Hey Tabi!

What Can Christians Really Do In The Bedroom?

• Tabitha • Season 1 • Episode 13

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Christian perspectives on physical intimacy often lack clarity, leaving many couples confused about what honors God in the bedroom - especially if one or both partners are survivors of harm. True intimacy begins with friendship and mutual respect, creating space for honest communication about desires, boundaries, and healing.

In this episode we explore:

  • What's permissible
  • How technology has changed how we approach intimacy
  • Sexual abuse survivors needs
  • The full spectrum of intimacy not just intercourse
  • Arousal templates
  • Consent
  • What healthy intimacy entails

Resources Mentioned:

The Marriage You Want - by Sheila & Keith Gregoire - https://amzn.to/46ug2cH

Body & Soul, Healed & Whole - by Tabitha Westbrook - https://amzn.to/4pA4s8I

Gottman Sound Relationship House - https://www.gottman.com/blog/what-is-the-sound-relationship-house/

Wanna say hi? Send a text!

At The Journey and The Process we strive to help you heal. Our therapists are trauma specialists who use evidence-based tools like EMDR, Brainspotting, Somatic Experiencing, and Internal Family Systems to help you heal - mind, soul, and body. Reach out today to start your healing journey. https://thejourneyandtheprocess.com/

 This book is for every Christian woman who has been harmed sexually, whether that happened in childhood, adulthood, or even within your coercive controlling marriage, and you're longing to feel safe in your body again. We talk about the hard stuff, shame, desire, faith, and even questions like, is this sin or is this trauma?

You don't have to untangle it alone. Body & Soul, Healed & Whole is for you. Get a copy here today - https://a.co/d/8Jo3Z4V

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Speaker 1:

When it comes to what a Christian can do in the bedroom, what is allowed? This is a question that I get asked all the time, and this is what we are going to talk about today on hey Tabby. Welcome to hey Tabby, the podcast where we talk about the hard things out loud, with our actual lips. We'll cover all kinds of topics across the mental health spectrum, including how it intersects with the Christian faith. Nothing is off limits here and we are not. Take two verses and call me in the morning. I'm Tabitha Westbrook and I'm a licensed trauma therapist, but I'm not your trauma therapist. I'm an expert in domestic abuse and coercive control and how complex trauma impacts our health and well-being. Our focus here is knowledge and healing. Trauma doesn't have to eat your lunch forever. There is hope. Now let's get going. Welcome to this week's hey Tabby. I am so glad that you are here. I am excited and, I guess, a little bit nervous to talk about this today. We get this question really often in the practice and I get it very often since the release of Body and Soul, healed and Whole, and I wanted to take a minute and answer it on the podcast because it really is something a lot of people are curious about. Many men and women really honestly want to honor God through their physical intimacy in their relationship, but they don't always know what's okay, and I will say that the way the church has languaged so much has not been helpful. It has really caused confusion and at some points, I believe, goes into licentiousness in ways that I cannot be okay with. I'll say it goes into licentiousness for one particular gender and it goes into submission and slavery for the other. Very often Not always, but I hear it more often than I would like. So we're going to talk about what is okay in the bedroom for a Christian, and I am just going to start off with my therapist answer of all time. It depends, and I know that that is probably literally the most frustrating way that I could start this for so many of us, but I really want to let you know that this isn't like hard and fast rules on things. This is something that you will need to wrestle with for yourself and your relationships.

Speaker 1:

With the change of technology, we've also seen intimacy change. First, we have seen a massive uptick in pornography use, for both men and women. We have seen quite the rise in erotic fiction, for women in particular, and all kinds of pornographic material available very, very easily, no matter what platform you are using. So no longer do you have to go to the back of a store and purchase something or go to a specialized store. I was actually walking around Walgreens the other day and in the family planning aisle found vibrators, which was quite shocking to me. I did not expect that and I don't have a problem with vibrators. We'll talk about that here in a minute as well but it was really surprising to see it in Walgreens, in the family planning aisle. It was really shocking. I was like, oh, I did not know they sold those. They also sold other things for insertion purposes. I'm not entirely sure I can say that word in a podcast. I don't have a problem saying it out loud, but we will call it an insertion toy for women. And it was also surprising to see that in the Walgreens aisle. And it means in some ways that talking about physical intimacy and intercourse and that kind of thing is becoming more commonplace and it's also a symbol of. We don't quite know what to do with it.

