(Presione aquí para leer en español) Did you know that single women are sexual? That your sexuality has nothing to do with whether or not you are having sex? As ridiculous as it sounds, many Christians grow up thinking that they will magically become sexual when they...
When women ask their honest questions about sexuality, the most common ones typically relate to whether certain things are right or wrong for Christian women to engage in. They want to know where the boundaries lie. (Presione aquí para leer en español). Is...
Excerpted from 25 Questions You’re Afraid to Ask About Love, Sex, and Intimacy by Dr. Juli Slattery. © 2015 by Moody Publishers. Used with Permission. This question is a powder-keg–an extremely sensitive issue. If you have gay or bi-sexual tendencies, this is not just...
A.W. Tozer wrote, “The most important thing about you is what you believe about God.” There is a lot in the news today about what Christian leaders think about Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, and gay marriage. Specifically, Jen Hatmaker’s recent comments have created...
When I talk to women about sex in marriage, one of the most common concerns is their bodies. “I’m just not sexy!” Practically every woman feels like she is either too old, too fat, too flat-chested, or too plain to be sexy. We live in a world that has definite...
Over the past few decades, we’ve slowly been eroding what it means to be male and female. Recently this movement has culminated in normalizing transgenderism and the vilification of anyone who stands upon a traditional definition of male and female. Just last week,...
I am sometimes lovingly accused of being so lost in my work and family that I don’t know what is going on in the world. It’s as if the Hannah and Carrie from the Authentic Intimacy team knock on the hatch of my “submarine” to tell me about the latest trends and...
It is not often that I find myself in agreement with Lady Gaga and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, but last night was an exception. In a dramatic presentation, Lady Gaga performed Till it Happens To You as dozens of male and female victims of sexual...
This past year, Barbie has been in the news. For 57 years, this plastic woman has projected the ideal and unattainable image for American girls. The Daily Mail reported in 2013; a real-life Barbie would have “bones so frail it would be impossible to walk and would...
Our nation was recently appalled to discover that a city government in Flint, Michigan has been serving their citizens poisonous water for over a year. When concerns were raised, government officials gaffed them off as isolated incidents. Tragically, young children...
Has anyone ever told you that your ears are beautiful? Even sexy? I’ll let you in on a little secret: your ears just may be the most attractive part of your body. No, God didn’t make ears physically appealing. In fact, they seem to look the best when they blend into...
If you look in the mirror long enough, you’re going to see things you don’t like. Wrinkles, a nose that’s too big, flabby skin, and a body that is a better fit for Good Housekeeping than Vogue. Maybe you don’t have to look into the mirror to notice these things. Your...
In response to some of the posts I’ve written on issues like transgenderism and Fifty Shades of Grey, I’ve heard from women who are angry that I would present some sexual choices or lifestyles as morally wrong. Here is an example: Who are you to say that sleeping with...
What is sexual discipleship, why is it the heart and mission of Authentic Intimacy, and how do we live it out?
How does a preacher minister to the sexually hurting from the pulpit? Dr. Sam Serio has some key insights.
Muchas veces los padres cristianos de hoy se sienten divididos entre los mensajes culturales de la positividad sexual y las enseñanzas tradicionales de la iglesia sobre guardar sexo para el matrimonio, ya que ambos parecen estar llenos de desafíos y peligros...
En la última década, me he parado físicamente frente a más de 100,000 personas para enseñar sobre la sexualidad. Mi trabajo literalmente consiste en hablar de sexo. Pero aquí hay un pequeño secreto. Las conversaciones más difíciles que he tenido sobre sexo han sido...
Mi esposo recien habia regresado a la casa con nuestro hijo menor después de un fin de semana fuera para una charla sobre el sexo. Christian, con once años en ese momento, tímidamente me dijo, “Mamá, me siento demasiado joven para saber todas estas cosas sobre el...
Mientras estaba de pie frente al espejo, conté la cantidad de cicatrices en mi estómago, esparcidas por todo mi vientre como los rayones de un niño pequeño con un crayón. ¿Cómo podría volver a sentirme...
Escrito por Zack Skarka. Mi invitado en el blog de hoy es mi ser humano favorito, ¡Zack Skarka! Después de compartir mi lucha con la imagen corporal la semana pasada, invité a Zack a que también contara su versión...
