0:02

Welcome to the delight your marriage podcast. This show where you hear from amazing and inspiring wives sharing their struggles, triumphs, and advice for this journey called marriage. Here’s your host, belah. Rose.

0:18

Hey there, and welcome. Thank you so much for joining me today on the podcast. belah. Rose here. And I’m really thrilled to bring you a topic that is really on my heart quite a lot. As someone who sees our society and, you know, the things that are so scary about it really, and how do we steward our kids the next generation to meet those challenges? How do we talk about sex in a healthy way so that they are equipped to make wise choices in their lives? Well, today I have a wonderful guest, Luke wood Gilkerson. This is his second time on and he really gives us a really nice roadmap on how to approach this topic, what our heart should be, in talking to our kids about sex, how do we talk to our kids about sex? What are the ages appropriate to talk to them about sex. And the thing that’s cool about Luke is he is very well researched. He’s spent eight years with covenant eyes that really focuses on filtering, and informing and educating people about pornography and sexual addiction. And he just has a lot of really thoroughly thought through understandings. And now he’s with intoxicated on life, and he’s just doing a great job with his work. So I just encourage you to, you know, it’s a hard topic, but I think by the end of this conversation, you probably you’re gonna have a big sigh of relief. That’s how you’re gonna feel alright, that’s how I feel after this conversation. So listen in. Let’s join to hear what Luke has to say.

2:15

Hey, there and welcome. Thank you so much for joining me again, at the delight your marriage Podcast. I’m really happy to have my friend Luke Gilkerson. Back on welcome, Luke.

2:26

Hello, thank you so much for having me back on.

2:29

I’m so happy to have you. It’s been like 60 episodes

2:33

or so since the last time I was on your show. And you’ve done some stuff with this. Well, we’re I think you’re nearing episode 100 Now, so you’re getting close there. I love what you’re doing with this.

2:46

Oh, that means so much to me. Thank you so much. Well, Luke is a fellow podcaster at least up until are you doing another podcast now? Are you really focused

2:54

on Well, I’m focused more well, we’re doing e courses and stuff like that right next to no podcast. But yeah, right now we’re focusing on writing, as he courses kind of thing.

3:03

Very nice. Well, I really appreciate that. So, so Luke, a little background from you. So first of all, this is his second time on the podcast. So if you want to go back and listen, I really, really encourage you to go and do that. He’s got his first interview with me was episode 3940 and 41. And we really talk about some of the realities of kind of the sexual realities of our climate, our culture right now the pornography and and what it means to our kids. And it looks really got a passion for that. He’s moved from the company. We’ve talked a lot about on this podcast, covenant eyes. He’s moved, really from building that up for you said eight years. And he’s now launched into full time this really awesome ministry called intoxicated on life.com. So Luke, you know, just a little bit I’ve shared but is there any more that you can just kind of introduce yourself? And let us know what you’re about?

3:55

Sure. Well, like I said, like, well, as you said, I worked for covenant eyes for eight years, and where’s work today, working there as their educational resource manager, which was a fancy title for Blogger and ebook writer and everything else. So I was primarily working on educating the public on a lot of the services they provided, as well as a lot of the dangers that are on the internet. One of the things that a few things happen in my life that kind of sparked an interest in what I’m doing now. One was my work at covenant eyes. And I continually was running into individuals who were addicted to pornography, both men and women, and they were constantly coming to us for help. And so I had, you know, tons and tons of conversations with these people over the years. I also had a lot of conversations with parents who were at the time, most of the people we were talking to were dealing with some sort of tragedy in the home in terms of their child, their son, their daughter was exposed to pornography at a young age, or they just discovered that their child had been looking at pornography for months or even years unbeknownst to them. And so We were dealing with those kinds of problems. And inevitably, in all those conversations, I kept having

5:07

sort of these, you know, we’ve of course, we talked about the technology and how to filter and how to block and how to hold each other accountable, we’d get into all the tech stuff. But inevitably, the conversations would always move to the subject of sexuality. And, in particular, I’d say I talk to the parents. And I would say, so how well do you think you’ve done in educating and talking to your children about sexuality? What is God’s design for sexuality? How to draw a contrast between what God says and what the world is saying, you know, how well do you think you’ve been doing in that area? And inevitably, the parents would say, Well, we haven’t really touched that subject at all. That’s just not something we’re talking about. Parents are trepidatious about it, they don’t know what to talk, they don’t want to say they don’t know how to say it. They don’t know when to say it. They don’t know what it’s too much too soon, they’ve got 1000 questions. And so they just end up kind of paralyzed with fear or concern or, or just sort of a general sense of, Well, when it comes up, I’ll talk about it. And then it never comes up. And then their kids get go to Google for their answers. And, you know, and it’s that parents don’t like what Google has to say. Because leaving all kinds of places. So yeah. But anyway, what what that basically what I started to develop a real passion, as I was working, there was a wanting to see wanting to educate parents more and more in the subject of how do you how do you have these kinds of conversations with your children, both in sort of formal settings of you know, sitting down and having formal discussions with your child, but also in the informal day to day interactions with with your kids, so that sex is not a taboo subject, but it’s rather something that you can talk about freely, openly, with honesty, with guts, and not have to be sitting there, you know, worrying about the fallout, like, you know, as if your children, you know, 15 years, your child’s gonna end up in counseling, because you’re talking to sex right now. Right. So that became a passion of mine. So I in since then, I’ve written several books on the subject for parents. And my wife and I are about to release actually an ecourse, about this very subject for parents, that’ll be out at the end of June. And we’re really excited about this, because we’re seeing a lot of traction. Hundreds and hundreds of parents are buying resources every month, as they’re coming to us, and they’re having interactions with us on our website. And so it’s good. That’s just one of the things we one of the topics we blog about and talk about. But it’s a real passion of ours. And it, I think it’s one of those, we’re living in a time where it’s desperately, desperately needed. Currently, yeah, and not just because of technology, and media and sexualized culture in which we live. But because it’s a timeless subject, it’s something that impacts all of our lives. And you talk about this all the time on your show is how we are wired, sexually by God, men and women. And so it shouldn’t surprise us that our children as their I mean, one, even just as little kids, they observe the world around them. And I’m not just talking about the lewd and crude kind of stuff. They’re, they’re observing that God has made the world in a certain way where there’s male and female, they’re observing that the world is they can look out in the whether it’s the animal kingdom, they look out, and they see, you know, the way animals interact and mate, and that kind of thing, all the way the way humans interact, in terms of how we relate to one another as men and women. So from a young age, kids see that they observe those things. And then of course, as kids get older, into their preteen years and teen years, they start to have desires of their own. So it’s it doesn’t, it shouldn’t surprise us that our children are curious about the subject because God is made sex to be a good thing. And something that our children are naturally going to be curious about drawn to interested in wanting to know more about and as parents, we are the guardians of that knowledge, we get to impart that to them and teach our children that sex is good, and it’s powerful. And it has a purpose. So we have we have to, you know, kind of do that we have

