I have spoken to a lot of people about sex, particularly about how difficult it has been to enjoy the ecstasy of sex post-religion.
I believe the way the Christian church talks about sex is damaging, and this damage is experienced, in full force, by those who leave it. Churches have room to shift the way they talk about sex, while maintaining the Biblical conviction that sex should be reserved for marriage.
This blog post seeks to give voice to those who cannot experience the pleasure of sex due to a religion they no longer believe in. This blog post is for those who have confided in me a pain they struggle to articulate to religious leaders because they have been misunderstood, abandoned, forgotten, or because they feel they are alone in their plight. This blog post is for the women who cannot orgasm and for the relationships that have disintegrated because of the pervasiveness of guilt, fear and confusion. This blog is for church leaders and members of the congregation who have no idea how difficult post-church life can be.
Let’s start at the beginning.
The Messages We Grow Up with in Church
Youth Group is a time when girls and boys are growing into adults who are capable of forming their own opinions and beliefs about the world. It’s a time where they’re old enough to go shopping without their parents, old enough to stay home alone, old enough to attend sleepovers. It’s also a time where boys and girls start thinking about kissing and sitting close to one another and holding hands. Puberty hits like a truck on a highway, and some youngsters merge onto that highway long before others. Hormones race, hair grows and breasts inflate. Thank God for the A-frame hug.
Naturally, due to this transition, churches weave segregated boys and girls nights into their term calendars. This is where girls can talk about ‘girls stuff’ (modesty) and boys can talk about boys stuff (masturbation). Somehow, nobody thinks these are relevant to both genders.
Here’s what we hear in the girls talk:
- “When we go to church camp next week, make sure you all pack a rash vest so you don’t tempt your brothers in Christ with your body. Love your brother and help them from being tempted to think about your body in a sexual way.”
- “Girls, make sure your shorts sit below your fingertips when you put your arms against your body. It’s not appropriate. You have to love your brother and prevent him from being tempted by your body.”
- “Girls, no spaghetti straps! Do not tempt your bothers in Christ…”
Followed by conversations about (heterosexual) relationships, flirting and the age old “how far can we go with our boyfriend” chat.
Here’s a couple of things I have to say about the way sex is discussed in adolescence:
- The church says: girls, what you wear determines how men think and act, what you wear will change the way they see you and your godliness. Not only is this incredibly damaging for young women and their body image, but this is the very message that seeps through rape culture. “It’s because of what you were wearing”.
Instead of teaching girls that they need to dress for men, be modest for men and hide their curves for men, teach them to love their bodies and teach men to control their thoughts and actions. Loving your body doesn’t mean running through Central Station naked (however I do know people who have done this and report a most liberating experience), but it does mean teaching self-confidence and empowerment.I remember playing a ‘good Christian girl’ in a church skit. I went to the op shop so I could find the right kind of skirt (below the knee) and top (cover the shoulders). Surely anything in my wardrobe was ‘Christian’ enough, but my 13-year-old brain was clearly programmed to think Good Christians wore a certain type of outfit. Does anyone else see red flags here, or is it just me?
- Hey, church, did you know that girls masturbate too? In fact, every single (secular) female friend I know masturbates. I didn’t know girls masturbated until I was 19. That was a fucking embarrassing realisation, I gotta tell ya.
- Girls also watch porn, so if you’re going to do the ‘porn talk’, bring girls into the room too.
- Men don’t always have stronger sex drives than girls. This assumption damages men with low libidos who think they might be broken, and damages women with high libidos who think they might be some kind of ‘fanatic’ or ‘slut’. By telling women they need to hide their swimwear paints a picture of every man ravenous for the female body. This is simply not true. And guess what! Girls can be tempted by men’s bodies as well! Where were the t-shirts over their bodies?
- In church, please don’t point your finger and say ‘don’t do this’, ‘don’t do that’. You are not giving the young person agency, and when they come to 22 and are madly in love with someone who isn’t a Christian, all they’ll see is your finger pointing, not necessarily the heart behind it. They’ll grow bitter and they might even write a blog post about it and publish it on the internet (lol, hi). Educate, don’t alienate. Encourage discussion, don’t lecture. This is spirituality, not the law (at least in contemporary Australian society).
- Stop assuming everyone in your youth group and in your church congregation, both men and women, are attracted to the opposite sex. Full stop.
