Allison Metcalfe: Welcome to the Recovering Radical Podcast, the space where women like you untangle the guilt, shame, and pressure you carried out of high control Christianity ⁓ and instead step into an embodied faith. I'm Allison Metcalfe, coach, fellow recovering charismatic, ⁓ and woman who just discovered the power of the on her journey to heal from religious trauma and spiritual abuse. We'll be talking reconnecting with your ⁓ rebuilding self-trust, digging into nervous system healing, and finding a spirituality that empowers you instead of controls. If you've deconstructed mentally but still feel it in your body every single day, this is the place for you. Thanks for joining us today. we're coming back with new episode with Sarah Ward. ⁓ And I just wanted to you if someone is deconstructing and they are updating their beliefs on sexuality, ⁓ how could seeing someone who a sexologist, an intimacy coach like yourself ⁓ be really supportive during that
Sarah Ward: Thank you. First off, it can be really hard to know who to even talk to about this type of stuff. is a particular intersection of the route, the deconstructing belief systems, ⁓ as as like forging into the sexuality piece. And so ⁓ I'm that there's plenty of people that could hold space. ⁓ Not trusts someone who hasn't had the lived experience of being in a high demand religion, which you and I have, right? So one ⁓ to think about is that our go a mile a minute, right? You can change your belief system a lot faster than you can change what's going on in your body. ⁓ And ⁓ people, have this, you have felt this, are ⁓ willing to new things. but there may be blocks that come up and people don't know why they're getting stuck why they're not able to go past a certain point. ⁓ that's when it can be really useful to work with somebody ⁓ trained in the nervous system, who's trained in somatics and in sexuality ⁓ be able to consult with these wise parts. Because I deeply believe in the methodologies that I use that you are whole, you are complete, and you are filled with inherent wisdom. And so if there is a block that's happening, if there's a part of you that is preventing you from actually being able to go somewhere, is a part of you to consult to be like, let's get to know you, shall we? Like, let's hear your story. Because oftentimes these are young hearts that are protecting us and they don't realize that now you're a 35, 45, 55 year old human being that doesn't need protecting anymore. And so it's a matter of like meeting those parts, holding them with so much compassion instead of forcing through the gates. That's just not a very good recipe for success.
Allison Metcalfe: Yeah. ⁓ I'm so glad. Yes, I'm so glad you talked about coming back into the body because I also talk about that a lot. And you and I, both of our work is not about changing people's minds. It's probably more often about bringing the things they have already changed their mind about into their lived experience. So I think working with you or another kind of intimacy coach could be incredible, but specifically when you've got the background. being ex-Mormon, having grown up in the church for a long, long, long time, being married in the church, you get it. You get a lot of things that maybe some of the others just don't understand yet. So I love that I can recommend you. This is Sarah Ward. Look her up on Instagram. She's fabulous. I love your posts. we're talking about intimate relationships today. ⁓ is within circles. It's typically going to be marriages because that's what we're raised with. This is the only place we're really allowed to have an intimate relationship when you grow up this way. I wanted talk about a few of the myths about male and female sexuality. And then maybe we can get into like how they affect the relationships. ⁓ But like the one that I, that wrote here I really hate, men need sex women just don't usually love it. ⁓ And this is always from Christian marriage teachers, usually male. And I feel like they're on themselves a little, men need sex women just don't usually love it. ⁓ And this is always from Christian marriage teachers, usually male. And I feel like they're on themselves a little, a little bit because like, ⁓ sex. And this is, I've heard in many. Yeah. How, how, how you're doing it, sir. ⁓ Because I've heard this in so many marriage materials and I feel like this is really damaging. So. ⁓
Sarah Ward: have to...
Allison Metcalfe: Tell us about men and women and how they need or experience sex in reality. What's real about, what's true here?
Sarah Ward: Okay, so we had talked about this on our last episode just a minute ago about how we hear that like men have a really high sex drive and women have a really low sex drive. What is often the case is that, okay, male response and the female arousal response are just so different, right? ⁓ I'm in a female body and so are you. And so we can speak ⁓ authoritatively from our experiences here. It takes the ⁓ and the vulva about 45 minutes, anywhere between 30 to 45 minutes to get to peak engorgement. And what we're talking about here is to fill with blood. So the clitoris has erections just the same way that a penis has erections, but it takes time to get there. So a penis can be like, whoop, hi, I'm ready to go like quite quickly. And I've heard stats that
Allison Metcalfe: Thanks.
Sarah Ward: in America, the average amount of time that it takes for a couple to have penetrative sex is something like short as two minutes and maybe as long as 12. Like that's really short. ⁓ then when you're thinking about the female arousal cycle, right? The arc of long it takes for her to get fully turned on. ⁓ If not doing it right. ⁓ And hate to use a binary, like if you're not like fully invested in her pleasure and her enjoying the process, just the way that it takes like two minutes for a man. And you know, that's not every man. I just want to say, right? Like there are some, tell me, oh, it takes me two and a half hours to come, right? Sure. And there are some women that say to me, that's bullshit. It takes me two minutes to come. So it varies, right? Across the board. But if you're not putting in the time, then she's not gonna love it, right? So talk about these men telling on themselves. Yeah, if you're a wham bam, thank you, ma'am. Like I've got a hard on, like, let me just like satisfy myself in 6.5 minutes. Like she's not gonna love it. Actually, my grandmother, bless her heart, she like sewed up the trousers on my grandpa's pajamas growing up. They had several children and she's like, I'm done, cool, thanks so much. Problem solved. Problem solved.
Allison Metcalfe: my god.
Sarah Ward: Like, that's one thing that comes up for me. Another thing that comes up for me is this myth that along those lines, women actually get more bored of long-term sex. ⁓ get bored faster than their male counterparts. So something that probably your audience may not have heard before. And that feels really important to just highlight that novelty is important. ⁓ doing it differently is important. Continuing to court each other is important not just because ⁓ know of course that making babies, but certainly not the only time that it used. And every time that we sex, we had a child ⁓ that we spawned, I mean, the world already has a billion people, like many, many billions of people. So, we have separated mammals our need to ⁓ have sex with ⁓ And that's really incredible, which has happened thanks to birth control, right? Like our great grandmothers had like multiple right? my grandmother came, she was one of 12 children, right? So. this piece what we believe about sex, like so much of this is cultural ⁓ not actually true. So women have so incredible potential ⁓ for orgasmic states as well. ⁓ If know how to work the female right, she can keep coming and coming and coming and coming. It may take her a while to get to that first one. ⁓ If you how to work the female body, right, she can keep coming and coming coming and coming. It may her while get to that first ⁓ But once she does, it's like Alibaba's treasure. But once she does, it's like Alibaba's treasure. She's just like, can keep regenerating in a way that like, we know that when a penis orgasms, like there's a refractory period where it takes him a little while to recharge so that he can go again, kind of like in a video game, right? Like ⁓ can't respond just yet. ⁓ takes him a minute. So there in circles that I'm in, I'll hear men say, ⁓ God, really jealous that like women can get there. ⁓ It's possible for men too, actually. So, yeah, I'll just tease that. Sex is not just for conception purposes.
