The Warrior Wives of Evangelical Christianity

Last updated on: November 10, 2014 at 10:35 am

November 10, 2014 by Guest Contributor

“Your husband will want sex way more than you do,” advises Elizabeth of the blog Warrior Wives in a post called “Wifey Sex Confessions.” God just made him to think about sex more than you. … Never demean this about him. Never laugh at him or make fun of him. Accept it as a difference.”

Accept it as a difference. It may sound like so much cliched marital advice, but this is a much-discussed idea about sexuality in the evangelical Christian community: Men and women are different. “There’s a lot of concern among evangelical men and women about traditional roles being overturned,” said Amy DeRogatis, an associate professor of religion at Michigan State University, in an interview. Her new book, Saving Sex, focuses on the anxieties evangelicals feel about sexuality in American culture. But not other people’s sexuality—their own.

Amid the recent wave of gay-marriage legalizations and debates over reproductive rights that were sparked by this summer’s Supreme Court decision in Hobby Lobby, it can be easy to assume that evangelical teachings on sexuality are straightforwardly traditional. But “how you have sex, when you have sex, the amount of sex you have, when you have children—even the smallest act within an evangelical marriage can have these larger-than-life meanings,” said DeRogatis. “How you have sex within marriage is incredibly important for you as a Christian, and also as a form of witnessing.”

What this means is that there’s a surprising amount of sex talk within the evangelical community.

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