The Messages We Hear in Church
Then we grow up and move into Sunday’s ‘contemporary’ church service. Suddenly we start to hear the following in our social circles:
“Matthew and Rachel have been dating for three years now. I wonder whether he’s going to pop the question? Surely they’re having sex…”
“Has Mary ever had a boyfriend? There are plenty of good Christian men here, she must be so lonely.”
“I saw Joseph drunk and sitting on the lap of a guy at a party last week! He probably shouldn’t lead worship. Maybe we should tell the music leader?”
“My housemate’s boyfriend stayed over last night and they definitely slept in the same bed. It’s so disrespectful. Clearly they haven’t been convicted by God’s Word.”
This is coupled with sermons about sexual temptation and the best way to avoid it. Of course, these sermons are littered with “Sex is the most intimate thing you can do with another person! Virginity is beautiful! Your wedding night is pure! Sex is evil before marriage! If you’re doing it now, stop and wait!”.
And then someone comes on stage to talk about their testimony and says with their hands clasped that they used to live a meaningless life in sin, having sex and doing drugs but now they are pure without those things! Praise Jesus! Cue belief that sex before marriage is meaningless.
Obviously, these simplified beliefs are far from the intention of the people sharing them. However, after cupping years and years of sermons and small talks about sex in our hands and watching the water leak through the gaps in our fingertips, all we’re left with are these simplified messages. I think those messages could use a little bit of remoulding because here are a couple of conclusions collated from a number of conversations I have had:
- Stop assuming Christian couples who have been dating a while want to get married soon. Not only are you putting pressure on them, but you’re pushing pressure on the single members of your congregation. Marriage is not the point of life. Marriage isn’t the point of love. You haven’t ‘made it’ if you’re married. You can live a fulfilling life without a ring on your finger. Sex shouldn’t be the motive for the ring. Many good Christian couples are already having sex outside marriage, you just don’t know about it. The fact they hide it, increases the taboo and guilt associated with sex.
- The most intimate thing I can do with another human being is not have sex with them. Plenty of people can have sex without intimacy. I was raped, that was not intimate. My body has been used as stock exchange for dinner. Not intimate. But everyone I have opened my heart to, everyone I have shared an emotional intimacy with, I WAS IN CONTROL OF. The combination of sex and emotional tenderness is the most intimate thing you can share with another person. Put sex and emotional intimacy on the same pedestal.
- An unmarried person’s faith and devotion to God is not measured by their sex life.
- The likelihood of someone in your friendship group or congregation who has been sexually abused is very, very high. Tread carefully. Think about the ways you project the Good Christian Life. Here is a comment by a victim of sexual assault who refers to herself as ‘K’ in a survey I conducted a couple of months ago:
Feeling like I didn’t belong after what happened. Feeling judged. Remembering all the past conversations about how bad sex before marriage was and the judgemental things said about others who were having sex before marriage.
And another comment by young woman:
The continued emphasis on sex before marriage or partaking in sexual activities with others/before marriage being a sin made me feel exceptionally guilty when I was younger, primarily because I was molested at a young age. Whenever I heard the Priest talk about how it is a sin to not be ‘pure’ before marriage etc I would feel so incredibly guilty and dirty, and this has distorted my views on myself and sex even to this day. I felt trapped, I felt as if I was going to hell or something even though it wasn’t my fault, and I find that I am still overcoming these feelings.
The best thing I did after I was raped was to have sex with other men. I healed by taking control of something that was stolen from me. I know many, many women who have done the same thing. Sex is complicated. Sin is complicated. Sexual assault is not.
- A non-Christian’s experience of sex can be just as beautiful outside of marriage as sex can be inside a marriage between Christians.
How Guilt Plays Out in our Sex Lives
Many people who leave the church struggle with getting comfortable with sex because of these simplified messages. So many are absolutely terrified of going to hell for pre-marital sex, thus impacting their ability to enjoy sex while they’re doing it. Many women I’ve spoken to struggle to orgasm. One friend told me recently “I can’t orgasm because I can’t relax because I’m literally thinking about hell and it’s been 3 years since I left”. She continued, saying, “I also can’t shake the thought that a guy who isn’t a Christian just wants me for my body… and I project that insecurity onto them”.