Allison Metcalfe: talking about men needing women don't usually love it. Ha ha ha. Like really, ha ha ha. Because here's the thing. talk about in church. ⁓ There's a belief. And the reason I'm going to state this is not because very many people know that this is being taught, because it doesn't really... Unless, I think if you're more in the Catholic church, I believe they teach this more overtly. But I want to expose it because it's still informing our sexual behavior, even though we may have never heard it. And you kind of covered it, but the idea that sex is only for procreation or it's only important for procreation. And so you will actually hear men... men on the internet trolling. saw this the other day. ⁓ They're like, yeah, women don't need to orgasm, but men actually have to, to further our race. And then things like, God commanded us to procreate, He didn't command us to pleasure our women, and that kind of bullshit. Most people deconstructing don't believe that, and most people in church probably haven't ever even heard it put that way, but there is an undercurrent of that, even when it's unsaid, that's literally causing male orgasm to be the goal. and female orgasm to literally not matter. And that how does that affect a relationship? Like, is that going to build a relationship well for people? In your experience?
Sarah Ward: Happy life. Like if your girl hasn't come ever, like, and that happens, that absolutely happens, right? Like I watching the secret lives of Mormon wives and one of the people never had orgasm. She had two babies and she was married and divorced, right? But she had never before. I don't think that that's a unique story, right? I think that happens to a lot of people. And if we haven't been given permission to explore our bodies, which I know we're gonna be talking about in the next episode, then unable to understand ⁓ we're able to reach peak states of pleasure ⁓ also unable to teach our partners to be able to do it. ⁓ had a sexual partner who said something kind of similar and that- relationship did not last because I was like, fuck that. Like I'm gonna find somebody who does want that. If that's the hill that you wanna die on, that you don't wanna fucking please your woman, well, who else is going to? It feels really irresponsible. And can we remind the class that a man can ejaculate a hundred million times and not impregnate a woman if he never has an opportunity to? because she won't let him near her. You need to woo your women. Yeah. It is like non-negotiable. I am just astounded that the men on the internet are like. Wow, okay.
Allison Metcalfe: Yes, yeah, and I think that's so important that you brought that up. Men need to woo their women. Men, primarily, for the history of humans, have had to do something to attract a partner. what's interesting is within religion, some of that starts to break down. They can start leaning on spiritual obligations. that that threaten you in a way of like moral, like your morals or who you are or you're standing with God or whatever. And that that creates such an imbalance of power dynamics in the relationship. I can't imagine that it's helping anybody. Like, what do you know about power dynamics in relationships? Do they increase if you if you've got a massive imbalance and the man has a huge power dynamic like he's he's on top and she has little power. Is that fostering a healthy, safe place for her to begin to connect and be sexually present?
Sarah Ward: Not necessarily. mean, like, I can speak to my time, like in the Mormon faith where we're taught like, okay, you can become gods, like men are given the priesthood, which is the power of God on the earth. ⁓ And are given the opportunity to have babies. ⁓ And like, ⁓ cool. ⁓ Thanks. a childless woman speaking to you today. this of like, they would tell us in my faith I had grown up and well, like women don't need it. Women are already so close to God that men are needed to give it. Men need to have priesthood in order for them to like come into their service and ⁓ willingness to be benevolent, right? Like women just have that built in. ⁓ it's kind of interesting, because I think about like sister-in-laws and my brothers, ⁓ my left because of their wives. Like the wives were the one that saw it first. ⁓ And you think about this male and the male Jesus Christ and the male Holy ghost, Like there's not a hell of a lot of for women in that. And this is one thing that I really struggled with is like, show me what I'm capable of becoming. And that was something that really led me out of the faith ⁓ because men it charted out for them. And it's really quite easy. Also this idea of like men are the head of the house and like men get to decide. We're seeing this now in conservative religions right now, this idea of like, well, would have one vote per household and I, the male would be the one that would make that vote. That's bullshit. ⁓
Allison Metcalfe: Boy. No.
Sarah Ward: No, no. While she's barefoot and pregnant at home. These are some pretty uncomfortable power dynamics that exist. And ⁓ feel like there's a dangerous trend that we're witnessing right now ⁓ women being ⁓ pushed of professional spaces and that men are beginning to occupy that more, which means that ⁓ women being told that your place is in the home like hurry on back, you don't need a career. Like, take it from here. Thank you very much. Which is very belittling. And these are gross kind of like overestimations of how human beings want to be. I always wanted to be a professional woman and other women that I know always wanted to be mothers and to stay at home with their children. My best friend is a stay at home mom. And so everybody is quite different. And I know that there are men that do remarkable things in the home in raising the children while their wives who are very high powered and very savvy are out there like leading in things in the corporate world and climbing the ladder. So I don't want to say that it's so binary in this way.
Allison Metcalfe: Right.
Sarah Ward: If my big fat Greek wedding, they say like, the men is the head of the home, but the woman is the neck, right? ⁓
Allison Metcalfe: can turn the head anyway she wants. was like my favorite line of the whole movie. It's so funny. ⁓
Sarah Ward: never forget that. deeply believe that the power is something that we share together. And like, if you look back at like the sacred ⁓ mystery schools ⁓ ancient times, ⁓ the that power was held up is when the man and the woman led together in equality. ⁓ So really think that if we could take something from that, going to create a lot more equilibrium ⁓ and for people to be able to experience pleasure in different ways. ⁓
Allison Metcalfe: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I'm glad you said that, too, because, it's it's not that anybody needs to be a certain way. It's that everybody needs to be free to be they really are. And they need to feel safe to do so without ⁓ shaming ⁓ telling you, no, this is no, I'm above you. That's ⁓ referred to as the umbrella doctrine or umbrella. I don't know, umbrella theology or something where it's like God, ⁓ ⁓ man, then wife, then kids. And it's just it wreaks havoc. If you're going to use the Christian standard of judging the fruit, the fruit is so many abusive relationships. And some people who follow that aren't abusive, but it enables abusers. So there's something wrong with it. I'm really glad you brought that up. And I'm also really, really glad you talked about the male God, the male Jesus, the male Holy Spirit. And I'm just going to plug a future episode. think we're recording it next week with a PhD theologian who she's amazing. She's in the UK and she is writing her thesis on Asherah in the Old Testament and talking about how that's that's Yahweh's wife in the Old Testament and talking about how she's been erased or demonized in the Old Testament. ⁓ yes. ⁓ then many of us know this. I don't know if we're to talk about in the episode, but in the Hebrew translations, always 100 % of the time, Holy Spirit is referred to as a feminine form. So it's just been erased in our translations. It has systematically erased throughout history. The female signature within these old historical and allegorical and poetic documents that we've put together that we call the Bible, they have been systematically cleansed of presence. ⁓ ⁓ what you said, what does that do to a woman when she's wondering about her desire, when she's wondering about her pleasure, when she's saying, do I matter? Do I matter beyond childbirth? There was a verse ⁓ the very, I think it's in Genesis, and it's like the woman will be saved through childbirth. ⁓ is a Bullshit translation that is disgusting and so many people literally believe that that they are like somehow right before God once they have had children But even again, even if we don't believe it, it's the undercurrent of what we're raised up in nobody's preaching that the stage. Even your pastor doesn't believe it or whatever ⁓ It's still in your And so that's where so many of these systemic issues are happening for women in the marriage.
