The Great Sex Rescue: Lust

Distracted boyfriend meme. A guy is walking with his girlfriend, but he is turning his head to look at another woman, and the girlfriend looks exasperated. Image source.

Links to all posts in this series can be found here: Blog series on "The Great Sex Rescue"

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We now come to chapter 5 of The Great Sex Rescue: The Lies You've Been Taught and How to Recover What God Intended [affiliate link]. This chapter is about the way that evangelicals talk about "lust."

The chapter starts out with an anecdote about a wedding that Gregoire and Lindenbach attended, where the couple wrote their own vows:

But at the end of the vows, we turned to each other with surprise. They forgot something important-- "forsaking all others." It was just an oversight but, nevertheless, that is a rather crucial promise. We're supposed to expect that our spouse will be able to say, in the words of the 1950s jazz group The Flamingos, "I only have eyes for you." Despite the stretch marks and the baby weight, despite the expanding middle and the receding hair, despite the years and the wrinkles and the fading health, we want to know "I am yours, and you are mine, exclusively and forever." That's safety. That's acceptance. That's love.

That's what we all dream of.

But is that all it can ever be-- just a dream?

Umm. Okay. You know some people are polyamorous, right? 

And some people aren't interested in marriage.

Like, it's literally not true that "we all dream of" having 1 lifelong monogamous partner.

I find it quite weird that the chapter about lust starts out with an anecdote about monogamy. Setting it up like lust and monogamy are opposites. Just seems like a really weird framing to me. 

And actually, later in the chapter we will see that their solution to lust is to respect people and recognize that they are entire human beings and not sex objects. (And yes, I agree with this solution.) So actually, this chapter ultimately says that respect is the opposite of lust. So why does the chapter start with a little story about monogamy?

I would say there are 2 separate issues here:

1. You're lusting after some random person, objectifying them, imagining that they are just a sex object that exists to play out your fantasies- this is a sin against the random person.
2. Your desire for this random person becomes such a big deal to you that it actually threatens your relationship with your actual partner- this is a sin against your partner.

I don't necessarily see why problem #1 would lead to problem #2. Yeah, sure, sometimes it would, like if someone cheats on their partner. But problem #1 is bad just by itself, without bringing concerns about faithfulness to a monogamous relationship into it. 

And, also, being attracted to other people is fine, that's just part of life for most people, it's not "lust", and I don't see it as having any relation to whether or not you're keeping your commitment to monogamy.

At this point, I think it would be helpful for me to bring in some concepts that are talked about a lot in the ace, aro, and polyamorous communities. ("Ace" means asexual spectrum, "aro" means aromantic spectrum.) Okay, so, there are several different types of things that may or may not be present in a relationship:

1. Sexual feelings/actions
2. Romantic feelings/actions
3. Being life partners

Mainstream society says that you're supposed to do sexual things with exactly 1 person, you're supposed to do romantic things with exactly 1 person, and you're supposed to have a partner that you're committed to for life, to support each other through all of life's ups and downs, and that these all have to be the same person.

I'm really glad we have ace, aro, and polyamorous people to question this! It doesn't have to be that way! You could be married to someone and not have sex at all! You can date someone even if you don't understand what romance is! You can have a long-term committed relationship that isn't sexual or romantic at all! You could be married, and your spouse is your committed life partner and you have sex with them, and also you have sex with other people sometimes. Many possibilities!

It's all about knowing yourself and knowing what you want. What do you want, in terms of sex, in terms of romance, in terms of having a committed life partner?

For myself, maybe my answer is boring because I'm in a monogamous marriage and I do have sex with my husband. But, even so, I feel rebellious because I'm not following the definition of monogamy that I learned in purity culture- because when I'm attracted to some random person, I don't repress it. I just enjoy it for what it is, but obviously I know it's just some feelings and nothing real is going to come of it because I'm monogamous. 