Here’s another from my survey:
Growing up in a Catholic religion I felt very different from those around me, especially when it came to the topic of sexuality. I found that my church placed such a negative emphasis on sexuality, often connecting it with sin and even to this day, even though I have left the church, I still find myself feeling guilty or dirty when I do sexual things and it’s frustrating, as I see those around me who didn’t grow up in this faith and don’t have the same connotations around sex and sexuality, they can act so freely and have no guilt.
The tremendous weight of this guilt is difficult to convey to a non-religious partner. They don’t understand why it matters so much. “Sex is great baby, let me please you, relax a bit”.
But relax?! RELAX?! As soon as I start doing this I can’t go back. “As soon as my virginity is gone,” one girl told me, “if I decide to go back to church one day I’ll have to tell my future Christian partner who may not be the guy I’m in love with now that I’ve had sex before and he will have to exercise love and forgiveness like Jesus loves and forgives us. It will be this Great Act for him- choosing to love someone who was once so worldly. I will feel so humiliated, like I’ve been reduced to this poor, sinful child.”
I do not object to the belief in sex after marriage. In fact, when you fall in love with a partner who has been sexually active with another, there is a part (large or small) in everyone that wishes they had only shared this kind of intimacy with you. But, you also wish you didn’t eat that burger last night because you’re trying to lose weight and you had a salad in the fridge. You also wish you wore a black shirt instead of a white shirt last Tuesday because the likelihood of you spilling red wine on it is always highly probable. I have no right to object to the beliefs of others, but I feel as though I have a duty to report on behalf of myself and others how damaging the projection of those beliefs can be.
Conclusion
The more I write about sex and the more conversations I have with people about sex, the more horrified I am at the sheer number of people living in fear and guilt for something that was designed by God to be a beautiful thing. These people don’t have to feel fear and guilt anymore because they no longer subscribe to religious teachings. So why aren’t they FREE?
Sex is a beautiful part of life. Some people reserve it for marriage, some people have it with strangers, others have it with lovers. But to lie in bed and look into the warm eyes of someone who thinks your heart and mind and body is beautiful is so breathtaking. To have hot, passionate sex in the morning before breakfast or before the kids are up or before you tip-toe out the back can also be equally as exhilarating and breathtaking.
You don’t have to feel guilt or shame if you don’t believe in the messages that were preached to you long ago. For those who want to experience sex freely and without guilt and pain, open up to your lovers. Open up to your friends. Create dialogue. Question what makes you so uncomfortable. Get to know your body. Frame your fears and your guilt in the context of someone who no longer believes. I don’t think God wants you to live your life feeling guilty about something you’re not even sure of. I’d like to think that God, if there is a God, understands that wrestling with these things looks different to everyone.
For the women reading this, do not feel ashamed of your body. You are not dirty. You are not less attractive because you are sexually active. Your love and your partner’s love is no less sacred if it is not wrapped up in a cross-printed ribbon.
I am here for you and I love you.
Also published on Medium.
I don’t think you could of written this any better! I love this, I love you! So much has happened in the past year and this made me feel like I’m not the only one this is happening too! Thank you ❤️
Fantastic.
Ruby, so, so thankful for your writing.
As I read, I noticed the absence of the word “forgiveness” — until you mentioned it once as what someone would have to do for a person who had previously been sexually active outside of marriage. But God does forgive; He has promised to forgive all who come to seek it in Jesus’ name. And people can forgive themselves, too, though doing it is hard sometimes. You omitted emphasizing all this.
Not that you’re incorrect about the damage done from the encounters and, frankly, crimes that you describe; those things are awful. But one doesn’t have to abandon God and church, even the Roman Catholic church and its strictness, in order to heal.
Hi Richard,
Thanks for your comment! It’s true, I did omit emphasising this. However, I am not a Christian, so I don’t believe in God’s forgiveness, at least in the Christian sense. I suppose this is more a cultural commentary than a theological one, so whether God/Jesus does forgive or not, it does not excuse the way that forgiveness/shame/guilt is used to manipulate the way the church talks about sex and purity.