Sarah Ward: cannot wait ⁓ that episode. That's incredible. ⁓ only surviving, I mean, ⁓ symbol of Asherah is the tree, right? And so like the tree of life and like the wisdom, ⁓ the in Proverbs that's talking about wisdom, ⁓ that's the closest thing to like the divine feminine ⁓ that see referenced is in wisdom. ⁓
Allison Metcalfe: She's guiding. She's wise and she's guiding. this brand ⁓ spanking archaeology or translation or whatever. ⁓ The who are working on ⁓ translating, don't know, Dead Sea Scrolls, I don't know where this came from, but they found out some part of the Bible. They've mistranslated a woman into a man for like ⁓ thousands years or something. ⁓ From the New Testament, and this is just brand new, so you'll have to Google it because I don't remember her name. It started with a D or something, and they're like, we just found this. We just, the scholars just discovered she was a woman and this is important. And so that was like, cool. She's not, from what I can tell, she wasn't like a major, major character or anything, but she played an important role. And there was some important stuff that was again erased. And this one didn't seem systematic. They said it was a translation error of one letter, yay. I'm happy. ⁓
Sarah Ward: That's so cool. I love that. ⁓
Allison Metcalfe: So, okay, ⁓ we need to about consent ⁓ in relationships within Christianity because this is that I feel like is So majorly lacking and we did talk about culture in the previous episodes. We talked about how there's this sense that men have this Just I don't know ⁓ urge to conquer and so girls are taught to ⁓ to be careful their blamed when sexual assaults do happen. You talking about in Utah and some of the campuses, girls are expelled, guys have no consequences after a sexual assault because they're no longer following the purity rules of the campus or whatever. that to there's like this giant ball of about consent. And ⁓ I have seen show up in marriages again with Sheila Wray Gregoire's. work ⁓ about women feeling like they literally cannot say ⁓ And this ⁓ is in marriage courses, ⁓ like of the popular marriage courses in Christian church. Often, if you Google this or if you look it up on YouTube, you can hear a lot of sermons where men will talk about the 72-hour rule ⁓ or the 48-hour rule or some variation of that. ⁓ that's where basically, ⁓ if you're not giving it to your husband every 48, 72, whatever arbitrary number, kind of stepping into sin territory. ⁓ I just want to ask you, ⁓ does consent look like in a marriage and how, how can we be like moving away from that and healing from that kind of bullshit?
Sarah Ward: I mean, first off, ⁓ wasn't it was like in my ⁓ 30s I even learned what the word consent meant. ⁓ Because tell you, the church didn't want me to know, right? Like it's not of their highest and best interest if I am aware ⁓ of advocating for consent, which is really slippery slope, right? Like we were talking about rape culture earlier and if feels as though it is a need and that they are entitled that gets to be really dangerous territory. Emily book Come As You Are, which is required reading for humankind.
Allison Metcalfe: Yep, I love that book.
Sarah Ward: She talks about how there is a misnomer of sex drive. ⁓ when we think about sexual appetite as a drive and compare it to like hunger or thirst or sleep, like these types of like human necessities and requirements, ⁓ that people to step out of line and to begin behaving in really atrocious ways and taking what they think is theirs. ⁓ because it's not a drive. Like you cannot have sex your entire life and you will be okay, actually, you will survive. So I think that's really important. The piece feels like, so ⁓ also like there's a continuum. I have a client who my wife says yes, but she ⁓ basically says, you can my body how you want. and then she checks out. That's not enthusiastic consent. And so the idea of being able to come together and to feel like they have a voice to say, actually, like, I'm not feeling it right now. What if we did this instead, right? Perhaps we do mutual masturbation or I can watch you as you masturbate, ⁓ as to the expectation of any time that I have a want, ⁓ you fulfill it for me. ⁓ ⁓ that's pretty dicey territory and Consent should be able to happen without coercion for somebody to a no and to not pout about it ⁓ stonewall become or antagonistic. I think that ⁓ the idea hypothetically that consenting this, ⁓ but unless someone give you a no without being punished by it, ⁓ then that's coercion.
Allison Metcalfe: I'm so glad you stated it so specifically, so strongly, because that's, I hear that all the time. I feel like in the Christian marriages is like saying yes, but you don't really want it. And also saying yes, because you really are not allowed to say no. I mean, there's like spiritual consequences. You are sinning or whatever. The one I hear a lot, I actually have it written down here. This is said all the time from a pulpit. Or from Christian counseling, I heard this multiple times. Well, if he doesn't get enough sex, and it was like enough sex, going to use porn when that's something that you both agreed was not gonna happen in your relationship. He's gonna use porn, ⁓ not gonna help you around the house or with the kids or any chores, and he's not gonna share the mental load, and he will probably cheat on you, and it will be your fault. ⁓ is what I heard over and over and over and over again. So of course you're gonna be like. Okay, I guess I have to.
Sarah Ward: which comes back to like the responsibility piece that we had talked about in the last episode of how women are being made responsible for the actions of men, even though this is not their responsibility. I am not responsible for my partner. You are not responsible for your partner. No women on the planet is responsible for her partner. And yet this is what we're being told. there is, this is such a systemic issue where we talk about burnout, right? We're hearing, by and large, women are getting burnt out. We've all been there, right? And also, we're taking it upon us as some sort of a personal failure, as opposed to what it is, which is a systemic issue, ⁓ where ⁓ if, if not to enough support within our communities, then somehow it's her job to have a job and raise children and be on the PTA and, you know, take kids to soccer practice. Like we used to live in communes, right? Like we would live in multi-generational homes where people were able to support in the ways, in different ways. And now that we have these single family households, like it's actually not supporting us in that way, but we're making women wrong for it. saying, well, That's a you problem, but it's not. This is an us problem. This is a societal issue. we had the holidays. Think about how much unpaid labor goes into the holidays being a magical time. ⁓ Unpaid labor.
Allison Metcalfe: Yeah. Yep. That everyone else benefits from and she probably doesn't benefit from it all this time.
Sarah Ward: She probably doesn't even think twice about it either.
Allison Metcalfe: Yeah, I didn't for years and years and years and years. I only started just I want to say earlier this year realizing maybe I don't have to do everything. I why I had a nine year chronic And it's like, ⁓ this makes sense. So I'm curious, would you say ⁓ sharing the mental ⁓ is going to ⁓ at least open more opportunities for like sexual intimacy and closeness between partners. Does that play into it?