And it doesn't threaten my relationship with my husband, because marriage is about choosing to be together, and being committed to each other- it doesn't mean we never have feelings about other people. We are 2 separate people with our own complicated lives, and we choose to live together, to support each other, to share our money, to raise our child together, all these very standard marriage things- and that's not threatened by having occasional feelings about other people, because those feelings are a totally different thing than the day-to-day reality of building our lives together. And yes we do have feelings of attraction for each other, but my point is, our relationship is so much deeper than that, and if there exists someone who's more attractive than my husband, well, so what? That doesn't threaten my marriage because my marriage is so much more than that.

Purity culture always made such a big deal about how it would be SO TERRIBLE if you compared your spouse to other people... for example, if you had sex with someone else before marriage, then when you're married and you're having sex with your spouse, you'll always be comparing them to your ex, and that would just be THE END OF THE WORLD or something... It feels so shallow to me now. Why would any of that matter? Our marriage is so much more than that.

All right we'd better move on because we're only a half page into this chapter and I've already written this much.

So, this chapter is about lust. One of the most popular Christian books on the topic of lust is "Every Man's Battle" which erases ace men right in the title, so you know it's gonna be bad. The authors of "The Great Sex Rescue" also think it's bad; this chapter is basically about the harm that is caused when people buy into the "Every Man's Battle" ideology.

"The Great Sex Rescue" sums up "Every Man's Battle" this way:

And what was this battle that every man was fighting? Lust. Every man struggles with it, every man is tempted by it, every man must fight really, really hard to overcome it.

Oh and also, remember how I said this "every man's battle" ideology acts like ace men don't exist? Well it also acts like gay men don't exist, because it's only talking about men lusting for women. It's also not great for bisexuals, because if the solution to lust is that men and women can't have close friendships with each other, then by that logic, bisexuals aren't allowed to have any friends at all.

The book "Every Man's Battle" features really over-the-top descriptions of men ogling women, masturbating near nonconsenting women, obsessing over breasts all the time, and it frames it like all of that is completely normal, this is just how God made men, and men need to fight the battle by treating women as threats and avoiding them. Gregoire has a really good blog post summing up just how bad this book is: A Summary of Issues with Every Man's Battle (with download).

Gregoire and her co-authors point out that this "every man's battle" ideology sets the bar so incredibly low for men. Like it's expected that men aren't able to treat women as people. Like men will inevitably see women as nothing more than sex objects- so instead of sex objects to fantasize about, men need to see them as sex objects to avoid.

Gregoire et al point out that one of the biggest problems is how attraction is conflated with lust. There's nothing wrong with being attracted to someone. There's nothing wrong with noticing. And they say that instead of fearing that every attractive woman is a threat that will pull men toward the sin of lust, men can simply notice a woman is attractive and then "Think nothing more of it and go on with your day." I like how their approach has no fear. Instead of fear, it's confidence that men can "defeat lust." (I personally can't tell you if lust actually works that way, because I'm asexual, lololololol.)

There are a few anecdotes in this chapter about men whose experiences are very different than what "Every Man's Battle" says:

The first chapter of Through a Man's Eyes [another book similar to "Every Man's Battle"] explains the battle that men face on a daily basis with sexual stimuli all around them: trying not to look at billboards on the drive to work, trying to bounce their eyes from the barista's chest, worrying that a female coworker in a tight blouse might sit directly across from them. In the book, we read the "Jack breathes a sigh of relief" when a coworker's skirt doesn't ride up too high, and "the next few hours are tough" because another attractive coworker is in high line of sight.

My (Sheila's) husband works in an almost all-female setting (he's a pediatrician; his colleagues are female, the nurses tend to be female, and the parents bringing in their kids tend to be female). Did he experience this level of stress all day? After reading that chapter, I asked him. He laughed. I asked again. He made another joke. I got rather perturbed that he wasn't taking me seriously.

"Wait," he said, "you're saying that there are guys who are stressed to go to work because they might lust? That's crazy." But could I believe my husband? The book told me all men struggle with this, but they don't know how to explain it or are afraid to confess their struggle to their wives.