9:11

Yeah, to do as well. Yeah. And I want to dive so much deeper, because I do i The first thing I know you’re a man of the word, and it’s a huge aspect of your life. And we’ve talked previously, so I want to kind of start out with a verse that was just on my heart as I was praying about this conversation. You know, Romans 1221 says Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. And I feel like that’s a really good way to kind of start and frame this conversation because I know as a parent, it’s so easy to be overwhelmed with the amount of trash that my kids are walking into. And so I guess that’s kind of my first question in in talking about, you know, raising sexually Healthy Kids in this society. You know, what, how do we approach parenting as as wise Parents, I mean, the first thing that you were kind of talking about it almost, I really love, it’s almost like, re re engaging or recognizing the truth that God made sex it was sex was God’s before it was the world’s, you know? Right. So if we as parents embrace that notion, first and foremost, right, it’ll probably inform quite a lot of the way we express it to a kid.

10:25

Absolutely, we have to as parents embody that understanding. So that means, on one hand, it means we need to, if we’re married, first, we need to delight in the fact that God made us sexual beings and find us, you know, and of course, your your podcast is a great place to go a great resource among many resources out there to learn about what that means to be in a in a sexually vibrant marriage. That’s important, of course. And if we’re single, a single parents, for instance, that means honoring the place which God has us at this moment of being celebrated individuals who will honor will honor the gift of sex by waiting until we’re you know, remarried or married. That kind of thing. So yeah, and modeling that for our children, as best we can, in our lives, so that that children who grew up in a in a home with a mommy and a daddy can see that mommy and daddy love each other very much. They’re very tender, very affectionate with each other that they like to, you know, steal a kiss, that they like to hug that they’d like to cuddle on the couch, that they like to spend time alone, they like to go on dates, the children from a young age can see that about their parents, and they need to see that because they need to see that their parents are in love. And, and when their parents aren’t feeling in love, they work through their problems, and they work through their issues. So they get they learn how to communicate well with each other. Yeah, parents need to see you know, kids need to see that. And I love the verse you just quoted, because the idea of overcoming evil with good, I think is really key, especially for the area of sexuality, because like, God, the world’s, the world’s botched up sex quite a bit. And there’s a lot of evil ways in which sex is used and abused in the world. And so the best way for us to deal with that is to confront the culture with a message of the goodness of sexuality. I tell I tell parents, and I tell this all the time, I just even got back recently from a conference where I was teaching coaching parents on this. And what I told them was, the Bible presents sex as both good and powerful. And we have to honor both sides of this we have to honor sex is both good and powerful. What often you get in the world is you get one or the other in a sort of sexually liberal culture, like our own. Yeah, goodness of sex is often highlighted, the power of sex is downplayed or forgotten. So sex is good, in the sense that it is almost it is seen as an ultimate good, it is worshipped it is lifted up. So it’s good anytime, anywhere with anyone as long as it’s consensual. And therefore, you know, just it’s good as a good in and of itself. The power of sex is largely downplayed in a book culture where you have you know, it’s not you’re not talking about its its power to unite to people together in their in their hearts, souls and minds. Certainly, it’s its power to create life is downplayed, or ignored. So the power is ignored. The opposite extreme happens in more conservative cultures, or conservative subcultures in groups, especially in certain conservative churches, where the power of sex is lifted up, but it’s goodness is downplayed. So sex is sort of treated like radioactive material that we have to keep beside behind a steel cage, so we don’t get exposed to it. It’s It’s icky, yucky. So save it for the one you love. Kind of the message that you get. We even hear messages in churches, especially churches that are, you know, big into the purity culture. They even hear phrases like, remain pure until you’re married.

14:31

And maybe we don’t intend to mean it this way. But what that implies to anybody listening is sex is tainted, right? When we get married, and then we have sex, we’re no longer pure, which is simply not true. No, that’s not the way that works. So yeah, so we have to we have to give our children both. So what this means is, you can The analogy, especially for all the parents listening now, use the analogy of fire. Fire is good and powerful. Fire in the proper place is good delivers many goods to us, it heats our homes and eats our foods. It warms our hearts. It’s wonderful. But it’s also powerful it can, it can destroy your house. You know, so ask your child would would you light a fire in the middle of the living room floor? Well, hopefully they’d say no, that’s that’s not a good. Not a good place to light a fire. Well, what would you put a fire? In the fireplace? Yeah, fire in the fireplace is fine. Well, what’s the difference between a fire in the living room floor and the fire in the fireplace? Well, the difference is that a fire is a fireplace is built for fire. That’s what it’s for, you know, it’s made of stone and brick, and I’ve got a great and I’ve got pokers. And I’ve got things to keep it in there. And when it’s in there, and it’s roaring, then it heats the room. And it’s wonderful. And that’s, that’s the image we can make give of sexuality, that sexuality is the reason why God has rules about the who’s and whens of our sex life, is because it is so good, not because it’s bad, but because it is so good. And because it is so powerful. That is why God has placed parameters around it. And within those parameters, hex is wonderful and can be enjoyed in his life giving and uniting us to another person. And it’s, it’s a beautiful thing. Outside of that, you know, it’s like a fire in the middle of your living room floor. It can, it can do great damage to you because it’s been misused and abused in a way that God never intended it.