Thanks for reading and I appreciate the comment,
Ruby
Hi Ruby,
Thanks for writing, your pieces are always thought provoking and much appreciated. Here is my perspective. My lovely husband has had a promiscuous past and the consequences are all too real for us. No form of contraception is 100% effective, therefore each union comes with the risk of a pregnancy. That is huge. Many people see a quick abortion as the fixer for this. My body etc. My rights. People get their knickers in a knot more over cage chickens than unborn children. My family lives with a little life that could easily have been stolen like this but she wasn’t. She is the collateral of me first sex. She lives between two households and bears the consequences of her parents choices for the rest of her life. I have watched her aged 3 running back and forwards between dad’s car and mums door crying hysterically because she cant decide which parent to stay the night with. I can’t convey enough how traumatic this was and how often this happened. My husband gave me an STD that affected whether or not I would be able to give birth naturally to our child. I bear the consequences of his decisions in my body. He can’t undo these things and it is not figurative or philosophical it is damn practical and sore down below. Sex is never an isolated event without ramifications or consequences. It can be pretty amazing or pretty boring within marriage and outside but it is the event that creates life and it can affect us on every level of our being. I’m with God when he says to enjoy responsibly.
Thanks so much for your comment. I understand why you’re with God on this one, especially considering everything you, your husband, his little girl and her mother have been through.
There are ramifications and consequences for everything we do, and many have weighed the risk and made their decisions accordingly. I argue that we should think about the variety of congregational members’ experiences of sex before we discuss how pure and perfect it is within marriage. Too many people have been assaulted, and a huge number became Christians later in their life. We need to be more sensitive of this within churches.
Kindly,
Ruby
Always saddens me to hear people walking away from God and their faith in Him, because imperfect people have let them down. The church has certainly made a mess of a beautiful thing. God forgive us. I was sexually abused by my father as a little girl and had multiple partners through my teen years and 20s. I didn’t grow up in church so I can’t relate to your experiences…. my experience encountering God and His mercy wasn’t warped with the guilt and shame you faced. I’m sorry you had that as your understanding of who He is and how we respond to Him. I have a 14 year old son and 10 year old daughter that I wrestle with how to teach and guide into a healthy and safe sexual understanding . I hear everything you’ve said and know better what not to do. Far worse in my humble opinion is that they would grow up to not desire a relationship with their Creator than to see them commit any number of “sins” your leaders were trying to prevent. If we have a proper understanding of God, we can’t help but love Him. Then the Holy Spirit does His work in us to convict us personally of our conduct with others. This crucial element seems to be missing from your leaders approach. Even so, we still make mistakes, but Grace is an amazing thing. Another element not spoken of by your leaders?
Thank you for your honesty and thought provoking article.
Thanks so much for your comment L, I’m so sorry to hear of your abuse as a little girl. Thank you for your honesty and for sharing part of your story.
You know, I’m sure grace was spoken of, regularly. But it’s interesting what messages we cling onto, what messages seem to be stronger in our young, impressionable minds. Unfortunately I have no answers about how this can be reframed, only more questions.
All the best with the kids, parenting sounds like a crazy (but rewarding) challenge. x
I sat and read this crying. I too was assaulted by a boyfriend who brought me into a Pentecostal church. I was 16 and learning about what it was to be a sexual being. He used sex as a weapon against me, saying that if I wanted it I was doing the wrong thing but then forcing me to engage in relations with him knowing full well that I would say nothing because I was so scared of getting in trouble from my leaders. I was constantly pulled aside from youth group and spoken to about my boundaries and felt I had to lie in order not to be taken off worship leading, part of what I loved most about connecting to God. When I finally had the courage to tell my Pastor that I had had sex, she sat in a public cafe and cried saying that I had made a bad life decision, that I had made a mistake that I couldn’t reverse and that I should hope that this would be the man I would marry. The guilt I felt around this was so intense that I never told anybody about what had happened to me until I was 23 and had left the church. I have been in a relationship now for 6 years. For the first 5 years of that relationship, until I was 24, I would avoid sex as much as possible, I became so good at doing this that I had no sexual drive at all however I still felt like it was unfair to deprive my partner of such a fundamental part of a loving relationship. At times I would force myself to have sex and afterwards would cry silently feeling sick because of how dirty and shameful I felt. I decided to speak to someone about this and that has changed my life. She was able to reframe my thoughts around sex and Christianity, helping me to see sex as a normal part of any relationship. She asked me to imagine that I was speaking to God and to see what he thought about the pain and anguish I had been through associated with this and finally I realised that if He was the loving God I had learnt He was, that he didn’t want to abandon me or hate me, that He just wanted me to love Him and be happy. I still have that sick feeling come up sometimes after sex but now have the tools to challenge it and speaking to my boyfriend about all of this has made us a lot closer and has given him an understanding of what I have been going through. This blog is the first time I have ever seen that people have been through something similar and I don’t feel alone in this struggle. Thank you, for being honest and providing a space for people to heal.