And this story, from Chris, a commenter on Gregoire's blog:

As someone who grew up in the Every Man's Battle / purity movement era, I've been working on resetting my brain for a few years now. So many years of struggling daily to just avoid looking. The Bible says His burden is easy and His yoke is light, but spending every part of every day spending energy to make sure I didn't look at an attractive woman is the opposite of easy and light.

I was forced to confront my wrong thinking while on a vacation in Europe. The first day on a topless beach in Spain was excruciating. I was giving myself a migraine constantly bouncing my eyes but having nowhere to bounce them to. I was definitely not enjoying the beautiful beach nor enjoying time with my beautiful wife. 

Near the end of the first day I realized this was no way to live. I remembered your writing about focusing on the whole person without making them into a sexual object.

I talked to my wife and explained all this to her... With some fear and apprehension, I looked up at a beach full of [breasts] and started to talk through the process of not making them there for my sexual gratification. The rest of the trip was so relaxing and enjoyable, and I had such a good time with my wife on the beach. Since then, I can see an attractive woman and not become aroused.

I think Chris's story here is very important and powerful. It completely disproves some of the main foundational beliefs of purity culture- that men are overwhelmed by lust and can't control themselves, that women need to cover up and can't possibly expect a man to respect them if they aren't covered up, that a woman showing her body in public is inherently dangerous and is an attack on men, etc.

There's also a very good anecdote in the book about a husband who doesn't "struggle with lust" but his wife totally buys into the "all men struggle with lust" ideology, and so she's always paranoid that he's looking at other women, and that this is a threat to their marriage. She doesn't take him to swimming pools, she won't let them be friends with other couples if the wife is attractive, etc. Yeah, this is really messed-up. (And also, this is an example of lust getting conflated with concerns about commitment to monogamy, and I think that needs to be questioned. If your husband is attracted to other women, that's his own business and doesn't affect his relationship with you. Right? It only becomes a problem if he gets it in his head that he should actually take actions to go have romantic/sexual experiences with another person.)

I'm just thinking right now about how much energy I would have to spend worrying every day, if I thought my husband being *somewhat near* an attractive woman was a dangerous thing that threatened his love for me and commitment to our marriage. Wow, so glad I'm not doing that! He can talk to other women, he can meet up with a woman alone, whatever. I trust him. I also meet up with guys alone sometimes. I'm so glad it hasn't even occurred to me that that would be a problem. (No Billy Graham rule here!)

Moving along, the next bit of "The Great Sex Rescue" says that these books about lust claim that they want to help women understand men better. That women need to understand men's "struggles", or something. But, the authors of "The Great Sex Rescue" found, in their survey of 20,000 women, that women who believed in the "all men struggle with lust" message had lower levels of marital satisfaction and sexual satisfaction. There are a bunch of stats here; I'll just copy one of them: Women who believe "all men struggle with lust" are 79% more likely to agree with the statement "I engage in sex with my husband only because I feel I have to." This is so messed-up.

And there's this quote:

"Men seem like untrustworthy pigs whose minds and thoughts just go wherever they want," [Brenda] commented. "Is nothing sacred to them? As women, do we trust men after reading this? ... I feel that if anything ever happened to Fred, I'd never remarry because I would have very little trust in men." -- the wife of an author responds after reading her husband's words in Every Man's Battle

Yes, really. The "Every Man's Battle"'s author's wife says she's disgusted by what she "learned" about men from reading that book. Ya know, the more I'm out of purity culture, the more I realize that a lot of the things that Christian leaders teach about sex, marriage, dating, etc are not objectively true facts about how God Says This Is How It Works For Everyone, but actually just their own individual weird hangups. "Every Man's Battle" says this is just how all men are, and that's normal and women shouldn't expect men to be decent human beings, but actually the reality is, the authors are just describing themselves. Yikes.

