Sex Therapy 101 with Cami Hurst
Welcome to Sex Therapy 101 with your host Cami Hurst. This is the sexiest podcast in the west for all the right reasons. Cami sits down with amazing experts in the field of sexual health and counseling to learn, converse and add her own expert voice to the conversation. Cuddle up with your partner and get ready to have your love life feel more complete.
Sex Therapy 101 with Cami Hurst
Untangling Duty Sex with Dr. Tina Schermer Sellers
What happens when women repeatedly consent to sex they don't want? Dr. Tina Schermer Sellers, founder of the Northwest Institute on Intimacy and author of "Sex, God and the Conservative Church," joins us to explore this question with unexpected depth and historical context.
This conversation takes a fascinating turn as Dr. Tina traces how patriarchy, politics, and religious messaging converged to create a profound disconnect between women and their sexual agency. She reveals how the rise of the religious right in the late 1970s wasn't just about faith but part of a calculated political strategy that fundamentally changed how Americans view sexuality. While abstinence-only education created "a vacuum of actual knowledge," media deregulation flooded culture with harmful messaging about gender and sex.
Dr. Tina Schermer Sellers is a licensed sex and gender feminist psychotherapist, best-selling author, researcher, emeriti professor, and media personality whose expertise spans sex therapy, spiritual intimacy, parenting, medicine, and social justice.
Her revolutionary perspectives have been expressed on platforms such as Spirituality & Health, Refinery 29, Vocal, Medium, and Bust Magazines, along with many podcast, radio, news, and TV outlets. Known for exposing the
impact of patriarchy and sexual shame on our ability to securely attach to our partners, and instruct our children to attach to theirs, Dr. Sellers’ book Sex, God, & the Conservative Church – Erasing Shame from Sexual Intimacy has
had a global impact. Her latest book, Shameless Parenting – Everything You Need to Raise Shame-free, Confident, Kids and Heal Your Shame Too! was a New Release Bestseller in eight categories. She speaks throughout the world on how to heal, and how to raise shame-free relationally confident children. In 2015, Dr. Sellers founded the Northwest Institute on Intimacy, a post-graduate institute to train psychotherapists, educators, clergy, and physicians in sexual
health, healing sexual shame and trauma, and understanding their sexual biases.
In 2023, Dr. Tina founded InannaRising.org - A private membership community for psychedelic assisted therapists and medical providers to
get ongoing clinical consultation, collaboration, training, and support in creating scholarships for the under resourced, and participation in an indigenous reparation fund. Dr. Tina can be followed on Instagram
@DrTinaShameless. At Facebook facebook.com/TinaSSellers Online at www.TinaSchermerSellers.com
Hello, sex Therapy 101. Friends, you notice I might have taken a break, but we're back and we're excited and I'm really passionate about this new series that I'm going to be offering to all of you. I haven't disappeared. I've been working on some projects that are really meaningful to me, and one of those is a book for the public about my research about regarding long-term outcomes of consenting to unwanted sex, or duty sex as we sometimes call it. And in doing that, adding to my own research over the year, you'll see my hair change, my face change, because this piece were all recorded over the course of a year and I wanted to talk to experts about the cultural implications or cultural beliefs or the cultural ideas among different communities in the US that might protect people against negative outcomes and that might actually kind of promote people into some of the more negative outcomes. And that is the series I have to offer you. I'm really excited. It's been really meaningful to me, it's been enlightening to me, it's really helped me make sure that this book is what I want it to be for all of you. So, with no ado, here we go. This is going to be the intro for the whole series. Now I'll give you a little bit of a bio for each Um and then we'll jump into the recording of the interview.
Speaker 1:This conversation was really fun with me with Dr Tina Schumer Sellers. Really fun with me with Dr Tina Schumer Sellers. She was maybe one of the first books I read in regards to the impact of purity culture with her book Sex, god and the Conservative Church and her more recent book, which is called it's for parents, called Shameless Parenting Everything you Need to Raise Shame-Free, confident kids and heal your shame too. Tina is really fun to talk to. She's over in Washington, has a private practice where she trains therapists, she founded the Northwest Institute on Intimacy and we're interested in a lot of the similar things and work with adjacent communities and I really hope you love what she has to say as much as I do.
Speaker 2:Hi, cammie Hi.
Speaker 1:Tina, how are you?
Speaker 2:I'm great.
Speaker 1:How are you? I'm good, good, I'm like a little fangirling right now. Honestly, I'm like you're going to talk to Dana.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, no, no. That hopefully won't last too long.
Speaker 1:Hopefully, yeah, anyway, a long time lover of your work and I use it with a lot of my clients.
Speaker 2:So I'm so glad. It always makes me happy to know it's out there being helpful to people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it really is. I'm over here in Idaho, so similar a little bit population, sometimes different, yeah, flavor, but working with purity, culture and shame and yeah it just doesn't seem to be going away anytime soon you've been doing all you can. A lot of us have, but yeah, exactly, a lot of us have, but yeah exactly A lot of us have.
Speaker 2:I was um presenting on it, so the do you know who star is this society for sexual training and research? Yeah, yeah, so I was out in New York weekend before last uh, uh, the discussant on a case that was, um, basically, uh, religious sexual shame and trauma it's somebody presenting with pelvic pain disorders, PCOS and all kinds of things, and the person who presented the case, um, they used psilocybin in the treatment protocol, um and um, and so then basically I was asked to be basically to, because I, yeah, both places look at that and say, would I do I agree with the way he did it or what I do, something different or whatever. So I was actually talking about your work when I was discussing it, cause I said I really felt like this was important that we get clear about the consensual, non-consent stuff that so often is happening in our heterosexual couples, whether they come from religious backgrounds or not. We know that it's super prevalent and it's really not been looked at.
