How 'Every Young Man's Battle Makes Everything Worse ft. Andrew Bauman & Zachary Wagner - Ep 192

Links to things mentioned:
Our Patreon! Support us for as little as $5 a month and join our exclusive Facebook group, plus help support our research!
/ baremarriage
Our new book She Deserves Better--the audio has now launched!
baremarriage.c...
Our one-sheet download of the problems with Every Young Man's Battle
baremarriage.c...
Our podcast with Zachary Wagner, his new book Non-Toxic Masculinity, and his Twitter
baremarriage.c...
www.amazon.ca/...
/ zacharycwagner
Andrew Bauman's book The Sexually Healthy Man and his Facebook
www.amazon.ca/...
/ andrewjamesbauman
Our Whole Story puberty course to tell your kids about sex & puberty!
baremarriage.c...

[@shannalee80]

Thanks for having and showing this discussion. I just wish that more evangelicals understood that it’s impossible to go along with this stuff without having a HORRIBLE view of men. Also, square the theology with having this view of men AND also believing that only men can be leaders in the church. SIGH. 😔

[@starlingswallow]

Shanna, you said this beautifully ❤

[@babyname_ramble]

The fact that they're exposing young boys to such explicit sexual concepts while so many girls are kept in the dark until weeks before their wedding night is absolutely disgusting. Imagine suggesting a boy might try going under the clothes of a girl who still blushes at the thought of holding hands.

[@aaronlewis8948]

I can't say thank you enough for this. I didn't realize until just recently how much this book and purity culture in general has damaged me. I didn't have a healthy view of sexuality growing up. I read this book when I was a teenager. The tips they give just don't work, especially bouncing the eyes. I've tried that and it was a disaster. This discussion opened my eyes just to how much even though I would claim I respected girls and women, how much I have been disrespecting women over the years. I won't go in detail what I've done in my past, but it dehumanized girls and women and that feels horrible.

[@DunderMifflin_ThisisPam]

I loved this conversation. Learned SO much! Really helped my husband and I to start decompressing all the teachings we were under based on this and other Stephen Arterburn books. Sadly, my favorite worship podcast just announced a partnership with Arterburn's materials/Lifeway. I reached out to the organization and shared politely how disappointing that was. At least I tried to speak up. So discouraging that these books are still being used and promoted.

[@aaronlewis8948]

I'm having to deconstruct the purity culture I grew up with in church. It's hard to do it. I read the book when I was 14 or 15 in Sunday School.

[@SheilaWrayGregoire]

Thank you for trying and for speaking up!

[@rivendells_shona]

I have to say this when Wagner mentioned “Take me to Church”-while I’m not about to sing the song’s praises, it’s not truly about elevating s*x to a religious experience in a vacuum. It’s coming from the perspective of someone with church hurt saying (with no small amount of rage) that they feel more seen and loved in the bedroom in sinful relationship than they ever did by the church community. “Take me to church I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies I'll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife” ^these are worse of deep pain, and I think a lot of people who grew up in purity culture can identify with them.

[@SewSoUnique]

What a great topic. So glad your podcast popped up.

[@ameslynne6540]

😱 every time Sheila reads a quote from this book

[@marcoalfonzo9637]

We went through this book as single guys, and it was life changing the Young Man's book says 14 years, but we were all over 18.

[@micahbush5397]

Another problem with the language in this book: It doesn't prepare boys for extended periods of singleness. If men's sex drives are these irrepressible pressures that can only be relieved through marriage, then young men basically have to get married as early as possible, sometime between the end of high school and the end of college. *But that's not the norm!* The average age of first marriage for men is around 30 years old, so boys reading _Every Young Man's Battle_ are being prepared to hold out for only 5 years or so, when they're more likely to have to hold out for 15 years or more. Even going back to the beginning of the 20th century, the average age of first marriage for men was around 26, several years older than what this teaching prepares boys to hold out for. The lowest average age of first marriage for men in the past century is around 23, during the late-1940s through the early 1960s. As with so many other aspects of Evangelical culture, we've taken an exceptional point in history (when Evangelical power and influence just so happened to be at its height) and made it out to be the norm.

