Episode #67: Banned Books: Non-Toxic Masculinity, by Zach Wagner, part 2 of 2
What are the messages that we wish we learned about masculinity? What are messages that we'd like to teach younger generations about masculinity, and in conjunction, how we might do relationships more effectively, more collaboratively?
We are thrilled to have Zach Wagner, author of Non-Toxic Masculinity, on Sexvangelicals this week. Zach talks with us about:
The Books of Deconstruction (3:10): Zach highlights the books that aided him in his deconstruction journey including:
Mating in Captivity by Esther Perel
Passionate Marriage by David Schnarch
Embodiments by James Nelson
Church Too, How Purity Culture Upholds Abuse and How to Find Healing by Emily Joy Allison
The Right to Sex by Amiya Sreenivasan
Conquest & Sex (13:00): Julia says: “The toxic forms of masculinity that the church promotes not only impacts relationships between men and the women in their lives, but also between them and the other men in their lives. And men don't typically talk about sex in ways that are human with each other in Christian contexts. Men often talk about sexuality from the perspective of accountability groups and rein in their sexual desires. In other contexts, men will talk about sex in a really dominant, aggressive kind of way, in terms of how they can conquest women. And neither of those conversations among men are particularly helpful.”
Broadening the Script (15:00): Zach discusses, “Broadening the script of what sexual experience as a man might look like broadening the very kind of narrow, hyper hetero script around sexuality, and the way that is tied into whether or not you're a real man.
Male Sexuality (18:00): Zach says: “Living out your sexuality as a man can look different ways, and even the way you experience sexual desire can look different ways. We don't need to like live into this Every Man's Battle narrative where to be a guy is to kind of have this constant struggle against, and the only way to lock this down is to like find a smoking hot wife that can then be your "release valve" for your pent up sexual energy like it's obviously dehumanizing to women, but I think it's also just really dehumanizing to men and at the same time.”
Injecting Shame (20:00): Jeremiah says, “Zach, as you're talking about that, I think that you're naming something really important. How do we have these conversations without injecting shame or injecting sexual exceptionalism into them?”
Shame & Desire (22:00): Zach shares, “That the experience of sexual desire or the acting out of certain sexual behaviors can cycle back on itself to a negative view of self as bad or evil or uniquely broken in some way. And I think starting from the premise that one can experience a certain sexual desire, or even acting out of a certain sexual behavior does not compromise your value as a human being."
EMPish Communities and Being “Counter-Cultural” (28:00): Julia notes, “Christians are so obsessed with sex. I learned that the secular culture was obsessed with sex. And what Jeremiah and I find in our work is that Evangelical Mormon and Pentecostal structures pretend to be more countercultural than they are, when actually models of masculinity are actually pretty similar in Christian and secular context."
Internalized Narratives (32:00): Zach shares: “It took my therapist saying point blank, Zach, you don't need sex. And also to [my wife], Zach doesn't need sex, he'll survive without it. It's not like you're asking him not to drink water for a week, or not eat food for a month. It's a human desire, it's a human need in a certain sense, but it's not something that's gonna kill him. That was like a huge moment where I realized the way that through various avenues, including the teaching of Mark Driscoll, I had internalized this narrative about masculinity and maleness that marriage was kind of the solution to all of my sexual frustration or all of my sexual desires.”
Desire (37:00): Jeremiah says: “Just because you have a desire doesn't mean that that desire has to have an end goal. Sometimes the desire is just a desire. I have a desire to go to Iceland and hike the ring road for three weeks. Yeah, it's a desire. The likelihood of that happening, probably not going to happen. I'm also not going to invest a lot of energy in that. And I'm fine. I think that there's also something to be said about giving more permission to folks to have people's desires. It makes sense that you would desire that. Something that would be fun without moving into, okay, how do we want to operationalize that?”
Sex in Different Frames (39:00): Zach shares: “I think it's like so often the case that Christians will be like no, sex is sacred. And like, I do believe that. I do believe on some level, of course, it is a really beautiful and sacred and intimate part of the human experience. But I also know, like, when you've been with somebody for a long time, and sometimes it is pretty just like, yeah, sex for sex.”
Starting Sex Ed Early (47:00): Zach shares how he discusses sex education at an appropriate and honest level with his son. “I think that can start early. This is part of yourself. That's not something that you need to be embarrassed about. You need to be respectful of these parts of your bodies and parts of other people's bodies. And these are private to you and other grownups shouldn't be touching you in these ways or seeing you in these ways and stuff like that. But we also try to create a boundary between that as like, this isn't a gross and dirty and disgusting and bad part of you, which I think can easily be a message that a kid receives.”