Speaker 1:

Because of technology, because of more readily accessible items and information, a lot of Christians are really finding themselves not sure where to put their feet. In particular, survivors of abuse, particularly sexual abuse, are having a very hard time knowing what is okay. Oftentimes they have been taken advantage of, they have been forced into things that they did not consent to and all kinds of different really wicked and vile things. I know women who have been trafficked. I know women who have been forced to create pornography against their will. I know women who were secretly filmed and then those videos sold, and those are things that no one should endure. Quite frankly, they're wicked, they're wrong and it is awful. But then, when you are beginning to recover and enter back into relationship and perhaps remarry, then what happens then? What do we do then? So I want to remind everybody, or tell you for the first time if this is the first time that you're hearing it that we have what is called an arousal template, and we have arousal templates for all kinds of things.

Speaker 1:

Arousal does not only mean sex. It can, but it's not the only thing it can mean. Arousal is really just any form of excitation. We have to have things get aroused to get out of bed. If I don't have some cortisol release and I don't have some energy in my system, I'm not going to get up out of bed. And that is arousal at its very most biologic sense. Arousal templates, when we talk about physical intimacy, are the things that come together, the constellation of things that come together, that turn us on, and it is formed in any number of ways. It is formed through our upbringing, through our faith, through the things that we are exposed to and, sadly, also through our harm, and you can read more about the arousal template in Body and Soul, healed and Whole. But suffice it to say it's a really important part of figuring out what's okay and what's not okay for us.

Speaker 1:

The first place I encourage people to put their feet is what are your values, what is okay with you, and you might not know again if you've experienced harm. You might not know that there is a touch that you don't like or that your body does not welcome. And this is where I would say go slow, go really slow, because there's no hurry, there's no rush, even though sometimes I think society and even the church makes us feel that way. But we need to understand that so many men and women carry shame and fear around their sexuality. The statistic is that one in six men and I've heard more recently, one in four men and I need to double check that and one in two women or one in four women again I need to double check my statistics have been sexually abused or assaulted in their lifetime. That is stunningly high. That means, really, honestly, most people have had some sort of awful experience and even if you didn't fully recognize it as awful at the time, your body knew.

Speaker 1:

Your body keeps the score, it tells the story, and so you may be ready to engage in some physical intimacy with your partner and all of a sudden be surprised that your body is saying no, or you're shutting down, or you suddenly have no desire whatsoever. And I just want to acknowledge that, because it oftentimes makes people feel like they're broken, something is wrong with them, and in reality, nothing is wrong with them. Their body is just saying, hey, there are some things here that we need to address. I can't encourage enough getting really good support with that. If you're like I think there is some harm in my sexual story, I need to explore that. I definitely encourage finding a great therapist or a support group or a story work coach or someone that can walk with you in that.

Speaker 1:

And again, yeah, if your partner is asking you to, let's say, utilize an electronic method to engage in sexual activity, so, for example, phone sex or FaceTime sex. Is that even a thing? Is that a word? I don't know it is now, but if they're asking you for that and you're not comfortable with it or you're not entirely sure that it's a private location on their end or your end, then that might be a no for you and, truthfully, we cannot guarantee that electronic communication is always private. If you remember back in 2020, when everything had to move to Zoom because of the COVID pandemic, that so many Zoom calls were getting hijacked and people were popping in and I know that Zoom has done quite a bit around that to secure rooms and spaces, but we can never guarantee that some industrious hacker isn't going to get into electronic data, and so your partner may say, hey, I am deployed or I'm overseas or I'm on the mission field while you go back home, I'd really love to have some intimate connection with you, and you may not feel like that is safe for you, and that's okay.

