God, Sex, and Your Marriage, with Dr. Juli Slattery

When it comes to intimacy in marriage, there’s a lot of pain and confusion among Christian women. If you’re struggling with sexual satisfaction, shame, or past trauma, you’re not alone! In this episode of Grounded, Dr. Juli Slattery shares wisdom and insight to deepen your understanding of God’s design for sexuality and to offer you true healing and hope. 

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Episode Notes

• God, Sex, and Your Marriage book by Dr. Juli Slattery: https://www.authenticintimacy.com/god-sex-and-your-marriage 
• Happily Even After book by Dannah Gresh: https://www.reviveourhearts.com/books/happily-even-after/

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Erin Davis: Good morning you're watching or listening to Grounded, a weekly videocast and podcasts from Revive Our Hearts. I'm Erin Davis.

Dannah Gresh: And I'm Dannah Gresh. Wow, I'm gonna be here. But I don't think this is how my day was gonna start today.

Erin: Yeah, here's how my day started. I got those two words every parent sort of loves and sort of feels stressed out about to my phone at 6:30 this morning. Snow day. And so snow day, Monday morning snow day, and things went crazy from there. These are our friends watching and listening. I feel like we should own up to what the last hour of our lives has been like. It's been a little crazy. You want to tell them?

Dannah: Okay, so I'm getting ready to have my morning. My hair is dry. No makeup, not styled. And you call and say, “Hey, we can have Dr. Juli Slattery in fifteen minutes. Are you in? And I was like, “I'm in.” Because if you could have coffee with Dr. Juli Slattery and talk about S. E. X. . . .

Erin: We're gonna spell it out. I think at some point we're gonna say it. 

Dannah: Easing people in. I'm excited. But some people are probably nervous. Oh, yeah, it's hard. I think that this is one of the least talked about topics in the church after all these years. I mean, you really haven't gotten as far along down the road as we'd like to from people like Augustine who thought that sex was a bad thing.

It's just a morning, happy snow day, sweet buddy. I'm so happy to see you. Listen, if you're listening, and if you have little ones nearby, you do want to remove them because we want to have an unfiltered conversation about sex. This is an unfiltered version of Grounded. Erin and I just jumped on to the microphones. Dr. Juli Slattery is in the house. 

We're going to talk about the problems marriages are having when it comes to sex, why we're having them, and how to solve them. Biblically, you don't want to miss this conversation. We’re going to let her loose.

Erin: And we hope every married couple is having sex. If you're not, that's something that we need to talk about. There's a lot of married couples in the church. We do need to find ways to talk about this. Maybe it feels uncomfortable if it's in a full Grounded episode setting. But this is just a conversation among three married Christian women talking about something that can feel uncomfortable to talk about, but that God designed. The Lord's in charge of this episode. It's gonna feel a little scaled back. 

Dannah: We're not in charge of this episode. Introduce our guests and get her in here.

Erin: Please do. Let's do it.

Dannah: Dr. Juli Slattery is a dear friend of mine. I have loved her for a long time. She is a Christian psychologist who uses the Bible as the backbone and the filter for everything she understands about behavioral science. I love that about her. Her new book got wild, new about a year ago: God, Sex, and Your Marriage by Dr. Juli Slattery. 

I just googled it on Amazon. And it said it's the most popular purchase on Amazon of Dr. Juli Slattery titles. So if you are a Dr. Juli Slattery fan and you don't have this one in your library, you're missing something. And if you don't know about her, this is a great place to start, God, Sex and Your Marriage by Dr. Juli Slattery. Good morning, friend. Thanks for joining us.

Dr. Juli Slattery: Good morning. This is kind of fun to do a Monday morning scramble. 

Erin: My hair tells us how many years we've been married. So I've been married 21. Yeah. How many years have you been married?

Dannah: Not enough. I think it's 35 or 34. Enough that you're not sure? Okay. Yeah, math and me.

Erin: Juli, how many years married? 

Juli: Twenty-eight. 

