We all know what toxic masculinity is. But what is healthy masculinity?
Here's my attempt to define it in a non-weird way, wher eit's not all "be strong!" or "lead!"
baremarriage.com/2025/09/what...
Thank you @sheilagregoire.bsky.social!
Marriages that harm us are not God’s will.
Marriages that hurt our children are not God’s will.
And marriages where staying together enables someone else to be selfish and cruel—not God’s will.
We make a mockery of God, and of marriage, when we treat it like it is!
These influencers are the byproduct/ Frankensteins of biblical womanhood/ purity culture books in 70s-80s/ Dobson etc & reap the financial rewards at the expense of innocent children. @sheilagregoire.bsky.social open.substack.com/pub/baremarr...
A list of primary books for the Second Semester for Omnibus III, which includes Mein Kampf
Wilson insists that children read Hitler's defence of himself, and justification for the Holocaust.
Note how he frames Hitler's rise to power--"a fire broke out in a major public building..."
A picture of the textbook with a large picture of Hitler and the title "Mein Kampf"
In Doug Wilson's Omnibus III curriculum, meant for 14-year-olds, he assigns Mein Kampf (by Hitler!).
My daughter Rebecca's asking a question today: Why do things stay toxic in the church? Because too few of us are willing to speak up and, in the words of the Matilda musical, be a little bit naughty.
It's my Substack today!
open.substack.com/pub/baremarr...
Just listened to @sheilagregoire.bsky.social on @sonsofpatriarchy.bsky.social and it was phenomenal!
All well said and I look forward to hearing more in the future. Some of those stats were really eye opening.
Guess it’s time to buy some more books. I’m going to need a proper library soon.
Healthy marriages aren’t based in competition, they are based in working as equals on the same team.
A marriage where you have to fight for a voice isn’t a Christian one—it’s a dysfunctional one.
Yes, the Madison Prewett "it will be hilarious to spank our daughter" controversy matters, because it shows 4 concerning trends in evangelical influencer culture.
We're making headway against toxic books, but now influencers are just parrotting their messages!
baremarriage.com/2025/08/madi...
In our new book The Marriage You Want, we’re not trying to convince you that marriage is a huge slog that you have to stay in until you die.
We’re trying to show you how to create a marriage that you love—because evidence shows that, when you both work at it, this is very possible!
2/2
"Marriage is hard." That's taught constantly in evangelical circles!
We need to change that narrative.
LIFE is hard. And marriage adds complexities.
But marriage should make burdens lighter--not be the cause of those burdens.
1/2
I wish this was more widely understood.
And I pray The Marriage You Want changes the convo about marriage, just like our book The Great Sex Rescue changed the convo about sex!
7/7
It doesn’t need to be complicated.
It does need to be talked about.
Just like you can’t talk about sex well without mentioning that, it’s supposed to feel good for her too, you similarly can’t talk about marital satisfaction without mentioning uneven mental load.
6/7
The peer-reviewed literature is FILLED with articles on how important mental load is.
And Christian books ignore it.
Our new book The Marriage You Want shows how important sharing mental load and dividing up household tasks fairly is. And we present super practical ways you can do this!
5/7
Bestselling books His Needs Her Needs and Marriage on the Rock both claim that men have a GOD-GIVEN NEED for “domestic support”, as if God put into each man the need for his wife to vacuum.
Other books just simply ignore it.
Yet it's the biggest driver of women’s marital unhappiness by far.
4/7
How often have you heard that money and sex are the two biggest marriage issues?
Well, housework and mental load overshadow both of them, by far.
Yet how do evangelical marriage books handle this?
3/7
In our latest study for our book The Marriage You Want, we found something ELSE they’re all ignoring.
We couldn’t find an evangelical marriage book that talked realistically about mental load, even though we found that it impacts marital satisfaction 3x more than sex, and 6x more than money.
2/7
Christian marriage authors often ignore the BIGGEST marriage problems.
When it comes to sex, evangelical books overwhelmingly emphasize frequency, telling women to give husbands more sex.
You know what they DON’T talk about? The 47 point orgasm gap, and the 2x rate of sexual pain disorders.
1/7
I mean, you don't have to consent to lots of things! But we really need to change the narrative.
Sex should be mutual, intimate, and pleasurable for both.
If sex is only for him--YOU are the one being deprived. It's okay to say, "I won't be treated like a sex toy anymore."
Don’t use prayer as an excuse not to draw boundaries!
I don’t think so—since these authors are the ones who, through the grapevine, I’ve heard are the most angry at us.
5/5
In a follow-up book, when Fred Stoeker recounts a woman saying “I feel like a human toilet for s3m3n”, he tells her she just needs to understand men.
Do they understand the damage they caused? Do they care?
4/5
Yep. And Every Man’s Battle actually has pages and pages about how when the authors told these “truths” to women about men (including their wives) the wives were disgusted and wanted nothing to do with them. And yet they wrote the book anyway, saying women just had to understand how men are.
3/5
I couldn't go to church without assuming the pastor was probably just lusting after every woman in the room or go out in public without feeling like “every man” was just eye-r p ng me. I truly hated men! I've since got through all of that, but that book only made my marriage worse at the time.”
2/5
A woman writes: “Years ago, I read “Every Man’s Battle” as a young married woman ( after some issues in my marriage) to hopefully help me better understand my husband. Well, it caused me more issues! I hated men! It made me believe all men were just pigs and had absolutely no respect for women.
1/5
Thank you! And, yes, we need to speak up about this!
Oh my goodness, this is just so ridiculous! I wish more camp directors would read She Deserves Better! Or take a look at our modesty handout with findings. Girls deserve better. Modesty messages make it more likely they'll marry abusers or have sexual pain disorders.
That one adage, that women matter too, changes everything.
Check out our new marriage book The Marriage You Want to see it in practice, or check out The Great Sex Rescue to see the horrible repercussions of evangelicalism’s teachings about sex, and how we can get out of it!
6/6
At Bare Marriage, we have one simple adage: Women and men both matter. That’s it. And when you approach marriage and sex advice with that belief (which is fully supported in Scripture, by the way), it’s amazing how your advice looks NOTHING like evangelical marriage and sex books.
5/6