16:36

So it’s so true. It’s so true. No, no, I really love that I love that you started out, you know, really talking about the first kind of the foundational piece of having health raising healthily, sexual, what sexually Healthy Kids, right? Is modeling, right modeling in your marriage, modeling the correct understandings, and I think that is very well put forth, you know, that it’s good and powerful. And, and it requires these boundaries. And like you said, living out those boundaries is very important. So I guess the thing that I see very often is, with the women that are involved in this ministry, and I often see kind of one or the other. So I kind of want to address both of these, the ways that our, our parents kind of raises us with this idea that, you know, if I talk about sex, if I bring it up, it’s just going to stoke those kids curiosity, and they’re going to, you know, turn into raging, whatever, sexually promiscuous people, and so their response to that is, I’m going to cut off at a curiosity, I’m gonna, you know, tell them it’s bad. It’s, you know, these kinds of things. And some of that isn’t explicit, it’s implicit in the ways that I saw my mother, for example, respond to sexual images on the TV, you know, always just horrified and grossed out by any kind of question along those lines. So I guess I want to talk about that, first of all, for parents that are just uncomfortable with it, and really don’t want their kids to explore before they should? I mean, how do you kind of address that perspective.

18:17

I would say, if you hear nothing else, I say, today on this on this podcast here, this in a sense, that kind of that fear of, I’m afraid they’re, my child’s going to lose their innocence, or they’re going to get overly curious or whatever. Innocence is a function of attitude, not information. So what I mean by that is, if you’re afraid that the that the subject itself is going to taint your child, don’t your child is born, a gendered being meaning that they were born from from day one, they have parts of their body that mark them for life as a, a gendered being that they have, and from a very young age, children are curious about what is this body that I have? What what is what are all these parts that I have? And what did they do? From the beginning? Children identify, here’s mommy and Here’s daddy. And they’re different people, and they look different, and they have different parts to them. And they have different roles and functions in my life. And what what is that? What is all that all about? Then they start to notice other families and other family units and they see similar kinds of relationships. So they’re born into a world that is just bursting with information with that kind of sexual binary that’s in the it’s everywhere, it’s all around them. So it’s not it would not be at all unfitting to help your child understand that you know, from so I tell friends from a young age from from kids when Their kids are first able to, you’re able to have conversations with them. 234 years old, that kid parents can be talking about, this is God’s purpose for the family. This is God’s purpose for marriage. This is you have a wise and good Creator, who has major body and your body is good. Your body is precious, we have private parts of our body that we don’t show to just anybody. That’s why we model modesty and propriety and, and privacy. You also have, you know, you also have a good creator who made the bodies of others, so we don’t hurt the bodies of others, teach children good touch and bad touch, what’s the difference between the two? And why you should look out for the bad touch, you know, those are basic lessons that you can teach your child before they’re even five years old.

20:49

And then as they get older, and their attention span is, you know, a little a little wider and a little broader, you can begin to talk about richer concepts that you know, such as what is you know, what is sexual intercourse? how are babies made, all that kind of stuff, you can talk about the importance of saving sex for marriage, and those sort of things. In fact, I have a book on this called the talk, seven lessons to introduce your child to biblical sexuality. And in the book, what I do is it’s a, it’s a book that’s it’s kind of like a Family Devotional meets biology lesson. The purpose behind it is how can we use the Bible to break the ice on these subjects, because the Bible, quite frankly, isn’t all that sheepish about the subject of sex. You know, you could spend time even just in the very first book of the Bible in Genesis. And if all if you went through the book of Genesis and didn’t censor it for your child, you would run into nearly everything write about sex, and everything, the way the world messes up about sex in the first book in the Bible, it is a it is a it is it tells talks about all kinds of things from the creation of male and female, the goodness of married couples being one flesh, the importance of being fruitful and multiplying, I mean, all I mean, all kinds of that, that’s just chapters one and two. And then when you move forward, and you see the way sin has messed up sex, you can see all kinds of things, ways that God put parameters around sex so that we can enjoy it, but not be scarred by misuses of it. You know, there’s all kinds of things in there. And what’s uh, what I do in this book is I actually teach parents, it’s actually it’s a read aloud book, it’s what it is, you sit and read it with your child is, sit down, you’re going to crack open the Bible, you’re going to discuss things you’re going to talk about, you know, it’ll be it gives little cartoony diagrams of what’s a what’s a woman, what’s a man, sperm and egg, all that good stuff. And this is meant to be used with a child who’s six to 10 years old. So okay, I was gonna ask, so for a lot of parents, you know, they said, Was it too young? Is it you? Know, look, yeah, the research simply does not bear this out. Talking about sex. In context, what I mean by in context is talking about not just what sex is, but your values around sexuality. So why is it only for marriage? And what does God say about it and all that kind of stuff. Talking about sex with your kids in context, does not provoke them to want to have sex, or to go to the wrong places to learn about sex. The research simply doesn’t bear this out anytime there’s surveys done on this, anytime, whether it’s in peer reviewed journals, or whatever, when they, you know, when they interview either young adults who about how they were raised with their, with their parents, or young children or teenagers, and they look at what parents are teaching these teaching children teaching about what sex is, in the context of the family’s values around sex do not make that child, you know, overly curious or too much too soon. Any of that kind of right, just not right, it’s going on.