Sarah Ward: I'm so glad that you asked that question. I am thinking of a time that I was just backstage at a show a month ago, two months ago, and we're talking about sex, right? And the women are like, if you pulled your weight around the house, then I'd be more likely to say yes to you. And it's funny because true. ⁓ And like foreplay could absolutely be like, hey babe, let me put the kids to bed for you. ⁓ Let me load the dishwasher for you. Let me do the laundry that's been piling up. If there was an equal of, and it doesn't even have to be equal, but like, can I see that you're pulling the weight? Can I see that you're making efforts to keep our household running appropriately? You had asked about libido in our last episode. And one of the reasons that women really struggle ⁓ with is because of stress. ⁓ it's because there's just so much going on. And there are naysayers who will say, well, this is why women don't deserve to like be a part of the working community. And that's not the point of this. The point of this is like finding ways to handle this. But a woman ⁓ feeling very, or a man for that matter, feeling very stressed out from a survival perspective, what's being happened? Because the human genome was created on the Serengeti, sex is survival, right? sex our society and the human race to continue to populate, but it is a lower priority than if you're being chased by a tiger. ⁓ If you're being chased by a tiger, that's a much higher priority than And so, ⁓ The ways that our bodies are responding to stress is as though a tiger is chasing us. And so we wonder where our libido went, but it's biological. This is our nervous system protecting us. You don't have enough energy to go around because everything is being diverted into making sure that you survive the proverbial tiger attack, even though there's no more tigers that are attacking us.
Allison Metcalfe: Yeah. Yeah, that just makes me think too. I want to mention that if someone is in a relationship and this is where it gets really hard because the church Has a so gaslit and so ⁓ such cognitive dissonance ⁓ you're in a relationship i'm just speaking to listeners ⁓ If in a relationship that is actually abusive ⁓ Your system will continue to tell you that ⁓ if relationship is not safe for you If the person is not showing up for you, you'll know know that over and over again. What can also happen is if you're in a very safe relationship, you are in this state, this burnout state or this stress state, and your nervous system will throw up kind of false flags. It's not false flags, but it's not actually about him or the relationship. It's actually what's going on in you. And the reason I'm glad you said this is because and Amelia Nagoski wrote Burnout, which is like the most incredible book ⁓ ⁓ how your nervous system regulation will open the way again to these things. And I just want to point out because this happens all the time in the Christian church, that you will not be able to regulate past actual abuse. And I see women doing, trying, trying to do that because they're so blamed, because the burden of the relationship succeeding is on their shoulders, because because divorce is not allowed, all of these different things that are going on.
Sarah Ward: Mmm.
Allison Metcalfe: they will try to regulate their abuse, will try to personally develop beyond a relationship that's unhealthy. And so is never going to work. And that information is going to keep being presented until you find safety. So that's speaking to any listeners who are in that situation. And that's you, I want you to get help. I want you to talk to someone. Don't stay in that. know way too many women who do. ⁓ there are even pastors finally, finally starting to speak up about this. And so there are people, I mean, you can even send me or Sarah an email if we're the only people you can find, that is fine. And we will help you get connected to resources. I'm sure there's lots of places we can get you connected to, but not talking to you when you're in an abusive situation. When I say ⁓ nervous system regulation can help you overcome those flags that make your nervous system makes you think it's them, but then it's actually Sometimes it's not, sometimes it is the systemic stress. Sometimes there's other stuff going on and that's where, like your work, my work and your work, somatically coming into the body can help rewire that,
Sarah Ward: feel like there's so much that we can pull here. And I know that our time is limited, ⁓ what I want to say as well, I'm going through a nervous system training. And one of ⁓ Q and A's that my teacher was, was going through just the other day was somebody saying, should I stay or should I go in my relationship? And she's like, I can't answer that for you. ⁓ what's very important to know is that this is when we start talking about like attachment style theory. If you attachment theory, if you have. ⁓ grown up in a family in which feeling unsafe is familiar to you, safe person will feel foreign and weird and uncomfortable. ⁓ so it may be that you feel like leaving a safe relationship because you're just unused to ⁓ in a safe place. Safety might feel like boredom, right? Where like chasing somebody might feel a lot more exciting. And that can also be like, not healthy. So I just want to like say that as a caveat. And also I understand that from a practical perspective, women who are in, just women, men who are experiencing abuse, ⁓ can be tricky to extricate yourself. ⁓ so I just want to name that like, maybe it's going to take a little bit of time, ⁓ please start to have conversations with people ⁓ will say things other than then like just get dinner on the table by 6 p.m. and you'll be fine. Because that's reductive.
Allison Metcalfe: or continue to personally develop so you can save the relationship because divorce is not an option. no, don't to that. Unfortunately, there's coming out right now. Another very famous Christian author and the editor of Christianity Today of like 30 years just came out and was having an eight year. ⁓ ⁓ affair with another married woman and it's so crazy. The entire internet and Christian culture has supported him and just begged her to get back with him and restoration and what a good story and all of this. If she really wanted that, that's totally fine. That is absolutely fine. ⁓ But I I wonder, I just wonder if that's really what we want. Do we want people to be telling the truth? Yes, ⁓ we people. ⁓ to be actually feeling safe because again, you will never find nervous system regulation if you are continually in a situation that is dangerous. And so it's not your fault if that's happening. I just want to say that because I heard it over and over and over and over and over again in the church and with different marriages and people in communities that were around me. Yeah, it was always blamed on the woman and that that era is over. We're done with that. No, we accept that anymore. ⁓ Okay, so we want to wrap, yes. Try to wrap this, like we literally could keep going forever. I know. Let's just like summarize a couple of the elements that we hit on for a healthy, intimate relationship. Can you summarize a couple of those?
Sarah Ward: Totally. Healthy intimate relationships, mutual respect is a great place to start. Care, compassion for the other, compassion for the other's experience, right? Like, God, I'm feeling a lot of pressure to have sex with you right now. To be able to hold that and to hear that and ⁓ to tend that very lovingly. ⁓ I would safety is such a non-negotiable piece. And it's so different if you're a man that's listening or. living a male body and just knowing that safety is such a different experience for someone who's born female or who is non-binary or trans than it is for, you know, cis, hetero male. Communication, having open communication, consent, healthy desire, making room for the other person to share what it is that they're interested in experiencing. Yeah, I feel like that kind of sums it up.
Allison Metcalfe: It does. That is an excellent list. And if you're leaning on that list, I think you are going to be it's a great rubric for relationship.