Speaker 2:You know sort of well enough yet and I know one person who just recently got her PhD and she was looking at what creates sexual agency in midlife women and does, if you, if you are high in sexual agency, does that mean you have? Or if you're high in just general agency and empowerment, does that mean you're also high in sexual agency and empowerment? And the answer was no. And if you're, if you improve people's sexual agency, does that improve their overall agency? And basically the answer is yes. And so sexual agency, which is really kind of, I think also what you're getting at there, is really important and it's been so overlooked and we have huge, huge populations of women in particular that just don't even have any sense of understanding about that at all, like it's just over here and they're acting it out, but they don't they're they're not connected to it or aware of it. So I think it's really important work.
Speaker 1:So tell me, watch that video about my research, which is kind of, you know, maybe new, maybe not, but what? What would you describe with your clinical lens in relationships and sexuality? What do you see? Is the problem there? What is happening there? How would you say with your lens what that is, these outcomes of consenting to unwanted sex?
Speaker 2:Well, I think it's embedded in a huge historical epigenetic story that can. It's very much informed by patriarchy. It can go all the way, you know, depending on how you think about it. It can go all the way back to the formation of the Christian church, you know. That, then, has influenced America through and through, through and through. Um, that basically says sexuality is something that men have and it's for men, and um it's how you keep men happy and you keep them from acting out. Um, it's how you are a good wife. And this is very much it affects, I think, all people who identify as being women and were born women at birth and really are sort of, you know, just see themselves as sort of cis female, even if they are clear they're still, they've been raised in the culture as a, you know, a CIS woman. So they're going to absorb this.
Speaker 2:But I think it especially punctuates for women that are CIS, het and straight you know, they're CIS het they're straight and and so they're more apt to take the messages hook line and sinker and not think about them, not examine them. A queer woman is more likely to examine heterosexual or you know normative ideas that are put out there and say, well, that doesn't really apply to me or I don't like that or that doesn't make sense. There's more of a invitation to be critical of culture. Right, but inside the cishet world, especially for women, there's not very much. The cishet world, especially for women, there's not very much.
Speaker 2:I think general critiquing of what you're taught depending on and I think authoritarian homes have a lot to do with that as well. If you're raised in authoritarian home, that is all about obeying and you can't know. Other people know you need to follow them. That's how you are a good girl, a good boy. That's how you are a worthy person. You are going to be much less likely to be a critical thinker because you were taught you're not to be trusted. Other people are to be trusted. You can't know. They know they know what's best for you Really low internal control all external.
Speaker 2:All external and that's what's valued, is an external control right. And so it even reduces any natural inclination to question, unless they've been given a beautiful subversive, unless they've been given a beautiful subversive, rebellious little spirit that does ask questions that some kiddos do. But a lot of people are like that's just too frightening, I could stand to lose too much right, lose safety, lose protection, lose care, lose whatever, and so they don't. And we've seen that grow in the United States over the last 45 years as we had a real dramatic turn when the religious right and moral majority kind of took over the real, the Republican voting block, and it didn't matter if you were in a religious home or not, this was religious. Education was now paid for by the public, by the government. Right, we had absence, only education. It was religious. It was 80% medically inaccurate. It went out to the country At the same time that we withheld funding for sexual research. So we began to grow two things. We began to grow two things. One was a vacuum of actual knowledge of emotional health, relational health, sexual health, body awareness, right, even the awareness of what exploitation is. That was all taken away, right.
Speaker 2:Well, at the same time, this whole guise of family values was a withdrawal or a removal of regulations on banks and a removal of regulations on the FCC, the Federal Communication, or the FCC, the Federal Communication Commission. So anything that we produce that could go out on media. We took away the protections for the public that had been there prior to 1985. We removed them in 1984, I believe, and then, basically, if you were a media company, which at that point was movies and TV primarily, and then it grew into music, videos, video games, the internet, social media, so it grew into those things, all of those companies could do whatever was going to make their stockholders money. That year there were no regulations. You could say whatever you wanted. It could be misinformation, it could be out and out lies, it could be made up, it could be whatever was going to capture your audience and make your stockholders money, because that was the new value in American public life. It was making money for corporations and wealthy people wealthy men primarily and we began to reduce their taxes taxes on corporations and taxes on the wealthy.
Speaker 2:This began in 1980 with Reagan and it has continued every year since. We've never rolled back any of those laws at all, even though since as early as 1982 and every year almost since there have been requests by and you name it Congress, most organizations whatever that are affected by violence against women. They have requested that we pass laws to protect against violence against women, and we have yet to pass any laws to protect women, and so we have been growing what we see now across the United States. We grew the homeschooling movement. We grew the homeschooling legal defense fund, which was a nonprofit that then would protect anybody who had a lawsuit, any family that had a lawsuit brought against them about what was happening at home to their children, the homeschooling arena. So if anybody reported anything, the legal defense fund stepped in and fought it all the way to the Supreme court.
Speaker 2:So to this day, there are no rules on what you do with your children when you homeschool them. Okay, so authoritarianism grew in the United States beginning in 1980 and 85, or you know, and has been growing in many ways since then, even though we also have very progressive new ideas and research coming out, and so those people who are learned, who did not grow up in those homes, who have some ability and permission to ask questions, are learning a whole lot of things. So we have this huge divide in our country between people who are aware of shifts and changes and cultural, you know, things going on and just recognizing that we've had levels of diversity forever and we've, you know, had all kinds of things forever and we're now talking about it.
Speaker 1:This hasn't creeped up on us in the last couple of years, right, yeah, right.
Speaker 2:No, it's been. It's been growing, but it just means we have some, I think, much more extreme kinds of stuff going on. So we have so many people that no less feel less confident to express themselves or stand up for themselves or stand up for their kids. They are grabbing onto any misinformation that gets their amygdala going, gets their fear centers going. They're just scared. They're scared to death. But then meanwhile their kiddo's going to a public school and comes home and they're 10 and they say gosh, you know what? I think I figured out that I'm um, non-binary and pansexual, and their parents are losing it because they have no idea what that means. But it sounds like the devil. It's very scary to them, right? So it's. It's to me it's.