24:07

I mean, and that’s, that’s a huge, huge thing. I just want to underscore that. So because I think that’s the second perspective perspective that I think a lot of parents are worried about, because then you see the other side of like, parents that were really, you know, engaging and talking about sex and, and, you know, really responding to a very kind of oppressed perspective on it, you know, and then those kids have have explored way too soon. I have a dear friend of mine who’s like, yeah, I learned everything I needed to, but I had no clue that it was something that would be helpful to leave until marriage. And so that’s, that’s your response? Yeah,

24:45

go ahead. Yeah. And I think those are the two, you know, going back to what I said before, about the goodness of sex, the power of sex, you see the same thing, you know, not just in our culture, but in the home as well. If you grew up in a home, where only the goodness of sex is emphasized, but not the power, then you end up that with that Very liberal cultural links of that liberal mentality. And so if you’ve got a parent who saying, Yeah, can we tell you the birds and the bees blah, blah, blah, let me tell you what’s going on. But they they’re never given any guidelines about what it what it all is. You’ve got some real problems there because then kids end up, you know, experimenting and everything. Yeah, same thing with the kind of sort of the repressed kind of environment, the more sort of overly conservative, I say, conservative, I think your listeners will know what I mean by that. But a very conservative kind of environment where sex is the is. Sex itself is the enemy. That’s an even if parents, I want to say this, emphasize this to even if parents intellectually know that’s not true. Because I meet a lot of people who they, they say that they go, they say, Well, look, no, I’ve read my Bible. I know, God says the sex is good. I can do that. It’s hard to miss that in the scriptures. So yes, I see this as true. I believe it’s true. It’s even true in my own marriage, right? I still I love my husband, I love my wife, we have a good sex life, I want my children to grow up and also experience sex in a good way, not in a bad way. And they know that they intellectually understand it, but there’s still this hang up, they still have this, this hang up inside their hearts, where they they just don’t want I mean, part of its they just don’t want their children to grow up, quite frankly, they don’t want their children to become adults. And it’s true, you know, so they just don’t want to have this. They forget that they’re raising adults, they’re raising future adults, they’re not just raising children. And that means that you are stewarding the hearts of your child to become an adult and what big what comes with one of the things that comes with is becoming a a sexual being who has sexual desires of their own, and they’ll want to get they’ll probably want to date or get married or whatever. And that means you need to steward that desire inside them, that is going to be a growing thing. Okay, that’s all this parents don’t realize this. But the average age for a child’s first kind of sort of innate sense of, of physical attraction to another person is around 10 years old. I’m not talking about sexual fantasy, per se, but it’s certainly just the sort of that kind of piqued desire of oh, she’s she’s interesting or who he’s interesting, that that that starts at around 10 On average, which means before the age of 10, you need to be preparing them and stewarding. They’re stewarding their, their emotions, their intellect, their understanding of, of human sexuality, so that as they’re coming of age, and as they’re 1011 12, of course, those conversations are continuing, as they’re becoming that old in their cars, preteen years, you already have established a conversational relationship with your child, where they are now coming to you for answers about these questions. They’re not going somewhere else.

28:14

Well, it’s funny that you say age 10, because I actually distinctly remember a neighbor boy that I had my first crush on. And I know exactly how old I was, because it was before we moved out of that house, and I was four and a half when we moved out of that house. So I think it’s wise to be starting these conversations early. I think that’s very wise. So here’s my question, kind of coming off of what you’re saying is, I think myself and a lot of parents really have this concern of how much is really just too much because you get to a spot where I mean, I, you know, talk about this quite a lot on the podcast, but I just was so unaware. And when I started to become aware, it was like overwhelming. I mean, it was like a flood. It was like drowning in like, I don’t even know how to respond to all these sexual cues. I’m receiving and giving all the time that I had no idea about whether it’s, you know, modesty and clothing or whether it’s understanding that, you know, men’s cat calling has nothing to do with what a woman is in her character and everything to do with their visualization of while she’s walking by. And I mean, just these things it was so hard to to get my head out of kind of this obsessiveness around this topic. And I guess that’s the question. I have. Well, I think a gold do

29:32

you say you were when that was the when you started to experience that?

29:39

Who, um, I think different times it’s been more so and some less so I guess it depends. Probably upwards of 18 to 20. Sure. I was late and understanding anything, right.