Sarah Ward: ⁓
Allison Metcalfe: Well, Sarah, you so much for coming and chatting about ⁓ healthy, intimate and ⁓ how high religion can sometimes really fuck us up in this area. But that there's some really simple things, there's ⁓ simple values we bring into our relationships that really keep us safe. ⁓ And that is ultimately what we need. So I appreciate you sharing your experience and ⁓ what you've and some of your own experiences as well. ⁓
Sarah Ward: Thank you. And it's possible to unlearn the things that we've learned, right? That's what neuroplasticity and neuroscience is telling us. Like we can learn different ways. Even if you saw this modeled with your parents, even if you saw this modeled in the church, you can choose different things.
Sarah Ward: Thank you. First off, it can be really hard to know who to even talk to about this type of stuff. is a particular intersection of the route, the deconstructing belief systems, ⁓ as as like forging into the sexuality piece. And so ⁓ I'm that there's plenty of people that could hold space. ⁓ Not trusts someone who hasn't had the lived experience of being in a high demand religion, which you and I have, right? So one ⁓ to think about is that our go a mile a minute, right? You can change your belief system a lot faster than you can change what's going on in your body. ⁓ And ⁓ people, have this, you have felt this, are ⁓ willing to new things. but there may be blocks that come up and people don't know why they're getting stuck why they're not able to go past a certain point. ⁓ that's when it can be really useful to work with somebody ⁓ trained in the nervous system, who's trained in somatics and in sexuality ⁓ be able to consult with these wise parts. Because I deeply believe in the methodologies that I use that you are whole, you are complete, and you are filled with inherent wisdom. And so if there is a block that's happening, if there's a part of you that is preventing you from actually being able to go somewhere, is a part of you to consult to be like, let's get to know you, shall we? Like, let's hear your story. Because oftentimes these are young hearts that are protecting us and they don't realize that now you're a 35, 45, 55 year old human being that doesn't need protecting anymore. And so it's a matter of like meeting those parts, holding them with so much compassion instead of forcing through the gates. That's just not a very good recipe for success.
Allison Metcalfe: Yeah. ⁓ I'm so glad. Yes, I'm so glad you talked about coming back into the body because I also talk about that a lot. And you and I, both of our work is not about changing people's minds. It's probably more often about bringing the things they have already changed their mind about into their lived experience. So I think working with you or another kind of intimacy coach could be incredible, but specifically when you've got the background. being ex-Mormon, having grown up in the church for a long, long, long time, being married in the church, you get it. You get a lot of things that maybe some of the others just don't understand yet. So I love that I can recommend you. This is Sarah Ward. Look her up on Instagram. She's fabulous. I love your posts. we're talking about intimate relationships today. ⁓ is within circles. It's typically going to be marriages because that's what we're raised with. This is the only place we're really allowed to have an intimate relationship when you grow up this way. I wanted talk about a few of the myths about male and female sexuality. And then maybe we can get into like how they affect the relationships. ⁓ But like the one that I, that wrote here I really hate, men need sex women just don't usually love it. ⁓ And this is always from Christian marriage teachers, usually male. And I feel like they're on themselves a little, men need sex women just don't usually love it. ⁓ And this is always from Christian marriage teachers, usually male. And I feel like they're on themselves a little, a little bit because like, ⁓ sex. And this is, I've heard in many. Yeah. How, how, how you're doing it, sir. ⁓ Because I've heard this in so many marriage materials and I feel like this is really damaging. So. ⁓
Sarah Ward: have to...
Allison Metcalfe: Tell us about men and women and how they need or experience sex in reality. What's real about, what's true here?
Sarah Ward: Okay, so we had talked about this on our last episode just a minute ago about how we hear that like men have a really high sex drive and women have a really low sex drive. What is often the case is that, okay, male response and the female arousal response are just so different, right? ⁓ I'm in a female body and so are you. And so we can speak ⁓ authoritatively from our experiences here. It takes the ⁓ and the vulva about 45 minutes, anywhere between 30 to 45 minutes to get to peak engorgement. And what we're talking about here is to fill with blood. So the clitoris has erections just the same way that a penis has erections, but it takes time to get there. So a penis can be like, whoop, hi, I'm ready to go like quite quickly. And I've heard stats that
Allison Metcalfe: Thanks.
Sarah Ward: in America, the average amount of time that it takes for a couple to have penetrative sex is something like short as two minutes and maybe as long as 12. Like that's really short. ⁓ then when you're thinking about the female arousal cycle, right? The arc of long it takes for her to get fully turned on. ⁓ If not doing it right. ⁓ And hate to use a binary, like if you're not like fully invested in her pleasure and her enjoying the process, just the way that it takes like two minutes for a man. And you know, that's not every man. I just want to say, right? Like there are some, tell me, oh, it takes me two and a half hours to come, right? Sure. And there are some women that say to me, that's bullshit. It takes me two minutes to come. So it varies, right? Across the board. But if you're not putting in the time, then she's not gonna love it, right? So talk about these men telling on themselves. Yeah, if you're a wham bam, thank you, ma'am. Like I've got a hard on, like, let me just like satisfy myself in 6.5 minutes. Like she's not gonna love it. Actually, my grandmother, bless her heart, she like sewed up the trousers on my grandpa's pajamas growing up. They had several children and she's like, I'm done, cool, thanks so much. Problem solved. Problem solved.
Allison Metcalfe: my god.
Sarah Ward: Like, that's one thing that comes up for me. Another thing that comes up for me is this myth that along those lines, women actually get more bored of long-term sex. ⁓ get bored faster than their male counterparts. So something that probably your audience may not have heard before. And that feels really important to just highlight that novelty is important. ⁓ doing it differently is important. Continuing to court each other is important not just because ⁓ know of course that making babies, but certainly not the only time that it used. And every time that we sex, we had a child ⁓ that we spawned, I mean, the world already has a billion people, like many, many billions of people. So, we have separated mammals our need to ⁓ have sex with ⁓ And that's really incredible, which has happened thanks to birth control, right? Like our great grandmothers had like multiple right? my grandmother came, she was one of 12 children, right? So. this piece what we believe about sex, like so much of this is cultural ⁓ not actually true. So women have so incredible potential ⁓ for orgasmic states as well. ⁓ If know how to work the female right, she can keep coming and coming and coming and coming. It may take her a while to get to that first one. ⁓ If you how to work the female body, right, she can keep coming and coming coming and coming. It may her while get to that first ⁓ But once she does, it's like Alibaba's treasure. But once she does, it's like Alibaba's treasure. She's just like, can keep regenerating in a way that like, we know that when a penis orgasms, like there's a refractory period where it takes him a little while to recharge so that he can go again, kind of like in a video game, right? Like ⁓ can't respond just yet. ⁓ takes him a minute. So there in circles that I'm in, I'll hear men say, ⁓ God, really jealous that like women can get there. ⁓ It's possible for men too, actually. So, yeah, I'll just tease that. Sex is not just for conception purposes.
