A few weeks ago, the BBC reported that conversion therapy, the development of formalized processes to attempt to change a person’s orientation or gender identity to the dominant discourse (cisgendered heterosexuality), has been officially banned in England and Wales.

Except this ruling doesn’t apply for trans people. The British government continues to leave trans folks open to the dangers of conversion therapy.

Let’s avoid the conversation about the transitioning process for children and adolescents, which involves legal implications around age of consent and when parents have rights to make decisions for their children, even when those decisions override the desires of their children. These conversations are extremely complicated and involve legal elements that are outside of our scopes of practice as therapists.

At Sexvangelicals, we align with a comprehensive community of voices and professionals that condemns conversion therapy directed at all queer communities, including trans folks, in formalized and informalizes settings, including (but not limited to) the team at the Trevor Project, Kristine Stolakis, producer of the Netflix documentary Pray Away, which interviews queer people who have been subjected to conversion therapy, and the American Psychological Association’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Concerns Office, which published a document that discusses the negative implications of conversation therapy.

Conversion therapy uses a mixture of pseudoscience and guilt-directed communication strategies to reinforce a narrative that queerness is a mental health issue (interestingly, something that the APA only moved away from 40 years ago), and we are committed to having Sexvangelicals be a space where queer folks can share their stories of the damaging, long-lasting impacts of conversion therapy.

In this episode, Jordon, fellow therapist and professional co-worker of Jeremiah’s, shares their experience of navigating conversion therapy connected within their Christian university. They talk with Jeremiah and Julia about:

• The church’s outward identification as a secure attachment (10:00). Jordon describes a childhood with geographic upheaval, and the church gave Jordon “something I needed as a child—secure adult figures, direction, boundaries, the difference between right and wrong”. To communicate their investment in the church, Jordon discloses that they played Jesus in a local VBS. Jordon also learned that this safety is only given to folks who present a sexuality and gender orientation that aligns with their values.

• Experience of being queer at a conservative Christian university (25:00). Jordon talks about their initial identification as a queer person, stating, “My girlfriend and I realized that if we started to date, we’re putting ourselves at risk.” Risks described on the episode included termination as an employee of the university, undue attention from the university administration, and subjection to a process that attempted to change the orientations of Jordon and their partner.

• The impact of conversion therapy (33:00): The university administration suggested that Jordon and their partner were threats to children, perpetuating an attempt by conservatives to compare queer folks to pedophiles. They mourn, “It took me a really long time to feel like it was safe for me to be around children. I didn’t know that it was okay for me to be a therapist to children.” Conversion therapy also encouraged Jordon to avoid the pressure of placating voices in power. “I got smarter and more sure of myself. I became a better self-advocate,” Jordon explains.

• Identifying with the aggressor (51:00): Jordon uses this term to explain processes by which systems “keep people connected with the security of their attachment figures while also ignoring ways that it violates other people.” Jeremiah shares the ways that he learned to disavow his status as a Hispanic person and assimilate into White spaces as a child in order to avoid the discrimination that other Brown bodies experienced. Julia described a similar process for passing as a straight person. We identify how acknowledging the ways that we identify with the aggressor in the name of maintaining the status quo is the first step toward anti-oppressive justice.

• Forgiveness and reparations (1:05:00): Jordon describes the complexity of forgiveness: “The truth is that when we make mistakes, I want to caution people that the person who got hurt should “get over it”, or at any point they are entitled to forgiveness.” We explore how forgiveness is a relational process, and the ways that anger and accountability get processes are unique to each relationship. We also discuss reparations. Jordon poses the question, “What would a system of financial payments and taxing churches be, and using those funds to pay for those who have been harmed?” Jeremiah lobbies for an abolishment of the DSM and ICD-10.

We’re extremely thankful for the wisdom, vulnerability, and courage of Jordon, and are eager to share more stories from folks in the queer community. Let’s heal together!

Jesus or my Boyfriend? A question we all ask ourselves. Or, maybe not. In this episode, Jeremiah, Julia, and I (Nicole) play the guessing game, Jesus or my Boyfriend? Where Jeremiah and Julia tell me lyrics and I have to guess if it is a Christian worship song or a pop song. I grew up in a Romanian Eastern Orthodox Church, so I never had exposure to American worship music. Though some of the same themes still hold (i.e. the idea of being born a sinner, devoting yourself to God fully etc.), we didn’t have catchy ballads.

We explored what Christian messaging was in the worship songs, how one word is the only difference between a song about sex and a song about God, and how horny Christians might actually be. I mean, this music makes Jesus seem pretty horny. One of my biggest takeaways from this episode is how exposure to this worship music is actually really dangerous for children because messaging around servitude and devotion (especially for young girls) can be really damaging.