I'm glad I didn't read "Every Man's Battle" back when I believed in purity ideology. I would have totally believed it, because what do I know, I'm not a boy, and one of the core tenets of purity culture is "women just can't possibly understand what men are going through." It's been really good and life-giving to me now whenever I see men on the internet just completely shocked by what evangelicals say "all men" are like- immature, no self-control, obsessed with sex all the time, incapable of respecting attractive women, self-esteem so fragile- I love to see men, especially non-Christian men, just so completely shocked at how wrong this is, how insulting, such a low view of men. Men are better than that, and should be held to a higher standard than that.

"The Great Sex Rescue" has an anecdote along those lines too:

[a blog commenter is talking about her husband who recently became a Christian, and had no idea that men supposedly "all struggle with lust"]

He has only recently become aware of the lust issue within the church, and he has been appalled. Most of his friends have generally been women-- he even had a best woman instead of a best man at our wedding-- and most of them are quite attractive. But even as a non-Christian he told me he didn't lust after them. It was far too disrespectful.

It is crazy to him-- and me-- that even as a non-Christian he could control himself, but the church treats this as an insurmountable obstacle for men who are indwelled with the Holy Spirit! He has told me that the easiest way not to disrespect women is to view them as people. If a non-Christian could figure that out, what is giving the church so much trouble?

I'm not a fan of the prejudice against non-Christians here, the idea that obviously Christians should be more moral than non-Christians. I say there's nothing wrong with being non-Christian, or Christian, or whatever religion, or non-religious. And I'm glad my husband is not a Christian- for one thing, he doesn't have all the purity baggage I have... But I appreciate this anecdote because of the contrast between how much of a big deal Christians make this, an "insurmountable obstacle"... and the non-issue it is for people outside the church.

Anyway, yeah, "The Great Sex Rescue" says the solution to lust is to respect people. To remember that the attractive people that you happen to see are whole people who have their own lives- they don't exist to be sex objects for you.

Here's their advice for men:

How Men Can Fight Lust:

The key to fighting lust is to see women as whole people rather than potential threats.

1. When you are passing by a woman, instead of bouncing your eyes, look her in the eye, give a quick, friendly nod, and turn away.
2. When you are with a woman, look her in the eye, and engage her in conversation. Ask her opinion about different topics.
3. Don't live a sex-segregated life. Join groups where women are in leadership roles or where women's opinions are considered.
4. Identify women in your life from whom you can learn, whether it's advice about work, parenting, finances, etc. Make it a practice to consult women as well as men when you are making a decision.

Yes, basically I agree with this, but also, wow the bar is on the floor. Why do these things even need to be said? Just act normal, don't act all jumpy and scared of sex every time there's a woman nearby. Women are people, just treat us like people.

So, yes, the bar is on the floor, but also, these things really do need to be said, and I'm glad that Gregoire and her co-authors are saying them. Because, wow, when I started reading her blog, and reading these kinds of messages... this is unlike anything I'd ever heard from Christians. Really. 

(And here's a fun little bit of my history: In 2012 I was thinking about these topics, and I wrote a post called Isn't dating the opposite of avoiding lust?. It addressed the idea that, if I'm supposed to avoid "temptation," then doesn't that mean I shouldn't date someone that I'm attracted to? If we're dating, spending a lot of time together, doesn't that make it likely that I will lust? How can I justify putting myself in a situation where I'm likely to sin? And the answer I gave was, no actually, this way of thinking is all backwards- because when I'm attracted to someone I don't know well, I view him kinda one-dimensionally, like his being attractive to me is his most important characteristic, and that sounds much more likely to cause "lust" than actually getting to know someone by dating him. Kinda interesting to me to realize I was writing about that in 2012, but also I had NO IDEA I was asexual, and I was using words like "hot" and "lust." Looking at it now, I know what I meant by those words, but now that I know that I'm asexual, I realize those words mean something different to most people, so I wouldn't write it that way now. And also, the last bit of the post, where 2012-Perfect-Number gives advice to before-2012-Perfect-Number, "Don't be so afraid. God gives us freedom." ... like wow yeah, that's so real.)

