we end with a word of real hope: healthy churches exist, better books are being written, and the tide is turning.

THANKS TO OUR SPONSOR:

To Heal or Harm: Scripture's Use as Poison or Medicine for Abuse Survivors by Dr. Steven Tracy. How to refute it when Bible verses are weaponized! https://amzn.to/4rSYkZu

TO SUPPORT US: 

• Join our Patreon for as little as $5 a month to support our work
• And check out our Merch, or any of our courses!
• Give to the Good Fruit Faith Initiative of the Bosko Foundation
• Join our email list!

LINKS MENTIONED: 

• Watch the Love & Respect Docuseries! Episode 1, Episode 2, and Episode 3
• Our Love & Respect hub (links to all Love & Respect articles 7 resources at bottom)
• The Substack from the Florida woman
• Subscribe to Good Fruit Faith on YouTube

Support the show

Join Sheila at Bare Marriage.com!

Check out her books:

• The Great Sex Rescue 
• She Deserves Better
• The Marriage You Want and the Study Guide
•  The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex
•  and The Good Guy's Guide to Great Sex

And she has an Orgasm Course and a Libido course too!

Check out all her courses, FREE resources, social media, books, and so much more at Sheila's LinkTree.

Send us Fan Mail

Part two of a three-part docuseries deep dive into the best-selling evangelical marriage book Love & Respect.

LOVE & RESPECT DOCUSERIES:

• Watch the video version of this
• Here's episode 1. 
• To see episode 3 next week, subscribe to the Good Fruit Faith Channel

This podcast delves into what Love & Respect is based on--recycled ideas from a 1970s best-seller; faulty stats; misrepresented research--and editing the Bible.

BONUS CONTENT
Gain bonus content, full videos of the interviews and MORE if you become a patron! https://patreon.com/baremarriage

Support Good Fruit Faith, that paved the way for this project

LINKS: 

• Op-ed on the history of ordination of women and the SBC
• Shaunti Feldhahn's original survey
• Double-barrelled questions
• Study on shoulder-to-shoulder communication
• The Authoritarians book  
• Breakdown of Eggerichs misunderstanding marital rape and saying you can't tell if a woman is aroused
• Podcast about the mystery of a woman being "turned on"
• Dr. Shauna Springer's original PsychologyToday article

EXPERT INTERVIEWEES INFORMATION: 

• Dr. Chuck DeGroat 
• Dr. Shauna Springer 
• Dr. Andrew Bauman 
• Dr. Beth Felkner Jones and her Substack 
• Jay Stringer and his book Desire 

Support the show

Join Sheila at Bare Marriage.com!

Check out her books:

• The Great Sex Rescue 
• She Deserves Better
• The Marriage You Want and the Study Guide
•  The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex
•  and The Good Guy's Guide to Great Sex

And she has an Orgasm Course and a Libido course too!

Check out all her courses, FREE resources, social media, books, and so much more at Sheila's LinkTree.

Send us Fan Mail

Part one of a three-part docuseries deep dive into the best-selling evangelical marriage book, Love & Respect.

THE LOVE & RESPECT DOCUSERIES:

This is a video series, so if you want to watch it in all its glory, head over to https://youtu.be/z3EEAkjwcXA!

To see episodes 2 & 3 when they launch next week, subscribe to the Good Fruit Faith Channel

This podcast delves into the broken logic of Love & Respect, why so many people bought into it, and the truly bizarre nature of what passes for evangelical marriage advice.

Copyright Disclaimer: - Under section 107 of the copyright Act 1976, allowance is mad for FAIR USE for purpose such a as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statues that might otherwise be infringing. Non- Profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of FAIR USE. All DVD clips and quotes from the book are used for criticism and teaching, and therefore fall under fair use.

BONUS CONTENT
Gain bonus content, full videos of the interviews and MORE if you become a patron! https://patreon.com/baremarriage

LINKS:

• Support Good Fruit Faith
• Our paper, Sanctified Sexism
• Our one sheet on the problems with Love & Respect

EXPERT INTERVIEWEES INFORMATION:

• Chuck DeGroat: https://www.chuckdegroat.net/
• Chuck's book, "When Narcissism Comes to Church"
• Andrew Bauman: https://andrewjbauman.com/
• Andrew's book, "The Sexually Healthy Man" 

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Music Attribution

“In the Dark” performed by BlockBeatz/stock.adobe.com
“Romantic Smooth Rock (O Mundo Gira)” performed by Yummy Tunes/stock.adobe.com
“Gentle Relaxed Smooth Jazz (Soul Power)” performed by Tasty Tunes/stock.adobe.com

Support the show

Join Sheila at Bare Marriage.com!

Check out her books:

• The Great Sex Rescue 
• She Deserves Better
• The Marriage You Want and the Study Guide
•  The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex
•  and The Good Guy's Guide to Great Sex

And she has an Orgasm Course and a Libido course too!

Check out all her courses, FREE resources, social media, books, and so much more at Sheila's LinkTree.