Allison Metcalfe: talking about men needing women don't usually love it. Ha ha ha. Like really, ha ha ha. Because here's the thing. talk about in church. ⁓ There's a belief. And the reason I'm going to state this is not because very many people know that this is being taught, because it doesn't really... Unless, I think if you're more in the Catholic church, I believe they teach this more overtly. But I want to expose it because it's still informing our sexual behavior, even though we may have never heard it. And you kind of covered it, but the idea that sex is only for procreation or it's only important for procreation. And so you will actually hear men... men on the internet trolling. saw this the other day. ⁓ They're like, yeah, women don't need to orgasm, but men actually have to, to further our race. And then things like, God commanded us to procreate, He didn't command us to pleasure our women, and that kind of bullshit. Most people deconstructing don't believe that, and most people in church probably haven't ever even heard it put that way, but there is an undercurrent of that, even when it's unsaid, that's literally causing male orgasm to be the goal. and female orgasm to literally not matter. And that how does that affect a relationship? Like, is that going to build a relationship well for people? In your experience?
Sarah Ward: Happy life. Like if your girl hasn't come ever, like, and that happens, that absolutely happens, right? Like I watching the secret lives of Mormon wives and one of the people never had orgasm. She had two babies and she was married and divorced, right? But she had never before. I don't think that that's a unique story, right? I think that happens to a lot of people. And if we haven't been given permission to explore our bodies, which I know we're gonna be talking about in the next episode, then unable to understand ⁓ we're able to reach peak states of pleasure ⁓ also unable to teach our partners to be able to do it. ⁓ had a sexual partner who said something kind of similar and that- relationship did not last because I was like, fuck that. Like I'm gonna find somebody who does want that. If that's the hill that you wanna die on, that you don't wanna fucking please your woman, well, who else is going to? It feels really irresponsible. And can we remind the class that a man can ejaculate a hundred million times and not impregnate a woman if he never has an opportunity to? because she won't let him near her. You need to woo your women. Yeah. It is like non-negotiable. I am just astounded that the men on the internet are like. Wow, okay.
Allison Metcalfe: Yes, yeah, and I think that's so important that you brought that up. Men need to woo their women. Men, primarily, for the history of humans, have had to do something to attract a partner. what's interesting is within religion, some of that starts to break down. They can start leaning on spiritual obligations. that that threaten you in a way of like moral, like your morals or who you are or you're standing with God or whatever. And that that creates such an imbalance of power dynamics in the relationship. I can't imagine that it's helping anybody. Like, what do you know about power dynamics in relationships? Do they increase if you if you've got a massive imbalance and the man has a huge power dynamic like he's he's on top and she has little power. Is that fostering a healthy, safe place for her to begin to connect and be sexually present?
Sarah Ward: Not necessarily. mean, like, I can speak to my time, like in the Mormon faith where we're taught like, okay, you can become gods, like men are given the priesthood, which is the power of God on the earth. ⁓ And are given the opportunity to have babies. ⁓ And like, ⁓ cool. ⁓ Thanks. a childless woman speaking to you today. this of like, they would tell us in my faith I had grown up and well, like women don't need it. Women are already so close to God that men are needed to give it. Men need to have priesthood in order for them to like come into their service and ⁓ willingness to be benevolent, right? Like women just have that built in. ⁓ it's kind of interesting, because I think about like sister-in-laws and my brothers, ⁓ my left because of their wives. Like the wives were the one that saw it first. ⁓ And you think about this male and the male Jesus Christ and the male Holy ghost, Like there's not a hell of a lot of for women in that. And this is one thing that I really struggled with is like, show me what I'm capable of becoming. And that was something that really led me out of the faith ⁓ because men it charted out for them. And it's really quite easy. Also this idea of like men are the head of the house and like men get to decide. We're seeing this now in conservative religions right now, this idea of like, well, would have one vote per household and I, the male would be the one that would make that vote. That's bullshit. ⁓
Allison Metcalfe: Boy. No.
Sarah Ward: No, no. While she's barefoot and pregnant at home. These are some pretty uncomfortable power dynamics that exist. And ⁓ feel like there's a dangerous trend that we're witnessing right now ⁓ women being ⁓ pushed of professional spaces and that men are beginning to occupy that more, which means that ⁓ women being told that your place is in the home like hurry on back, you don't need a career. Like, take it from here. Thank you very much. Which is very belittling. And these are gross kind of like overestimations of how human beings want to be. I always wanted to be a professional woman and other women that I know always wanted to be mothers and to stay at home with their children. My best friend is a stay at home mom. And so everybody is quite different. And I know that there are men that do remarkable things in the home in raising the children while their wives who are very high powered and very savvy are out there like leading in things in the corporate world and climbing the ladder. So I don't want to say that it's so binary in this way.
Allison Metcalfe: Right.
Sarah Ward: If my big fat Greek wedding, they say like, the men is the head of the home, but the woman is the neck, right? ⁓
Allison Metcalfe: can turn the head anyway she wants. was like my favorite line of the whole movie. It's so funny. ⁓
Sarah Ward: never forget that. deeply believe that the power is something that we share together. And like, if you look back at like the sacred ⁓ mystery schools ⁓ ancient times, ⁓ the that power was held up is when the man and the woman led together in equality. ⁓ So really think that if we could take something from that, going to create a lot more equilibrium ⁓ and for people to be able to experience pleasure in different ways. ⁓
Allison Metcalfe: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I'm glad you said that, too, because, it's it's not that anybody needs to be a certain way. It's that everybody needs to be free to be they really are. And they need to feel safe to do so without ⁓ shaming ⁓ telling you, no, this is no, I'm above you. That's ⁓ referred to as the umbrella doctrine or umbrella. I don't know, umbrella theology or something where it's like God, ⁓ ⁓ man, then wife, then kids. And it's just it wreaks havoc. If you're going to use the Christian standard of judging the fruit, the fruit is so many abusive relationships. And some people who follow that aren't abusive, but it enables abusers. So there's something wrong with it. I'm really glad you brought that up. And I'm also really, really glad you talked about the male God, the male Jesus, the male Holy Spirit. And I'm just going to plug a future episode. think we're recording it next week with a PhD theologian who she's amazing. She's in the UK and she is writing her thesis on Asherah in the Old Testament and talking about how that's that's Yahweh's wife in the Old Testament and talking about how she's been erased or demonized in the Old Testament. ⁓ yes. ⁓ then many of us know this. I don't know if we're to talk about in the episode, but in the Hebrew translations, always 100 % of the time, Holy Spirit is referred to as a feminine form. So it's just been erased in our translations. It has systematically erased throughout history. The female signature within these old historical and allegorical and poetic documents that we've put together that we call the Bible, they have been systematically cleansed of presence. ⁓ ⁓ what you said, what does that do to a woman when she's wondering about her desire, when she's wondering about her pleasure, when she's saying, do I matter? Do I matter beyond childbirth? There was a verse ⁓ the very, I think it's in Genesis, and it's like the woman will be saved through childbirth. ⁓ is a Bullshit translation that is disgusting and so many people literally believe that that they are like somehow right before God once they have had children But even again, even if we don't believe it, it's the undercurrent of what we're raised up in nobody's preaching that the stage. Even your pastor doesn't believe it or whatever ⁓ It's still in your And so that's where so many of these systemic issues are happening for women in the marriage.