Erin: So between the three of us, I don't do math either. But it seems like that's a lot of years of marriage. Which means, that should be a lot of years of talking about this concept of intimacy, experiencing this concept of intimacy, probably learning, and maybe fighting about it some. So we don't have it all figured out. But I think we probably are representative of the Christian women who watch and listen to this podcast. 

Juli, several years ago, you decided to redirect all of your ministry energy towards this idea of intimacy and marriage. Can you tell us a little bit about what God was stirring in your heart that made you shift in that journey? 

Juli: Yeah, that was probably about a dozen years ago where I just felt God really call me to address sexual issues—and not just within marriage. We know that single women are sexual too and that they experienced wounds and struggles. And so yes, we do talk a lot about sex and marriage at our ministry, Authentic Intimacy. 

We mostly talk about sex in general, like, what is God's design, how it's being attacked by the enemy, what it looks like to pursue freedom and healing. But I have a personal passion for this topic as it relates to marriage, obviously, because I have been married for a while, and this has been a struggle in my marriage. I've just over the years really learned that God has some hope and answers for us when we're in the middle of those struggles.

Erin: We actually had you on to talk about single women and sex. We need to drop the link to that episode, because this is a wider conversation than just married ladies. But what are some of the issues you're hearing a lot of Christian women talk to you about when it comes to their sexuality?

Juli: Within marriage it's so vast, so you hear some of the same things come up over and over again. For some women, they just can't enjoy sex. They don't know how to, maybe they never have. They may have low sexual desire, and then they read in the Bible, “Hey, I'm supposed to do this.” I don't know how to enjoy it. 

That can kind of lead to another, this common thread, which is feeling like sex has a duty or an obligation. They don't know how to get out of that mindset. 

Or the tables can be flipped. There are a lot of women who say, “I'm the one with a higher sex drive. I'm unsatisfied in my marriage. I feel weird, because the narrative I'm always hearing is that the guy who is the one who wants sex, so what's wrong with me.” 

And then you have all different kinds of sexual pain and brokenness, from shame from past sexual decisions or pornography use. There's conflict in marriage over a husband's pornography use or sexual addiction. There's recovery from betrayal, and certainly the impact of past trauma and what that can do to your sexuality, and that plays into marriage. 

So those are some of perhaps the most common things that I hear from women. But other questions of even like what's okay in the bedroom? So, wherever we go we'll usually do a live Q&A session. We get an idea of the questions that people are asking. Bottom line, there is a lot of pain and a lot of confusion among Christian women.

Dannah: You know, even though there is a lot of pain and confusion among Christian women, I find that the enemy really makes us believe that we're the only one struggling in our marriages to experience authentic intimacy, which by the way, is the name of Juli's ministry, Authentic Intimacy. 

How widespread do you think it is for the woman who's listening? “Oh, you just said one of the things that I'm struggling with, or five of the things that I'm struggling with, but I could never talk to anybody about it, because I know nobody around me is struggling with any of those things.” How widespread do you think it is, Juli?

Juli: You know, Dannah, you're absolutely right to point that out. One of the things that I think really ministered to women is when we do those live Q&A, when you hear other people's questions. You're like, “Wow, I'm not the only one that has that question.” 

In my experience, I would say probably about 85% of marriages are struggling with some aspect of sexuality. Anywhere from the extreme of we haven't had sex in five years, to we have a mismatched desire. Sex is creating conflict. Sex is painful for me. So that would be my experience, about 10 to 15% of women are like, “Hey, this is a great part of our marriage. We really look forward to this together.” But for the vast majority of us, it is at some level, an area of problem or conflict.

Dannah: Yeah, why do you think the enemy chooses this area in our lives to attack?

Juli: Yeah, I think for two reasons. First of all, sex is never going to be neutral in your marriage. So in every marriage, sex is either going to be something that draws you together and bonds you and builds trust and communication and intimacy, or it's going to be something that is tearing you apart, that is creating distrust, and is creating resentment and bitterness. And so that's the first reason. 

