Episode 4: Deadly Sexual Sin #3 (According to the Church): Don’t Have Wants, with Jake and Sarah Lollar
The first two Deadly Sexual Sins According to the Church—don’t have sex before you get married, and don’t be gay—are commonly linked to the church’s sexual ethic.
The third of the sins is the psychological engine for the church’s position on sexuality: Don’t lust.
And to be fair, don’t lust has important implications, especially in a world where over half of adult women (and nearly a third of adult men) have experienced at minimum sexual harassment. However, as Jeremiah mentions,
“I think that the problem though becomes when "don't objectify women" very quickly moves into, " just don't have wants." And in a context that refuses to teach things, processes like consent , sexual anatomy, sexual physiology, the sexual response cycles and the histories of sexual response cycles, it's understandable how that move gets made.”
We invite our friends Jake and Sarah to talk with us about how growing up in the Evangelical Church (the same collegiate church as Jeremiah) impacted their relationship with wants as individuals and as a partnership. We describe a three step process that can help people give themselves permission to name their wants and desires, including:
Developing a process for exploring your own wants and needs.
Determining how to translate your wants into verbalizations, and identify the barriers to vocalizing said wants.
Asking the question “What do you want?” And actually answering the question when your partner asks.
Share your stories about how you learned to give yourself permission to want and desire! Let’s heal together!