The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex

The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex, Sheila Wray Gregoire (2012)

Warning: includes frank discussion of married sexual experience.

My recent reading of Gregoire et al’s The Great Sex Rescue, led me to explore her blog and then to her older book The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex.

Overall, this is a very helpful book aimed at women about sexual intimacy in marriage, covering early sexual expression and encounters in detail, and then ways to grow sexually in love, service, and pleasure with each other.

She starts with the beauty of sex, and it’s unique place in your marriage:

“You know you’re with this man till death do you part. You have time to learn. You don’t have to know what’s good to you; you get to learn what’s good for us.”

She explores how men tend to desire sex more often that women, yet acknowledges some women have higher libidos than their husbands. She encourages women to prioritise sex in a helpful way for their husbands. Here is where there seemed to be some difference from her current view in The Great Sex Rescue, where she is much more strident about the risks of seeing yourself purely as the outlet of your husband’s physical needs. (I’ll come back to this comparison point later).

She then goes on to explore three areas of discovery:

1. Physical discovery: fireworks. Detailed chapters on the basics and mechanics of sex, including contraception. She covers the wedding night in detail, dealing with expectations, and addresses whether or not they are virgins. It is sensitive, rational, detailed and helpful, encouraging couples to talk with each other and be honest about their own desires and personal choices.

She then discusses the female orgasm in some detail. I was surprised by her decision to make a distinction (as to value) between a vaginal and a clitoral orgasm. She then addresses the issues for a man who has a low libido.

2. Spiritual discovery: bliss. Here she talks about what it means to make love, rather than have sex, and the connection between the couple. This section looks at the realities of pornography use and how to proceed when either struggle with it, and also presents a range of sexual practices and gives her opinion on them.

3. Relationship discovery - laughter. These chapters encourage women to be more willing to initiate and enjoy sex with their husband, and what becoming best friends in marriage looks like:

"Sex isn’t the basis for our relationship; it’s the culmination of everything else, especially the friendship that we share"

Then she draws it to a close, basically encouraging women to enjoy sex and make it a priority.

As I flagged above, it’s interesting reading someone’s current views first, followed by their views 10 years ago. As such, my guess is there is some content in this Guide that Gregoire herself might alter if it was published now. Some things seemed a little different to the The Great Sex Rescue, and I suspect she has slightly altered her opinion over time. I don’t mind that, we all do it. But it makes it harder to read someone in reverse and then interact with what they are saying. They aren’t major things either, just some nuance. The largest difference is that this book encourages women to make good sex a priority as a way to love their husbands well. The Great Sex Rescue was much more honest about the challenges that such a message may send and removes the onus from women to be responsible for a couple’s healthy sex life.

A combination of both books together would be excellent, but as in any case - the reader should sift through and make their own decisions about what they do and do not agree with.

Personally, I didn’t like her designation of ‘good girls’ vs. ‘bad girls’, and it does certainly have a North American feel to it. She does clarify what she means, and for her ‘good girl’ doesn’t mean you are a virgin on your wedding night, or that you aren’t struggling with sexual problems, or your past that you had no control over (in fact she helpfully points out that some are actually ‘sad girls’). It’s not based on what you do, but who you are, and the fact that you are redeemed by Jesus: “if you choose to follow God, and his design for sex, you’re a good girl”. Even so, maybe it’s my age showing through, but being called a ‘good girl’ did feel a little condescending.

So, while there are minor things that I would nuance differently, and I suspect Gregoire would now also, overall, I mostly agree with what she says. Because it’s addressed to women, it is harder to recommend to couples, but men will get a lot out of it if they take the time.

I wish there was one book that covered everything about sex in Christian marriage: a truly godly and wise perspective, allowing for personal expression and experience, and helping couples to rejoice in the gift of intimacy. However, that’s unlikely. Yet this offering from Gregoire goes a long way to adding wisdom to the current collection, and as such, is now high up on my recommended reading list on this topic.