[@user-gx4wi4cv2m]

So wouldn’t you think that the age should change then and on average be lower?

[@starlingswallow]

Praise God for these amazing Godly men!! I am horrified regarding this book and that it has sold millions of copies?! This book is normalizing such horrible thoughts & actions. 😢

[@starlingswallow]

I am crying. I can't believe this book has passed through the hands of millions of teen boys. It breaks my heart. You all are making such great points. It FEELS like the enemy has strategically used these authors to push the very dark and evil view/understandings of sex IN THE CHURCH! I can't believe it 😢 God, please continue to change the tide of this mess and bring about a great change, in Jesus name! ❤

[@aaronlewis8948]

@@starlingswallow I was one of the teenage boys who read that book. I read the book again when I was in my 20s, and it wasn't until after I listened to the podcast how bad it was and just how much it's damaged me. I was 14 or 15 when I read the book for the first time.

[@kristinvanvalkenburg716]

I was probably sixteen when the church decided to have a sexual purity youth event. I was on the church version of student counsel when they were discussing the curriculum and I remember hearing things I had never, ever thought about, considered, or crossed paths with... I felt disgusted and very self-conscious, but I raised my hand and asked the youth pastor, "Are we sure this is a good idea? Intervention may be needed for teens who are struggling with something specifically related to this, but aren't you literally introducing the rest of the teens to habits and concepts that aren't even in their vocabulary? Aren't you just giving the rest of them ideas?" I was told that all teens struggle with these issues so the whole youth group should be involved. I should have spoken more personally, but I was embarrassed. If I could go back and advocate for myself and the rest of the teens I would have a lot to say now, but back then I just sat quietly, disturbed and disappointed.

[@SheilaWrayGregoire]

Good for you for seeing the problem! You showed more wisdom than your leaders. And honestly, they wouldn't have listened to you anyway, most likely.

[@liav4102]

I think there’s really something there in the observation that it’s Mothers who are scared wanting a resource for their son and why a resource that views men as predators being normal would appeal to them. I wonder how common being assaulted as a minor is in mothers who give positive reviews of this book are. 😢 what a heavy burden to place on their sons

[@cristidormiendo5743]

I’ve heard of this book and the men’s version but never read any portion of it or reviews of it. I’m shocked, I had assumed it was a book to help men/ young men avoid the traps of p-rn and sex outside of marriage. As your guests astutely notice it sounds like they are working through the twisted beliefs they had as younger men and published their secret journals trying to unburden themselves of what they did and thought. No, not all young men have these thoughts on their own. Thank you for this conversation. This is not appropriate for 12 yr olds, no matter what the culture is like now.

[@aaronlewis8948]

I read the book as a teenager and then again around a decade ago. I didn't realize just how much the book and its teachings had damaged me. If I get married and have a son, he's never reading the book. In the church I was growing up in, which I've left (I didn't leave for this reason), we were taught not to have sex before marriage, but we weren't taught about sex. Purity culture damaged so many of us, both boys and girls, because a healthy view of sex wasn't talked about.

[@helenr4300]

Yikes! It feels less for boys and more the authors' telling on themselves. Horrible to say but this feels like the book that Josh Duggar read

[@penelopejoywebster9341]

Josh Duggar probably did read this book.

[@kristinewilson5260]

Sorry i haven't listened to your entire podcast due to time and having to finish my college schoolwork at CCU...please give an alternative? My 15 y.o. grandson is doing what many kids are doing today - sharing nude photos online to other girls they met on the internet gaming apps via their phones, school laptops and any way they can find. This is not ok behavior. BTW, there is also a book called Every Young Woman's Battle by Shannon Etheridge that's being used to counsel the girls who are also sharing nude photos.

[@penelopejoywebster9341]

Basically, these men are trying to justify their own sinful thoughts instead of repenting of them, and they are teaching boys to justify theirs. Where are the good men?

[@thedarkconservatarian6806]

That is a lie! Say of how flawed you think the book is, which it is, but in no ways did they ever try and justify their own lustful thoughts past or present, when I read the book myself.

[@SteelinDan]

Yeah, they’re blowing this book way out of proportion.