And "The Great Sex Rescue" has a few anecdotes from women about how they were treated by "good Christian men" who refused to even look at them or talk to them. Men who are good and godly and therefore won't take the risk of being anywhere near a situation that could lead to sexual temptation. This is not cool, and it leads to women feeling like they are dirty just for existing. (And, this is NOT how Jesus treated women. Jesus met women and talked to women and connected with their spiritual questions and emotional needs and so on, even in situations where society said it wasn't proper for a man to talk to a woman, and even when the women were sex workers. No Billy Graham rule here.)

The next section is about modesty, because modesty is the other side of the coin. Men are taught "you have to fight lust" and women are taught "you have to be modest, to help men fight lust." Yeah, I have blogged a lot about modesty, and I agree with the criticisms that Gregoire and her co-authors write here. I especially appreciate the quotes from Focus on the Family's "Brio" magazine, because I also read "Brio" when I was a teenager, and it influenced me to follow purity culture. Gregoire's co-author, Rebecca Lindenbach, says this:

My curves made it impossible to dress according to some people's modesty standards without going back a few centuries. My body became the problem. And Brio reinforced this idea that my body was dangerous with messages like these: "If a guy sees a girl walking around in tight clothes, a miniskirt or short shorts, you might as well hang a noose around the neck of his spiritual life."

Yeah, not cool how modesty ideology says female bodies are inherently dangerous and sinful.

And I'm glad to see "The Great Sex Rescue" mentions "The Modesty Survey" and Shaney Irene's excellent blog post from 2013, Why The Rebelution’s Modesty Survey Was A Bad Idea. Yeah, "The Modesty Survey" influenced me a lot... I guess it was so bad, that it caused me to obsess over it and worry and try to make it make sense, which led to me realizing the entire concept of modesty is bad and needs to be thrown away. So.

Some of my posts on modesty:
The Story of Me and Modesty - This is the post where I talk about how "The Modesty Survey" affected me.
August 20, 2022 Blogaround - I also wrote some opinions about "The Modesty Survey" here
Modesty is Causing Women to Stumble
The Male Equivalent to Modesty

I also love Laura Robinson's take on modesty: Women Are Never Going to Cover Themselves Enough to Get Men to Shut Up About Us 

Anyway, there's 1 more section left in this chapter of "The Great Sex Rescue", and it's about how evangelicals teach that "men are visual" and women are not, but actually that's not always true. There are women who are visually stimulated to have sexual thoughts, and there's nothing wrong with that, and it's NOT COOL how the church acts like these women don't exist.

I definitely agree with the point that Gregoire and her co-authors are making there! But I don't have any personal experience to mention because I'm asexual. 

Anyway, that sums up chapter 5. Overall, I agree with what the authors are saying in this chapter- the way that evangelical culture treats "lust" is harmful. Teaching men to see women as threats, to avoid women rather than risk falling into "lust", teaching women that all men are like this and we can't really expect a man to get his head out of the gutter and interact like a normal human being, and that goes even more when women are wearing "immodest" clothes- ugh, yeah, all of this is so incredibly messed-up. I agree with "The Great Sex Rescue"'s answer to this: respect, and treat each other like people rather than potential sex objects.

Still, I think this chapter falls short because it doesn't say anything about gay men or asexual men, and how they are erased by this "all men struggle with lust [toward women]" ideology. And also, that weird bit about monogamy at the beginning. Actually, I think the conversation about lust could benefit by clearly untangling the parts about "are you objectifying random people?" from the parts about "are my spouse's feelings of attraction to random people a threat to our marriage?"

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Links to all posts in this series can be found here: Blog series on "The Great Sex Rescue" 

Related:

The First Time I Heard About "Locker Room Talk" Was When the Church Taught Me About Modesty 

The church taught me to be afraid of my own body and my own thoughts. Here are the receipts. 

BREAKING NEWS: Purity Culture Adherents Completely Miss the Point

Miss me with your "we are all sexually broken" hot takes. I'm asexual.