Instead of shutting it down, what if you could meet your needs for touch, intimacy, and opposite-sex friendships in ways that honor your sexuality? (Spoiler alert: you can.)
If you’ve wrestled with desire, boundaries, or shame, this candid conversation will help you see the God-given purpose of your sexuality—even when you’re single.
P.S. This is one you’ll want to share with your single friends.
Juli (00:00.47)
Hey friend, can I ask you a quick favor? Java with Juli exists for you. And after more than 500 episodes, I want to make sure that we’re still talking about the things that matter to you the most. Would you just take five minutes to fill out a short anonymous survey and tell us what topics you want more of, the questions you’d love us to tackle, and how we can make this podcast an even better resource for you?
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Now let’s head to the coffee shop for today’s conversation.
Doug (00:59.89)
I think some of the hooking up is you genuinely are trying to meet God-given needs. But I said, I think it’s going to be false intimacy. So I said, sweetie, as a woman, you’re wanting to be pursued. You’re wanting to be special. You’re wanting to be hugged and held and just have skin needs met. You’re really wanting to be loved. But I said, getting naked, I said, I think is a shortcut.
What if that young man, rather than trying to have sex with you, what if he took you to Starbucks and talked for two hours? I said, wouldn’t that be even more intimate than just getting naked?
Juli (01:44.214)
Hey, friend, I am Juli Slattery and I want to welcome you to another edition of Java with Juli. This is a podcast dedicated to having honest conversations about God, sexuality and you. So this week we’re going to talk about singleness and sexuality. And for those of you who are married, please don’t just click right past this one because I found this conversation fascinating and helpful. And I think you will too.
You know, we are not just sexual when we’re having sex. Whether you’re single or married, you are a sexual person. And historically, the church hasn’t given much guidance about that. Like, how do you actually mature in your sexuality as a single Christian? We’ve tended to just focus on outward behaviors. Well, that’s the territory we’re headed into today is how do you actually steward your sexuality in a thriving way as a single Christian?
Juli
My guest today is the late Dr. Doug Rosenau. And this is just one of many conversations he and I have had on this podcast. He really is a Java with Juli favorite and you’re going to hear why. On today’s episode, I asked Dr. Doug some of the most difficult questions that single Christians are facing. So I asked him questions like, what’s wrong with just asking how far is too far in a dating relationship?
How do we steward our God-given need for intimacy as singles? What do we do with those sexual urges? And I know I’ve said this conversation is gonna go deeper than just behavior, but we’re also gonna tackle the question of masturbation. Now, if you don’t know Dr. Doug Rosen, now he was a pioneer in honest conversations about sexuality from a biblical perspective. He really cared about the unique struggles of single Christians, and he doesn’t shy away from difficult questions and really raw conversation. Dr. Rosenau sometimes uses intentionally expressive language in order to connect with the journey of the average single Christian, and you’re going to hear this in the way he talks about sexual desire. This is for sure a candid conversation, but I know you’re going to find his insight helpful and refreshing. You’ll also hear us refer to his book called Soul Virgins,
Juli (03:58.83)
Now since we had that conversation in 2020, that book has been revised and is now titled, Single and Sexually Whole, Soulfully Celebrating the Dances of the Sexes. And we’ll link to that in our show notes and on authenticintimacy.com. Alright, that’s it for my intro. I can’t wait for you to hear this conversation with the late Dr. Doug Rosenau.
Juli
So Doug, you have a real heart for singles and sexuality, which I so appreciate. I think a lot of the messaging from the church about sex has always been to married people, as if singles aren’t sexual. So thank you for addressing this. And your book, Soul Virgin, which I know you’re working on, kind of a part two of that, but it’s really pretty groundbreaking in the way you explain singleness and sexuality.
Doug
Thanks. Juli, just have felt such a burden. I mean, if half the church is single, how can we neglect that big a population? Right. And I was going out to teach a singles workshop and one of my seasoned Christian colleagues said, you’re going to do a whole evening, like three or four hours with single sexuality? How many ways can you say don’t? And I thought, wow, that’s the problem.
Juli
That is problem.