Jesus Completes Us (17:00): When discussing In Your Eyes by Peter Gabriel, Julia speaks on how the lyrics of this song could be interpreted as a worship song: “In your eyes the light, the heat, I am complete” is the lyric, and Julia says “We are not complete generally without Jesus” in the eyes of the Church. This song was a tough guess, but we all know there is no “heat” allowed in Church spaces, as Nicole mentions after.

Musical Manipulation (21:00): After discussing the song “The More I Seek You” by Hillsong, Jeremiah explains a Discovery Channel documentary about Hillsong, which is essentially a factory for producing worship songs, and he says “lots of musical manipulation” (22:18) when talking about the kinds of worship songs Hillsong is pumping out. Jeremiah and Julia highly recommend watching the documentary Hillsong: A Megachurch Exposed. Jeremiah then notes how in the book “This is Your Brain on Music” the author discusses how pop singers use certain cord progressions to evoke specific emotions and how Hillsong is the master of this.

Born Sinning (27:30): When talking about Nicole’s guess about if a song is Jesus or My Boyfriend, she explains what gave away the lyrics “I’ve done wrong and I want to suffer for my sins. I’ve come to you because I need guidance to be true” (Criminal by Fiona Apple) to be “my boyfriend” and not a worship song: “Christians would just be like I have sinned. I am not coming to you, I am disgusting I have sinned.” The distinction being made here is that in worship songs it is usually centering the fact that people are inherently sinners, while this song differs from that ideology by seeking help and framing it is a sin that happened not one that was born into people.

Defined by Sin (31:00): Julia says “Christianity really likes to define you by your sins.” A big topic when discussing the songs chosen for this episode is the intentional wording choices for the lyrics in these songs. Just the difference between “I have sinned” and “I am a sinner” is a way to tell if a song is using creative choices or a worship song that wants to instill negative Christian ideology in its listeners.

If you want some spoilers, here is the complete list of songs we analyzed in this episode:

1. Your Love is Extravagant -- Casting Crowns
2. Hallelujah -- Brenton Brown
3. In Your Eyes -- Peter Gabriel
4. The More I Seek You -- Hillsong
5. Only Hope -- Mandy Moore
6. All My Life -- KCi and Jojo (Jeremiah’s favorite song growing up)
7. Pour My Love on You -- Phillips, Craig, and Dean
8. Criminal -- Fiona Apple (One of my favorite songs ever)
9. In the Secret -- Chris Tomlin
10. Save Tonight -- Eagle Eye Cherry (A contender on Julia’s best songs of all time list)
11. I Surrender -- Hillsong
12. Toto -- Africa (Another contender on Julia’s best songs of all time list)
13. I Want It That Way -- N'Sync (Objectively the best song of all time [that’s just my opinion)

Complementarianism, the idea that men and women inherently have distinct, specific roles in marriages and families, is a theory that permeates contemporary Evangelical Christian and Catholic thought about relationships. Typically, complementarianism exists as a quid pro quo: women are expected to take care of the inside of the house, and men are expected to oversee the outside of the house, for example. Women care for, men provide.

There’s some inherent, biological truth to complementarianism. Men, lacking uteri, can never house and develop an embryo. If a couple chooses to breastfeed their child, the mother is going to be the breastfeeder (although even that notion is being challenged by new technological designs.)

Complementarianism can be a very effective way to operate a relationship; if two different things need to be tended to, it makes sense to have the person whose skill set best matches item A to address that specific task, and vice versa.

However, the Evangelical version of complementarianism relies on aligning with specific gender roles. It justifies specific gender roles for men and women through a yin-yang perspective of the world. The “submissiveness” and “gentleness” of a woman plays off their male partner’s expected “dominance” and “assertiveness” to create a holistic balance of power. But let’s say that the female partner is the more “dominant” partner. Then what?

We take a deeper look into the world of complementarianism through one of its contemporary disciples, Matt Chandler, pastor of The Village Church, who uses it as his main theory for his dating and relationship manual, The Mingling of Souls: God’s Design for Love, Marriage, Sex, and Redemption.