On the surface, they looked like a perfect Christian couple. Always together, with his arm around her waist. Her friends would admit to feeling a bit jealous. Abby never goes anywhere without Jake; he’s so attentive. I can barely get my husband to notice that I’m in...
My guest on the blog today is my favorite human, Zack Skarka! After I shared my struggle with body image, I invited Zack to tell his side of the story too. If you need to share this blog with your husband, please know that I'll be praying for you! Ask God for wisdom,...
As I stood in front of the mirror, I counted the number of scars displayed across my stomach, splattered across my belly like a toddler with a crayon. How could I ever feel beautiful again, let alone sexy? My thoughts were interrupted as my husband came up behind me...
I’ll never be able to kick porn for good! I hate sex. I’ll never be able to enjoy it with my husband. I’m damaged beyond repair. I can’t have a great sex life if I don’t have a beautiful body. Have thoughts like these ever crossed your mind? If so, where do you think...
Over the past several months, many of you have messaged our team here at Authentic Intimacy asking for my opinion on a recent book or controversy within the Christian community. Most recently, people want my opinion on the new film adaptation of Redeeming Love. You...
Our sexuality is not an isolated part of who we are, but an integrated aspect of what it means to be created in God’s image and loved by Him. Our sexual questions and pain points connect with our deepest longings and fears. It’s impossible to grapple with our sexuality without also confronting our foundational beliefs about God. Is He good? Is He trustworthy? Does He see me?
This question is where it all begins for me: Can I really trust God with everything, including my sexuality? (Presione aquí para leer en español) I still picture myself in my room that night, tossing and turning, overwhelmed by the anguish in my soul. Gripping the...
A book release. Normally this would be an exciting event. It’s kind of like giving birth to a child that you have nurtured in your womb for nine months. As this one approaches, my excitement is honestly mixed with trepidation. Over twenty years ago, I wrote my first...
Are you dating someone and wondering if the red flags you see are reason enough to break up with him or her? Do your friends and family have concerns about the relationship? If you feel in your heart that something is just not right, don’t ignore it. It might be the...
This is part three of a three-part series from Juli's book Finding the Hero in Your Husband, Revisited. As recently as a few decades ago, many Christian women believed that in order to be loving wives they had to limit their own personal potential. Loving and...
This is part two of a three-part series from, "Finding the Hero in Your Husband, Revisited.”* A wife’s greatest dilemma is that you want your husband to lead, but you want him to lead the way you tell him to. There is a tension between desperately wanting to...
The first in a 3-part series from "Finding the Hero in Your Husband, Revisited."* Author Margo Kaufman once wrote, “The only thing worse than a man you can’t control is a man you can.” I’ve experienced this bind. Have you? I desperately want to build the hero in my...
Here’s a little secret I learned a few years into marriage: I didn’t know if I really loved Mike until I felt no feelings of love toward him. The sense of “feeling love” had to fade away for me to be able to learn how to really love my husband. My friend, and this...
“Shame on you!” If you grew up in my generation, this is a sentence you probably heard as a child. You were told that you should be ashamed of the way you treated your sister, for stealing that candy bar, or for talking back. These are also words that I’ve probably...
We invited John Fort, the director of training at Be Broken Ministries, to be our guest writer for this article. John has many years of experience in sexual addiction recovery, both personally and professionally. He is also the author of Honest Talk: A New Perspective...
In the midst of my guilt and shame, frustration filled my mind. “I can’t believe I sinned… again. Does God hate me for my addiction? Will I ever find freedom?” Countless men and women I’ve talked to have asked similar questions. What are you supposed to do when you...
True confessions... I don't love Christmas. I didn't say I hate Christmas; I just don't love it. My ambivalence around this holiday has developed over time. Too many years of disappointment when a family member's illness cancelled our celebration and all the best...
I’m in my-mid forties, divorced, and lonely. I love God and want to follow His plan for sex and marriage, but I just can’t find a man who is willing to share that journey with me. I’m not the naive young woman “saving sex for marriage” like I was in my twenties. I’m...