Doug
That’s the problem. I do feel like there is a need for working with this. And part of what I tried to do in Soul Virgins, and then right now, Juli, I’m just completing, it’s not really even in some ways a second edition, it’s almost a new book because these 14 years of since then I’ve thought and prayed and sorted and taught a lot, and God’s kind of evolved the theology over these years. With Soul Virgins, Redefining Single Sexuality, we really tried to get at, that virginity was more of a hard attitude than it was a behavior. And so we refuse to define, okay, you’re a virgin as long as your penis or your vagina, you know, never penis has been in a vagina, you know, then you’re a virgin. that’s, so we defined it as valuing, celebrating, and protecting your sexuality and that of your brother and sister. So we really were trying to make it more of a hard attitude.
And so, to me, when I deal with single sexuality, inside out is really big. Now I know Larry Crabb and a variety of have evolved and inside out. Basically what we’re saying, if we had concentric circles, the little circle in the middle is God, and then the next circle would be more of our hard attitudes and the outside circle would be our behaviors and our actions. And so often in my evangelical singlehood, we basically were outside in.
Juli
Yeah.
Doug
We started with the outside circle of behavior and actions and figured if we could ban enough of them, we would create a more godly attitude and that godly attitude would help us understand God more. And so a lot of don’ts. But what I’m finding with singles is it just, it’s failed. It’s failed. Just banning behaviors, prohibiting behaviors has failed. And in many ways we’re losing chastity because of that. So to me, what’s really big with my new book, Single and Sexually Whole, I’m really evolving a really, to me, a critical theology of let’s go inside out. And I like three B words. I think John Wesley used them initially, but it was belonging, believing, and behaving. And so to me, the center circle of God, the inside circle where we’re going inside out, is that personal love relationship with the Father and the Holy Spirit through Jesus.
Doug (07:43.15)
And as Jesus followers, we’re really trying to belong. So if someone comes to me as single, I would really love it if they could feel Jesus’ love. It’s like I was a child of the 60s and 70s, so if you came to Jesus, you needed to cut your hair and quit smoking. You know, that was really how we became like Jesus. And I fear that that’s happening with single sexuality, if we stay in that outside circle. But if we could start with belonging, and come be a part of our community, our Christian community. And our Christian community is practicing celibacy and chastity, our single Christian community, but you’re gonna feel loved, and you’re gonna feel Jesus in ways that I hope you never.
When I look at the fruit of the Spirit, I like to put sexual within scriptural passages, like one of my clients recently was kind of struggling with porn and really hurting his marriage, he was married, and I said, well, you know, you’re a Christian, the Holy Spirit should be there enabling you, empowering you. And I said, let me give you a good Bible verse that I think could be helpful. I said, it talks about in Galatians 5 22 that God gives us sexual love and he’s gonna empower us with sexual kindness and sexual patience. And he’s gonna give us sexual goodness and he’s gonna give us sexual faithfulness and he’s gonna give us sexual self-control. He said, oh, that’s a wonderful verse. Give me the reference. I said, well, I put the sexual.
Doug
But I said, there really is part of belonging to Jesus and the Holy Spirit in your life that can empower you to live out a quality of character that will permeate your sexuality in amazing ways. So I like to start with belonging, because I think there if we’re belonging and we’re loved and we’re really feeling Jesus and the power that He gives us, then I think He’s starting to shape our believing too. But the believing is more of, Scripture oftentimes talks about hard attitudes. If we look at ourselves as… so often soul in scripture is used as personhood. So it talks about love with all your mind, with all your heart. So I like to teach sex as three-dimensional sexual beings. They were mind and body and heart. And so to me, if we’re Jesus followers and we’re really enjoying that kind of belonging, then He will permeate our thinking.
Doug (10:04.172)
And it says in Proverbs 4.23 that the heart is the most critical part that Jesus comes in and changes. So somehow our heart attitudes, our heart ways of thinking, if we’re belonging to Him and we’re in a Jesus community and we’re really trying to grow, He’s going to help our heart attitudes reflect Him. And to me, if we’re belonging and we’re believing, it’s going to profoundly affect your behavior.
Juli
Yeah, it will.
