How Can Leaders Talk About Sex Without Fueling Fear or Shame?

Conversations with Dr. Jennifer

Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife

Self-improvement, Education, Mental Health, Sexuality, Health & Fitness

4.4 • 978 Ratings

🗓️ 20 May 2025

⏱️ 66 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sexuality is an important part of our spiritual and relational lives—but for many Latter-day Saints, it’s also a source of confusion and anxiety. In this new episode, Dr. Finlayson-Fife joins Kurt Francom of the Leading Saints podcast to talk about how church leaders can best support their congregation in matters of sexuality—not by avoiding the topic or using fear-based messaging, but by offering a more hopeful, honest, and empowering vision of how our God-given sexuality can bless and enrich our lives. Listen to the full episode to learn more about: What healthy leadership around sexuality can look like Why fear and shame don’t help people make better choices How to talk with youth in ways that build confidence and self-respect How healthy sexuality strengthens faith, integrity, and intimacy

Transcript

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0:00.0	One of the issues that we've had in our messaging that's been a really problematic and short-sighted
0:06.0	message is that men have sexual needs and good women fulfill them.
0:11.2	That's a terrible message.
0:13.4	It's a very intuitive one because men's sexual desire is usually more evident than women's
0:19.3	is because men have testosterone.
0:22.4	And that's a part of the differences between men and women.
0:25.5	But when you frame it as women should take care of men's sexual needs, you kill sexual
0:31.1	passion for both men and women right away.
0:34.3	Because women's desire does not thrive in caretaking, ever.
0:43.6	Welcome to conversations with Dr. Jennifer, a collection of interviews on the topics of
0:53.6	relationships, sexuality, spirituality, and more.
0:57.7	All featuring Dr. Finlayson Fife.
1:03.8	All right, we finally have Jennifer Finlason Fife in the studio for Leading Saints. How are you, Jennifer?
1:09.9	Good. Yeah. Good. You know, you're,
1:12.6	I don't know, you have this, you have a brand in our community, I mean, in a broader community,
1:17.3	but definitely in the, the Latter-day Saint community of you're the person that talks about sex, right?
1:23.0	Yeah. I am. I would have been horrified to know that when I was an adolescent, but that was going to be my future.
1:30.1	Right. Yeah. Well, I think I couldn't have anticipated the career path I have either, but here we are, nonetheless, and these are important topics to talk about. And I mean, is that, I mean, on this topic, there's just so many ways so we can go. And obviously,
1:44.6	in the leading saints world, we're going to focus on, you know, what church leaders maybe
1:48.5	need to consider or understand about this dynamic. But like, I'm just when, especially when
1:54.7	I connect with a therapist, I'm just curious, like, as far as Latter-day Saints go, what are the
1:59.2	general themes you're hearing right now or the
	...

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