In our most recent episode of Bedtime Stories, we explore how Chandler uses complementarianism to establish expectations for healthy relationships and communication in the following ways:

• The theological foundation for complementarianism (22:00): Chandler starts at the beginning with Adam and Eve and the story that Eve came out of the rib of Adam. Ideally, a complementary relationship suggests equity between the folks in the relationship; however, Chandler uses this interpretation of Genesis 2, and the woman blaming of Eve in the introduction of sin, to insinuate that this isn’t really the case, which leads to:

• The theological foundation for misoygyny (33:00): Chandler suggests that the “biological design of men”, through the presence of testosterone, gives men “the ability to name and design things”. Jeremiah wonders if the same is true for the agency and creativity of women. (Editor’s note: Doubtful, at least according to this genre of literature.) Julia goes one step further, noting that the inequity between men and women in Evangelical complementarianism “reinforces the idea that women are asexual, that they’re not interested in sex, and that men are sexual predators that are unable to view humanity in its entirety.”

• The connection between complentarianism and biological essentialism (38:00). Biological essentialism suggests that anatomical and physiological designs trump cultural and sociological influence. Psychologist JP DeCecco summarizes that biological essentialism “submerges sexual preference, a human process, into sexual orientation, a biological mechanism”. Julia discusses the implications: “If you were a boy who played with girls, you’re effeminate and that was an indication of your sexual orientation, and by default, broken humanity.”

• Complementarianism and the coupling process (45:00). Chandler explains the process of physical attraction by emphasizing the ways that men are designed to visually assess beauty. Though Jeremiah describes research that reinforces this idea, Julia reminds us that men and women are socialized to engage in a process where men are the pursuers and women are the pursued. The biological explanations around men being “visual creatures” fails to take into account the rules of courtship that have been in place for millennia, where women are expected to be commodified and objectified.

• The attractiveness of complementarianism (1:02:00): Jeremiah empathizes: “These particular gender roles help our brains function by classifying groups of people into simplistic categories that allows us to not see the nuance in the ways that folks can interact with each other and create relationships that work. There’s not room for differences. I get why complentarianism is attractive. It’s an orderly, neatly defined view of good men do these things, good women do these particular things. And especially to Christians who are obsessed with seeking some variation of moral perfection. The less nuanced and diverse the world is, the easier it is to fall into good graces of God. The less confused we are. The less sinful we are.”

Julia closes: “If we recognize that gender is a diverse type of living and expressing in the world and other murky areas of life, we are less likely able to say good/bad. In the liberal world, we avoid self reflection by virtue signaling, cancel culturing, or throwing out some phrase that’s trending on Twitter. Complementarianism is a conservative way to avoid self-reflection by having rigid categories about gender, sexuality, or financial stability; if you fall into the right or wrong side of these terms, you are either good or bad.”

March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization published the following statement:

There are now more than 118,000 cases in 114 countries, and 4,291 people have lost their lives. Thousands more are fighting for their lives in hospitals.
In the days and weeks ahead, we expect to see the number of cases, the number of deaths, and the number of affected countries climb even higher.
WHO has been assessing this outbreak around the clock and we are deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity, and by the alarming levels of inaction.
We have therefore made the assessment that COVID-19 can be characterized as a pandemic. 

Two years later, following the deaths of at least one million American citizens to COVID-19 (or COVID-19 sparked illness), our world has experience the disruption of family routines and systems, the gouging of energy from an education system (children, teachers, parents) who have seen the development of children stall, a reorganization of the workforce, and a significant increase in the demand for mental health services.

Jeremiah summarizes: “The last two years has been this 24-month long experiment that we’ve all been involved with, including scientists, where we’re trying to figure out how to make decisions when our relationships with time and space are becoming restricted. We are all winging COVID, including the therapists who are supporting you.”

We discovered the article “Initial Impacts of COVID-19 on Sex Life and Relationship Quality in Steady Relationships in Britain: Findings from a Large, Quasi-Representative Survey” in February’s Journal of Sex Research. To our knowledge, this is the most expansive study about the impact of the pandemic on sexuality and relationships, with data from over 4,000 people. (On the podcast, we said it was 6,654, which was the number of folks who completed the survey. We neglected to say that 4,271 were in committed relationships.) For more information about this survey, please check out the Natsal-COVID survey webpage.

Interestingly, over half of the respondents said their relationship quality stayed the same; 18% of people said the relationship got worse, while 27% said their relationship improved during the pandemic. While each person was impacted by a myriad of variables, such as socioeconomic class, financial status, and engagement with COVID-19 itself, the authors noted three major categories of folks who were more likely to struggle:

1. People between 18-24. As Julia notes, this population, particularly if they are in universities, is often “unable to have access to spaces outside of their dorm, so even if a college student is dating someone at their university, they may not have access to time alone with that partner.”

2. People between 35-44. Jeremiah reminds us that this is the population that is most likely to have young children with higher needs and fewer resources to collaborate with, especially as many childcare centers and schools prohibited live services during the pandemic.