29:52

No, and well, and I think for a lot of I think, in general, I would break it down into a couple different stages and keep in keep in mind these are I’m giving you ages I’m going to give you ages here, but sort of ages and stages. But keep in mind that every child is different. So these are just very general observations about human development that have been made. So they’re not, these are not iron clad ages. But I would say that you could the ages of zero to five, you’re talking to nearly anything you teach about is going to have to be brief, literal and simple. And that’s true with sexuality, but that’s also true with anything with a child. So yeah, everything has to be brief little bowl, so that means don’t say things like, you know, the baby is in mommy’s stomach. Not only is that wrong, because the baby isn’t stomach. But it doesn’t make any sense because the child just thinks well, What did mommy eat the baby? Well, right, that’s, that’s what anyone would you know, they say babies. So talk, give proper names for body parts, talk about what they are. There’s nothing wrong with using words like penis, vagina, vulva, uterus, these are just body parts and talk about them in a good, God honoring way God has made these parts this is what they do. Isn’t it wonderful the way God has designed our bodies, this and that. The other thing so there’s, there’s a zero to five, you know, you’re not going to be having heart to heart fireside chats with your child. lengthy discussions about sexuality, that’s just not happening. Because you’re not doing that with anything, right? I mean, you’re talking, we’re talking 10 Second conversations and your child is on to the next thing. They they’re not they don’t have the attention span for Heart to Heart talks. That said, once you get to around six to nine, six to 10, that that time in there, it’s a perfect time for you to be talking about. boys versus girls, what makes a boy boy and girl a girl. So you’re talking because at that age children, they’ve kind of they’ve entered in a new stage of intellectual development, where not only can they begin to take longer conversations with you, and have more detailed discussions with you. They also children at that age it regardless of the kind of environment they’re raised in, most children begin to develop very strong sense of gender norms. This is what girls do. This is what boys do. They start to treasure their peer friendships more many kids are going into school for the first time. So they’re going to have more peer relationships. This is a time where you can start to highlight some of those differences, God given differences, and a lot of that starts simply with the body, what makes our bodies different, and talk about those things. And once you of course, why don’t you talk about the parts, the parts of our bodies that make us different boys to girls, that’s when you start to have you start to have talking about those the purposes behind those parts. That’s when you’re talking about what is sexual intercourse? how are babies made birds turn more more traditional birds and the bees kind of conversations. And I think six to nine, six to 10 is a perfect time to be having those conversations, where you’re beginning to develop those kinds of notions and ideas. Of course, again, in context, what does God say about how those things are meant to be used in what way? Then from about, say, 10 to 12, this is the perfect time and even leave a little earlier, especially for girls. This is a time to be talking about sexual development. So talking about what does it mean to become a young man or young woman? What are the changes we’re going to experience as a young man and young woman in our bodies, in our brains? In our minds? In our emotions? What does that look like? Children are entering puberty at younger ages than in previous generations, for a variety of reasons. So So I think some parents are caught off guard by that when they notice that they’re, you know, seven year old daughter, eight year old daughter is starting to develop breasts. Yeah, you know, they were when they’re menstruating at a younger age, of course, you always want to talk to, you know, a physician or a pediatrician or something like that, if you’re concerned about something specific. But yeah, I would say that, in general, it’s not it’s normal for children, to be going through puberty a little younger than say, maybe when you went through when you were you were younger. So don’t be caught off guard by that. But then, you know, teach them about those things. And again, the whole purpose, the whole idea behind as you’re teaching those things, is to teach God’s intention behind it. You know, puberty isn’t puberty isn’t a

34:43

puberty it’s kind of awkward enough as it is. So it’s not it’s not good for us to just be silent about it. We want to be Yeah, bring our children with them. And understanding of what does God say about those things? And then when to the teen years, I’d really think that there’s not a whole lot of time. conversations that are off the table. So they need to be nice at that point that a lot of conversations need to be revolving around relationships about sexual desire, how do they stored sexual desire as a young man or young woman, as their you know, because they’re, at this point, when you’re a teenager, you are in what many pre modern cultures would have considered adulthood. So you need to be talking to them as I mean, not as completely as young adults. I mean, they’re not necessarily paying taxes and, you know, getting married and that kind of stuff, but they are doing that they are certainly preparing themselves for adulthood in a more concerted way. So that means talking about what are the kids at school talking about? You know, yeah, so you need to be reframing those kinds of things that they’re hearing about from their peers, but with a, again, always with God’s values in mind. So you talk about masturbation, talk about oral sex, talk about the obviously talking about sex in sexual intercourse is, you know, talking about the things teams are tempted to do the kind of you know, and then setting boundaries and guidelines around what is dating gonna look like in our home. And why do we set it not just setting the boundaries, but setting them with your child, and with intention, so with some sort of intentionality that here’s what this is going to look like for us as a family. Here’s why we’re setting those guidelines and boundaries. tell your own story talk about, you know, when I was a child, when I was a teenager, I ran into problems. Here’s this, this is the problems I ran into when I did I wish someone had talked to me. Yeah, you know, of course, by that time in their life, less lecture, more dialogue is important. Don’t just want to be handing it down from above, but always in a posture of dialogue, where you’re saying, look, let’s talk about, let’s sit let’s sit down together and talk about what are some of the what are some of the wise boundaries you think would be good. As you get into more girl friendships and relationships or as you let’s say, you want to go on a date with someone or you want to go to homecoming or the prom with someone? What do you think would be good boundaries based on everything? We’ve been coaching you through what you know about scripture, what you know about the Bible, what you know about God? What do you think would be good boundaries, and just start trying to figure that stuff out?

37:25

That’s so good. And I just want to kind of rehash some of the things you talked about, is really thinking through where your child is, on a, you know, age level, what they can handle, and you talked about zero to five, really literal, really simple six to 10 is to start talking about those difference, boy versus girl, the purposes behind those parts tend to 12 talking about sexual development and what happens in puberty and, and then when they get to the teen years, it’s really pretty much all on the table, you really are encouraging that back and forth conversation right around these topics and how you’ve dealt with things and your experience and your wisdom bringing that to the table. But I also liked your approach to at that point, talking to your kids in a way that respects them and lets them know that you trust them in a way of like, what do you think would be an appropriate boundary? What do you think would be best in the realm of everything we’ve talked about up until now? I mean, it sounds very like, like you said, stewarding adults rather than treating them like children. I like that perspective quite a lot. Well,