Speaker 1:

What I think I really would like to encourage in terms of type, frequency, what is allowed versus not allowed and please hear air quotes with that is discussion, and this isn't something that we've really been taught in the church. We have not been taught as men and women to have a very honest discussion about what is okay and what is not okay for a given person. What is okay for someone within their value system and I'm saying a God-honoring value system might include FaceTime sex, for example, if someone is deployed, and for another person it might not. And again, that's okay, but you need to talk through those things and negotiate those things. I'm going to actually kind of go backward for a second, which might feel a little bit weird, but I also want to just remind our audience here that intimacy is so much more than intercourse and orgasm, and again, I think the church hasn't done its best job, necessarily on languaging these things, and so I really truly want to encourage you to look at intimacy from a far different perspective than perhaps maybe you have in the past. Maybe this is old hat for you and you are well aware of relational intimacy, and maybe you aren't, but if you think about intimacy and your first thought is intercourse, I would encourage you to think of it much more broadly and encourage you to think about it from the relational perspective.

Speaker 1:

How can we, first and foremost, be good friends? I am not going to force something on a good friend. I am not going to coerce a good friend. I am not going to not hear a good friend. I'm going to hear them. If someone says to me you know, I know that you love to make potato salad and I just really dislike potato salad and I make it for them anyway, then I'm not a very good friend, am I? And if they say I don't like potato salad, I just really don't like potato salad and I never make them potato salad. I make it for myself, you know, and that's totally fine, but I do not make them potato salad because they don't like it.

Speaker 1:

There is a wonderful video and I'm going to link it in the resources for this episode of tea and consent. So it's utilizing someone drinking tea with consent. Now we want to look at the British version. There is another version that is a little more spicy than I generally would recommend for this conversation, but that talks about how to know someone wants a cup of tea. And intimacy, physical intimacy, is the same thing, and if we don't have these conversations and we distill it down to intercourse only, then we do not have a good grasp. So if you're sitting there going, I am not sure we've ever actually talked about intimacy, maybe we need to do that. I would encourage you, schedule some time or reach out to your partner and say, hey, I'd love to talk about physical intimacy with you. I would love to talk about intimate relationship as a whole, even outside of physical intimacy, and really dive into that conversation.

Speaker 1:

I gave a talk at a counseling professionals conference and I was grateful we had such a wonderful attendance. But I was talking about healing our sexual selves when we have been harmed and one of the topics I covered in there was consent and I had the sweetest female therapist come up to me just undone saying I realize I have not gotten my husband's consent and she had actually reached out during my session to her spouse to say, oh my gosh, I've never asked you for consent, like I've just done what I wanted. And he said, yeah, that's true, and it opened up a conversation. Now he wasn't upset about it and all of that, but like they both realized in that moment, this isn't something we've ever spoken about. And she was quite comfortable talking about sex and sexuality and had done so with her clients at regular intervals, but had not done it in her own relationship, and there is no shame there. I just want to say this I'm not saying this to shame any therapist that has ever come up to me, because she's not the only one that has said this to me.

Speaker 1:

As I've taught on this topic, it really is something that we just haven't been taught is important, and that is something I just really want to underscore. If you are listening and you are considering marriage, you are considering a physically intimate relationship. Now is the time to have a discussion about what that looks like for both people. What kind of frequency is comfortable for each person? And look, different levels of desire are not wrong. Sometimes we will see that the man has a higher level of desire, and sometimes it's the female, and every female I have ever spoken with honestly, every Christian female especially that I have ever spoken with about this has absolutely beaten herself up if her desire was higher than that of her husband's. And I just want to say and please look at Sheila Gregoire's research. She really talks about it. I believe in both the great sex rescue, but I know she's got it in the marriage you want that.