3. Women who did not live with their partners. The researchers note that these women were more likely to experience isolation in their relationships that any other demographic.

We add to this research with our own professional and personal experiences and name five themes of successful relationships during the pandemic (30:00):

1. Creativity and adaptability in responding to the restrictions around time and space. Julia shares that for us, going on hikes has been a way to create novelty and structure. Creativity is also about creating novelty and newness while also having some sort of structure.”

2. Adjusted expectations around finances and spending. As rents, mortgages, inflation, and recently, gas prices increase higher than the rate of average growth in salaries, many folks have struggled to find creative ways to connect, especially as, Jeremiah notes, “there are pressures to connect date nights out with spending money.” In our case, hiking is free, and has allowed us to connect in deep emotional ways.

3. Luck. Jeremiah mourns, “In 2020 and early 2021, people were dying on a pretty consistent basis because of COVID. I think the closer you were to someone dying or being debilitated adds a new unexpected stress and potentially impacts the relationship.” People in higher socioeconomic brackets, which is largely due to luck, are also less likely to have experienced deeper stressors connected with the pandemic.

4. The ability to be present in the difficulty. Julia explains, “The couples who are doing well or either going to therapy or have a relationship system that allows them to assess, process, and engage with the difficult experiences that arise. They are not afraid of what is difficult and are able to have hard conversations.”

5. Using COVID as an opportunity to restructure and rebuild the ways they want to do our lives. Stay tuned to the end of the episode to learn more about specific moves that we’re making to create the lives we want to live!

Please share with us how you’ve noticed your relationship changing, struggling, and improving during the pandemic. (Our guess is that most folks have experienced a bit of all three.) Let’s heal together!

Julia had oral surgery last week, which resulted in a series of minor inconveniences—stitches in one’s mouth are never comfortable, and make kissing extremely difficult—and major life reflections, such as the impact of sexual assault on dental work, something that Jennifer Wiessner reminded us about in a season 1 episode. Julia summarizes, “I have struggled to move out of a narrative that I am a less desire person if I can’t engage in particular sexual activities.”

She and Jeremiah reflect on some of the impact of surgeries (and aging, as all bodies age) on bodies and sexuality, discussing:

• The grief that comes with making sexual adaptations (8:00): Julia describes how, “experiencing sexual repression for a long time woefully set me up to be a sexual person. I had low sexual literacy and experience. This has contributed to my anxiety that I have to make up for the time that I lost, so if I’m not being sexual and having limited sexual experiences for a period of time, I’m somehow failing.” Jeremiah adds:

  “Purity culture is a developmental loss—whether you explicitly engaged in it through rings or certificates, or implicitly, such as if you went to a public school and didn’t choose its abstinence only education.”

• How life transitions impact trauma and developmental loss (11:30): Jeremiah explains, “One of the things that the field of psychology misses that I want to capture is that when transitions happen in our lives, from a temporary loss of full mobility to something more permanent, like the addition of a child or a disability, that developmental loss comes up and you’re forced to reengage with the developmental loss and trauma, regardless of the coping skills you develop. In these different transitions (acute or permanent), how do they impact the way you engage with the developmental loss. That forces you to retell and re-read your story from the lens of whatever you’re going through in the moment.”

• The ways that grief around purity culture were experienced post-surgery (22:00): Julia says, “The first 30 years of my life, sexual repression defined my experience in the world, and I don’t want to have a reaction formation in which experiencing and accessing the sexuality that I want, or more realistically, that other people suggest is important defines my life in needing to maintain and achieve whatever rigid standards of sexuality that exist. Having an oral surgery that’s impacted my ability to engage myself and my partner triggers these intense fears of holding onto my sexuality in a way that’s quite stifling. The control that I have is just an illusion.”

• Accumulated sadness (34:00). Jeremiah defines this term as “the idea that as we age and grow, sad stuff happens to us. Our bodies decline and aren’t able to do the same things they were. People move into our lives, people move out of our lives. People die, all of these things lead to loss. We experience sad things that are a bit geographically distant, like the invasion of Ukraine.” He also notes that accumulated sadness and depression are not the same thing. “Accumulated sadness is a natural part of the aging process, and the inability to engage with the sadness that comes up lead to mental health challenges as folks age. Being able to engage in self-reflection, talk with other people, and ask questions like “How does this thing that happened to you in the past impact what you’re currently engaging with?” leads to a greater amount of insight, and out of that comes a greater sense of joy, connection to a sense of adventure, stepping into vulnerability.