38:33

and that’s, I think that’s important, too. I mean, any in any, in any parenting. We do we have to be in parenting, sort of in parenting philosophy out there. You have sort of different extremes. You have the more authoritarian parents, which are more rigid, harsh, yeah. Not, you know, they, they just sort of more or less hand things down to their children. And there’s not a warmth there. There’s not necessarily a love there. You have more permissive parents that are just kind of, they more or less just kind of cater to their children’s whims, desires, they’re more pushovers. They don’t have any boundaries. They just want peace in the home. So they just kind of give the children whatever they need or whatever they want. They’re kind of unwittingly trained training their child to believe that the best way to get attention is to be needy, and things so you got that kind of hair. But I think that the balance that we need to arrive at is authoritative parenting, what’s called typically called authoritative parenting, which means you have standards and your standards are really clear. You’re not You’re not budging on standards, because your standards are based on timeless values. And they’re, they’re important but you’re always communicating the why behind those standards. And you’re always sitting down with your child in a posture of dialogue, love, compassion. As a fellow center one center to another, saying, not only, you know, of course they’re you’re their parent, but you are communicating to them. This is why we do what we do. This is the reason why we have the values we have, you’re taking them back to the Bible back to the scriptures, you’re anchoring their understanding of their body, their sexuality, their maleness or femaleness in what God has said. And you’re always bringing it back to that when you do that, then you are raising your children, you’re giving your children your posturing your children for having a much more healthy sex life in the future. And even as a celebrate young adults, you know, you’re posturing them for success in that area. Because you’re giving them all the tools they need to in the years that they’re going to be, you know, the sort of raging hormone, teenagers or young 20s, or whatever they are, I mean, I was 28, before I got married. So I know what it’s like to be in that period as a young man of teenager Yes, young 20s. Feeling this, this what seemed to be insatiable kind of desire, but not feeling like I had much coaching around it, not feeling I had a whole lot of understanding of what it was for and developing some, quite frankly, very bad habits and bad ways of relating in those years of my life. All because there were just nothing to guide, there was no way to there, I didn’t have a roadmap for it, I didn’t have someone, I didn’t have the echo of of of that, you know, those wise parental voices in my life, not that my parents did a terrible job raising me. But this was not a topic that was, you know, you know, that was on their radar. Or for me when I was a young a young man.

41:50

Yeah. And that’s kind of, you know, just, I’m just so excited that we’re having this conversation, because I can, you know, follow up all of this conversation. Say there’s more on your website, there’s so much more insights you give, there’s, when I was just flipping through mom, mom’s in sex ed, seven tips for teaching your young boys. And it’s so funny, as I was just scrolling through some of the parts I got, I got choked up, because I was just like this one be the kind of woman you want your son to marry. It’s just so powerful. But it to just underscore to underscore this. One thing that you said throughout that I love is is talking about, you know, coaching and stewarding your, your your young person who’s becoming an adult who’s stewarding adult, but, but coaching them into the kind of person they should be the kind of man that they should become in God’s eyes, the kind of woman they should become. And I think a lot of us feel really ill equipped to know how to coach just for the very reason that a lot of us made the wrong choices. And we didn’t know how to steward that. Well, we weren’t coached just like you said. But like I said, you’ve got lots of insights on that on your on your blog. So there’s another link I’m looking at, you know, teaching your child about sex when you have sexual sin in your past, like, brilliant stuff. So definitely check out intoxicated on life.com. But before we wrap up, I want to just make sure we talk about kind of this last piece that’s really on my heart when I am approaching kind of going back to some of the the first thoughts we were having about not being overcome by evil but overcome evil with good. I mean, I think it’s it’s happened on especially some of us who are vigilant on these things that know a lot about the statistics know a lot about what’s going on in this world. How do we become people that aren’t obsessed or that aren’t preoccupied, that aren’t, you know, living every day, you know, trying to shield our eyes and everyone else’s from you know, the wrist? I mean, how do we become people who aren’t preoccupied with this in a scary fearful way, but in a way that’s tempered with wisdom? And you kind of know what I’m getting out?

44:01

I do. I think that there is a tendency for parents to get very nervous about this. And they don’t want to they don’t want to not only do they not want to say something wrong, but they don’t want to make this this sort of this obsession where they’re where they’re concerned about am I just being decided to hyper vigilant parent, it might even even in the privacy of my own mind in my kind of getting too overworked worked up by this. Yeah. I would take you to Proverbs chapter six, where Solomon is talking to his own son, and he is speaking as a father to a son. He is telling him he’s giving him a promise. And I think this is a promise that a lot of parents and children need to hold to where he says, Oh, my son, obey your father’s commands. And don’t neglect your mother’s in struction keep their words always in your heart, tie them around your neck when you walk, they will counsel you. They will lead you when you sleep. They will protect you when you work, they will advise you for their command as a lamp, their instructional light. The corrective discipline is a way to life. It will keep you from the immoral woman from the smooth tongue of the promiscuous woman don’t lust for her beauty. Don’t let her eyes your core glances seduce you, for a prostitute will bring you to poverty. He goes on to sort of the the temptations of premarital sex, the temptations of adultery, the temptations of lust, and those sort of things. But what I love is the promise found there is that yeah, this this boy, that is if he keeps, if he treasures, what his father and mother say to him, in his heart, he says, when you walk, they, their counsel will lead you when you sleep, they will protect you, when you wake up, they will advise you. In other words, it’s a way of saying all day long, from your waking to your walking throughout the day theater going to bed at night, these voices will ring in your mind, they will be an echo in your mind. So that as you face that temptation to look at pornography, to lust after or masturbate, or to hook up with this person or to flirt in an inappropriate manner with this person here, or whatever it is, yeah, that enforce you speaking to young men, you can say the same thing to young women. When you do that, when you when you are engaging in all the activities of your day, that that voice will be ringing there. So I would tell parents look at this as a very positive thing, your role in their life right now is laying a foundation in their heart in their mind, that is equipping them to not just face the sexual temptations of of the future. But it’s also equipping them to again, have a good, healthy, healthy sex life is at some point in the future at some point in the future. Actually, the first several chapters five chapters 567 of proverbs are Yeah, all about. I mean, they constantly re reiterating this theme of not just sexual temptation, but also the beauty of sex in marriage. So So I would say that this is one of those things where don’t become neurotic about it. Yeah, instead become very positive in your own heart and mind about I know sex is gonna play a significant role in my son or daughter’s future. I know that’s true. I also know that I play a significant role in their current life, where I’m teaching them. And so I’m going to do what I can to teach in a in very positive terms, in very excited exuberant terms, but also in very, you know, kind of that, you know, I’m going to warn my child, I’m going to warn them. Yeah, six can not sex is good. But not all kinds of sex are good, you know, the sex can, sex can do bad things to you when it’s misused. So I’m going to do that. And I’m not, I’m not going to get neurotic about it. Because I have this promise in my heart that I’m not going to get fearful. I’m not going to get tied up, I’m not going to get antsy. I have this promise from the Word of God that says that the echo of my voice is going to ring in their mind as they go throughout their entire childhood, teenage years young adult life, that’s going to help them and guide them in some of these crucial, crucial decisions and crucial life choices.