But the second reason is, and this is true for single women as well. Sex is never going to be a neutral area in your relationship with God. It's either going to be something that draws you into deeper intimacy with Him. As you understand healing and intimacy or is going to be something that creates a barrier. There are so many women for whom sex is the thing that they feel like they can't bring to God because of the shame or because of the disappointment or because it just feels unholy or dirty. And so when we address sexual issues within our marriage relationship or even in our own hearts, we're not just doing something that's psychological or relational. We're actually engaging in a spiritual battle.

Erin: Yeah, you took us right where I wanted to go. The title of your book is God, Sex and Your Marriage. And I think those who do not believe in God or are not followers of Jesus, they're doing sex a lot. They're having parades to celebrate their sexuality. They have apps that the sole purpose is some sort of sexual need that they're trying to meet. And in the church, I feel like we swing in the total opposite direction. We feel very, very uncomfortable talking about this topic. I want to know the why in a second. But also, I'd love for you to just help us paint a picture of how Scripture talks about sex, because I feel like sex is all over our Bibles—Old Testament, New Testament in lots of different contexts. But that isn't modeled in our conversations. So how do we get here as the church with our extreme uncomfortableness with sex?

Juli: Oh, Erin, that's a great question. I think there's been a long history of not talking about sex within the Protestant church. We can go through all kinds of historical reasons, including philosophies like the dualism of the body and the soul. Dannah, you already mentioned Augustine. Like you can do your church history and philosophical history and kind of see the roots of it. But I think what's important to realize is that in this day and age, we have inherited a tradition that we just don't talk about sex in church. And if we do talk about it, it's kind of this awkward conversation that we're apologizing for, or making corny jokes about, or we just feel like we're walking on eggshells. 

But as you said, Erin, just because something's traditional, doesn't mean it's biblical. And when we look at the Scriptures, we see that God is not shy in talking about sexuality. And as you mentioned, it's throughout the whole Scripture. It's not just a few passages that address our sexuality. So it's really a sad thing. Unfortunately, in our day and age, the problem, the confusion, the pain is sort of forcing us to enter into these conversations, but we're not prepared. So it's key that we go back to what the Scripture says, and we really grab on to God's example in Scripture that we need to talk boldly about this topic. And there should be no question that we're afraid to ask.

Erin: Yeah, that's good. You are both women who I know to be women of the Word, who understand and apply the gospel to your lives, who, who live out what we see in Scripture. And you've both had a lot to say about sexuality. 

Dannah, I don't know if you remember this, but before I married Jason, you called me, and we had this phone conversation about it, which I'm so grateful for. My mom read me a book when I was like eight. And then I signed the pledge when I was like 15. And then I was getting ready to have sex with my husband, and I had no idea what that was supposed to be like. But you, Dannah, we just had the most grace-filled, Jesus-centered conversation. It is possible. How do we get there so that it's a little bit more normalized? And you can even answer that one because you've dedicated many years to this topic as well.

Dannah: Well, I think we get over our fears, we heal from our wounds. And as we do that, as we heal from our wounds, the fear abates, and we begin to enter into something that's very biblical. The second letter to the Corinthians, Paul wrote that God comforts us with the same comfort that we get from God the Father and the Holy Spirit. He comforts us so that we can comfort others with the same comfort we ourselves have received. 

So if Dr. Juli Slattery is right, and roughly 85% of women listening right now have some issues of marital pain, sexual pain, sexual shame in their lives, pursue the healing of Christ. And as you pursue that, it'll flow out into other hearts. It was happening that day when you and I talked, Erin. God had given me freedom from my sexual shame and pain. And so I was able to disciple you in that area, which for a lot of women is off limits because they haven't received His healing yet. So that turns me to you, Juli, for the woman listening, where does she start to receive that healing?

Juli: Yeah, some of the things that we've already even mentioned are foundational for this, Dannah. It's the idea that first of all, you are not alone. I think that's what keeps us quiet, and it keeps us nurturing the secrets and this pain is we feel like no one would understand. “I must be weird to have this going on in my life. No one has the kind of problems I have.” 

One of the benefit of being a psychologist is that I've spent years, decades, listening to people’s secrets in confidence. When you hear the same stories over and over again, you start to realize, “Wow, there are a lot of us who are carrying secrets and pain and shame. And we feel like we have nowhere to go.” But in reality, the people sitting right next to us can relate to us. And so that's really a first thing, knowing you're not alone. There are other people around you that have similar questions.