• Making adaptations (38:00): Julia summarizes: “I’ve had to be creative with other ways to access myself and our bodies. This has come with laughter and play and creativity. Having a mouthful of stitches is kind of funny, as awful as it is. I also believe that it’s important to acknowledge and honor that bringing play and humor is super important as part of any healing process.”

Julia is fortunately on the mend, but this will by no means by the last time that something that happens to our bodies (aging, surgeries, etc.) will impact our sexuality and move us into the creative process of adaptation. Please share with us your own stories of pain, loss, and adaptations! Let’s heal together!

In 2012, a few months before getting married, I (Julia) received the book The Good Girls Guide to Great Sex (by Sheila Wray Gregoire) at a bridal shower. This was one of many books about “Christian sex” that well-meaning fellow Christian women gave me while engaged.

Rather than having honest dialogue about sexuality in Christian communities, we pass each other books that tell us why we aren’t having the mindblowing sex that purity culture promised us, and somehow our devastating sexual experiences are simultaneously all of our fault and not our fault at the same time.

These books tend to create a false dichotomy between “good girls” and “bad girls”, suggesting that sex outside of the rigid contexts of heterosexual marriage is bad, and that girls (though not guys) who engage in these types of sexuality are inherently bad.

Good girls don’t have sex outside of marriage. Good girls don’t wear clothing that reveals sexualized parts of their bodies. Good girls don’t masturbate. Et cetera.

The good girl narrative has trapped many women in a double bind whenever they move into a communally sanctioned platform for sexuality (read: marriage), because we’re expected to live up to the patriarchal sanctioned fantasy of a sexual woman after being sexually repressed by an entire community up until the moment you say “I do” at the altar.

Jeremiah and I are joined by our friend Devin for our third installation of Bedtime Stories. We read through the introduction of The Good Girls Guide to Great Sex, where we discuss:

• What qualifies you as a good girl vs a bad girl (6:00): Interestingly, in the introduction, Gregoire offers little insight into who a good girl is. Rather, Gregoire makes a myriad of metaphors to dehumanize women who explore and engage their sexuality outside of marital contexts, and suggests that good girls are girls who are not bad girls. Bad girls are “bullies on the playground”. Bad girls are animals. Bad girls are trendy.

• The intersection of body shaming and ageism with good girls (21:00): The author attempts to make Jesus’ “last shall be first and first shall be list” move when describing good girls, suggesting that good girls are those for whom “gravity has taken its toll”, among other qualifications. In the process, she body shames everyone, because she’s highlighting this patriarchal-sanctioned fantasy of the female body as this “hot, 22 year old”. She feeds into this really rigid standard of beauty as both the prize and something to avoid, and makes disparaging comments about people who don’t fit into that standard of beauty, and then idolizes them.

• Naming trauma survivors as “bad girls” (27:00): Anything that mars your purity, whether it’s consensual or nonconsensual, is a demerit. Devin summarizes: “The repeated blatant callouts of people who have survived sexual abuse as bad girls is so problematic. For people who are trying to take this to heart and not thinking critically about it, like we’re taught to not critically think in the church, this is so dangerous, damaging, and frustrating.”

An enormous thanks to Devin for being a part of Bedtime Stories. If there are Christian books that shaped, and later harmed, your sexual experiences, please let us know what books you’d like us to read on future editions of Bedtime Stories!

Let’s heal together!

Jeremiah and Julia both went to Christian Colleges, which promoted sexual purity. These ideas are pushed onto people when they are young, reinforcing throughout their lives that sex is bad, to put it in the simplest terms. Women are the most punished victims because though purity culture deeply hurts and traumatizes men, women are acting within the confines of Christianity and the patriarchy (and those two tend to go hand in hand). 

Personally, I (Nicole) find the purity culture extends past the Church, displaying the profound impact that Christian ideology around sex and sexuality has had on our world as a whole. So, when hearing how intensely damaging and dangerous the messaging around sex is in Christian contexts it hard not to think about my own experiences with the virginity construct and shame around the oh-so-scary pill (birth control). Purity culture is rooted in guilt, built to promote silence and shame at every corner. 

The ideology is ingrained: if you have sex before marriage you will go to hell, and possibly even worse if someone finds out you will be shamed indefinitely. It takes a certain kind of bravery to break out of the confines of this ideology, and Devin Ritenhower has this bravery.

Devin Ritenour graduated from Messiah University (formerly Messiah College) with a degree in biblical and religious studies. After leaving the Church she went on to pursue a career in the mental health field and has been working in a residential rehabilitation program for people with significant mental health diagnoses and substance abuse for the last four years. She’s currently a Masters's student at a southern New Hampshire University studying to be a psychotherapist and is expected to graduate this spring. You can find her on Instagram @earthtodevin to enjoy some wonderfully lovely cat photos.

