Beyond Shame

Creating a Healthy Sex Life on Your Own Terms

By: Matthias Roberts, Tina Schermer Sellers - foreword

Narrated by: Timothy Andrés Pabon

We all carry sexual shame. Whether we grew up in the repressive purity culture of American Evangelical Christianity or not, we've all been taught in subtle and not-so-subtle ways that sex (outside of very specific contexts) is immoral and taboo. Psychotherapist Matthias Roberts helps listeners overcome their shame around sex by overcoming three unhealthy coping mechanisms we use to manage that shame.

Beyond Shame encourages each of us to determine our own definition of healthy sex, while avoiding the ditches of boundary-less sex positivity on the one hand and strict moralistic boundaries on the other. Define your sexual values on your own terms, overcome your shame, and start having great, healthy sex.

©2020 Fortress Press, an imprint of 1517 Media (P)2022 eChristian

An Important Stepping Stone for Positive Change

I'm a man who got married at 18 years old. We had no sexual experience before marrying, and little to no sexual guidance. You may imagine that this lead to much confusion, shame, and dissapointment. However, when facing head on the truth of our situation, we are finally deciding to take our sexual differences seriously and explore them. I used to shame myself for feeling desires she didn't share, and she felt the same about me. But with help from resources like this book, we are working toward understanding our own sexuality so that we can better understand and support each other. And for the sake of our marriage, we have to fight shame together. This perspective in this book was an important step toward healing for us.

Are you looking for Truth or Approval?

If you’re looking for truth, a more helpful book on this topic would be “Talking Back to Purity Culture” by Rachel Joy Welcher

If you’re looking for approval Matthias Roberts uses the subjective language of scripture when it supports his worldview and ignores the more objective passages like Romans 1:24-32.

This author describes a Jesus and gospel that does not align with the whole of scripture. At about 54 minutes into the audiobook the author reveals his distorted understanding of the gospel. This book should not be listed as “Christian Audio”

Good but had different expectations

I had to listen to it at the speed of 1.5 because the narrator was too slow for me. I thought this book would talk more about how to overcome shame but instead it talked more about the history of shame and where it comes from and how it’s burned into our brains. So having that knowledge is helpful, and I do appreciate that from this book, but I was hoping for a bit more “self-help” at the end.

Good info, but author is close minded

Ironically, the author presents a lot of absolutes with little regard or acceptance of other people's ideas and opinions. For example, calling ancient and/or religious ideas "lies", and I am not even religious. Also, I had to double check the book description in order to make sure that it was not geared towards gay folk. But there were some tidbits that a married, straight male could apply to ideas about sex.