Dannah: I know that I've known it for years, but I saw something happen. Just a week or so ago, I just released a book on the story of God's redemption in my marriage, when my husband struggled with pornography and lust. I had this private Facebook group for about 150-200 women, somewhere in that range. I saw this conversation unfold where women were terrified to come into that room. One of them was brave enough to write in a comment. “I didn't know this was your story, too.” And the other one wrote, “I felt so alone. Imagine, we've been sitting next to each other in church all these years.” And the next comment was, “Want to have coffee?” I mean, you are sitting next to someone in church who has a similar problem to the one that you have.

Erin: I feel like that's why the #Metoo movement was a worldwide forest fire. I'm not saying everything about it was good and right. It wasn't. But it started with one woman admitting some sexual brokenness that had been forced on her. And then other women going, “Me too. Me too. Me too. Me too. Me too. Me too. Me too.” And when we saw the me toos and how many of them there were, suddenly we could see how widespread sexual brokenness is. So you're speaking to something that we're seeing culturally, but we need to apply a redeemed lens to.

Dannah: Exactly and imagine if those conversations would happen in our discipleship groups, how authentic and rich and deep and useful they would be. So number two, Juli, what's the number two? 

Juli: Well, I think it goes right alongside that is God is with you. So it's a great comfort to know that other people are with you, and that you're not the only one struggling with these kinds of questions or this kind of pain. But it's an even a greater help in comfort to know that God is with us. And, you know, because of the silence around sexuality. I think even because of Satan's attacks on us, we often feel like God does not want to help us with this area of our lives. You know, I would say the vast majority of Christian couples do not pray regularly together about their sex lives. Maybe they've never prayed together about their sex lives. 

Dannah: And some never prayed together at all, period.

Juli: That's very true. But and I would even say, in your own heart, have you ever brought your sexual questions and frustrations and disappointments before God? And said, Lord, would you help me? Have you ever thanked God for a wonderful experience sexually with your husband? And so, we kind of have this belief that there's like a Do Not Enter sign when it comes to our sexuality. 

And so another really important step is not just bringing other people into your healing and story, but bringing God Himself into that. And realizing even when we look at the gospels, how many of the women that Jesus interacted with, He was interacting with them at some level about their sexuality or sexual brokenness. And so a lot of what we do at Authentic Intimacy is build that community of people. But more importantly, help people understand that this is an area of their life and their marriage that they need to invite God into.

Dannah: Well, it seems so logical, but because a lot of times, not every time, but a lot of the things you talked about at the beginning of the program involve some level of sexual misuse or sexual sin. Even some of the things like my husband doesn't have a sexual appetite, there might be some shame in his life that's contributing to that problem with his appetite might not be, but there could be. So I guess what I'm getting to is this. If sin is part of the problem in our marriage bed, there's only one person I know in the whole world in all of history that has the remedy for that, and it's Jesus. So if we do not invite Jesus into the work of forgiving our sins, healing our sins and redeeming us, we really don't have any hope at all. Do we?

Juli: Yeah, and Dannah, you're absolutely right. He is the only answer for sin. But I would say He is also the only answer for exposing lies. He is the only answer. He is the healer. And so my work as a psychologist is to learn and to apply different psychological techniques to things like trauma or to betrayal. I can tell you psychology helps, but only Jesus can heal. And so when we just go to our therapist or just read a self-help book, we're gonna get some good tips and techniques, but we're not inviting the Healer into those wounds into that shame. 

So this isn't an essential element of fighting that spiritual battle and Dannah, I know that your latest book Happily Even After really gets into that integration of how God in His Word and the strength and the power that we have through Him can make a foundational differences, we address these kinds of issues.

Dannah: Yeah, and the reason Juli knows that is because she was one of those friends I told when my marriage was in trouble. And Erin was one of those friends I told when my marriage walked through the fire. I got on the phone. I called Erin Davis. I said, my husband just confessed to me.

