Review of The Great Sex Rescue by Sheila Wray Gregoire
The internet has been abuzz with discussions of The Great Sex Rescue by Sheila Wray Gregoire and for good reason! Sheila and her team did a survey of 20,000 women and used their results to write about the messages that women receive about sex from the church and how those help or hurt their sex lives.
This is the largest study of it’s kind that’s been conducted and it was held to rigorous academic standards. She’s making the raw data available to other researchers so it can be peer reviewed. This is huge, especially in Christian circles.
She uses that data to debunk what so many of us were taught from purity culture and it’s cousins, and then breaks down what makes great sex.
Great sex is:
Personal
Pleasurable
Pure
Prioritized
Pressure-Free
Put the Other First
Passionate
Here are a few of my favorite things about each section.
Great Sex is Personal
This has been my soap box for the last year or so. We’re were taught not have sex before marriage, but never taught what sex in marriage should be. Not just a physical act we can finally get away with now that we’ve said “I do,”, but a deep knowing of each other- the cumulation of spiritual and emotional intimacy.
She points out how skewed our definition of sex is. We think of sex as a a man penetrating a woman and then orgasming. Where is the woman in this experience? Just a receptacle! For this reason, she uses the word “intercourse” when describing that type of one sided sex, and only uses the word “sex” when she is talking about mutual, intimate love making.
She defines personal sex as both people feeling known and valued, during which the experience is mutually pleasurable.
The conclusion of the chapter is:
“Sex is not only about the physical- sex is about the emotional and the spirtual too. When we understand the depth of the passionate love we have for one another, bolstered by years of trust and shared experience… it transcends. It becomes something different- it switches from intercourse and turns into making love…”
Great Sex is Pleasurable
This should be obvious, but for many who were raised in the church, it is not! Christian marriage resources emphasize over and over that men *need* sex, while for women sex is like some icing on the cake, and not everyone gets icing…. Oh well. But make sure he gets his needs met!
The study showed that 52% of women do not always or even almost always orgasm, while 23% have orgasms anywhere from less than half the time to never. However, men almost always orgasm (90%). Sheila breaks down the reasons for this discrepancy. What we call sex- intercourse where the man orgasms and then it’s over- generally doesn’t stimulate women very well. Most women can’t orgasm from intercourse alone. Culture, marriage books and messages from both the world and Christians tell us that women are too difficult to bring or orgasm or broken because they don’t orgasm the way a man does. So… too bad.
Sheila takes down this ridiculous notion. We are half the population, and sex isn’t sex unless we’re enjoying it- otherwise it’s just a man masturbating inside his wife. So the way sex works IS the way it works for us too!
Christian marriage books have vastly over emphasized the need for women to both make sure the man is pleasured *and* make sure he feels like he’s a good lover, even if he’s not. She puts the onus on the husband to make sure his wife is enjoying herself, not so he can feel like a good lover, but so he can actually be one and his wife can enjoy the experience.
She also is very clear that there are many good men out there who really do try. Sometimes the wife has other things going on- physically or emotionally- that make it difficult to enjoy sex. Sometimes it is even painful. She offers encouragement and solutions for these situations.
Great Sex is Pure
While Christian marriage books often decry porn use, they have also framed lust as “every man’s battle.” Most Christian resources take a very low view of men’s ability to have self-control, have pure thoughts, and be generally decent human beings. They simultaneously shame men for lustful thoughts, to the point that many men feel guilty for any natural brief attraction to a woman, at the same time they normalize that true lust- objectification, degradation and trying to control women in an effort to control themselves- is just part of being man.
They tell men to “battle lust” by bouncing their eyes or avoiding women, but don’t really get to the heart of the issue- men who see women as full, equal human beings are not likely to objectify them. And if their thoughts do head that direction, they are able to stop those thoughts- not by vilifying the woman or treating her like a drug they need to avoid, but by focusing on her full humanity.
The Great Sex Rescue addresses all of this, and also discusses how it affects women to hear, over and over and over, that their very existence is problem for men and how they should take extreme steps to make men’s lives easier. Women spend their adolescent years trying to cover up and hide, and then are expected to be care free and uninhibited in bed with their husbands. Absurd!
“Women… you were never meant to feel as if you’re in competition for your husband’s eyes with every woman out there. You were never meant to feel as if your body itself is dangerous and evil. You were meant to be valued for who you are.”
