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| Person reading a book. Image source. |
Links to all posts in this series can be found here: Blog series on "The Great Sex Rescue"
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So I've been doing this blog series on The Great Sex Rescue: The Lies You've Been Taught and How to Recover What God Intended [affiliate link]. I finally got through the entire book; this post will be my overall thoughts on it.
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Sex is supposed to be good (this is SO DIFFERENT from what Christian marriage books teach)
There are a few ideas that I've sort of thought about before, but this book really helped me see them more clearly. Here's one of them- the idea that sex is supposed to be good. The more I think about it, the more I'm astonished at how wrong the message I got from other Christian marriage books was. Those books talked about sex like women aren't likely to enjoy it, but have to do it anyway because "men need it."
Well, actually, let me clarify. Christians DO walk around announcing that sex is a beautiful gift from God, that it's so amazing, it's your reward for "staying pure" till marriage, etc. But basically what they mean is this: Sex is PIV [penis-in-vagina], and if you do everything the right way, God's way, then PIV will be amazing/ mindblowing/ "beautiful gift from God"/ etc. Women, if you're doing PIV sex but you're not experiencing it as this amazing thing, well you must be the problem. Keep on doing it, according to this set of rules (you have to have sex every 72 hours, have to make sure it's a perfect experience for your husband, etc), and hopefully you'll be able to get yourself into the right mindset where you can enjoy it.
It's all about forcing yourself to conform to someone else's rules. And if you do that, and you still feel like it's not working, well you're the problem, must be that you still aren't following the rules correctly.
But actually- and I think I was able to figure this out because I'm queer- that's not how sex should be at all. It shouldn't be about following rules about the "correct" way to do it. Instead, each person should figure out what their own desires are, and communicate that to each other, and together they can invent some sequence of sexual or intimate actions that will be enjoyable for both of them. And it shouldn't be biased toward PIV. It should be whatever you and your partner want.
It's astounding to me how completely different this view is from the view that I got from Christian books. I used to think that I couldn't say what I want, because what if it was something my [male] partner didn't want to do, and it ruins the mood for him when I suggest it? I had this assumption that sex is PIV, and if I prefer something else instead of PIV, well, mayyyyybe if I have a partner who's kind enough to humor me, maybe he'll agree to it, but he doesn't have to, it's just a silly thing that's not a standard part of sex. I shouldn't inconvenience him with it.
Conforming myself to someone else's rules, trusting that someone else would know what's right for me.
But the reality is, sex can be such a good thing, when you figure out what you want, and you do that, and you delete all the things that are painful or unpleasant for you. (I'm asexual so I also recognize the possibility that you delete all the sexual aspects- if that's what you want, that's great for you.)
What was all that nonsense about "wives have to do it anyway, even if you don't like it, even if it's painful"???? If it's painful, don't do it! Figure out something that both of you enjoy! It should NEVER be about being required to do something you don't like- what the f***????
One of the main messages of "The Great Sex Rescue" is that it's harmful when we teach that wives are required to have sex, even though they won't like it. And instead, we should teach that yes it is possible for women to enjoy sex. This is really important; I'm glad "The Great Sex Rescue" is saying this.
I go further than "The Great Sex Rescue" though- because this book still says you're required to do PIV. That's one of the things that has frustrated me as I've been writing my blog posts reviewing the book. I don't think we should conceptualize sex as being centered on PIV. It should be whatever the people involved want it to be.
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Marry a man who's decent or an abuser
I've talked about this before, in my review of "Shiny Happy People." Basically, girls who grow up in purity/complementarian ideology are taught that men are... how shall I put this... men are biologically incapable of treating a woman with kindness and respect if she is not following the rules for her gender role. For example, if a woman is dressed "immodestly," men won't respect her, they will objectify her, and maybe rape her. If a wife doesn't have sex with her husband enough, or doesn't "submit" to him enough, he will be angry with her and won't treat her well. Maybe he'll even cheat on her, men are just like that. It's not *her* fault that he cheated, but actually it kinda is, because she should have known that men are like that, and that he would cheat if she didn't satisfy his manly needs.
So if you grow up in that ideology, and buy into it, and then you marry a man, there are 2 possible things that can happen:
- You marry a man who's a decent human being. He treats you as an equal. He supports you and respects you. He doesn't expect that you'll sacrifice the things that are important to you, in order to "submit" to him. If he feels that there's a problem with your sex life, he talks to you about it like an adult rather than going off and cheating. If sex is painful for you, he cares about that and doesn't want to do anything that you don't like.