Speaker 1:

That is not always the case. While men, research-wise, have just a slightly higher level of desire in terms of frequency, it's not all men and it's not all women, and so I think it's really important to know that your body, your desire, your frequency perspective might very well be different, and I don't want to vilify that Now. Where I see problems and I'm just going to be honest about this is when someone says well, my desire is for three times a day, every single day. At that point I honestly am going to start thinking about compulsive sexual behavior or sex addiction, because that is really outside of the norm and I'm going to want to ask some questions and I'm not going to make a decision on that super fast. But that is very high, and very often I also then hear about exploitation in a relationship and coercion of the spouse in that relationship. So I just really want to put out there, like, when the frequency is very much out of balance, it's quite high.

Speaker 1:

Then there are some things that we really want to look at. Sometimes sex addiction can be masked as oh, I just have a high desire, and that just isn't truth. And so we really want to look at the entire constellation of the desire, the frequency, how it's playing out all of those things? Is the party who's saying, oh, I just have a very high desire, also engaging with prostitutes, or seeking out other people to have affairs with, or using pornography or things like that? I'm going to ask those questions, to be honest. Pornography or things like that? I'm going to ask those questions to be honest. I also want to just note that with talking about it, you really want to be able to hear each other. Well, if you guys struggle to communicate, this is an area I really want to encourage getting premarital counseling or marital counseling, and if you are in that premarital space, again really good.

Speaker 1:

Premarital counseling is way more than the Song of Solomon. It's going to cover all aspects of your relationship. It's not just going to cover who's going to cook and clean and how often are we going to have sex. It's going to be so much more. And again, your relational intimacy is your bedrock. One of my favorite things to use as an illustration is the Gottman Sound Relationship House. John and Julie Gottman have studied tens of thousands of couples and what they have found is that the bottom level, the foundation of any healthy relationship, is going to be friendship, and the walls of the Sound Relationship House are trust and commitment.

Speaker 1:

Without those things, it's really worthless to talk about physical intimacy, because it's not going to be successful. So now that we've had that discussion about let's be friends first, let's have really good conversations, let's dive a little bit deeper into what is okay. And again my perspective is it depends and again I know that's not maybe as helpful as possible, but we don't know. It can be as simple as a touch on the side of the body that sends someone into a flashback or an emotional tailspin, reckoning back to harm, and so we may have to go slow. There's a process called sensate focus, which can be really helpful to couples who have sexual harm as part of their story, and it really is just taking things super, super slow and starting with completely non-sexual touch and moving up over time or not, because you get to choose into sexual touch and then intercourse, and I think that's really important because we again don't spend a lot of time talking to people about how do you decide what is okay and what isn't okay. If we have two people that are getting married and have not been physically intimate, then nobody knows what they're doing Like. Let's just be honest, and if you've been married before, you also don't know what you're doing with this person. You need to really take that time, and the more that we have these conversations and the more that we meet each other with tenderness and kindness, the easier that they become.

Speaker 1:

There was a time in my life I could not talk this openly about sex and I am so grateful that the Lord told me while I was in graduate school ma'am, you need to figure this out. And that was really the start of my own healing journey and being able to put names and talk about things that had happened to me. But it was one of the greatest things. I took the human sexuality class at my university. My professor was fantastic and I was able to begin talking about things that previously I had been told were off limits to talk about, and it really helped me start my own healing, and as I've done that with clients and helped them learn to talk about things, as I've done that with clients and helped them learn to talk about things, it has helped them in their healing as well, and that's really important.

Speaker 1:

So one question to ask beside is this okay with me? Is does what I want to do cultivate intimacy or objectification? And man. Those are not the same thing. Intimacy is going to bring us closer together. Intimacy is going to make me feel like you see me.