Doug
I was asked to come and speak to it here in Atlanta to one of the larger churches, one of their youth groups and you know, when you think youth groups, you think 30, 40 teens, 300, 300 teens. so I started out with saying, you know, we’re all Jesus followers. Let’s think through what would be adjectives and adverbs you describe God with in your Christian relationship. And they were really good. were faithful and loving and kind. And we just popcorn all over. And then I said, OK, let’s think a little bit about why God created your sexuality and why you’re a sexual being.
And I went into that he created him to really help you love the way he loves. And so I said, all these adjectives and adverbs that you gave me really should be the way you’re operating sexually at school, at your high school next week. And so somehow I was trying to get that concept of belonging and believing, trumping just trying to say, don’t give your boyfriend oral sex. I was trying to say, no, let’s think bigger than that. Let’s think of what belonging really means and how that belonging can shape our believing.
Juli
And one of the challenges with talking to youth groups, or let’s make this really personal, like just with parents, is what if my child doesn’t have that level of intimacy with God, belonging with God? Like they grew up in a Christian home, they may say, I believe in Christianity, but they haven’t gone through that intimacy, that decision of giving my life to the Lord. I think we try to put the rules on them. Or even like a new Christian that you loves God but doesn’t know how to live that out.
Doug
There’s where I think the belonging and modeling love and unselfishness. Because like say that 300 kids. Do I think I had the power to stop those kids from having sex or giving blowjobs? No. Was I maybe able to make them a little more unselfish? Hopefully.
That at least will change something, I realize that sometimes when I’m dealing with singles, if I can call them out to belonging to Jesus, and I can make it not even character changes that are necessarily my Christian values, don’t you want to be unselfish? Do you know how to forgive? They’re just character that are part of our theology, but are just all wisdom is God’s wisdom. Yeah.
You know, and so I think they could call their children to being unselfish. Yes. I think they could call their children, do you like to be objectified? What if your girlfriend said, wow, I wonder how big your penis is, I hope it’s a good one. So what if you just looking at her boobs and her crotch and whatever and just, you know, so I think we can call them out to a higher morality.
Juli
Yeah.
Doug
That this isn’t necessarily totally biblical, but it is.
Juli
It’s taking steps.
Doug
But still, still confronting some of the cultural distortion.
Juli
Yeah, I like that. some of what you’re focusing on is challenging and developing character. And I think, this is true in the parenting realm, but also in the Christian singles youth group realm, is they so want to stamp out that behavior of our goal is to keep our singles pure, our goal is to keep our kids pure, that they neglect that work of challenging character.
Doug (13:50.04)
I will tell college kids or high school kids, if all you’re trying to do is not sleep with your boyfriend or girlfriend, we’re in trouble. But I said, what if your goal was not a selfish question like, far can I go? What if your goal was, this precious woman, this precious man has been given to me to help him grow up into the man God wants him to be, to grow up into the woman, and I am going to really model for her respect.
And I’m going to model for her how I can honor, celebrate her femininity. That would go so much further than just trying to keep out of, I was going to say out of her pants, I’m trying to think of a more Christian word, but out of having sex with her. Right, I get it. That would be so much more Christian. And language funny, because with singles, I’m using a little rarer language because that’s their language.
Juli (14:44.426)
I noticed that.
Doug
You know, they’re going to use blowjobs or other kinds of language that I’m trying to challenge. But I’m challenging it like you’re saying, more with character. More with how do we help them really celebrate and really protect and value.
Juli
One of the misunderstandings that I think paralyzes us in having these kinds of healthy conversations is we narrow sexuality down to what we’re doing with our bodies. And so we’ll start with the assumption that if you’re single, you shouldn’t be sexual. And what we’re really saying is you shouldn’t be having intercourse, but you can’t stop being sexual. And in your book, The Soul Versions, you have these boxes that kind of help us understand that there’s different layers of our sexuality and not all of it has to do with what we’re doing with our bodies.
Doug
Right. The illustration I used there, and I’ve really evolved it even more in Single and Sexually Whole, the new book that’ll come out next year, is that all of us live in the box, the big box of social sexuality, which means that if you and I are interacting, you’re woman, I’m man, there’s a layer to that because God gave us gender. The same way that I acting with my granddaughter is different than if I had a grandson. Yeah.