And the result is that you're amazed that a man can be like that. You were taught that this isn't possible, that there are literally no men who are like that. - You marry a man who's an abuser. He criticizes you and says you're not good enough because you don't "submit" to him all the time like a good wife should. He says you have to have sex even if it's painful, that's just the way it is, that's what God said. He gets angry at you, mistreats you, and says it's because you don't "respect" him enough, because you don't "submit" enough, because you don't give him enough sex- it's your fault.
And this all feels totally normal to you. You were taught that this is what men are like. This is what marriage is. ("Marriage is hard.")
This is so wrong. So many Christian marriage resources say that women should expect this kind of behavior from men. !!! This is so wrong! Men can be better than that- and should be held to a higher standard than that. I really did not know this, back when I was a good evangelical.
So it's really good that "The Great Sex Rescue" is saying men can and should be better than that. I really appreciate how the chapter on lust featured anecdotes from men who are decent human beings and are totally capable of being near "immodest" women without it being a problem. And throughout the book it says that if a man cheats, or uses porn, that's a problem with him. [Though I personally don't think using porn is necessarily bad.] It is NOT the wife's fault. And you can't fix the problem by telling the wife to have sex more- the only way to fix it is for the man to take responsibility.
It's something I've thought about before- the low expectations that evangelicalism has for men, compared to the reality that men can be SO MUCH BETTER than that- but reading "The Great Sex Rescue" helped me to see this more clearly.
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The parts that would have been helpful (or not) to me
Years ago, I was trying so hard to figure out why my experience of sex was so completely different than how other people seemed to talk about sex. (Eventually I found out about asexuality, and vaginismus- those are the reasons.) I was looking for answers; I wanted someone to explain sex to me. Why does everyone talk about it like it's the most amazing thing ever? Am I missing something?
(And that's when I bought the book "Come As You Are," because the subtitle said it would "transform your sex life." Uh, it did not.)
So, thinking about myself back then, and the fact that this book is called "The Great Sex Rescue"... if a baby ace buys this book in order to figure out how to have sex, to what extent would it be helpful?
I would say, the most helpful parts are the parts that point out the problems with Christian teaching on marriage and sex. This was very insightful and pointed out logical inconsistencies in ways I hadn't seen before.
And THE MOST helpful part, for me now, was the section that explained "one thing leads to another." Blew my mind. Really glad I read that, because wowwww. WOWWWW. So that's what everyone was talking about, all this time, when somehow you're kissing and "one thing leads to another" and you [accidentally?] have sex.
But, when the book offers advice on what to do instead, I felt this was very narrow and would not have been helpful for me at all when I was a baby ace. For example: For their advice on how to make sure the wife has an orgasm, the book only says that the husband needs to do more foreplay. Like the woman can't take matters into her own hands to find out what an orgasm even is- no, she just has to let her husband do some trial-and-error on her, and give him feedback on what worked and what didn't. This is so incredibly inefficient, it boggles my mind.
The book doesn't say this, but the reality is, you need to masturbate. The fact that it doesn't say that... this is in no way a "great sex rescue" for the little ace who is trying to figure out how to have sex. Which isn't necessarily a criticism of the book- no book can address everyone's sex problems- but it's just kinda sad for the hypothetical little ace looking for answers. (And maybe also for the women reading this book who have never had an orgasm and are trying to learn how to do it- I don't see how any advice could possibly help them if it doesn't include "you should masturbate.")
(And the thing that was actually helpful for me back then was this: An Asexual’s Guide To … Best sex-ed resource I have EVER found.)
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About being a sex-favorable ace
So, doing this blog series has really reinforced to me the fact that I'm different from people who have a sex drive, and also different from sex-repulsed aces.
I feel so mystified by the whole concept of "sex drive", and I write stuff about how I go about this *logically* like a Vulcan, and I get comments from people who point out how what I said doesn't apply to most people, because I've overlooked the existence of sex drive. I do appreciate those comments, because I know there are things that I missed (and I also like how I have my own blog and am therefore free to post whatever naive asexual insights I want to). So, uh, doing an entire blog series about sex has really helped me to see this difference more clearly.
And, on the other side we have sex-repulsed aces. Doing this blog series made me realize I don't know much about how sex-repulsed aces would feel about these things. (Well, repulsed, I guess, but I don't know much beyond that.) And maybe I've been too optimistic in the parts where I talked about what to do with the incompatibility between an ace partner and allo partner (ie, not on the asexual spectrum). Or when I talked about how sex can be so much better than how purity-culture proponents describe it. So I also appreciate the comments from sex-repulsed aces, to fill in the gaps.