48:35

Oh, that is so good. What a wonderful promise that God has given us let’s we can just we can relax into I mean, it’s the word of God, He promises, he holds fast to his promise that he’s not a man that he should lie. So that’s so good, what a good what a good wrap up to this conversation. I guess my final kind of, you know, question is, in light of everything we’ve talked about, are there any other you know, encouragement you want to give those parents out there that are fumbling through this process?

49:10

Hmm. Just keep in mind that. Don’t downplay your role as a parent in stewarding this area of their life. The Word of God certainly testifies it to it. But also modern research as well testifies to this that parents who deliberately intentionally spend time talking to their children about these subjects in a way that is calm in a way that is joyful in a way that is purposeful, that is principled. Their children grow up far more sure of what they think about sexuality than their peers do far more, far more. I’m not saying that, you know, that doesn’t guarantee anything. Nothing is a guarantee when it comes to parenting. You know, there’s no guarantee their children are going to go on become rebellious. should do whatever, there’s no guarantees about that about sex or about any other subject in their life. But when you give your child that, then what regardless of where they go in life, they they know they have that, that under their undergirding their heart with that understanding. I know where I know what I was raised to believe. I know what’s right. My conscience has been informed by wise loving parents, who, by the way, have given me those guidance principles have guided my heart, because they love me. You know, and I think that’s if we if our children know that our law, if you will, our rules, regulations, or whatever, if our law follows from love, then they understand, okay, yes, it’s not just because my parents want to ruin my fun or whatever, it’s because my parents truly do love me. And because they understand what the purpose of sex is, they’ve taught me what God has said about the what the purpose of sex is, and therefore, you know, they, they’re, they’re much, they’re standing on a much firm, firm, more firm footing than their contemporaries are, who’ve just kind of been wandering about in this I what I would tell a story, one story would love to finish a story of Sure, it’s kind of a weird analogy. It’s somewhat memorable. It’s interesting when you’re watching the, you know, watch documentaries of this is gonna sound so stupid, the lives of young, the lives of young elephants. Ah, so a young and a young male elephant when he’s born in a pack of elephants. There comes a point where in his in his young life, when he separates from the women of the herd and goes off on his own. And what he does is he searches for he actually secretes a piece secretes a smell that alerts and other older male male elephants, and the other male, what a male elephant will then come alongside this younger male elephant will lead him and will guide him, he will teach him how to hunt how what his male elephant strength is for He will, He will guide him and lead him. What’s interesting about these elephants, however, born in captivity, is that because there’s not a whole lot of elephants around there, what what people have noticed is that these young elephants, actually they post, they actually have this sort of long, male adolescence, where they, they, they’re dysfunctional, they get into lots of fights, and they don’t know how to relate to the other female elephants around them and that kind of thing. So there’s a constant sort of, there’s a problem with these young male elephants born in captivity. I think when I, when I was learning that about elephants, I couldn’t help but actually see myself. It I felt as if, in my own life, I was kind of born in a state of captivity, where because, you know, for, for whatever, because of various circumstances in my life, I didn’t have someone around, I didn’t have wise guides around me, who are willing to talk to me about these things who were willing to coach me, lead me guide me. Yes, thanks. Because of that, I had all this pent up.

53:27

You know, sexual energy, the second pent up emotional energy inside me and I didn’t know what all of it was for. And it just came to came out in weird ways. In the ways I related to other men that I knew other women I knew, I mean, everywhere and all my relationships, just kind of weird ways. I think there’s something to be said, For when fathers and mothers walk up beside their, their, their children, and they’re able to guide them through these things. You know, the teenage years are turbulent, I get that the teenage years are filled with, you know, high emotions and uncertainty and hormones, and I get all that. But when you have that wise guide, or when a child has those wise guides, mom, dad, or even the other males in their life wise, grandparents, wise, church leaders, that kind of stuff. Yeah, right. People coming alongside of them. It can make all the difference in the world. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

54:26

Absolutely. Oh, that’s so so good. I, I loved the elephant analogy. All right. So we’re gonna keep that in our

54:33

body like the other elephant.

54:34

No, I really did. I think that’s a good, good visual, we’ll keep in our heart and thoughts, but it’s so true. And I feel like you know, there are a lot of parents that listen to this. And I think this is a really good resource just to even listen to this podcast a couple times. Like there’s a lot in here that Luke alludes to, but then also being a student of parenting and even if you’re not a parent, I think this is so wise because For me, one of the most influential women in my life was my youth leader. And she was the only model of a healthy marriage I can think of growing up until I was, I don’t know, early 20s the only one. And she also told me about some sexual realities that I had no clue of, and she was not my mother, but she was someone I respected and really mothered me in that. And that was such wisdom, I think of her so often. And I’ve actually, yeah, I just, she’s just amazing. So I think of that, you know, there’s a lot of church leaders that listen, a lot of fathers that listen, a lot of men that listen to this podcast, along with, obviously, our target is women. But I would say, you know, this pursuit of understanding, in order to help and coach and take that step, it’s it’s, it’s courage to take the step that that youth leader exhibited a lot of courage to tell me some experiences that happened to her when she was young. And then, you know, guide me in the ways to understand, you know, what could happen to me, if I’m not aware of some of these things. It takes courage. And so I just encourage parents and and leaders and coaches to step up in those roles. Because there are too many single parents, there’s too many single mothers that don’t have guides for their son, so don’t know how to deal with these things. Right? Right. Absolutely. Well, Luke, brilliant, I’m so so grateful for everything you shared in your ministry in your heart, I so appreciate your work on this,