Speaker 2:It's been a growth of two different areas, of a dearth of information, while at the same time, this authoritarian, I'm scared to death. I have to hang on to what other people say without the realization that other people are saying that so they make more money for their stockholders, not because it's true, they're being used, they're being exploited, right, right, right, right. They are a pawn in their money-making scheme. You know, and we could be talking about, you know, whatever, you know, jeff Bezos now owning the, you know Washington Post, or Elon Musk with X, or you know Murdoch with the New York Times. Whatever I mean, these people has been about them making money and not money so they can have influence in the United States. Money so they can have influence globally. They don't care about the United States, they're dealing on the global scale. We're going to find ourselves in a heap of trouble in no time because the people that are running the country have a global perspective they don't care about, even though they say certain things they don't ultimately care.
Speaker 1:I love this perspective of you. Know. I'm like what lens are you looking at through this super super systems lens, right, of going all the way back to authoritarianism as it rose and the education as it fell at the same time, right? And I had talked to one person about my work and they were like I just can't believe in 2024 that women are consenting to sex they don't want. That has to be. And you're saying I can see why it's happening. It was back in the 80s, the rise of that and the fall of that, and here we are in 2024. Yeah, oh, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely. And I think it's important for us as practitioners or educators or wherever we are, to understand the historical context, partially so we can have some compassion for these people, you know, but also so we can see that if we don't look at it from a historical lens, we're going to be a player in it too, right, you know. So I think we have a responsibility to see it Like. Most people don't know that the Southern Baptist Church, which is the largest force of the evangelical movement in the US, and has been forever was pro Roe v Wade from 74 to 79.
Speaker 2:I didn't know that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I didn't know that.
Speaker 2:This is absolutely documented. I could send you stuff. It's absolutely documented and the church was actually the sort of church in the US the Southern Baptist Church and those affiliated was actually pretty anti-political up until 1980. They were very much like politics makes us dirty. We want people to follow Jesus, yeah, and and so the focus then was it John Bircher.
Speaker 2:Was what did the start of the John Bircher society had gotten started in the late 50s and it had been growing, but it was around communism and this kind of a thing. It wasn't related to the churches. What it was was the churches had been segregationists, in other words, they supported the religious colleges continuing to be segregated and when that became absolutely illegal, there was no federal funding that was going to come anymore. This was 1979. Carter, who was the president at the time, was really, and still is, the only evangelical president we've ever had, and he actually was very much for how do we take care of the poor and how do we do these things. But he could not be manipulated by those that wanted a capitalist agenda only, and so they found Reagan, who was willing to be the puppet to use for the very first time God language. In his speeches he said God bless America. It had never been done before because there'd been a separation of church and state prior to that.
Speaker 1:And then most people would not know that.
Speaker 2:I know, right. And then again it's all documented Like I've got books, I've got you know, research, the whole thing, yeah, and. And then he began supporting this capitalist agenda behind the guys of family values because they went after that voting block. They needed that voting block in order to pursue this agenda. And so there literally was a meeting in 1979. Where they were like we have to come up with a different issue than segregation to rally the voters. And it was at that meeting this is well documented that they chose abortion as the issue. And then they got some politicians on top of Jerry Falwell and Dobson and some others to just start putting it out there into the ether. And so for the first time, they began to get the churches was Jerry Falwell was a huge piece of this the churches to get behind the political thing that was going on. And this was all about protecting America, protecting families, protecting.
Speaker 2:And what happened that worked to their advantage was there was an economic downturn in 1980, second wave feminism, so the women getting birth control pill in the sixties and then beginning to say I don't want children now, I want to pursue a career, I want to have some of my own choices, right All of these things that happened with with reproductive rights, and then there were civil rights going on, of course, with Martin Luther King and all of that, which is all very important, and psychedelics, and it just started to freak, you know, kind of like we can use this, we've got to, we could scare the public with this, and then AIDS hit the East coast in 80 and the West coast in 85. So they used this very vulnerable public to say the whole United States is going to hell in a handbasket. This is all because of you know, all of these things were losing our center and they just, you know, did this whole thing about family values, people not understanding that this had everything to do with a capitalist agenda. You know, and I don't know if you know who Frank Schaefer is, but his father, francis Schaeffer, was in the middle of this. Frank is now 72. When he was in his 20s he was a filmmaker. He helped his father put together the film series on what happened to the human race. Did you ever hear about that film series? It was all about abortion and how abortion was going to basically end the human race. It was incredibly frightening. Abortion was going to basically end the human race. It was incredibly frightening.
Speaker 2:You could probably look up on YouTube Samantha Bee and then Frank Schaefer, and you'll get two episodes of hers where he she interviewed him and told us the story of what happened in that meeting and all of it you know.
Speaker 2:But Frank wrote a book called Sex, mom and God where he chronicles the meetings he was in and what politicians and religious leaders were a part of, what meetings that passed, what, what policies to lead us in this direction. And I remember reading that book after I had seen the impact of the peer of purity culture, right, but I didn't understand how it happened or how we got there. And I found his book and it explained it all to me and and I couldn't believe how like brutally honest he was. I kept expecting the pages to burst into into flames because they were so like. He named places in people, like really powerful people, you know still, and but it all it filled in the blank. For me it's like, oh well, we couldn't, as the public know, all this was going on, but he was, he was there in it and then he just he goes from 1978 to 2008.
Speaker 1:Those are the forces that allow the purity movement of the eighties and nins to be so dramatic, so influential, so accepted by the churches.
Speaker 2:Exactly. And so all of this is like the last 45 years, right, but this got built upon the and what had been a patriarchy, that had been women have these roles and men have these roles and still erased women's sexuality and all that kind of thing. But then we had the 60s and 70s, which was the beginning of women having voice, the beginning of women having choice, the beginning of women saying wait a minute, you know, my sexuality matters. You have to think about, like Kinsey's research on women, and what he produced is what shut down his research. The public could handle the Rockefeller foundation, which supported his research, could handle what they found out about men, not women, not handle what they found out about women, right, but this was all happening at that same early time too. So women were picking this up because this was published, you know, start picking up, and they started having these women's circles where they would talk together about their sexuality, and it was part of the national organization of women that got started and the equal rights amendment that got started, you know, in the late sixties and early seventies and this was a lot of things going. But then it all got shut down and we have we have only gone backwards. We have not gone forward since that, since 1979.