*Trigger warning, mention of assault and trauma. This past spring, I spent 30 nights alone in the hospital without my loving husband by my side. One night, as I laid in my hospital bed, I thought back on the decision I made to marry him. Little did I know how my...
(Presione aquí para leer en español.) Whenever I speak to a group of people about sexuality, I try to include time for an anonymous Q&A session. No matter who is listening, young or old, male or female, married or single, I am sure to be asked...
*The two-part blog series we’re kicking off this week is a sneak peak into what Dr. Juli Slattery has been working on ... a complete rewrite of her book Finding the Hero in Your Husband. Stay tuned for updates on when it will be released in 2021!* In my...
Household chores represent probably the most pressing “minor issue” in marriage for a lot of couples because it’s a conflict that never goes away. Every day, someone has to do the dishes, take out the trash, do laundry, cook dinner, and clean the sink. There’s no...
Tina and I met together for counseling several years ago to work through some traumatic experiences from her past. A year after our work together was done, Tina came in for a “check up.” She shared with me that within that year, she had undergone surgery, radiation,...
Have you ever faced a difficult season only to have friends tell you to trust in God? While you know their advice is right, it doesn’t seem very practical. What does it actually look like to trust in God through trials and discouragement? David faced almost every...
Sometimes what is happening in the world overwhelms my “to do” list. Today feels like one of those days. This blog post isn’t about intimacy, relationships, or sexuality. It’s about the brokenness we all see all around us. As children and teenagers, our spiritual and...
I grew up in a family of six kids, all very close in age. My position as “number five” out of six is probably a huge part of why I became a psychologist. My earliest pictures are often of me in a playpen observing family life. As teenagers, my sisters and I became...
In case you haven’t heard, Fifty Shades of Grey was recently named the best-selling book of the decade. When I saw this come through my newsfeed, my first thought was, “Here we go again…” I’m quite certain that we will have another round of debates about the...
After a long day of taking care of three little boys, cooking, cleaning, and juggling work responsibilities, I had reached the “finish line.” It was my time to rest. I ignored the subtle flirtations of my husband, Mike, hoping he would get the hint that I was not in...
This summer I’ve been in my “writing cave”, spending countless hours finishing my next book about sexual discipleship, called Rethinking Sexuality. (The message of this book is challenging Christians to be grounded in biblical truth and equipping them to surrender...
I just read a book by Dr. Lisa Wade called American Hookup which describes the sexual culture on college campuses. Sexual activity has been so severed from relationship that kids “hooking up” are discouraged from even talking to the person they just had sex with. One...
“He slurps his soup, bites his fingernails and always leaves his dirty clothes on the floor. I expected the relational challenges of marriage, but my biggest problem is that I can barely stand to be in the same room with the man!” I wonder how many marriages are...
Endless romance. Hot sex. Being best-best-best-best friends. These are just some of the idealistic hopes we pile onto marriage. There are good motivations behind each of these hopes, but let's just be real. It's probably not all going to happen. Though it is a...
Recently, a newly wed friend asked me this question. “What’s the purpose of marriage? Sometimes I think of it as free sex and housekeeping. Is marriage just an arrangement of living off my husband financially in exchange for taking care of a home and making meals?”...
Christmas shopping for my husband is always a challenge. He's a particular guy. He takes hours to pick out a gym bag and days to choose a watch. On my own, I never get it right. He's also the kind of guy who usually buys what he needs and doesn't wait for Christmas....
Whenever I write a blog on a controversial sexual issue, I typically hear from people who remind me that God says not to judge other people. Whether I’m teaching about pornography, Fifty Shades of Grey, living together outside of marriage, divorce or homosexuality,...
When we think about the holidays, we tend to dread the busyness and added stress that can frustrate intimacy in marriage. Most couples argue about bills, relatives and crazy calendars once mid-November hits. Instead of allowing this to happen in your marriage, I’d...
Before we even get into discussing whether something is right or wrong in the bedroom, I want to emphasize that God’s desire is for you and your husband to experience great pleasure! His standards are not to limit your enjoyment, but to heighten it. I think many Christian couples have no idea what freedom they have in the bedroom. They settle for “vanilla” sex (aka, the missionary position), placing self-imposed restrictions on themselves that have nothing to do with God’s perspective. God made the marriage relationship a safe place for a husband and wife to explore, experiment, laugh, and get lost in sensational sex.