Specifically, my situation was, I'm asexual but I was very curious about sex and wanted to do it [since I had found a partner who was good enough to go to the trouble], and the issue was just not really having a clue because all of it was so unnatural to me. (Also, vaginismus.) And I feel like I have to add more disclaimers, make it clear that this is not the case for most aces. Most aces don't ever want to have sex- and I support them in that. I do relate to that; there are very few situations where I feel it makes sense to have sex- it makes perfect sense to me to never find yourself in such a situation and therefore never have sex. Nothing wrong with that.
I like that "The Great Sex Rescue" covered a lot of topics and gave me a lot to respond to, and an opportunity to write about my own views on this. I remember thinking "there needs to be an ace review of this book- so I need to write it."
I was kind of worried, when I started this blog series, maybe I shouldn't do it because I'm going to write things that are ignorant and cringey. But, well, that's one of the main benefits of IDing as asexual- it serves as an explanation to legitimize my ignorance and naivety. So if people are like "why is she acting like she's so clueless about this" well it's because I'm asexual, of course I'm clueless, my cluelessness makes total sense and isn't something I need to feel ashamed about. I'm really glad the ace community is a place I can talk about this stuff without people making fun of me and saying "don't be so naive" and refusing to explain whatever it is I missed.
So the point is, if I wrote something ignorant and cringey, I do appreciate the comments that kindly point it out and explain it.
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Maybe this was always about men having power
I've been blogging about the problems with purity culture since 2012. And overall, I treat it like it was in good faith, like this system of rules was developed for us by leaders who really genuinely wanted to help people avoid heartbreak and to have good marriages, and I point out how it fails at that. But every now and then, I start to get a little suspicious that it was never about that at all. Every now and then, it dawns on me how this is EXACTLY the kind of system you would create if your goal was to ensure that powerful men continued to have power over everybody else.
And reading "The Great Sex Rescue," well, this is one of those times I start to wonder. Maybe purity ideology and complementarianism were always about men having power. Maybe when Christians said this is what's best for me, because it's God's plan for me to follow my God-given gender role, and that's the most natural and that's what will lead to the best life for me... I mean, obviously I know they were wrong, but maybe they didn't even believe it either. Maybe they made that up to give men power over women.
The authors of "The Great Sex Rescue" are basically coming at it from the same direction I have been- viewing it as, the claim is that if people follow these rules, they will have good marriages and good sex lives, so let's analyze that claim and point out why it's just not true. But also I think these authors are like me, in that occasionally we can't help but wonder if powerful men just made up these rules to maintain their own power.
Some of my posts related to that:
In Some Alternate Universe, I'm Writing a Post About Masks and "Causing to Stumble"
Men have no idea what it's like for women in complementarian churches
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Wrapping it up
Overall, I'm glad I read this book. I enjoyed it, even though there were many parts which frustrated me because they were so narrow/heteronormative.
Gregoire and the other authors of "The Great Sex Rescue" are doing very good work. On their blog, they are always getting comments from straight women in bad marriages, straight women who are abuse victims, straight women who are divorced... Straight women who have been blamed and rejected by the church. It's really good how Gregoire's blog and books are able to help these straight women so much. I genuinely do believe it's good that Gregoire and her co-authors are there doing that work.
At the same time, though... you publish a book in The Year Of Our Lord 2021 about how Christian teaching on marriage/ sex/ gender roles is harmful, and the book doesn't say ANYTHING AT ALL about the fact that these teachings are harmful to queer people? That's WILD. That's just WILD, to have that not mentioned in the book at all. To pretend everyone is straight and cis and allosexual. And I know a big part of it is because this is how evangelical culture is- if you say anything positive that acknowledges the existence of queer people, you get cancelled. But still...
So I think it's important, when we talk about this book, that we call out how it is narrow and not inclusive of queer people. Yes, for its target demographic of straight cis allo Christian women, it's really helpful, but it needs to come with a warning. And if you're queer and don't want to read this book because you just can't deal with Christians who pretend queer people don't exist, well, yeah, I totally understand that. Definitely don't read it then.
Okay, those are my thoughts~ I'm glad I read this book, it has a lot of good things to say, and also a lot of places where I disagreed, which gave me a chance to talk about my own asexual opinions.
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Links to all posts in this series can be found here: Blog series on "The Great Sex Rescue"
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