Review: The Great Sex Rescue

Published in 2021, “The Great Sex Rescue: The Lies You’ve Been Taught and How to Recover What God Intended” started with a survey of 22,000 Christian women. Co-authors Sheila Wray Gregoire, Rebecca Gregoire Lindenbach, and Joanna Sawatsky do a great job of breaking down the lasting effects of purity culture and the abuse that’s possible with “obligation sex.” They also review the leading Christian books about marriage and sex-related advice.

Mostly, “The Great Sex Rescue” highlights how churches (particularly Evangelical churches) tend to make young women the gatekeepers of sexual purity while taking more of a “boys will be boys” attitude to men without self-restraint. Sexual pain seems to be significantly more common among Evangelical women, pressured to have sex on their wedding night and whenever their husband expresses a “need.”

Traditional Gender Roles

The authors make an interesting argument about “traditional gender roles,” saying that dating couples look for what’s unique in each other, but then married couples try to make themselves into the stereotypical “husband” or “wife”. It’s hard to avoid oversimplifying this topic, but “I liked their perspective “gender roles” are also a controversial topic within BDSM:

“Here’s an interesting finding from our survey: Women who do not believe traditional gender roles are moral imperatives feel more heard and seen in their marriages. In fact, women who act out the typical breadwinner-homemaker dynamic also feel more seen if they see it as a choice and not a God-given role.

“Does this mean it’s wrong to have a breadwinner and a stay-at- home spouse? Nope. All three of us writing this book specifically chose careers that would allow us to be home with our kids. But when we unquestioningly buy into gender roles, we create a strange dynamic in marriage in which we view each other as categories rather than as people. We are all made with unique strengths, giftings, and callings, and these do not always fit with traditional gender roles. When a couple makes decisions based on who God created them to be versus who gender roles say they should be, it allows them to live in God’s plan for their lives while feeling known and valued. Trying to live up to gender roles can mean that we’re not fully ourselves; we’re wearing a mask, and sometimes that mask doesn’t fit.”

from “The Great Sex Rescue”

Almost (but Not Quite) BDSM

The authors don’t go all the way to addressing BDSM, but they recommend using a “code word” to clarify when you want to stop sex, “like pineapple or Appalachian“, which sounds a lot like the BDSM practice of safe words. A couple of parts of the book seem to get defensive about ‘vanilla’ sex, but I think most kinky Christians would agree with what’s actually stated, that you shouldn’t force or pressure your spouse.

“Putting others first also means that their preferences, fears, and self-image need to be protected. That means, if one of you feels that a certain sexual act is degrading or if it causes flashbacks to abuse, you should avoid it. Don’t do anything that will cause your spouse pain, even if the pain is emotional. ….the kind thing to do is to see a counselor to work through your trauma. But don’t push your spouse’s boundaries in the bedroom, and never break their trust.

“Many have grown up in the porn culture and have trained the sexual response cycle to respond to graphic things that can be degrading, dangerous, or unpleasant to the other. One spouse pressures the other to act out what they’ve seen or they find that ‘vanilla’ sex just doesn’t do it for them. But kind people do not force or pressure their spouses to act out their fetishes. Instead, they dedicate themselves to retraining their brains so that intimacy is what triggers desire and arousal, not only exotic (and possibly violent or degrading) sex.”

from “The Great Sex Rescue”

The Mixed Reception

The book resonated with many Christian women, finally addressing topics that had been too long ignored or mishandled. Out of over 4,000 Goodreads reviews, 92% were either 4 or 5 stars. On Amazon, 95% of reviews were either 4 or 5 stars. Many readers have reached out to the authors to say how they’ve been helped by the research.

The Great Sex Rescue Review

If your church group or book club is looking for a title to discuss, then “The Great Sex Rescue” provides a great starting point for unpacking several mainstream Christian teachings and their toxic impact. If you’re in the “getting to know you” phase of a new dating relationship, then you’re better off discussing “The Great Sex Rescue,” rather than bringing a copy of Jay Wiseman’s “SM 101” to your first date.

Although it represents a great leap forward in promoting a sex-positive perspective, “The Great Sex Rescue” does have a few problems. They repeat the myth that pornography is a major driver of sex trafficking, a topic that deserves a lot more nuance and its own separate discussion. They justifiably argue against the way so many Christian resources tell women to watch their weight and appearance…. but then as a corrective(?), they make some sweeping arguments about obese husbands, saying “Meanwhile, a male potbelly can prevent sex, reduce the usable length of his penis, make him too heavy to be on top and too wide to straddle.” Meanwhile, comparing a wife’s appearance to the way she looked at marriage isn’t just unfair and unrealistic, according to these authors, it’s denying her “personhood.” Pornography, attractiveness, and obesity are tricky and sensitive topics, but it seems fair to call their handling …inconsistent.