Erin: It was messy. Danna, I think will tell the whole story at some point on Grounded. But there was nothing tidy about it, there was no bow wrapped on it. You couldn't see a step towards redemption. At that point. It was just really messy. But you knew that that was the kind of sin and brokenness in your life. You needed to call out for help for?

Dannah: Yeah, and I called Juli. And I said, “Juli, you're my dear friend. You're also a psychologist.” Everybody should have the number of a dear friend who's a psychologist in their smartphone. Everybody doesn't. But I was so thankful that I did. Juli, one of the things you helped me with was understanding a new language for sex that brings the conversation into a whole or healthier place. 

The church was really hyped up on the word purity for a long time. I still think God loves that word, because he uses it. But I think we've misused it, misapplied it. And so you have inserted the definition of sexual integrity into the conversation. And it was very helpful for me on a personal level, can you define sexual integrity? 

Juli: Yeah, I would love to. So if you think about our concept of sexual purity, I think for most women, they think of it as an all or nothing like. Let me just ask you the question they consider everyone listening and watching, “Would you define yourself as sexually pure?” And you're like, “I don't even really know what that means. I'm a married woman. How do you define purity?” And, you know, we know through Scripture that our purity comes through the righteousness of Jesus Christ, not because of our actions. 

So for me, this concept of integrity has been so much more powerful than integrity is when my life as a whole is represented well. So in other words, the opposite of integrity is when we disintegrate, or we have pieces of ourselves that don't make sense with the rest of who we are. So as a Christ follower, the most important thing about me that they are the cornerstone of my identity is that I'm a child of God. I'm a follower of Jesus Christ, and He has made me righteous and pure. And so integrity means that every area of my life needs to be surrendered to His Lordship. 

And as I mentioned before, I think for a lot of Christian women, they've never surrendered their sexuality to God. They may even not even know what that looks like. And integrity is saying no to sin, dealing with a problem of pornography, and pursuing sexual intimacy within your marriage, because God says that that's the place to remember your covenant with your body. 

But then also, integrity means not letting the enemy rule in you. And there are a lot of Christian women who aren't sitting there. They're doing the right thing, as far as saying NO to temptation. But the enemy still has lies planted in their heart related to their sexuality. Jesus Christ doesn't reign in that territory of their heart. And so for me, the concept of sexual integrity has actually been so all-encompassing, that it's a constant challenge of Lord, what does it look like for me to surrender more of this to you. 

Juli: Dannah and Erin, the encouraging thing about sexual integrity is that we're all on a journey. We all take steps hopefully towards becoming more surrendered to the Lordship of Christ. It's not an either or all or nothing. It's every day, you know, waking up and saying, “Lord, where are You in my pain? Can you expose the lies that I've been believing? Would you bring healing and life to my marriage?” We're all on that journey, which again, is where we can link arms and encourage each other and pray for each other.

Erin: Yeah, audience, I want to make sure you heard many of the things that Juli's saying. But she said that your struggle with sexuality or your journey with sexuality is a spiritual one. That's a conversation you're not going to hear a lot of places. As we're wrapping up this conversation, I do want to make sure we don't give the impression that every married couple has a sex life plagued by shame and struggle. I'll go on the record as saying that Jason and I have a beautiful sex life, we both waited for each other, so we didn't have that shame piece. And 20 years in, it just gets better and better.

But that's a conversation that's equally uncomfortable. I mean, when I'm with my circle of Christian friends, if this ever comes up, which is rare, it's mostly the struggle piece, the shame piece, very rarely does anybody talk about it in celebratory terms. I'm thinking of a friend of ours, I won't say her name, but she waited late in life to get married. And I remember her telling us, man, the Holy Spirit is the best coach when it comes to sex. And I never heard that before. I thought it was sort of strange, but she's right. You know, He cares about every aspect of our lives. So I feel like Scripture celebrates it. I feel like the church could be celebrating it. I guess I'm heading towards the question. I think I didn't just want to say Jason, sex life. But I didn't say that. I won't tell Jason when he said that, but he’ll probably be glad. 