Speaker 2:And I think this affects me so much or I get so kind of caught up in this too because I grew up in a Swedish immigrant home that was very body and sex positive. That's all I thought families were. You know that you've talked about bodies like you talked about recipes and brushing your teeth and like everyone, like my grandparents, all my aunts and uncles, my parents, you know like they talked about this stuff as just normal. You know, and I didn't realize until I was well into my thirties like my family was weird. It was not that every family was like mine. Like I was in a very small minority of families that got to grow up believing that bodies are bodies and bodies are good and sexuality is what you have and it's part of how we love and bond with people and we take responsibility, and I mean just stuff, you know.
Speaker 1:And then I was like I didn't realize it was like Northern European values that you had kind of protected you from the Puritan.
Speaker 2:No I didn't know, I didn't know and I, because I was born in 1960, by 1980, I was 20. Yeah, so, as I was involved in the Jesus movement, but it was kind of sex, drugs and rock and roll and people saying I'm coming off drugs and I I feel so loved and it was very different than anything you see now and I thought it was delightful. And then, as the church began to turn really legalistic in 1980 and kept going, I just stayed. I was like I don't think Jesus is a part of that, I think that's about something else and I just but I also didn't develop a kind of because of my age, I didn't really see what was happening to families and to culture until about the year 2000.
Speaker 2:And I was teaching sexuality in a graduate marriage and family therapy program and I had my, my students write their sexual autobiography, cause I'm like you're only as good as good as therapists, as you know what your stories are, and this isn't one that a lot of people know. I want you to see it. I want you to write it as a narrative, and then I want you want you to see it.
Speaker 2:I want you to write it as a narrative, and then I want you, if you will to allow me to read it as a loving, empathic other and give you feedback, maybe the feedback you never got. Like you are beautiful and normal and healthy and I wish somebody was there to hug you and tell you this when you were five and eight and 10 and 12 and whatever. Whatever they say Right.
Speaker 1:So class was like the biggest group therapy session.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and and I would have people say I was scared to write this I heard about it my whole grad school. You know, hearing having you read and write out my paper was the most nourishing thing I've ever had happen and that was the most important paper I wrote in all the 300 papers that I wrote in grad school. Whatever you know, and I'm like this because you're, you're great, you know you're lovely and wonderful and I'm so sorry you didn't receive those messages as you were growing up, right, but I didn't know what I was seeing initially in 2000, when I would have, you know, 25 year olds describing pelvic pain or erectile dysfunction, or scared to death to go date someone because they were afraid they were going to hurt them because they'd been told they were an animal, or scared to go out because they'd hurt that you know men were animals and they were just scared that they would do something wrong and they would be marked. And I'd like what happened? Like tell me what happened to you. And I spent about three years trying to figure out, like what's changed.
Speaker 2:And that's when I started learning about what had been happening in people's homes, in their communities, in abstinence education and in youth groups and and I was mortified, like I literally would cry through reading these. And so then I was like I need to start keeping research notes on what I'm reading. And then I got to start talking about this because I don't know that anybody knows that we've been. Actually, if you think about sexual abuse, it as some adult comes in at an age of a child's development and then puts their adult sexuality upon it and takes away their child development, takes away their innocence. Basically this had been happening to children from the moment they found their genitals at 11 months old, and every single time after that point, someone was there, slap their hand, yell at them, tell them they're gross, tell them God can't love them, tell them all kinds of things that weren't true when they were just being beautifully human little people growing up.
Speaker 1:I'd never thought about like you're describing it as sexual abuse without sexual contact.
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely. It's a formation of my curiosity and my ability to act out my curiosity and somebody to go. Yeah, that's your penis, it's a fabulous part of you. Let's finish diapering you. Or, of course, you were curious about what your friend's body looked like. That's part of being five years old, but we're going to keep our clothes on and keep playing, you know, like nobody. Not only were they not giving them the education that they need in a non-shaming, just educational way, they were shaming them. They were basically frightening them, which said to them something about me. Who I am is fundamentally bad, and it's happening from pre-verbal, over and over and over and over again. So cause from 11 months to what three or four kids don't have the cognitive capacity to be like. Oh yeah, I keep being told I can go use the bedroom or my bathroom and that's where I should go If I want to touch myself, if somebody does the bed, you know in a loving way, but they're not going to remember, start to get that until they're three or four.
Speaker 2:So do you think they stopped touching themselves? No, of course they didn't, right. And so we're talking about pre-verbal, and every time they're quote unquote caught in everything that scares their parents around their sexual development or body development or whatever, while they're not getting things like body autonomy and what's cassette and consent and what's a misuse of my power, how I treat my brothers and sisters or people who are younger, like none of these basic relational things are being taught to them. These basic relational things are being taught to them, but what is being taught to them is the misinformation that's coming from the media that is now filling more and more of the outlets in our life. But that's all about making money, but we don't sell it that way, but that's what it's about. And so we're telling kids and showing kids all kinds of things that aren't. That not only are quote unquote entertainment, but since we're not giving them real knowledge, then they don't know how to apply. If they start applying the entertainment to their relationships, their relationships are going to have problems to their relationships. Their relationships are going to have problems, right? So we have, you know, all kinds of messages about what men need and women are responsible. Men act out, women are responsible.
Speaker 2:That goes back to the formation of fourth century. It goes all the way back right when the early bishops who were denying the body couldn't do that. They blamed the women right. So we've been. Couldn't do that, they blamed the women, right. So we've been doing this. We've been blaming the victim forever, and so this has continued. And we have we don't have enough places where we examine. Does that make sense? Yeah, like we don't even ask fathers of daughters how do you want your daughter to be?
Speaker 1:treated by other men. How did you treat other men? You did like this. You said something that kind of did a flip, as I which I appreciate because I don't want to be in this silo and been thinking about, you know, women, autonomy and assertiveness and sexual communication skills and then you said but are we talking about the misuse of power? Are we talking to the men? Are we talking? And I wasuse of power, are we talking to the men, are we talking? And I was like, oh, that's the other side of the coin, you know is oh, absolutely yeah, like examining the use of power, yeah, exactly, like you know, I and I think because I was immersed in this, it was.