Doug (16:04.078)
You know, being papa has a whole masculine aura to it, know, and meaning and that. So the big box of social sexuality, but here’s where I think the church makes a mistake. We never can get away from horny. And so one of the big things that I say in my new book is we’ve got to embrace horny. Now I use horny deliberately because that’s the language they’re using. And so I try to unpack horny. I say, well, what is horny? And I do that in Soul Virgin’s book too.
I say, part of horny is just a surge. It’s hormonal. You will have, male or female, you have estrogen and testosterone, and you will have attraction. You will have attraction and arousal. That’s just normal. And so I think some of horny is arousal, but some of horny is lonely too. And that’s where I think sometimes, thinking of the boxes, we don’t realize that in social sexuality, in good friendships, there still will be the need to steward horny, to steward libido, to steward that ability to be aroused and attracted. And so sometimes I have singles say, I wish I could kill desire so I could really enjoy my sisters. I say, brother, you don’t want that, trust me. What you want to do is manage your desire, embrace your desire and manage it.
Juli
But we’re growing up in a culture that says if I feel that, then I should act on it.
Doug
Well, that’s true too. Yeah. Yeah, where we’re really, I like the idea of positive and negative freedom. And negative freedom is there are no boundaries. And if I feel something, I should be able to act on it. Positive freedom is I choose the boundaries, but I will choose to have greater freedom by, you know, like positive freedom would be, I’m going to stop at stop signs. Yeah. So someone doesn’t run me over.
Doug (17:51.82)
You know, and so I think that that is culturally, we’re so permissive and everything goes and you know, what floats your boat and different strokes for different folks and whatever it is, that especially with the singleness, we’ve really lost. Yeah. We’ve lost some of the ability to.
Juli
It’s almost like you’re giving singles permission to feel something, to honor that, but not act on it.
Doug
And steward it. I’m resurrecting the concept of stewardship. We don’t use that as much anymore, but I kind of like steward better than discipline because sometimes with the younger singles, discipline means repressing rather than stewarding. And to me, stewarding is that idea that I have it, I’m going to embrace it. Now that young lady, I’m gonna have to set a little tighter boundaries. She turns me on, she’ll be a sister real easily. So in this big box of social sexuality, we still have erotic sexual feelings. And then I think the smaller box is when we start to date and we’re really pursuing a romantic relationship. And that’s what I call romantic or erotic sexuality. And that’s a little bit of what Jesus, the Spirit, the invisible is making visible through Christ and the bride and husband and wife and becoming one flesh. And then true sex, the smallest box would be marriage, where we’re really opening up genital sexuality in a way that God enjoys and advocates and is making it so we can truly be naked and unashamed. But I think what we have to help singles navigate better is social and erotic sexuality and realize that they should have close brothers and sisters. They need opposite sex friendships and not to be afraid of it.
Juli (19:41.814)
And not to be freaked out if you start feeling aroused.
Doug
This is my favorite. Dr. Gary Barnes is a professor at Dallas Theological Seminary and one of his examples was, so there is one of their dorms that is coed in different floors and so on and so forth. this young lady got on the elevator with a guy and she was just smiling and was going to say, hi, how are you doing? And the guy says, I’m married.
Juli
Oh wow.
Doug
And she thought, so being married means you have no opposite sex friends or relationships and can’t even talk to them? I thought, dear Lord, please, let’s get beyond this. But I think on Christian campuses there still is a lot of that, Juli. I think there still is an inability at times to have healthy gender social sexuality and yet steward the erotic.
Juli
And it’s not just on college campuses. You even look at some of-
Doug
Oh single again, post divorce, or whatever.
Juli
Not even post divorce. I’m saying with married people, some people would be offended that you and I are in a room with a closed door because we’re male and female and that there’s always danger there.
Doug (20:54.348)
And see, my wife and I, I’m bragging here little bit, but we really mentor young singles well. Because if you’re a young man, like a while back, I couldn’t take her to the hospital. I really had an appointment I just had to be at. And so one of my supervisees, I was telling him, I don’t know what I’m trying to, and he said, I’ll take her to the hospital. I love you, Doug. You’re a good man. I appreciate what you’re doing. And so he took her to the hospital.