Like a lot of things we can go I haven't seen that modeled. I think about fasting, for example, I hear Christians say I don't fast because I haven't seen it modeled. Or I think about maybe the way we use our finances. And people could say, “Well, I don't really know what to do there because I haven't seen it modeled.” Thinking of ourselves as the older women in the Titus 2 equation, how can we model celebrating sex without veering into being crass or like the world or talking about it in ways that we shouldn't talk about it, as women who want to honor the Lord?

Juli: Yeah, I love that. So Erin, you're in my 15%, and that's great. We do need to hear those stories. You know, you both know that Linda Dillow has been a real mentor for me. And she's another one of those women of that 15%. If you're in that situation, you can be an encouragement to other women to say, “Here's the goodness of it.” 

I think even the fact that Dannah reached out to you, and you were so young and getting married, she was an encouragement to you. But I also think that there's room to say that women who have struggled and now can enjoy sex have an even greater encouragement that it doesn't always have to be this way. 

That's part of my story for the first 10 or 15 years of our marriage. I really didn't know where to go for help. I struggled with sexual pain, and didn't know where to find any relief from that. And so over the last, I guess, 12–13 years, it's been wonderful. We really have been able to enter into that celebration, because I was able to get the help that I needed and understand what was going wrong in our marriage. So I do think that we need not just to talk about the problems, but we need to talk about why God designed sex and what a great sex life looks like. And that's my heart. 

God's sex in your marriage is to give married couples a blueprint of what sex is supposed to look like. And one of the things sex is supposed to look like is it is supposed to be pleasurable and fun and a celebration. That's not all it is. But that's an important element of it that we need to be talking about. So how do we do that without being crass? I think we've been doing that on this call the whole time. Part of what we do is model conversations about how we can talk about real things in a way that's honoring to each other and honoring to God.

Dannah: Yeah, I love it. Can we talk about a couple of real things? You talked about these Q&A times that you have, and that is such a healing thing for women? I wonder if Erin and I could just ask rapid fire, a couple of Q&As and you bring a biblical perspective to that area. 

We talk to women all the time, we’re counseling women all the time. We know what some of the common questions are. Let's start with this one. What's okay in the bedroom? You mentioned that earlier, and it piqued my interest that women asked you a lot. What biblical grid do we go to for that answer? 

Juli: I give women a biblical grid of three questions. So the first one is, “Did God say no.” And if we look through Scripture, there are some very clear things that God has said no to sexually. I don't think any of those would surprise us because we've heard them if you're if you've grown up in a religious setting. So, no to prostitution, adultery, having sex outside of marriage, things like that. 

Then we move to the second question. And the second question is, “Is this good for us?” And we see Paul really laying out principles for Christian living in his letters to the Corinthians where he says, “Everything is permissible for you.” Like you can do all kinds of things. “But not everything is going to be good for you or beneficial or loving.” And I would say the same is true within a sexual relationship, you have great freedom. But there are some things that you might do, that would be okay, but they're really not beneficial or loving. So a few examples of those could be like BDSM. 

Dannah, you and I wrote a book responding to 50 Shades of Grey, that some Christian women will say isn't wrong. And I would say any kind of sexual practices that involve humiliation or physical pain and those sorts of things, even if they may not be clearly sinful, because they're happening within your marriage, they're not good for you. They don't build healthy trust in communication. Another example of that might be for some couples, they would say oral sex is not good for us, even though it's perfectly permissible. Maybe it's triggering, maybe it brings back memories of trauma, or is triggering from use of pornography. So when there's things like that, that it's like, “Hey, we could do this, and many couples do enjoy this without sinning, it's a good thing.” For some couples, they just say, “This isn't a good practice for us.” And so you want to work together as a couple to really prayerfully say, “God give us wisdom on what builds love within our sexual relationship.” 

And then the third question that's super important isn't only us. There are a lot of ways that we can bring other people into our bedroom, even through fantasy or pornography. And God says that this is meant to be a celebration between you and your spouse only. That doesn't just mean in person, it means in the land, it means in your head, or on a screen, or in your imagination. So I think if you use that grid of those three questions that will really help guide you.