Great Sex is Prioritized
In this section, Sheila debunks gendered stereotypes about libido differences (men are microwaves, women are slowcookers??), and differences in needs (men need sex, women need romance). She discusses spontaneous vs. responsive libidos and how there’s no one right way to be. These are all on the spectrum of normal.
But again, when women are expected to not be like men according to the stereotypes, there’s an assumption for both the husband and the wife that she doesn’t really want sex. So he focuses on his pleasure and she focuses on his pleasure or just getting it over with. When women understand that sex is for them too and that it can be mind-blowing, they want sex! And their libidos go up! Imagine that.
Sheila talks about making sex a priority in your marriage, but that does *not* mean having sex when you don’t feel like it. It does mean honoring sex as an important part of marriage, figuring out ways to work with mismatched libidos, and making sure both partners feel like sex is enjoyable so that they *want* to prioritize it.
If women (or men) are having a hard time prioritizing sex in an intimate and connected marriage, there’s likely something bigger going on for them- physical pain, past trauma or messages of shame clouding the joy of the connection. And for some marriages, they’re having lots of penis in vagina intercourse, but very little or no real sex- mutually pleasurable. So women are prioritizing making sure their husbands orgasm, but husbands are not prioritizing wives' orgasms (or they are trying, but the above issues are present).
Great Sex is Pressure-Free
Consent has been a big topic around the world in every niche, but Christians still have a hard time getting the concept. Especially in the context of marriage. The “Duty Sex” message has been pushed so hard, and 1 Corinthians 7:3-5 taken so out of context (don’t deprive each other), that marital rape is a reality for far more couples than we’d like to admit.
“When you are repeatedly told that you’re not allowed to say no to sex, and that what you need is less important that what your spouse needs, that is a deep rejection of you as a person. When the books, magazines, blogs, radio programs, and conferences in your Christian circles are all telling you that every time you say no to sex, you are being selfish due to the depth of his need, you may start feeling guilty about heaving any needs at all.”
Fortunately for most women, this message is not coming from their husbands directly. But because it’s so prevalent in Christian materials, it is something that both spouses can believe and expect without ever questioning it. This is harmful to both spouses.
“Our survey showed that having sex out of obligation, when you feel forced to do so, is never a wonderful thing to do. It robs her of the joy she was meant to experience, and it robs her husband of a marriage in which he is desired, not just placated.”
Sheila also talks about how feeling pressured to have sex leads to an increase in pain during sex- a condition called vaginismus. This is something I never knew about before, but 32% of women have experienced it! Yet most books don’t even mention it.
Great Sex Puts the Other First
With the husband’s responsibility to make sex pleasurable for his wife fully established, and the expectation that sex will be intimate and entirely consensual, Sheila then turns to another facet of great sex that is important in a healthy marriage- putting the other first.
This is another area where Christian advice has been vastly one-side, pressuring women to give, give, give because men need, need, need.
But for the couple that can set aside those messages and truly focus on mutuality, it doesn’t hurt for both to have a reminder that the only person your spouse can have sex with is you. So don’t let trivial things like tv shows or “I’m not in the mood”- when you know you have a responsive libido and might get in the mood as things progress- stop you from sexually connecting with your spouse.
Great Sex is Passionate
The last section really drives home that Biblical sex is not prudish! God gave us the gift of orgasms. God gave us the ability to pleasure each other in many fun and exciting ways. When sex is safe, pleasurable, consensual, mutual, and emotionally and spiritually intimate, it’s damn good!
“But God designed sex so that intimacy isn’t quite proper. It isn’t something you can put a lid on and keep sterile and organized. It spills over. It revels. It even screams.”
“Passion says I want you as you are- not who you could be, not who you should be, not who you were when we met- I want you now and I want you in the deepest of senses.”
Conclusion:
In the interests of a fully honest book review, I will say there were two small parts I didn’t love. I felt like she was too harsh on men who had gained weight and how that affects their wives’ potential for orgasms. Yes, our health affects our spouses, but we should seek health for our own sake’s, and weight gain isn’t always about health. She also mentions having sex on a woman’s period as something the couple can do if the wife feels up to it. I don’t believe this is Biblical.
Other than those two small things, this is one of the best books I’ve ever read. I plan to give a copy to ever couple I know who are getting married.
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