And he said, I just felt so good. She bought me lunch, and you can’t believe how much I ate. And she just said how handsome I was. And he said, I just felt affirmed. And I said, thank you, Lord. We should be able to do that. In co-ed, married, single church small groups, we should be able to affirm each other and to have what I call righteous flirting.
I’ve really gotten pushback, but some of what you and I are doing and others, we’re creating vocabulary because the church hasn’t had it. The church just hasn’t had it. So righteous flirting to me is that idea that we are uplifting each other’s gender so that I can righteously flirt with men. One of my clients who struggles with same-sex attraction came to me and he said, Doug, did I sin this weekend? I said, Bud, tell me about it. And he said, well, we were at this lake and we had this big rubber raft and there were six of us guys. We just really love and enjoy each other a lot. And he said, we were playing King of the Mountain on the raft and throwing each other off. And he said, I just getting a lot of touch needs. I almost felt aroused, but he said, was just, it was just almost a skin hunger. He said, I was just getting touch needs met. And he said, and then all my masculinity was getting validated and we were having such fun as men. And I said, no son, I said, that was just righteous flirting. I said, was something God needs you to have.
And that sometimes, and I’m not trying to make this simplistic, because sexual identity is big, but I said, sometimes what you’re yearning for is male affirmation, not sex. And I said, I think you got a lot of male affirmation this weekend, and bless you and thank you, Jesus.
Juli (22:57.946)
You’re breaking some categories that people are like, I’m comfortable with the categories of the boxes because they keep us safe. But what you’re saying is if you don’t break the categories, you don’t get to the underlying needs of first of all, what God created us for, but second of all, how we’re wounded and not having those needs met. That’s really helpful.
Doug
Yeah. Well, I think that that happens even with the hookup culture, Juli, that I think that for some of my college, not everyone’s hooking up. I know that. I’m not trying to make that. But for some of my college clientele, I will say to college kids sometimes, I think some of the hooking up is you genuinely are trying to meet God-given needs. But I said, I think it’s going to be false intimacy.
So I said, sweetie, as a woman, you’re wanting to be pursued. You’re wanting to be special. You’re wanting to be hugged and held and just have skin needs met. You’re really wanting to be loved. But I said, getting naked, I said, I think is a shortcut. What if that young man, rather than trying to have sex with you, what if he took you to Starbucks and talked for two hours? I said, wouldn’t that be even more intimate than just getting naked. But I think they’re yearning for something, getting naked. You know, there’s a God-given need to be special. That I’m sharing something private, I’m being vulnerable. We need that kind of friendship, but I think we can do that within single sexuality and still steward wisely the genital part of it. Still wisely steward the naked.
Juli
You mentioned this earlier and I know this is part of your story, but a lot of people are single again. And so often when we talk about singleness, we’re talking about that 18 to 30 year old that is… Right. Yes. How is it different if you go through divorce or you’re widowed to steward sexuality in that state of singleness?
Doug (25:00.468)
I think we’re still getting down to some of the same principles of belonging, believing, are you going to let God give you a sexual guidelines that can work? But I think where it’s more difficult at times is they have had sexual fulfillment.
Because when they started the marriage, they wouldn’t have gotten married if they weren’t attracted and interested and having meaningful times together and feeling intimate. And so I think that’s an even harder terrain to navigate and not be sexual. I think with this culture, it’s gotten even worse. Because when I was single again, sometimes people ask me if second marriages work. And I say, well, I guess the jury’s still out. But I said, we’re it’s coming. May, we’re gonna hit 35 years. So I said, yeah, I think second marriages work, 35 years approving it. I think we’re stuck for life. But what I hear from my single again clients is the culture is such that, like one of them was saying, we’re both Jesus followers, but I’ve had three dates with her and she’s saying, what do you wanna do about sex?
And she said, I think she was thinking that we needed to decide not for marriage or not for exclusive relationship, but just when we would choose to let that come into our relationship. And so I think it may be even harder to navigate sometimes, single again.