Speaker 2:it was a a very present idea as I was raising my kids, so I taught in a program and we had a value statement that was. We called it the Orca stance openness, respect, curiosity and accountability to my power that I have the power to hurt people.
Speaker 2:And I have some places where I own more power and I have to be accountable to that power. So this was a part of how we talked all the time and I can remember my. My kids are five years apart and I can remember my son maybe being nine and my daughter like four, and I could hear my son cause they shared a room. I could hear my son say how about I give you a lollipop and you clean the room?
Speaker 1:And I I little exploitation there Sure.
Speaker 2:Right, we are hardwired to get what we want. That's human, so it's not bad. It's just my job to help him learn, right? So I said, hey, buddy. I said you know, would that feel fair to you If she was nine and you were five or four? And she said that to you and he's like no. And I said, okay, so what? That is right there, when you can do something that your sister will go along with cause she's younger and cause she thinks you walk on water. But it's not right, it's not fair. That's what we call an abuse of your power. You're taking the power that you have and you're using it to benefit you but to hurt somebody else. And I said that is absolutely never okay in our family, ever, because it doesn't feel good and we have a responsibility to act in a way that upholds other people, not hurts them. Does that make sense, right? And so that kind of conversation happened lots of times around the place.
Speaker 2:And I would say I have a responsibility to my power. I'm a mom. If ever I do something that feels like it benefits me but it's totally hurtful to you, we need to talk about it because I might be misusing my power. Right when he was 15 or 16, he was going to a youth group at a time at a local progressive church that we had in our community, and I picked him up from youth group one night and he says to me oh, mom boy, I'm glad you weren't there tonight. And I'm like why? And he goes, there was this lady and she came to talk to us about sex and I'm like oh really.
Speaker 2:So tell me what happened. Of course I'm always interested. And he goes, she said and he goes, and I'm not kidding you. She said in front of all of us girls and she goes like this Don't you let a boy kiss you too long, but it's your job to stop them because they might not be able to handle it.
Speaker 1:And I said, oh, we're going to give everyone a pass as they abuse their power, but the girls have to be the ones that stop it.
Speaker 2:He goes, but, mom, you'd be proud of me. I raised my hand and then I thought, oh Lord, because he was 16, you know, he thought he ruled the world. And I said what happened and he said well, she called on me and I said so do you mean to tell me and all the boys in here and all the girls in here that girls are responsible for what we do as boys? Because, I'm sorry, that is not the way that I have been raised and I'm like oh wow I said what did she do?
Speaker 2:He said she got really, really quiet. And I said, honey, that is right, you know that I will always hold you 100% responsible for everything you choose to say and everything you choose to do, because you're capable of being responsible to yourself right.
Speaker 2:And to your power and to the influence that you have, you know. And so this ongoing conversation about power was important. He was a white, good looking, blonde haired, blue eyed boy, right, and so I knew the messages he was going to get. I wanted him to be aware of power abuse from the beginning, right of time, and and so sometimes our conversations are a little gendered, you know a little bit, and but I in my family, because he was the oldest, he needed it. I knew he needed it from cultural, a cultural perspective and and otherwise. And then also exposing the, exposing a lot of the patriarchal messages that really just end up hurting people, you know. So we talked a lot about what are the assumed messages out there, and so when he looked at porn, I said we got to talk about this, not because there's anything wrong with your curiosity or whatever I says, but I just want you to know that penises all don't look like that and vulvas don't all look like that.
Speaker 2:Or look like that it would work like that, right, and because you are somebody that's going to someday want a really good relationship with somebody that you really love, and I want you to know that, just as we don't take advantage of people inside our family, you're not going to want a relationship that takes advantage or exploit somebody or humiliate somebody. And yet there'll be a lot of that in straight porn and a lot of your friends are going to be all about, you know, tapping that, getting some all as if she's an object, and you're not going to want anybody you love or any of the women in your life to be thought of that way. I need you to represent that out in the world and you don't have to do it in a way that gets you ostracized. But please don't go along, don't go. Yeah, yeah, yeah, don't do that. Just get quiet. You know, act the way that you want to feel good about later in your life. You're writing your own sexual narrative. I need you to feel good about it because it's a wonderful part of you.
Speaker 2:But if you start doing it in a way that's hurtful to other people, you're not going to feel good about it. Then you're not feel good about you. That's important. So a lot of the conversations that we need to be having in order for women to see where they begin and end and others begin and end what they have the right to, you know, and the understanding that connection and pleasure, the desire for connection and pleasure, is human.
Speaker 2:We just go about it in different ways, you know. Like all of that, it's not a boy thing or a girl thing, it's a human thing, right? All of that has to be explicitly taught and modeled, ideally for kids as they grow, if they're going to have some of these skills later, or else they have to go do some you know, therapy or something to help get clear about it, you know, so that they can develop a voice for themselves, you know. So I think a lot of women don't understand how they're being consensual for something they actually really don't want, because nobody's ever spent the time to help break it down for them.
Speaker 2:You know, and now they find themselves in a relationship and they're afraid that if I got clean on what's actually happening, I think my partner would leave. Right, right.
Speaker 1:And so there's financial implications.
Speaker 2:There's all kinds of implications. Right, she's blamed, right, I mean, if he has an affair, we still think, oh well, she must not have been doing something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it becomes a coping mechanism for social safety. You know of.
Speaker 2:Exactly, exactly, so it's, it's, it's a, a. That's why I just think that the conversation about consensual non-consent is such an important conversation to be having, um, but there's a lot of deconstruction to do around it for people um but yeah, I I would say it's completely understandable how we're here. This is what we've been supporting as a culture forever, but especially the last 45 years.
Speaker 1:And, would you say, especially in the evangelical or maybe a greater Christian community.
Speaker 2:I would say no, I wouldn't. I would say, yes, that's been true there, but it's also been true in the places that were more Bible-built, less urban right less urban right.