Sarah Ward: cannot wait ⁓ that episode. That's incredible. ⁓ only surviving, I mean, ⁓ symbol of Asherah is the tree, right? And so like the tree of life and like the wisdom, ⁓ the in Proverbs that's talking about wisdom, ⁓ that's the closest thing to like the divine feminine ⁓ that see referenced is in wisdom. ⁓
Allison Metcalfe: She's guiding. She's wise and she's guiding. this brand ⁓ spanking archaeology or translation or whatever. ⁓ The who are working on ⁓ translating, don't know, Dead Sea Scrolls, I don't know where this came from, but they found out some part of the Bible. They've mistranslated a woman into a man for like ⁓ thousands years or something. ⁓ From the New Testament, and this is just brand new, so you'll have to Google it because I don't remember her name. It started with a D or something, and they're like, we just found this. We just, the scholars just discovered she was a woman and this is important. And so that was like, cool. She's not, from what I can tell, she wasn't like a major, major character or anything, but she played an important role. And there was some important stuff that was again erased. And this one didn't seem systematic. They said it was a translation error of one letter, yay. I'm happy. ⁓
Sarah Ward: That's so cool. I love that. ⁓
Allison Metcalfe: So, okay, ⁓ we need to about consent ⁓ in relationships within Christianity because this is that I feel like is So majorly lacking and we did talk about culture in the previous episodes. We talked about how there's this sense that men have this Just I don't know ⁓ urge to conquer and so girls are taught to ⁓ to be careful their blamed when sexual assaults do happen. You talking about in Utah and some of the campuses, girls are expelled, guys have no consequences after a sexual assault because they're no longer following the purity rules of the campus or whatever. that to there's like this giant ball of about consent. And ⁓ I have seen show up in marriages again with Sheila Wray Gregoire's. work ⁓ about women feeling like they literally cannot say ⁓ And this ⁓ is in marriage courses, ⁓ like of the popular marriage courses in Christian church. Often, if you Google this or if you look it up on YouTube, you can hear a lot of sermons where men will talk about the 72-hour rule ⁓ or the 48-hour rule or some variation of that. ⁓ that's where basically, ⁓ if you're not giving it to your husband every 48, 72, whatever arbitrary number, kind of stepping into sin territory. ⁓ I just want to ask you, ⁓ does consent look like in a marriage and how, how can we be like moving away from that and healing from that kind of bullshit?
Sarah Ward: I mean, first off, ⁓ wasn't it was like in my ⁓ 30s I even learned what the word consent meant. ⁓ Because tell you, the church didn't want me to know, right? Like it's not of their highest and best interest if I am aware ⁓ of advocating for consent, which is really slippery slope, right? Like we were talking about rape culture earlier and if feels as though it is a need and that they are entitled that gets to be really dangerous territory. Emily book Come As You Are, which is required reading for humankind.
Allison Metcalfe: Yep, I love that book.
Sarah Ward: She talks about how there is a misnomer of sex drive. ⁓ when we think about sexual appetite as a drive and compare it to like hunger or thirst or sleep, like these types of like human necessities and requirements, ⁓ that people to step out of line and to begin behaving in really atrocious ways and taking what they think is theirs. ⁓ because it's not a drive. Like you cannot have sex your entire life and you will be okay, actually, you will survive. So I think that's really important. The piece feels like, so ⁓ also like there's a continuum. I have a client who my wife says yes, but she ⁓ basically says, you can my body how you want. and then she checks out. That's not enthusiastic consent. And so the idea of being able to come together and to feel like they have a voice to say, actually, like, I'm not feeling it right now. What if we did this instead, right? Perhaps we do mutual masturbation or I can watch you as you masturbate, ⁓ as to the expectation of any time that I have a want, ⁓ you fulfill it for me. ⁓ ⁓ that's pretty dicey territory and Consent should be able to happen without coercion for somebody to a no and to not pout about it ⁓ stonewall become or antagonistic. I think that ⁓ the idea hypothetically that consenting this, ⁓ but unless someone give you a no without being punished by it, ⁓ then that's coercion.
Allison Metcalfe: I'm so glad you stated it so specifically, so strongly, because that's, I hear that all the time. I feel like in the Christian marriages is like saying yes, but you don't really want it. And also saying yes, because you really are not allowed to say no. I mean, there's like spiritual consequences. You are sinning or whatever. The one I hear a lot, I actually have it written down here. This is said all the time from a pulpit. Or from Christian counseling, I heard this multiple times. Well, if he doesn't get enough sex, and it was like enough sex, going to use porn when that's something that you both agreed was not gonna happen in your relationship. He's gonna use porn, ⁓ not gonna help you around the house or with the kids or any chores, and he's not gonna share the mental load, and he will probably cheat on you, and it will be your fault. ⁓ is what I heard over and over and over and over again. So of course you're gonna be like. Okay, I guess I have to.
Sarah Ward: which comes back to like the responsibility piece that we had talked about in the last episode of how women are being made responsible for the actions of men, even though this is not their responsibility. I am not responsible for my partner. You are not responsible for your partner. No women on the planet is responsible for her partner. And yet this is what we're being told. there is, this is such a systemic issue where we talk about burnout, right? We're hearing, by and large, women are getting burnt out. We've all been there, right? And also, we're taking it upon us as some sort of a personal failure, as opposed to what it is, which is a systemic issue, ⁓ where ⁓ if, if not to enough support within our communities, then somehow it's her job to have a job and raise children and be on the PTA and, you know, take kids to soccer practice. Like we used to live in communes, right? Like we would live in multi-generational homes where people were able to support in the ways, in different ways. And now that we have these single family households, like it's actually not supporting us in that way, but we're making women wrong for it. saying, well, That's a you problem, but it's not. This is an us problem. This is a societal issue. we had the holidays. Think about how much unpaid labor goes into the holidays being a magical time. ⁓ Unpaid labor.
Allison Metcalfe: Yeah. Yep. That everyone else benefits from and she probably doesn't benefit from it all this time.
Sarah Ward: She probably doesn't even think twice about it either.
Allison Metcalfe: Yeah, I didn't for years and years and years and years. I only started just I want to say earlier this year realizing maybe I don't have to do everything. I why I had a nine year chronic And it's like, ⁓ this makes sense. So I'm curious, would you say ⁓ sharing the mental ⁓ is going to ⁓ at least open more opportunities for like sexual intimacy and closeness between partners. Does that play into it?