Juli
What advice do you have for somebody that’s in that situation?
Doug
I think some of it is the same of saying, this really almost made me cry. One of my sex therapist colleagues, the guy says, I have been able to seduce every woman I’ve ever been in a relationship with. And my colleague said to him, you will never be able to seduce me, but that is not the point. The point is I would never hurt you like that.
Juli
What a wise statement.
Doug (26:59.266)
To have casual sex, I would never hurt you. And the guy started crying. Because I think even there, there still is the ability to say, are we going to objectify? What are deeper needs? Could I maybe just go out with this man or this woman and really hear his story and maybe be a healing agent? Because post divorce, you’ve lost some of who you are. You just have lost some of who you are. And you’re trying to find it. And you’re wondering, I sexy? But sleeping with someone’s not the way to get that deeply resolved. So I think some of I would just encourage more friendships and righteous flirting and the ability to build each other up and…but see, to me, there’s freedom in chastity because then you’re not wondering when you’re going to sleep. You’re really wondering about, I get to know this woman or man better? Yeah. Is there something? There’s freedom in going to a party and not trying to figure out who you’re going to hook up with, but rather thinking, wow, I’m here to have fun and these are my sisters or my brothers and we’re going to enjoy this and maybe I’ll be attracted to one of them. And if I do, I’ll have to manage that better. And yeah.
Juli
How do you manage the boundaries of a dating relationship? When you’re older, you’ve been married, you’ve had sex, what does that look like to steward that well?
Doug
I think managing the boundaries of a dating relationship really is unique and individual because I think it depends in part on past baggage or past sexual experiences. It depends on how lonely you are. There’s so much that depends on it. Like one of my friends, this was years ago, we were talking about how do you manage those boundaries and, and I said, how did you guys manage? Because I said, both of you were in the 60s and the 70s with free love. He said, yeah, we were in the free love. He said, my wife and I actually couldn’t touch. If we kissed for too long, it was just too much. I said, well, how did you deal with Horny, how did you deal with arousal? How did you help her know that you were attracted? And he said, we’re both musicians and so we just wrote steamy love letters and we actually wrote songs for each other and stuff. And I thought, isn’t that cool that they realized some boundaries had to vary with them a little bit more because of their past. So they were trying to think of it and Juli, wouldn’t it be cool if a young man could go over to his girlfriend’s apartment and say to her, you know, I am so darn horny tonight. We can’t come back to your apartment. Let’s just go to a movie and then go, you know, get a drink, get something somewhere and just talk out there and I’m gonna tell you goodbye at the car.
Juli
Yeah, that’s just maturity and transparency.
Doug
And you’re an amazing Eve. Yes, yeah. And your body turns me on and I have somehow been turned on all day and maybe it’s been by other bodies, but this is not the time for me to… So I think some of those boundaries have to be situational. Yeah. And I think they have to be uniquely tailored, but they really need to be based on a lot of vulnerability and transparency too.
Juli
One of the saddest questions that I’ve been asked in the last few years, and I’ve been asked this question a few times by widows, is it okay to masturbate thinking about my husband who’s died? What are your thoughts on that?
Doug (30:25.88)
So I’ll give you my two-minute theology of masturbation. So when people ask me questions about masturbation, now I try to be careful anyway because I realize that I have power. You know, as therapists, we always try to realize that we have power. Teacher, you have power. And so I try to be careful not to lay truth on them. But with masturbation, class recently said, you are so frustrating, Doug. You haven’t told us whether it’s right or wrong yet. And I said, I won’t, I won’t, I won’t. When I was writing Soul Virgins, a woman came up to me, single again, and she said, I hope you don’t in this book make masturbation a sin. Because she said, actually, I think I treat my Christian brothers better because
Every once in a while when I get that huge surging, I masturbate and take the edge off of the drive, and it seems to help me. And so I think that it’s more a hard attitude than it is really. Let me see your copy of Soul Virgins just a minute. Yeah. There you go. So this is from Soul Virgins. Time and again, I’ve had people question me on God’s perspective on masturbation.