Speaker 1:That's kind of the question that's come up from the homogeneous sample that I had. Is it's like? Is this an American problem? Is this a religious problem? Is this a? You know what kind of cause the demographics were so similar that it was? You know white women in the Western United States who were middle class, middle age and largely Christianian, you know, and so you know it's part of trying to figure that out is like it is. Is this an american problem? Is this a white problem? Is this a christian problem?
Speaker 2:you know, and your answer is your thoughts I think it's yes and yes, and it's broader than that, because there are communities that were more, I think, more affected by abstinence, education and that continuing in their state, and so, whether their family itself is religious or not, they were still getting it, it was still around them.
Speaker 1:So geography at play, based on the politics of that rural community around them.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, yes yes, yes, yeah, and I know from supervising people that are in really conservative states who are trying to serve the underserved in those communities, um, whether it's sexual minorities or others, and it's, it's thick, it's, it's real, like they feel, feel and they are aware of an amount of risk and threat because there are laws that have been passed right that limit choices right, yeah for sure.
Speaker 2:Basically tell them who they can serve and who they can't serve and, um, they could lose their license if they serve a trans family or whatever you know. I mean like and again, we're making this is government, this is not religious, but it is religious yeah, does that make sense?
Speaker 1:it totally does yeah yeah, that's a super interesting perspective and I think your, you know your book sex god in the conservative church does a lot for you know that third question of what are messages in the evangelical or christian world that maybe we could use positively or for prevention of this?
Speaker 2:and you know, I think that's why I appreciate most about that book of yours is figuring out where the messages are, where the the doctrine is, where that can spin this and create more positivity, less negativity and shame and right, like a lot of people again, because they've been listening to politicians and pastors who've been listening to politicians, you know they can't see how far maybe they've swung away from the core values of their faith, right, and so they don't. They don't often really know how much they've been influenced kind of kind of away from you know, just helpful interpretations or yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Or even like asking like was, was? Was Jesus against the body and sexuality? Was he afraid of it? Was? Did he see it as dangerous? Like what do we know? You know? And even asking that question, which was you know, one of the questions I looked at, I looked at in the book, but I also said on the Abrahamic line has there ever been sex positivity?
Speaker 2:And there was so much that was there that was never brought forward. But when you do research on the development of the Christian church in those early centuries, you can see that patriarchy actually the fall of the Roman Empire, patriarchy was influencing the fall of the Roman empire. Patriarchy was influencing the formation of the Christian church more than the core tenants that are like in the gospels or whatever. And so a lot of time again, this is kind of critical thinking. I really want people to hold on to what, for them, feels most beautiful and affirming of their humanity and how loved they are by God or however they think of it. You know, like you were, you know perfectly made the way you are, you are meant to be you right, some of those core things. But but people have to begin to think critically to be like well, how has the church strayed from that? And the push to stray has been one that's been about again keeping them loyal to the voting block to support the capitalist agenda spinning out of control at this point yeah you know, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I don't think I I thought of the role of politics in christianity and the purity movement. That got. I don't think I'd put that all together or looked that far back or deep, and so I really, I mean I now I'm like, oh yeah, I missed that part.
Speaker 2:Sure, and it's easy to miss too, but I think once you kind of wake up to it at least my experience has been, this has been true for me has been now I feel like I see things more clearly and I'm so much more compassionate. I do understand. I do understand why people are so frightened and I do understand if you take things hook, line and sinker, you're going to be scared. You know, seeing things in context and patriarchy, which has really been about power and control who has the power? They'll then have the control. They'll be able to call the shots whatever they can now say whatever they want to. That's been the guiding principle shaping our institutions and our government, and not just ours, but others around the world right.
Speaker 2:And it's also if we imagine changing that. It creates a lot of fear for a lot of people. You know like could we have a more egalitarian society? Yeah, you know, could we? I was listening one time to oh gosh, I'm blanking on her name. I'm to oh gosh, I'm blanking on her name to an interview with Ruby Sales and she's a. Black spiritual activist who's probably 80 now and grew up in the gospel, the black gospel church, and she was describing it and she said the children were as important as the adults.
Speaker 2:They ran around all Sunday morning. If they had an idea, they came up and they said it. They led us in song and it was this beautiful picture of what an egalitarian, community religious setting could look like, you know, with everybody in it together.
Speaker 1:And without the authoritarianism, without that patriarchy yeah, not patriarchal.
Speaker 2:It was. Everybody has value. You know, you're fearfully and wonderfully made. I'm fearfully and wonderfully made. I'm fearfully and wonderfully made. You go say your thing, and they might be there all day long. It just was this beautiful picture of oh, that's what it looks like when there isn't hierarchy.
Speaker 2:And if you believe in a faith where there isn't a hierarchy necessarily like that, where you are valuable and every other human is equally as valuable, but not more and not less valuable, then you might shape the gathering and the creation of organizations differently. We have a lot of people that are afraid of that, and it serves in the heterosexual world, it serves men that women are subservient and don't have voice and don't have choice, and so then they take that into the bedroom. And this is what makes me so sad, I think, is that there's so many men in these types of relationships who aren't getting their wife when they're sexual.
Speaker 2:She's not behind her eyes, she doesn't want to be there, but she doesn't have voice and he can feel it and it doesn't feel good to him. Men so often say I don't like it, I just don't know what else to do. And I'm like can you trust me enough to help you, help her and help her to actually be listened to. Sexuality, good sex, as any time you both show up to each other and you want it to be connecting and fun and pleasurable for both of you. And you know it could look different than it ever looked before.
Speaker 1:Right, right, and you're willing to go for it. You're answering those last two questions. I totally want to. Yeah, you're. You're answering those, those last two questions. I totally want to be mindful of your time, but those last two questions of you know if, if, if this couple lands on your couch, are you diagnosing her with a desire disorder or are you looking at this completely differently and what are you going to do with them?