Devin talks with Jeremiah and Julia about:

• The expectations of sex and sexuality in a Christian community (5:00): Devin talks about the culture and expectations of and around sex in her religious background: “Not only is sex bad, but you shouldn’t want sex, you shouldn’t be thinking about sex, you shouldn’t be promoting sex, and when I say promoting sex I mean wearing anything that had lace on it.” She talks about the different set of expectations around women, and shares an anecdote about having to read a book on how not to tempt her “brothers [in Christ]”, or how she puts it “one big cringey happy family.”

• Dating in a Christian context (12:30): “The Church set me up for failure in a lot of ways,” Devin says when asked about how it was like to date in this culture. With the already unrealistic and unhealthy language and ideas around sex, paired with a culture of guilt and shame, dating was “rough”, or better described: “Where if you do it you don’t talk about, but you better not do it” sums up the ideology firmly.

• Contraception and shame (18:00): Julia says “I’m not thinking, ‘Dear Lord, if I got pregnant, my entire world would shame me and condemn to hell,” after Devin discusses creative contraceptive methods she used as a teenager when the act of buying contraceptives was maybe even more shameful than the sex itself. So, instead of using safe and available contraception, tinfoil and other things had to substitute because the sentiment Julia shared was the thought process for young Christians, including Devin, who had a fear more steeped in community guilt and buying contraceptives, instead of a healthy dialogue around contraceptive needs. Devin says, “By the time I needed it [contraceptives], I was too ashamed and broken to ask for it.”

• How Biblical studies lead to questioning Christianity (29:00): Devin studied religion and the Bible, and the actual studying and unpacking the Bible led her to question her faith, “But then it became okay if I’m not taking this part of the Bible seriously, why am I taking this part as seriously?” And she describes her moral dilemmas when she learned the cultural context of the biblical passages and ideas she was learning about, and how those two things did not match up.

• Deconstructing purity culture in a romantic relationship (40:00): Devin talks about the damage purity culture did to her within the context of her relationship with her now-husband, and Julia notes that though purity culture is damaging for both men and women, “I think the more acute anxiety and panic tend to hit women due to the mass amounts of oppression and repression.” She then goes on to say, “Religion is obviously a huge part of people's lives and identities, so it's typical when you marry someone you anticipate being on the same page. And John and I were not on the same page from the get-go.” Devin spends time talking about how John’s questioning and her own questioning led her to leave Christianity. And later says “I got lucky. This should have broken us” (50:20) (The “this” being the toxic culture of sexual purity that hurt her and the effects on Devin and her husband's relationship.)

We hope that you’re encouraged by Devin’s story, and we’d love to hear from you as well! Follow us on IG at @sexvangelicals!

Let’s heal together!

In therapy, we talk about Prochaska’s stages of change model. Most of the folks that we work with around sexuality, particularly those who have a religious background, start in either the precontemplative or contemplative stages of change.

Not because they don’t want to be further down the road, but because the systems they grew up in (read: most church communities) place limitations around sexuality, such as “no sex before marriage” or “no sex with someone of the same sex/gender, keep folks in these early stages. The preparation and action stages of change are only reserved for people who are married, and even then, healthy sexuality often takes years of development, overcoming anxiety, and unlearning unhelpful messages around bodies and sex.

If you’re single or queer, many religious circles expect you to stay in the precontemplative/contemplative stages of change, meaning coming out as a sexual person (queer or otherwise) has to happen outside of the church walls.

Sexvangelicals is a podcast that tells the stories of folks who start at a precontemplative stage about sexuality, either because of a neutral/negative view of sexuality, i.e. a lack of sex education, or a negative or restrictive view of sexuality, such as purity culture, and follows them along the stage of change journey. Some folks operate explicitly in the action/maintenance phase, while other folks have parts of them that are in the contemplative or preparation stage. Wherever you are on this journey, this podcast is for you!

On this episode, we take a sneak peek into the action stage of change with our friend Rachel Maine, host of the podcast Owning Your Sexual Self. Rachel’s journey started over 9 years ago after a break up that forced her to start choosing herself. This journey lead her to start a business involving sexual education which lead to going back to school for a certificate in sex therapy and sexuality education. In a nutshell, Rachel helps women and couples discover their sexual desires and create intimate, adventurous connections with their partners. She runs a business with Pure Romance and is the CEO of her online sex coaching business.