I’ve studied Christ’s interaction with people in his earthly ministry and how he often cut to the heart of the matter. One day God used this hypothetical dialogue to bring me to a different perspective. Teacher, what do you think about masturbation? Is it always wrong or does it depend? friend, why do you Christian leaders waste so much time debating masturbation when Satan’s deceptions are destroying my gift of sexuality? Have you ever considered the sexual hypocrisy of your Christian culture? Well Lord, the Christian culture does contain distortions, but I think maybe we debate masturbation because it creates such guilt for so many. child, what does masturbation mean to you? How does it affect your heart? How does it affect your relationships? Jesus, I was thinking a bit more philosophically. I am trying to develop a theology of masturbation for your whole church. Goodness, why do you always get so personal? Now I won’t be able to go and tell other Christians exactly what to do. But son, it’s your heart that really matters.
Juli
I love that.
Doug
So that’s some of my theology is, you’re going to have to cry and debate and talk to Jesus and let the Holy Spirit guide some and a little bit not judge your brothers or sisters. for some it will be a sin. Like I know that some of my clients that have paired it so much up with pornography, they’re just saying, I can’t go there, Doug, that I will just wait for a wet dream or whatever. But that just really is not where one person was saying to me, and I thought this was a beautiful example, he said, I used to masturbate now and again just to take the edge off of the horny. And he said, then God kind of convicted me when I got into this exclusive relationship with a woman that’s now my fiance, because I was creating a lot of fantasies about being with her sexually, and it was making me push boundaries that I didn’t want to push. So he said, I just chose not to masturbate right now in this season because it’s not where I need to be. And we’re trying to boundary our relationship and let it be all that God wants it to be to evolve us to marriage.
I thought, well, that’s interesting that there may be seasons even.
Juli
Yeah.
Doug
That might be different. I know I really frustrate people because, and you do too, because we say it depends. Yes, yeah. And that some of this is maturity and some of this is you and God, you got to sort this through.
Juli (34:04.934)
I do that partly because if God hasn’t spoken to it, I want to be very careful that I don’t give either liberty or legalism. The one in and that one in particular.
Doug
Have you gotten the Bible verses?
Juli
Onan, yeah.
Doug (34:19.661)
Onan… no, no, no, these are sometimes people just do this as a joke to me. one person told me, and I’ve heard this enough now that I can quote it to them. One person said, you obviously have not read Achilles’ Dias, these 910. And I said, and I went and looked it up, says, whatever your, it’s Solomon teaching, says, whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.
Juli
I have not gotten that one. I think that they give you that one because you’re a man. They’re afraid to tell me that one.
Doug
Yeah, yeah. Some time ago I was creating a video on single sexuality and the narrator of the video series said, there’s only one thing you can’t do, you cannot talk about masturbation. And I thought, oh my, that’s a hard issue. That’s an issue that we all struggle with at times, especially singles, and need to be able to dialogue.
Juli
It’s the number one question that I get when I’m speaking. Like we always do a live Q &A every single time I’ll get at least a few questions about masturbation for singles and for married people. So.
Doug
Yeah, one of my buddies, Terry Kress, well you know Terry. I do. But she was doing a conference for women and she said, you know what, my number one question, it was on masturbation. said, wow, Terry, that’s different. Yeah. That may be a little bit more our present culture even. Yeah, it could need to deal with it better.
Juli (35:34.794)
Well, female sexuality is being awakened so early now.
Doug
Yeah. So we need to let singles talk. I was just creating a dialogue one time with a group of six singles and they said, we should have recorded this. We never have the platform to even talk about this.
Juli
Let me even ask you why the pushback against talking about something like masturbation? Why would you be told by a Christian publisher or a church that you’re not allowed to go there? Why do think that is?
Doug
I think it’s because, like we’ve talked about, that we’ve so categorized sin by behaviors that they feel like that is at least a doubtful behavior and so better to stay away from it. Like this is sad. And this was some years ago because now with Googling and everything it wouldn’t happen. But the youth pastor was in the office with mom and the 14-year-old daughter who was pregnant. And the mom told the youth pastor, I don’t know how she got pregnant. I never talked to her about sex. And I think that that’s a little bit of the church’s blindness still at times, that if you teach them to drive a car, they’re gonna drive a car, rather than teach them to value and protect and celebrate their sexuality. So I think there’s a real difference between repression and a healthy stewarding of disciplining.