Speaker 2:you know, I would say, obviously you have desire discrepancies. But then I go into a thing where I say there's a difference in my book between sex drive, that's your desire to move through your arousal cycle. Men and women, all people often not all people, but most people have this feeling Like I want to move through my arousal cycle. It has to do with hormones more than anything and it really has had to do with keeping our species alive Right, and in my book you have two hands to deal with that. It is never your partner's responsibility to take you through your arousal cycle if they don't want to participate in that way.
Speaker 1:How do you start to get the hierarchy evened out, right? Well, what?
Speaker 2:I want them to see that drive is different than desire. And when I talk about sexual desire, what I'm talking about is and I'll say this directly you want intimacy with her. This directly you want intimacy with her, you want her to be there. You want her to want you to want to be there. You want to feel that heat and fire and desire in her Right. And he's like, yes, I haven't felt it in forever and it's like and you want to feel like you can even have it safely and no one's going to hurt you or take advantage or exploit you or make you do something you don't want to do. She's like, yeah, that's why I don't want to do it ever. Okay, so let's let's go to that place where you want to be seen, known, loved and accepted by your partner and you want to be seen known, loved and accepted by your partner.
Speaker 2:That's intimacy. We have a human desire for intimacy and our hands are never going to get us there Together, as a couple. We can get there, but it takes a lot of different kinds of skills and we did not give them to you as a culture. It is our fault. We set you up for this transactional sexual life, but we can here's the good news we can teach you to have this with each other, and when you do, your sex life is going to become like a banquet. So, rather than having Cheerios for breakfast, lunch and dinner, you're going to be like no, you know what I feel like? I feel like Thai food. Thai food sounds good to you. You know you're going to have a very different kind of sexual life, cause it's all going to good. Sex is going to be about connection and pleasure and fun. It's not going to be about this or that behavior. You guys are going to decide together and it's going to change when one of you is sick and as you get older and because it's meant to sexuality according to the Torah you know, ancient literature is meant to bond you through your life cycle, through your whole life. It's touch that makes you feel connected to the person, that you're bonded to. You know, and that's what it's about. And that's what it's about and that's what it's actually always really kind of been about.
Speaker 2:You know, as far as in in the context of committed relationships, it's been about cult, learning how to cultivate that with each other, and you can do that and it's really fun to do with couples. It's super fun to do. But in that process of doing that they end up confronting a lot of the assumptions. And it's really fun to do with couples it's super fun to do. But in that process of doing that they end up confronting a lot of the assumptions that they were given growing up and they have all a lot of feelings about. They feel anger, they feel betrayed, they feel like you know, and they start to separate out patriarchy and church doctrine that was made to benefit men in power from what feels right in their heart. You know what feels loving, what feels just, you know feels, you know all that and they start to figure that out.
Speaker 2:And people are. I believe people are just as spiritually oriented now as always in my life, but they are. A lot of people are separating out patriarchy and what's benefited certain people from their core tenants of their faith or what they believe is right and human and nourishing and helps them and helps them deal with existential questions. Right.
Speaker 1:This was fantastic. I appreciate it so much.
Speaker 2:I've really taken you everywhere and I hope that you'll be able to.
Speaker 1:I love it. I will. I've got transcripts turned on so I'll find your words that I'm just absorbing it and listening. And did you? Do you have any like closing thoughts, like op-ed kind of commentary thoughts about this new idea? Maybe it's not a new idea, it's maybe a new term for an old idea of hey, there might be some bad things to happen if we consent to unwanted sex over a long period of time.
Speaker 2:I think that even that conversation consenting to unwanted sex and looking at the impact of that even that is an intervention okay, even naming this new idea, aiming the new idea is an intervention.
Speaker 2:Well, I thought my mom, you know, like this, I've heard these things, you know, my mom, you know, like this, I've heard these things, you know, my mom told me that this is what it was, that I was just going to need to say yes, right, like the idea that I have the right to something different is I've never even thought of that before. Yeah, I've never even thought of that before. Yeah, but tell me about. Are there places within you, even if they're quiet places, that are just resentful that you were told you had to do that and that you have been any place? And usually they're like yes, it's there.
Speaker 2:Like, do you think I'm going to throw out something crazy? Like if we imagine that every human has value and so you are just as valuable as any other human, including men, and that we are meant to know love, like to be seen, known, loved and accepted by our in our partnerships, by our dearest friends, by our family members, right, if we just took that as an assumption, do you think that you were meant to experience something that includes your whole body, your heart, your mind, your spirituality, your sexuality? You're all there in the sexual act Do you think you were meant to experience in a way that doesn't feel respectful to you, kind to you, that cares about the fact that you don't feel like it. Like, and you know. So they begin to ask questions like like do you want this for your daughters? Do you want this for your sons? You know they can often go there, right, I know?
Speaker 1:really quick. They're like not for my daughter, Really quick.
Speaker 2:Both men and women can go there really quick, and so you kind of are using that, it's like. So what I'm working with here is that I believe when something's a truth, it works for all people in all time. So if it's not okay with your kids, it's not okay for you, it's not okay for your husband. What would be true for all people? What would be true for your best friend, for your kiddos, right? Let's talk about that, right? And then let's ask ourselves who's been benefiting from the idea that men get and women have to put up with? What systems have been benefiting from the idea that men get and women have to put up with? What systems have been benefiting from that?
Speaker 2:Let's talk about that Because it's been surviving, because somebody's been wanting it. Who's been wanting it, you know? And so we get into kind of pulling things apart a little bit so that they can be really clear with what is right for them, what is true in their heart for themselves and for their kids, and for their culture and their neighborhood and whatever. You know, like they can start to be like oh, this is what feels most respectful to me or kind to me, or loving to me, or whatever. Okay, let's work with that, because you deserve that, I believe. When you came into the world, just like when your kiddos came into the world or your nieces and nephews, you were and are just as precious and deserve to be seen, known, loved and accepted.
Speaker 1:And somewhere, through politics and religion, that message sounds super Christian and maybe not very loud today. Right that you deserve to be seen, loved, known and accepted for who you are Exactly yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's gotten really lost and I think it. I mean, obviously this is you've probably picked this up I think it's because it got polluted by money power more polluted.