Taylah, thank you so much for sharing some of your journey. I’m so glad you are equipped with the tools to challenge your fears and guilt, and that you’re in a loving relationship with a partner who seeks to understand you more and more. I’m so sorry for what you went through. You are definitely not alone. xx
Hi Taylah and thanks for the article Ruby,
How did you find someone you could talk about this too? For me all the shame around this subject makes me scared to raise it with anyone because I feel like a counsellor that understands the Christian part can’t possibly be ok with me or make me feel safe as a queer agnostic (or progressive Christian depending on the day!); and I feel like someone who makes me feel safe about the lesbian part will laugh at me if I anxiously raise the challenges with sex part. Yet it has got to the point where a decade into our relationship I still really struggle with relaxing and enjoying rather than avoiding sex and I know I need to deal with it because it is seriously affecting my marriage, and my own wellbeing.
How do I find someone that I can trust and feel safe with on both fronts and start to work through this stuff? I just feel hopeless and abnormal most of the time!!
Hi Kaye,
A friend recommended a specialised councillor for me in Sydney (Dr. Josie McSkimming). She had written a book about deconstructing identity post-religion and had experienced something similar in the Christian sphere herself. Knowing that she understood what I was going through was very important to me and made me feel incredibly safe.
I felt the same hesitancies seeing a Christian. I didn’t want them to evangelise me or judge me for the actions that I found morally justifiable. At the time I was really questioning what I believed and I didn’t want to be faced with a bias from a Christian counsellor.
I’m so sorry you feel hopeless and abnormal, I know exactly how you feel. I read this great book, Come As You Are by Emily Nagoski. It’s easy to read and covers SO MANY THINGS I had absolutely no idea about (non-concordance, accelerators and brakes etc). There are worksheets and exercises and case studies on all kinds of relationships. It really changed my relationship with sex and my body (literally, that night it changed everything haha)! Understanding the history of purity culture was important for me too. I recommend this documentary.
A sex therapist is also highly encouraged. They know about the Christian stuff, because religious-related struggles are very, very common among those who are practicing and those who have left the fold. And sex therapists are passionate about sex- they want you to have the best sex in the world! So that kind of conversation is always more fun than you realise once you open up about all your insecurities.
Good luck on your journey – it’s uncomfortable and frustrating but so liberating once you learn more about your body and get comfortable with it. Let me know how you go!
I just came here from your Feed article. Thank you so much. I speak to women and men all the time who are broken because of these teachings. Even people with a faith are hurting cause they struggle with intimacy. Thank you for telling your story and sharing your thoughts. Nice to know we are not alone.
Hi Kirrily, thanks for following me over here and thanks for reading! x
Thanks for the reply- I’ll look up that book and docu and hopefully swallow my fear and get to the therapist at some point. Your person sounds great, I’m in Melbourne so hopefully some google searching will help me when I get there.
Thanks for being real.
Great article, thank you. I have left institutional church & define myself as a progressive Christian (basically means I have left damaging religious culture, but still follow Jesus). I feel really sad about my relationship with sex: coming to terms with the realisation I’m queer along with a lot of sex/body shaming isn’t an easy journey. But it’s wonderful to see more blogs & websites like this & it all gives me hope that, at very least, the next generation will have more supportive information to link with on their journey. The fundamentalist/conservative church will most likely continue to teach damaging things, but at least there are more alternatives now. Keep up the great work!
Hi Emily, thanks so much for your comment. I agree, it’s great there are more alternatives! Many of the people I grew up with who delivered some of the damaging messages surrounding sex have reached out to inform me of the ways they have changed their approach. While it’s still very much conservative in nature, it is a lot more attune to the damage of purity culture and how this can damage sex/self esteem. Great news.
I’m sorry you’ve had a difficult journey – I hope you are surrounded by supporting and loving people! x
I read your recommendations in other comments – THANK YOU for these! I’m almost finished Come As You Are and it’s really helped give me some mental space to process some stuff. I’ve also got some other reading lined up about the conservative church and shame. I don’t think I would have found this without your comment, so thanks!! It’s nice to feel a little less alone and a lot less crazy!