I think the church represses and is not willing to go there rather than being open and talking, and that’s much more likely to come back and bite you if you repress something.
Juli
So what does it look like for a healthy church or a healthy family to have God-honored conversations that are this on?
Doug
Bringing you and me in. I’m kidding.
Juli
All right, that’s a good start.
Doug
I’m not kidding. We do create conversations that at times aren’t there yet.
Juli
And part of it, what I’m learning as I travel and speak, or even in this podcast, is you’re modeling how to have the conversations without it being awkward, without it crossing lines that it
Doug (37:36.034)
Here’s what’s hopeful, and I imagine you’ve accounted this some is, I really do see over the last 10 years, but maybe five to eight, the church is more open. Arch Heart, who is kind of the granddaddy of Christian psychology, said that he thought maybe this century, 21st century, the church might finally develop a practical, healthy theology of sexuality, that they’ve never done that yet.
And I think it’s happening a little bit. Yeah, I agree with you. I do see more sermons. I do see people like my buddy Dr. Gary Barnes at Dallas Theological Seminary who, all the preacher boys have to take his class on counseling and he has a week or two on sex. And he has created a, I helped to teach there at DTS a class on just human sexuality, healthy and sex therapy, just an introduction. And this last year we had 64 students and a lot of them not counseling students. So I think the church is slowly, I’m hearing more sermons, more talks, more openness to bring people in. So I’m hoping that just blossoms.
Juli
I think it will and unfortunately I think it’s happening because the need is so great that you can’t pretend this isn’t happening in my church anymore.
Doug
What is your book on single sexuality? forget the title.
Juli (38:57.41)
It’s called Sex and the Single Girl.
Doug
Okay, sex and the single girl, cool.
Juli
But really, rethinking sexuality is kind of that bigger picture of it too. As we’re wrapping up, what is one word of encouragement that you have for the single man or woman listening?
Doug
Jesus chose to be embodied and was sexual for 33 years, yet without sin. And somehow the women in his life were transformed, like Mary Magdalene, Mary and Martha. And so I would just say, please, please be sexual. And that just got into the middle of it and he’ll help you. He really will help you as a single person steward your sexuality and not be afraid of it. And learn how to share it. I like what you were saying is that sometimes we can make sex so embodied, like one theologian said that he wished that Paul hadn’t used the Greek word sarx flesh because sometimes we think body bad, our body only sex.
Doug (40:06.912)
And he said, really and truly, you know, that word is more of our sin nature, our false self, that Satan’s been able to distort. So I would just say, embrace horny. Lean into your real self sexually and allow that to be shared with your brothers and sisters. And you can learn to steward in a way that truly is a Jesus follower. That enriches your life and enriches the lives of people around you.
Juli (40:29.782)
And what you’re saying there for a lot of people is a paradigm shift that Jesus was sexual because we don’t see him having sex. So when you’re saying
Doug
He was single. He was the paragon, the model of single sexuality. Now he’s glorified now, like we will be at some point, there won’t be male and female in the same fashion, and we won’t have erotic sexuality in the same fashion in heaven, I know that. But somehow he chose to be embodied and to live out a sexual human existence without sin.
Juli
It’s beautiful.
Juli (41:05.772)
I sure hope what Dr. Rosenau said is true, that the church really is trying to develop a healthy, godly theology of sexuality. And I’m so grateful for him and the contributions that he has made towards that end. He really taught me a lot. I miss him. I miss his voice in the space and glad that we can continue to share this with you because as I said, he’s taught me a lot and I love the refreshing, honest way that he tackles some of these conversations.
We’re going to link to Dr. Doug’s revised book, Soul Virgins, which is now called Single and Sexually Whole, and also my book, Sex and the Single Girl, in our show notes and at our website, Authenticintimacy.com. And if you enjoyed this episode, would you do me a huge favor and leave us a rating and review in your podcast app? This is one of the best ways you can help us spread the word about Java with Juli.
Thanks for listening and I look forward to next week when we’ll meet again over coffee for more Java with Juli.