Sarah Ward: I'm so glad that you asked that question. I am thinking of a time that I was just backstage at a show a month ago, two months ago, and we're talking about sex, right? And the women are like, if you pulled your weight around the house, then I'd be more likely to say yes to you. And it's funny because true. ⁓ And like foreplay could absolutely be like, hey babe, let me put the kids to bed for you. ⁓ Let me load the dishwasher for you. Let me do the laundry that's been piling up. If there was an equal of, and it doesn't even have to be equal, but like, can I see that you're pulling the weight? Can I see that you're making efforts to keep our household running appropriately? You had asked about libido in our last episode. And one of the reasons that women really struggle ⁓ with is because of stress. ⁓ it's because there's just so much going on. And there are naysayers who will say, well, this is why women don't deserve to like be a part of the working community. And that's not the point of this. The point of this is like finding ways to handle this. But a woman ⁓ feeling very, or a man for that matter, feeling very stressed out from a survival perspective, what's being happened? Because the human genome was created on the Serengeti, sex is survival, right? sex our society and the human race to continue to populate, but it is a lower priority than if you're being chased by a tiger. ⁓ If you're being chased by a tiger, that's a much higher priority than And so, ⁓ The ways that our bodies are responding to stress is as though a tiger is chasing us. And so we wonder where our libido went, but it's biological. This is our nervous system protecting us. You don't have enough energy to go around because everything is being diverted into making sure that you survive the proverbial tiger attack, even though there's no more tigers that are attacking us.
Allison Metcalfe: Yeah. Yeah, that just makes me think too. I want to mention that if someone is in a relationship and this is where it gets really hard because the church Has a so gaslit and so ⁓ such cognitive dissonance ⁓ you're in a relationship i'm just speaking to listeners ⁓ If in a relationship that is actually abusive ⁓ Your system will continue to tell you that ⁓ if relationship is not safe for you If the person is not showing up for you, you'll know know that over and over again. What can also happen is if you're in a very safe relationship, you are in this state, this burnout state or this stress state, and your nervous system will throw up kind of false flags. It's not false flags, but it's not actually about him or the relationship. It's actually what's going on in you. And the reason I'm glad you said this is because and Amelia Nagoski wrote Burnout, which is like the most incredible book ⁓ ⁓ how your nervous system regulation will open the way again to these things. And I just want to point out because this happens all the time in the Christian church, that you will not be able to regulate past actual abuse. And I see women doing, trying, trying to do that because they're so blamed, because the burden of the relationship succeeding is on their shoulders, because because divorce is not allowed, all of these different things that are going on.
Sarah Ward: Mmm.
Allison Metcalfe: they will try to regulate their abuse, will try to personally develop beyond a relationship that's unhealthy. And so is never going to work. And that information is going to keep being presented until you find safety. So that's speaking to any listeners who are in that situation. And that's you, I want you to get help. I want you to talk to someone. Don't stay in that. know way too many women who do. ⁓ there are even pastors finally, finally starting to speak up about this. And so there are people, I mean, you can even send me or Sarah an email if we're the only people you can find, that is fine. And we will help you get connected to resources. I'm sure there's lots of places we can get you connected to, but not talking to you when you're in an abusive situation. When I say ⁓ nervous system regulation can help you overcome those flags that make your nervous system makes you think it's them, but then it's actually Sometimes it's not, sometimes it is the systemic stress. Sometimes there's other stuff going on and that's where, like your work, my work and your work, somatically coming into the body can help rewire that,
Sarah Ward: feel like there's so much that we can pull here. And I know that our time is limited, ⁓ what I want to say as well, I'm going through a nervous system training. And one of ⁓ Q and A's that my teacher was, was going through just the other day was somebody saying, should I stay or should I go in my relationship? And she's like, I can't answer that for you. ⁓ what's very important to know is that this is when we start talking about like attachment style theory. If you attachment theory, if you have. ⁓ grown up in a family in which feeling unsafe is familiar to you, safe person will feel foreign and weird and uncomfortable. ⁓ so it may be that you feel like leaving a safe relationship because you're just unused to ⁓ in a safe place. Safety might feel like boredom, right? Where like chasing somebody might feel a lot more exciting. And that can also be like, not healthy. So I just want to like say that as a caveat. And also I understand that from a practical perspective, women who are in, just women, men who are experiencing abuse, ⁓ can be tricky to extricate yourself. ⁓ so I just want to name that like, maybe it's going to take a little bit of time, ⁓ please start to have conversations with people ⁓ will say things other than then like just get dinner on the table by 6 p.m. and you'll be fine. Because that's reductive.
Allison Metcalfe: or continue to personally develop so you can save the relationship because divorce is not an option. no, don't to that. Unfortunately, there's coming out right now. Another very famous Christian author and the editor of Christianity Today of like 30 years just came out and was having an eight year. ⁓ ⁓ affair with another married woman and it's so crazy. The entire internet and Christian culture has supported him and just begged her to get back with him and restoration and what a good story and all of this. If she really wanted that, that's totally fine. That is absolutely fine. ⁓ But I I wonder, I just wonder if that's really what we want. Do we want people to be telling the truth? Yes, ⁓ we people. ⁓ to be actually feeling safe because again, you will never find nervous system regulation if you are continually in a situation that is dangerous. And so it's not your fault if that's happening. I just want to say that because I heard it over and over and over and over and over again in the church and with different marriages and people in communities that were around me. Yeah, it was always blamed on the woman and that that era is over. We're done with that. No, we accept that anymore. ⁓ Okay, so we want to wrap, yes. Try to wrap this, like we literally could keep going forever. I know. Let's just like summarize a couple of the elements that we hit on for a healthy, intimate relationship. Can you summarize a couple of those?
Sarah Ward: Totally. Healthy intimate relationships, mutual respect is a great place to start. Care, compassion for the other, compassion for the other's experience, right? Like, God, I'm feeling a lot of pressure to have sex with you right now. To be able to hold that and to hear that and ⁓ to tend that very lovingly. ⁓ I would safety is such a non-negotiable piece. And it's so different if you're a man that's listening or. living a male body and just knowing that safety is such a different experience for someone who's born female or who is non-binary or trans than it is for, you know, cis, hetero male. Communication, having open communication, consent, healthy desire, making room for the other person to share what it is that they're interested in experiencing. Yeah, I feel like that kind of sums it up.
Allison Metcalfe: It does. That is an excellent list. And if you're leaning on that list, I think you are going to be it's a great rubric for relationship.
Sarah Ward: ⁓
Allison Metcalfe: Well, Sarah, you so much for coming and chatting about ⁓ healthy, intimate and ⁓ how high religion can sometimes really fuck us up in this area. But that there's some really simple things, there's ⁓ simple values we bring into our relationships that really keep us safe. ⁓ And that is ultimately what we need. So I appreciate you sharing your experience and ⁓ what you've and some of your own experiences as well. ⁓
Sarah Ward: Thank you. And it's possible to unlearn the things that we've learned, right? That's what neuroplasticity and neuroscience is telling us. Like we can learn different ways. Even if you saw this modeled with your parents, even if you saw this modeled in the church, you can choose different things.