When you think you’ve heard it all… I recently saw an article predicting that having sex with robots will be commonplace within the next decade. Tech manufacturers are working feverishly to create robotic sex partners with the ability to program a person’s emotional...
The stereotype of an adulterous affair in marriage has typically been the picture of a cheating husband. The man has a one-night stand on a business trip or falls in love with his secretary. I guess it never occurred to us that for every cheating man, there must also...
Have you ever read a portion of the Bible that gave you pause? As you read, you thought, “That doesn’t seem to square with what I think about God.” This has happened to me many times reading the Old Testament prophets or the book of Revelation, but I also have that...
Over the past few weeks, we’ve heard from a few of you that are frustrated that we talk so much about what men need in marriage. Several of our recent podcasts and last week’s webinar have been about helping you understand your husband’s needs and...
I call them the “flannelgraph lessons” — the Bible stories I first heard in Sunday school. The story of the Good Samaritan rates right up there with David and Goliath and Jonah and the great fish. Isn’t if funny (or sad) that we can hear these famous biblical stories...
I can remember being a teenager, babysitting at my sister’s house. On her nightstand, she had a book about sex. I was intrigued . . . I was curious! I would never have admitted that to anyone back then, but in the privacy of her house I looked through the book. Asking...
He spends hours a day playing Call Of Duty, can’t make a decision, and throws a temper tantrum when he doesn’t get his way. He may be over six feet tall and intimidating to a stranger, but he still behaves like he’s 15. Does this describe your husband? If so, you’re...
I can remember the day vividly – my invitation to motherhood. Mike and I were visiting his brother and sister-in-law in Madison, Wisconsin and I was feeling more exhausted than normal. I was a few days “late” but we were using birth control, so surely I couldn’t be...
Women often ask me about how much of your past is healthy to share in intimate relationships. How much does a potential husband need to know about your sexual experiences and struggles? How much should he tell you? This is one of those issues that relationship coaches...
Our guest today is Francie Winslow. Francie hosts the weekly Heaven in Your Home podcast where she offers fresh, biblical ways of thinking about married sex and what it reveals to us about God. We just endured a brutally exhausting Christmas break. We had high...
Your social media feed is probably filled with examples of the latest person who has been “cancelled” because of something they said years ago or an unpopular position they recently expressed. Being cancelled is a weapon powerful enough to prompt teens to take their...
Sex and love. They are supposed to go together, right? To hear some people talk, you might think that sex is the most important part of marriage, and if you listened to others, you’d think it really doesn’t matter at all. How important is a healthy sex life to...
Cathy and Jim had been married for almost 20 years. At the beginning of their marriage, neither of them took their Christian faith too seriously. An occasional visit to church was enough. Through the challenges of raising children, health scares and financial...
With each birthday celebration, I have friends and relatives who console each other by saying something like, “At least we are getting wiser!” There is an old adage that with age comes wisdom. Without a doubt, the longer we live on the planet, the more we have seen...
*The two-part blog series we’re wrapping up this week is a sneak peak into what Dr. Juli Slattery has been working on ... a complete rewrite of her book Finding the Hero in Your Husband. Stay tuned for updates on when it will be released in 2021!* Now that we...
This guest post by Mary DeMuth first appeared here. This is one of those posts I am starting that I don’t know how it will end. During this time of COVID, racial tension, and employment worries, I (like you) have had some space to observe my life. And...
It’s Monday and He Is Still Risen! Do you have an Easter hangover? Did you eat too much candy or ham? Maybe like the Slattery family, you spent the day outside and have sunburn as a memorial. Whatever the residue in your house may be from Easter, I hope it is...
Yesterday, Mike and I were in downtown Denver to visit a friend in the Denver trauma hospital. On the way, we stopped by Whole Foods to get some snacks for our friends as they pass the long hours in the hospital. “Why are the streets so busy on a Saturday morning?” we...
We spend a lot of time as Christ-followers talking about forgiving one another. After all, Jesus taught the importance of forgiveness, saying that our Heavenly Father will not forgive us if we fail to forgive each other. That’s pretty heavy! While forgiveness is a...