Rachel talks with us about:

• The importance of using anatomically accurate language (6:30): “There’s power behind using anatomically correct terms,” Rachel states. Describing our genitals as penis, vulva, vagina (and knowing the difference between the two), rather than dick, pussy, thingy, or any other fake names, “can help break down the taboo around sex and pleasure.”

• Starting with sex positivity, rather than starting with sex negativity and moving into sex positivity (20:00): The therapeutic process typically starts with a problem. In the sex therapy world, it’s often around sexual desires not aligning, sexual pain, or challenges and anxieties with erections. Rachel hosts parties for women where she starts with describing how to use sex toys and other variations of sexual experimentation, then works backwards, if necessary, to explore the unhelpful narratives around sexuality that folks might have. “It’s validation for women. You hear this woman tell you that you’re normal, that this is common, and here’s how we might be able to fix this. It’s important to recognize that you’re not alone,” Rachel says.

• Sexual confidence (27:00): How do you know that you’re in a sexually confident place? Rachel describes, “Expanding my horizon when it came to sexual pleasure. I took the time to prioritize myself. When you can start with the most intimate part of your life, you’re pretty much guaranteed to see that flow into other parts of your life.” Julia reflects back: “Women have a narrative that “fine” is good enough. I love that you’re encouraging folks to not settle in your sexuality.”

• Navigating between accepting what needs to be accepted and simultaneously not settling (29:30): We talk about two competing perspectives on sexuality: the model where you strive for mind-blowing sex at the expense of settling and the “good enough” sex model, where we also acknowledge the limitations of our bodies and psyches and accept our partners where we are. Jeremiah asks about a both/and approach, to which Rachel introduces the Want/Will/Won’t List. She encourages folks to highlight what they want to do and won’t do, and then to name sexual activities that they will do (but may not have the highest desire to do), with a mindset that pleasure might come in surprising ways through these activities. She then encourages couples to write these items on a sheet of paper, put them in a jar, draw one of the items, and do what’s on the sheet of paper. She adds, “Remember, your desires are going to be changing. So to have the same sex all the time, you’re likely to get bored.”

• Being in control of your own choices (40:00): Rachel’s ultimate goals are for people to choose themselves first. She talks about how this starts with decisions that you make in the morning, such as writing or meditating or eating breakfast. She also encourages people to set time aside for self touch, and acknowledges that creating space for masturbation sets people up to create intentional living in a wide variety of domains.

Wherever you are on your sexual journey, we hope this episode is informative and inspiring! Let’s heal together!

What are your favorite TV characters who never dated during the tenure of said television show?

We are big Parks and Rec fans, and while we love the structure of the relationships on the show, we’ve wondered if the producers missed out on exploring a key, funny relationship:

What if Chris Traeger and Leslie Knope dated at some point during the series?

So, on Valentine’s Day 2022, we write some fan fiction and dream about what their relationship might be like.

And we didn’t have to look too far for inspiration, considering Julia’s male TV alter ego is Chris Traeger (between the running, high energy, and incredible positivity) and Jeremiah’s female TV alter ego is Leslie Knope (with the dedication to civil service, drivenness, and organization).

Valentine’s Day is rife with unrealistic expectations about relationships; in fact, our initial plan for this episode was to watch a chick flick and deconstruct the toxic, pressure-packed expectations on gender and sexuality, and the unhealthy dynamics these can create.

But we discovered something more beautiful during this episode; our own relationship, despite our conflict and differences, has a ton of beauty and strengths. At the end of a hard day, we gave ourselves the space to brag on ourselves and the ways that we both speak our minds, apologize when we do it in a disrespectful way, and always come back together.

To be honest, Chris and Leslie would probably be exhausting after a few episodes; our own tendencies toward introversion prevent the more manic parts of ourselves from becoming too overbearing for the other person. However, like us, their kindness, desire to hold themselves accountable, and shared vision for life would definitely have made them quite the power couple.

Unlike Chris and Leslie, we’re glad that we have the opportunity to live this fan fiction out in our own lives!

Happy Valentine’s Day! Let’s heal together!

We both went to conservative Christian colleges that had a moderate/high level of commitment to Evangelical sexual values, namely in the exultation of traditional gender roles and the condemnation of sexual activity before marriage. As we’ve moved out of religious spaces, primarily through the vehicle of the sexual health community, we’ve lost a lot friendships and relationships along the way.

To quote Jesus, “A prophet is not welcome in their own home.”

Some have doubled down on their complementary views of gender and sexuality. Others proclaim to be human rights advocates, but resume their anxiety and judgmentality when dialogue shifts to sexual health; the pain from these experiences and losses is often much more severe. I (Jeremiah) sometimes avoid seeking relationships with folks from previous systems because I don’t want to be let down. (I recognize this is a growth area.)