Erin: She answered a lot of mine in that answer. I was going to ask about the use of pornography, because a couple could argue, “Well, it's not hurting anybody. It's not illegal.” Is it? Okay, I feel like you answered that really beautifully. So I want to ask probably the second hardest question. What about that mismatched desire? She wants to have sex more than he does? He wants to have sex more than she does? I had a friend once say, “Is the answer to this just to have sex more often?” I thought, Well, maybe it is. Maybe there's something deeper. So what if you and your husband have that mismatched desire?

Juli: Again, probably 70% of couples have a mismatch desire of some type. And it might even change over seasons. But the most important thing is to shift from thinking about sexual activity to thinking about sexual intimacy. So when a couple's only thinking about an activity, they're trying to negotiate, “Well, I don't want to do it; I want to do it. You're withholding.” They get in all kinds of arguments that are just a negative cycle. But if they together can just say, “Hey, we're wired differently. You would like sex more often than I would? Or vice versa? How do we look at our sexual relationship as something that builds intimacy between us? How can we be a blessing to each other?” A couple that will begin the conversation that way is really headed in the right direction. 

Actually, there was some research that just now has come out from a book that Shaunti Feldhahn has written. And what they discovered in this huge survey is that for most couples, actually, the discrepancy of how often they want to have sex is not that great. It's really the lack of communication. How they deal with that discrepancy, that makes it feel much greater. So if they can get the point of just saying, “Hey, tell me how many times a week would be good for you. Let's talk about that. Let's pray about that. How can we find a way to say we want to be a blessing to each other?” There's some great resources to help you navigate that kind of conversation, but that's the conversation that most couples aren't having. And there's a lot of conflict underneath.

Erin: That's a great God-honoring grid as it is. Sexuality is like the rest of our marriage in that we are looking to serve the other person. We're looking to bless the other person. My pastor says if you think of marriage as 50/50, you'll never meet. But if you think it is, “I'm gonna go 80% of the way and the my spouse is gonna go 80% of the way, you're gonna meet in the middle and have a healthy, thriving marriage.” So I love that encouragement. 

All right. Last question. Actually, it fell out of my head, Dannah, it was a good one. I got to thinking about the mismatch. Let me see. Women initiating sex, we could probably do a whole episode about that. Here at Revive Our Hearts we really elevate the relationship between men and women. We encourage women to be responders; we encourage men to be protectors. That's all biblical. I think sometimes for Christian women who ascribe to that theology in Scripture, the idea of initiating sex feels kind of wrong. I don't think it is wrong. But then if your husband is always the initiator, you can sometimes get the sense that you're not interested. So Can women initiate sex? Biblically? Do we got a permission slip for that?

Juli: Yeah. Well, let me answer you biblically. If we look at the Song of Solomon and read that book and look at what the wife is doing. She's initiating sex, like she even plans a field trip for her and her husband to go to in the vineyard and have sex together. So biblically, we get a big yes. And the other thing I would say is from research, we know that about 25% of women have what we call initiating sexual desire, which is they're the one that's more likely to be thinking about sex and wanting it. Whereas about 75% of women have what we call receptive sexual desire, which is they can enjoy it and get into it, but they're not likely to have it on their radar as much as their husband is. So for about a quarter of women, initiating isn't just something they want to do every now and then, it's actually the way their sexual relationship works. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Erin: Think about when your husband looks at you that way. And you know that He desires you, how flattering that is. Then imagine that he never is on the receiving end of that. He never understands that you desire him; you never initiate in that way. You're missing a great opportunity. So thanks for that permission slip. I'm putting it in my pocket right now. That's great.

I love it. 

Well, Juli, you've answered some really great questions today. And your book is going to answer more: God, Sex and Your Marriage. It's fantastic. I want to ask this, though, for the woman who is sitting there, and she is really feeling complacent. Like, “I just heard that that was an interesting conversation, but I don't think I'm gonna do anything with it. Because it's fine. It's good. Like, we've had enough said. It feels too uncomfortable to take any of the steps. I can't talk to somebody about it. I can’t initiate sex. I can’t ask my husband how many times. I don't even want to talk to the Lord about it. That feels uncomfortable.” 