56:33

Hey, it’s my pleasure. And I would just encourage any of your listeners to if they just need a script on this, because I get that I get that parents don’t want to think on their feet. When it comes to this subject, they do not want to approach sex education, with you know, just sort of whatever comes to their mind, whatever pops in their head at the moment, I get that. That’s exactly why I’ve written the books I’ve written on this, both our book, the talk and the book, his follow up book changes, which you can find on our website, both of those books, that’s exactly what they are, they’re scripts for parents to follow. And that’s the idea behind them, I find that with parents, if you can get over that initial hurdle of don’t want to talk about this, if you can get over that initial kind of fear hurdle thing where you have several really good, purposeful, intentional, sit down conversations with your child, then all the conversations after that tend to be much more natural, and much more easy going because you’ve already said the hard stuff, you’ve already kind of gotten through some of those initial discussions, and you have something to refer back to, um, you know, so that when you see that racy billboard on the highway, or the racy magazine cover in the checkout aisle of the grocery store, or you see with some real commercial on TV or whatever, you can not just shun it, or turn off the TV, or tell kids to look away or ignore they had a question or ignore, they look or ignore that they noticed it. Instead, you can use it as an opportunity to teach them where you refer to it and say, Do you see that? Do you remember what we talked about when we said, whatever, you know, what God says about being male and female, what God says about being one flesh, what God says about this, what God says about that, and then draw those contrasts for your, for your child, when you do that. When you get over those initial discussions, when you push through those, then what’s on the other side of that is it I really believe a whole lot easier, not that the conversations are always easy, or that the issues are always easy, but your fear about the situation is so much more alleviated. So you can approach it with confidence, because you’ve already equipped them with some information. That’s exactly why I wrote those books. And I encourage parents to use them, because that’s exactly what they are for.

59:02

So good. Yeah, I do so and where can they find those again, go to intoxicated

59:06

online.com. You’ll click a tab there that says products or products. They’ll go to our store and they can see all the different products we have we have a whole category under parenting for sex education resources. Oh, I’m

59:19

so glad. Okay, that’s just awesome. Well, again, Luke, thank you for your time and everything that you do. I really appreciate you being on.

59:26

Thank you so much.

59:32

Wasn’t that good? And it’s not just something you want to kind of go back to over and over again. I hope you do. But I kind of want to underline something Luke said from the beginning is really that modeling aspect of this whole thing. I mean, the most important thing is for your kids to see that healthy marriage that relationship. So thank you so much for taking the time today to invest in your marriage. Just by listening to this it gives you that that little burst Have encouragement to continue on the path that is so worthwhile, called Healthy, intimate marriage. But I also want to say if that’s not a reality in your life, having a healthy understanding of sex, oral sex, other aspects of intimacy in your marriage, if that’s not a really a reality for you, I just want to encourage, I’ve got a wonderful resource for your delight your husband video course, it’s one that I have really put my heart and soul into. And for me, like I said, the way that I was raised did not turn into a healthy sexual relationship in my marriage, not even close, I had all the shame and guilt kind of what we were talking about today. And, you know, I heard what I heard from my mother in my head was, this is wrong, this is not good. And so as adults, as women, we need to rewrite those scripts that have been written in our heads, those, those audio tapes that just keep playing, or visualizations that just keep playing that say, this is wrong, when, when that’s not what the Bible says at all. And so I just encourage you, if this is something that you need to get on track, I mean, honestly, for the sake of your family, for the sake of your kids, and their sexual futures and their life, in the reality of the world and in God’s plan, because again, you are the most important piece in the way your kids understand sexuality and the way they live it out. Which I think Luke really underscored in this lesson. But delight your husband video course, it’s a course that I was selling for an investment really, of $297. Originally, I thought it was 247. It was 297 is what it was, what the price point boys and I’ve had wives come back to me and say it was worth every penny, and even wives that have wanted to give it to their daughters when they get married. I mean, it’s that kind of information, with heart and with practical guidance, really practical, how to move from someone who’s insecure about it, maybe thinks it’s wrong, shameful, and become someone who’s passionate and confident and fierce in intimacy with your husband. So that’s where I was my journey. That was a journey that took a long time, a lot of heartache, a lot of mess. But I think we as wives as Christian, God honoring wives don’t need to go to the dark side, and learn from the enemies, you know, perspectives on sex, we need to learn and healthy, God honoring ways but really, really, really practical. I answered the questions, you’re too embarrassed to even type into Google honestly. And really, you shouldn’t be typing into Google, because they’ll probably give you some, you know harebrained answers that are going to take you far away from what God wants you to be looking at. So again, this is all based on scientific research, a lot of study a lot of energy and effort. But I would really encourage you that the 297 price point has been significantly reduced just because God is provided financially in a really amazing ways. But go to delight your marriage.com you can get that resource. Also everything we talked about on today’s show, I’ve got it linked up to let your marriage.com you can click on the links there. God bless you. Thank you so much for coming to listen today. Share this with your friends. You never know what generation might be impacted by these kinds of understandings if, if we will take note and live the way God wants us to. God bless you. I love you. I’m praying for you. And your marriage. We’ll talk on Tuesday. Bye.

1:03:35

Thanks for listening. Stop by delight your marriage.com to check out all the show notes as well as many more resources and articles. Until next time, live with love, wisdom impassion