Speaker 1:

Sue Johnson, who is the founder of Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy, said it this way intimacy means into me. You see, yes, as Kurt Thompson says, we come into the world looking for someone, looking for us. Now we know that that meets its fullest fulfillment in God. But we want to be seen by our intimate partner, without question. Without question, we want to be seen by our friends in intimate ways. And again, there is healthy, non-sexual intimacy. I encourage you to read about that in Body and Soul, healed and Whole, where I talk about friendship. But we need to really see the other person, and when we see them first and foremost as an image bearer of the living God, as a fellow human, then that is our best starting point. And then we can say does this fit with treating an image bearer the way that Jesus would want me to? And if it doesn't, if it is pornified, if it is objectifying, if it is something that your partner says I am not comfortable with that, then the answer should be no, without question. Without question. As you guys discuss it, someone might say to you it's okay that we try this. And then they might say it's not okay that we do this. And they might say it in the middle of it.

Speaker 1:

Sam Joelman talks about this in his book the Sex Talk you Never Got, about stopping intimacy when consent is removed, even in the middle of it. No one will die if they don't have an orgasm after intercourse has started or other physical intimacy has started. I know it might not be comfortable to stop. I know that it may be a little bit disappointing to stop. But what is the reward if you continue? It's your own gratification. It's not the health and well-being and care and kindness for your partner and that does not sound like Jesus to me. It sounds selfish, frankly. It sounds like the fruits of the flesh if you look at Galatians 5. But if we look at the fruit of the spirit and we say man, to stop and give honor, even if it's uncomfortable for me, even if it's disappointing for me, is the right choice because I value this image, bearer of the living God that I am partnered with. So to that end, have the conversation, be willing to try something and then stop. Be willing to say no if your partner says this isn't comfortable for me, and if something originally starts off as comfortable and we find out that it is actually maybe something woven into their arousal template, that is not where they want to keep their feet. Be open to that.

Speaker 1:

As people heal and grow, and as we grow in relationship, things change. There is the bottom level of the sound relationship house. That is love maps, and love maps really talk about knowing your partner's inner world, and I love that so, so much. When we know our partner's inner world and we keep learning more about it over time, then we have a much better likelihood of treating them with honor, kindness and care, and this goes for women as well as men. So, ladies, if you are listening to this and thinking, yeah, I want that for me, well, you need to extend that as well.

Speaker 1:

Men have feelings and there is a deep tenderness that maybe is untapped for some, particularly in the church, but we want to have that tenderness for our men as well as for our women, and truly, when we are all treating each other like image bearers of the living God, it is so much more unlikely that we would have any type of harm, whether it's relational harm, sexual harm, any kind of harm. That doesn't mean that we're going to get it perfect. It does not mean that we will always be our perfect selves, our best moments, but what it does mean is that we are going to make a quick repair. It is not going to be the pattern of our living at all. It is going to be the hallmark of us caring well for each other. So does this behavior move us toward wholeness, toward covenant love? Does it look like loving each other, like Jesus loves us, or does it look pornified, objectifying, salacious? And those are questions to wrestle with and you may not know. There might be something that you say. Well, I don't know where I stand on oral sex. I don't know if that would qualify as loving my partner well, and I think those are things to ask about.

Speaker 1:

This is another thing here, and I am now going to talk about vibrators, so take care of yourself here if you've never had a conversation about them. But particularly as women age, things do not get as lubricated as they once did, and so if we are going to continue to be able to have intercourse, we might need a little support. Additionally, orgasm can take longer, and that's just growing older. It's not a bad thing. It's just the way that we're built, and so you may need to engage the utilization of a vibrator with your partner, and that is something that y'all need to talk about. You may need to engage in the use of lubrication with your partner, and that is something that y'all need to talk about. You may need to engage in the use of lubrication with your partner, and that is something that y'all need to talk about, and that's really important to have that conversation so that it's not surprise.

Speaker 1:

Here's what we're doing, or, oh, my goodness, I don't know how to handle this or any of that. It should be a discussion how do we do this? What does this look like for us? Do we even want to do this? Do we even want to engage in intercourse or intimacy in these ways? And it can be a very frank discussion. And again, the first time you have this conversation, you might feel a little bit awkward, and then, the more you do it and the more that you enter in well with each other, the less awkward it becomes, and I promise you that it may never be super easy when we're talking about these things, but it also will be easier.