Speaker 2:I mean it's been. I mean if you go back in history you can see it in the Roman empire, which shaped the development of their early church. I mean it's been there all along patriarchy, but it it pollutes or attempts to pollute love and justice and I think it's in the context of love and justice that we thrive, you know, as people, and it's what I want for my children and my grandchildren, and you know, and my neighbors and, and we live better together when there's love and justice. When I take, when I pay attention to my effect on you and you pay attention to your effect on me, that we have an ecology of a relationship. Right as opposed to I'm an individual, it's my rights, my rights, trump, your rights. That is unsustainable, that creates wars, that does not create bonded relationships, that creates every couple that walks into our office is having a mind right, wrong, right argument. We don't, we don't teach people the ecology of relationship, the ecology of my relationship to the earth, to my neighbors to my family, to my neighbors to my family.
Speaker 2:to my kids we teach capitalism and production, and that that's what makes you valuable.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that produces commodity and transaction which is not fun sexually. Sex is a commodity and sex is transaction.
Speaker 2:No, no, and I have often wondered is that why we're seeing kind of a drop in? And I have often wondered is that why we're seeing kind of a drop in in sort of sexual satisfaction, sexual lives of a lot of our Gen Xers and Gen Ys, you know? Because they're just they're tired of the BS, they're not going to put up with things, but they don't know how to make it better. So they just are saying no, I don't want that you know, yeah, but when they go looking for answers there's such a dearth.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's there, you can find it in books and stuff. It's there, and certainly we have more and more podcasts now, which is nice, but it's I, I. My fantasy is that we start trying to change the legacy with children, so that kids grow up seeing this in themselves and seeing it in each other and cultivating it in their communities, Because it's going to change everything If we just provide comprehensive sex education, relationship education. You know sex education and emotional intelligence, you know these kinds of things. If we just, like the Northern European countries do, we would change our culture, we would change our politics.
Speaker 1:Maybe in a generation. We started now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Which you know, is how that second book how shameless came along. You know, and and I have handouts for doctors and teachers and therapists and clergy to hand to people. You know, you and I have handouts for doctors and teachers and therapists and clergy to hand to people. You know, you've got a two-year-old here, you've got an eight-year-old here. You know, I would, just because I know that that's the fastest way to get it changed. People have good relationships, you know. So there's a you've probably heard of it but the Harvard um, I think it's an 85 year study that they've been doing on happiness.
Speaker 1:Yes, the happiness lab.
Speaker 1:It's all about relationships, and yet that's what we least invest in, and as a culture my 14 year old came home yesterday and said did you know the people who lived the longest most satisfied lives, you know? And she was so excited about it to learn and and um, she's very relational anyway. But, um, I satisfied lives, you know, and she was so excited about it to learn, and, and she's very relational anyway. But I was like, oh, I'm so glad they're teaching you this. You know, I'm never quite sure what's getting cut and what's getting funded, right, I got that message.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, Yay for that teacher for bringing that up and then saying, well, so how do we do that? You know like how to? How do we live relationally successfully? What are the skills I have to have? You have to have, you know. Yeah, let's do that Because, yeah, I think we could, we could flip things and I was like, okay, let's do that. And then let's let's get really serious about the fact that we want to end unwanted pregnancies, because we could end it today If we wanted it. We end it today If every person with a penis that plans to stick that in a vagina promises, from this moment forward, they will either have it covered or they will get a vasectomy. Now we have no more unwanted pregnancies.
Speaker 1:And that that shift has to. We have to be able to in our mind, to realign the authority of whose job is what and, for many people, that idea of there being male responsibility in an unwanted pregnancy. It's just like never even there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's because, as a culture, again, patriarchy that's what we support, right? There's a great book called Ejaculate Responsibly and it grew out of a mom blog and it's 28 reasons why that makes sense. Because they're always know when they're fertile. Their contraceptions they can get on the counter at any grocery store. They don't have to see a doctor, it doesn't cost anything.
Speaker 2:You know, there are 28 reasons why if we really wanted to stop it, we could stop it today. That doesn't mean we necessarily are stopping, um, you know, like needing to end a pregnancy that is going to cost somebody their life, or it's a topic or whatever, we're going to still have to deal with that. That's fine, but that's such a small percentage, right? And if we really, as a country, cared about this, it would not be. We wouldn't be putting it on women, we'd be putting it on men, but we don't. That's another one of the BS things that is out there is being taught. You know that we're making this and instead really what we're doing is we're continuing to say we want to be able to control women's bodies and choices and lives, period, and we're not even where we were in 74 right, right it's.
Speaker 1:It's so frustrating to feel as though we had moved and then go oh we, maybe we haven't moved at all, you know, and we've done that and I hadn't really yet. I appreciate you opening my mind. I hadn't really thought of, you know, consenting to unwanted sex and any political or economic or you know, I don't think I thought past purity culture and to the systems that perpetuated and promoted the purity culture that so many of us found unhelpful Right.
Speaker 2:Well, and yeah, yeah, I would recommend looking at Frank Schaefer's book. I'm just going to give you a lot of info just on that. That sort of what was happening culturally that has continued to shape things because purity culture was at the mercy of, or was a creation of, politics. They just that's, what they used was the religious right.
Speaker 2:And the you know, they developed a religious right and moral majority and use the religious people and just basically said if you really love God, if you really love your faith, you will vote this way and you will believe these things and it's just continued that way. There's a good documentary to the people that did misrepresentation and the mask. You live in the representation project they did, one called the great american lie, and that explains when the different laws were passed that roll back the taxes that then took us from a place of like a 40 difference between our highest paid person and to like thousands and thousands percent difference that we are now and that's again really shaping culture. You know, and um and the religious people who don't think um have continued to be a pawn for that um agenda.
Speaker 1:Thank you for your time and your thoughts, with everything I'm so excited about what you're doing.
Speaker 2:Do you know? Drop me a note every now and again, and if you've got anything to send, anything you're writing up, I'd just love to read it and follow it.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much, I appreciate your enthusiasm too. That's a gift Absolutely. Thank you. All right, okay, bye-bye.