This is so bloody great!!!! All the best on your journey!
I’ve been waiting literally years for someone to actually open up and talk about this! It’s relieving to know that I’m not a complete basket case ??♀️?
Haha, defffffinitely not a basket case. Or, if you are, there’s a bunch of other basket cases out there (myself included) who feel the same way!
Excellent article. I’m going through some of these issues as well..
Great work, Ruby. Thanks for sharing. It’s so sad that the church is so hung up with what we do sexually in private and consensually. And you’re right that it causes huge damage. Hating oneself needs to be preached a LOT less.
It’s been really interesting for me to hear about all of this from the female perspective. I recently left the Church as well, and it becomes clearer by the day how messed up a lot of this stuff was. I remember sitting through countless men’s sessions about lust and masturbation (while the girls were in the other room talking about modesty, you hit that head on haha). These teachings caused me to look at women in a negative way. I was scared of women and saw you as an opportunity for sexual temptation as opposed to someone who is probably in most ways just like me. Honestly this is something I’m still working through. It’s ironic that, despite all the talk of making sure to not treat women as sex objects, that’s exactly what we were doing.
Such an insightful perspective Caleb, thanks so much for sharing. Good luck working through it, the fact you’ve recognised this is a incredible step on the journey. All the best, Ruby.
Thank you for your amazing articles. I find encouragement and agree how you discuss about the struggles of continuing going to church is such a challenge. Which have challenged my spiritual belief and spiritual wellbeing, yet constantly having this thought in the back of my mind of being judged.
Regardless of fear, there is that definite want to of acceptance.
Hi Ruby. I was a Christian up until about a year or two ago. O was a Sunday School teacher and everything. About a year and a half ago, I realized I was bisexual. I thought I was going to hell for sure, that I was a dirty sinner and that I didn’t deserve love from a woman because of my desires for men. As for my desires for men, well that is whole other bucket of self-hatred. I started feeling awful during my father’s sermons because he was constantly preaching about the gays burning in hell. Then, I just stopped going. I started college this year. I’ve met people who are more open and diverse. I’ve met more people like myself. I’ve started coming out of my feelings of self-hatred around sex. I even have a beautiful girlfriend now who I can be comfortable around with this stuff. Church fucked me up, and I’m probably never going to be able to get rid of all the guilt that it has drilled into my head, nor the fear of a hell I don’t even believe in anymore. Your article really resonates with me, and I’m glad to see someone speak up about this issue.
THIS! This is everything I’ve ever wanted to say, but haven’t been able to form the words as I’m still processing my own experience with sex and walking away from evangelical Christianity. I am that woman who can’t orgasm and who didn’t know either that girls masturbated until I was a late teen. I had never heard the word “clitoris” until I was 19 and I totally resonated with your statement that it’s “fucking embarrassing” to have made these realizations so late!
There are so many golden truths in this post. “Put sex and emotional intimacy on the same pedestal.” YES. “An unmarried person’s faith and devotion to God is not measured by their sex life.” PREACH! And the humor you wove throughout this is just perfection. I, too, have been scarred by the way sexuality was taught (and not taught) to me by the Christian church growing up. It’s only now as an adult in a committed, sexually healthy relationship that I’m seeing just how fucked up it all was and how bad it’s affected me. Thank you for this post; I am so encouraged to have found another person whose experience I can relate to and whose same feelings I share the church needing a sexuality reformation.
Thank you for writing this. As a guy who spent many years in church (still am, though not during Covid-19), there was so many things about the teachings of sex and intimacy that I’ve been struggling with. I feel like you could write a million blog posts on just this topic that bothers me, and, I’m sure, so many other people who are in a process of deconstruction.
Topics like sex after marriage, sexual kinks, open/poly relationships, marriage not being IT, and so much more.
Sex after marriage isn’t perfect either. Christians make it out to be this amazing huge thing, but it’s hella awkward (even if you had sex in the past). And the worst part? There’s PLENTY of teachings and sermon from the Church on how to abstain from sex, but nearly nothing useful on the topic of sex itself within the marriage. Other than “Have lots of sex”, which isn’t helpful at all.
And you know what? The teachings of the church prevent us from enjoying sex to the fullest even within a marriage. It’s destructive, and I want so badly for the church to stop meddling in people’s sex-lives. That’s not what our job as a church is.
Thank you for writing this. You’re helping a ton of people <3