Speaker 1:

Another thing that you can reflect on in terms of discernment, and that's really what we're looking at. We're looking at not is it permissible, but what is right and discerning and wise for us. Right, as Paul says in the New Testament, everything is permissible, but not everything is a good idea. Right, as Paul says in the New Testament, everything is permissible, but not everything is a good idea. Right, and there are going to be things that walk the line, and that is something that y'all need to talk about. So question number one that you want to ask each other does this align with my values and my faith? Does this align with my partner's values and my partner's faith? My faith, does this align with my partner's values and my partner's faith? Am I using this to connect with my partner and really like that heart level, or actually to avoid intimacy? That's a hard question to ask. Truly, how does my body feel afterward? Do I feel shame? Do I feel peace? Do I feel close or do I feel disconnected? And is this helping me grow in love toward God, toward myself and toward my partner, or is it pulling me away? If I have the desire to hide because of shame afterward, it's not right at that time, or it might not be right at all for us. I just want to remind you that God created relationship as good. He created us as a community to be in community. He created us to be in intimate relationships with people and he created intercourse as good and beautiful and embodied and connecting when it is done properly, when we are not pornified, when we are not coercive, when we are having these conversations.

Speaker 1:

Use of technology whether it be a vibrator, whether it be FaceTime sex, whether it be anything like that isn't necessarily evil or problematic, but it does need to be discussed at length and everyone needs to feel safe. And I will remind you that technology, no matter how good it is, is not always secure. We cannot guarantee that electronic media is safe. That's texting, that's FaceTime, that's emails, that's any type of video, all of those things. We cannot guarantee safety. That means that somebody else could see it. I just want to put that out there. You will make the decision that you make, but I want you to be aware of it. I just want to put that out there. You will make the decision that you make, but I want you to be aware of it.

Speaker 1:

And then healing together really means moving beyond fragmented expressions of intimacy where we're really only talking about things halfway or not at all, and really toward a deep soul, body connection. Again, intimacy starts with our friendship, not with intercourse. So, if you think about it, even from the alphabetical perspective, friendship, not with intercourse. So if you think about it even from the alphabetical perspective, friendship F comes before intercourse I. And to start with your friendship, if you want to make your intimate life better, start with friendship first and work on your relational intimacy and then lean into the physical aspects of intimacy all the way to intercourse. And again, I wish the church talked about this a bit better, because intimacy is so much way to intercourse. And again, I wish the church talked about this a bit better, because intimacy is so much more than intercourse.

Speaker 1:

I don't want you to feel shame as you listen to this today If you're like I have done none of these things well, oh dear, that's okay. Maybe you've never thought about it before because, again, we haven't talked about it well as the church, and so I'm really hopeful that this is a life-giving conversation for you. Curiosity and honesty with each other and openness and kindness and treating each other as image bearers of the living God is really the most healing thing, and so if you realize that has not been what has happened in your relationship, circle back. You can start today. Relationship circle back, you can start today. Continue to walk this journey of truly embodied faith and if it's helpful, especially if you're a female who has had sexual harm, I strongly encourage you to grab my book Body and Soul, healed and Whole An Invitational Guide to Healthy Sexuality After Trauma, abuse and Coercive Control. You can get it anywhere books are sold and I'll have it linked in the description.

Speaker 1:

I'm really glad that you joined me here today. This might have been a very difficult conversation for you and I'm grateful that you joined me for it. As always, take care of you. You are the only you that you have. I wish you all the best. There are wonderful resources out there as it relates to physical intimacy and relationship. I will put them in the description. Thank you so much for joining me on this week's episode of hey Tabby. Thanks for joining me for today's episode of hey Tabby. If you're looking for a resource that I mentioned in the show and you want to check out the show notes, head on over to tabithawestbrookcom forward slash hey Tababi. That's H-E-Y-T-A-B-I and you can grab it there. I look forward to seeing you next time.

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