Every now and then, you find someone who you realize is on a really similar pathway as you. In our case, someone who’s committed to self-reflection, living through the grief and losses that happen when you grow up in a repressive system , and reconstructing more open, affirming systems for present and future generations.

Erin Baldwin Day is one of those people.

Erin is a social entrepreneur, agitator for change, and full-hearted follower in the subversive Way of Jesus who lives, works, and plays on the unceded ancestral lands of the Dena'ina Elnena people in Anchorage, Alaska. She currently serves as lead organizer with Mutual Aid Network of Anchorage (MANA) and is discerning her next steps as a Licensed Local Pastor in the United Methodist tradition. She is presently launching The Spacious Table, a faith community for spiritual refugees, radicals, and misfits of all stripes. You can find her written work at erinbaldwinday.substack.com.

Erin has the unique experience of growing up both in the Church of Christ, which, as I say in the episode, “was silent about sexuality, but ran its mouth about gender roles”, and in non-denominational churches that were committed to purity culture values. She shares her experiences navigating and, eventually, extricating herself from these systems:

• The distinction between a sex-silent (Church of Christ) and a sex-negative religious community (5:30): Erin describes that the more damaging system was “the explicit negativity around desire and pleasure before marriage, and this notion that as a woman, your sexual purity is directly tied to your human worth.” She also regales us with horrifying stories of being compared to an already chewed piece of gum, which “internalized a great deal of shame around my sexual desire. This was layered on top of an existing shame because I was not congruent with the expectations of femininity. I was always the girl with opinions.”

• Navigating misogyny, reinforced by Biblical literalism, in the Church of Christ (10:00): Erin describes a spiritual gift inventory, which identified strengths in teaching, shepherding, and administration. A male elder at the church said, “This can’t be right, because God doesn’t give these gifts to women.” Erin explained. “Those words was the first little crack in my faith because I wondered, ‘If that’s what God thinks about women, is this a being that I want to relate with?’ These boiled down to, ‘Erin, you’re too much.’

• Navigating misogyny, reinforced by Biblical literalism, the College Edition (20:00): I met Erin my freshman year of college, when Erin was running for student body president, and we’ve remained in contact since then. Erin describes “I got hate mail in my college mailbox when I campaigned for student body president that told me that I was usurping the role of the man, was conniving, had a Jezebel spirit. They were all anonymous notes.” There was also a class for women called “Women in Christian Service”, which Erin equates to learning “how to keep your mouth shut when you disagree with what’s happening and use your femininity to manipulate the men around you to do what you wanted them to do through service.”

• The challenges of deconstructing sexuality as a couple (29:00): I’ve discussed before that my own marriage disintegrated because deconstructing sexuality happened in separate ways that the other person (sometimes appropriately, sometimes inappropriately) found threatening. Erin describes the beauty and intimacy of deconstructing messages around gender and sexuality with her husband. “We only had each other,” Erin describes. “We would have these experiences around sexism and homophobia together in church and ministry, and would come back home and say “WTF?” Because we shared this gut instinct to go back to Scripture, we could unravel and unwind how we were taught to think about God and the Bible. To do that together in a thoughtful way with my best friend, I couldn’t imagine a more amazing way to deconstruct.”

• Exploring queerness in a Christian community (39:00): Erin went to therapy during college, where she shared her attraction to women with her therapist. The therapist took an unexpected route to get to, sadly, an unexpected outcome. The feedback, as Erin explains, was the queerness was “based on deeply dysfunctional relationship with my mother I had sexualized my need for female nurture, and that was the root of my attraction to women. If I would do the work to forgive and heal my relationship with my mother, then my sexual attraction would go away. And I believed her, because I understood her as an expert, and set about the work of repairing a relationship with my parents.”

• The expected and unexpected ways that you grieve sexual losses (52:00): Erin describes her experience of her daughter coming out; while there were moments of celebration, she also noticed, “I was jealous of my daughter. I was envious of her freedom to explore her sexuality. There’s deep grief in that. As excited as I am that my daughter is growing up free of the restraints and damaging messaging that I grew up with, it is a source of sadness for me, because that is an experience that I can’t get back. I cannot reclaim that.”

This may be my favorite Sexvangelicals episode, because it speaks to the blend of immense grief, intense bravery, and overwhelming joy that folks who explore sexuality when coming out of a repressive culture (i.e. Evangelical Christianity) experience, often at the same time. If you are one of these people, I’m excited to continue healing with you!