Dannah: So light a fire under that woman. 

Juli: Yeah, I would just say when you look at our world in our culture, you see sex being misused and mishandled in so many ways. You see it being used by the enemy to create pain and confusion. And as a woman, that breaks our heart. When we see pornography, when we see sexual abuse, when we see all this confusion around sexual desire and gender, it's a spiritual battlefield. 

There's one place you get to really fight in the spiritual battle. And that's in your own heart and your own sexuality. I can pray, but I really can't affect too much what's happening in the world. But what I can say is, “Satan, you have no reign in my heart, in my life, in my marriage.” I'm going to take that back. And when I really started to get that perspective, it made me want to fight. It made me want to channel all of my frustration at the enemy and anger at the enemy of what he's doing to destroy sexuality to say, “I will not let you have a foothold in my heart in my marriage.” You know, because what I found is that when we're complacent about our own sexual brokenness, we become complicit in Satan's desire to just tarnish holy sexuality. And that little fire under me.

Dannah: So good. 

Erin: A friend of mine that was in marriage counseling last week texted me. I texted her and said, “How's it going?” She texted me and said, “It's a battle.” And I said exactly what you just said, “Satan cannot have your heart, and he cannot have your marriage. So I will intercede until you tell me you're out of this counseling session.” She came to my house the next week all smiles. She was like, “We share it still, share the same last name. Like, we're making it through it.” And it was a spiritual battle. I didn't send her some platitude. I sent her the fact that we're going to war.

Dannah: I think we should pray for those women who are casualties in this battle or feel like they might be or are definitely taking some hit from the enemy. So Juli, would you just pray for the women who will hear your voice through this episode?

Juli: I would love to. Lord, I know that there are so many of us who do feel like this has been a spiritual battle that we've lost or that we're losing. And maybe even this conversation today is convicting or opening up wounds that you just would rather feel like you want to hide. But God, You heal things that we are courageous enough to bring to You and expose. 

Lord, You consistently ask us in Scripture, what do you want? What do you want Jesus? You always ask that question. And You waited for somebody to say I want to be healed. And so I just pray that You would give the woman listening today who is wrestling with woundedness and shame and sin the courage to say, “God, I want to be healed. I want to be set free. Would You show me how?” Would You just let her know, Lord, that You see her pain. Lord, that You're with her, and that You tenderly want to minister to her and heal her and bring her into freedom. And just show her in the next steps. 

Thank You God that You are healer. Thank You for the many miracles that we know of even personally of how You have redeemed and healed. I pray that there will be many more as a result of this conversation. In Jesus name we pray, amen.

Erin: Amen. Listen, anytime you get a chance to have a conversation with Dr. Juli Slattery, whether it's like this or a podcast or books, throw your hair in a ponytail and do it because she is giving us such rich wisdom. So grateful for you, Juli.

Juli: Yeah, grateful for you too. 

Dannah: We love you so much, Juli. Thank you. Keep doing what you're doing for the church. We need you. 

Juli: Thank you for that encouragement. Thank you for your prayers.

Dannah: Well, Erin, what's up next week on Grounded, I'm hoping that you know, like, we might have to actually plan it out and actually have our hair and our makeup done for it. Just kind of like Portia today. 

Erin: Miss Portia girl, she's gonna be back with us next week. But we have Susie Larson coming on. If you're not familiar with Susie Larson, she’s a prolific writer, Bible teacher, she produces a lot of great Bible-centered content. We’re excited to have her on. She's been on our hit list for a long time. She's going to talk to us about humility, and how humility impacts all of our relationships. She's got a list of questions about how we kind of assess humility in our lives.

Dannah: I gotta tell you that every time I hear her speak, and I've been in the room with her a few times. Every time I hear her speak or listen to her podcast, I feel like that woman was just with Jesus. Like, she has something special. There's a richness to her. You do not want to miss this episode of Grounded next week.

Erin: We're gonna be here. We might have our hair fix. But we want you to be here. Join us next week on Grounded. We're gonna wake up together next week with hope.

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