Dear Andrew, Before marriage, I was a sex addict who slept with hundreds of women and struggled terribly with porn. Porn was a struggle in the beginning of our marriage as well, but over time I have learned how to remove it from my life. I have never cheated on [...]
Here is Part 3 of this continued series of letters both to and from an honest misogynist. May it stir your heart to action against violence. This piece was written in collaboration with Rose Gwynn. Part 1 Part 2 Dear Honest Misogynist, What a journey this has been. I have learned [...]
One thing I have always struggled with is learning how to fight clean. In my family of origin, we won arguments by any means necessary: belittling, demeaning, and making the other person feel as small and as insignificant as possible in order to gain the upper hand. If that sounds [...]
Internalized sexism and patriarchy are deeply entrenched into American culture. Even the Christmas season is not immune from this plague. As we celebrate the baby Jesus’ courageous entry into our world, sexist songs and rhetoric attempt to make light of sexual entrapment and the complete disregard of female voices and [...]
Her poster hung from my dorm room wall. She was a model; tall, blonde, slender, attractive. I went out of my way to tell guys who visited my dorm room, “Look who I date when I’m at home”. I stood tall, proud of being the subject of envy from [...]
©Andrew Bauman 2017 all rights reserved Above is what I call the healthy relationship indicator. It can be used as a measurement tool for therapists to measure couple’s relational connectivity in a variety of places of intimacy. It can also be used to self rate to see where you [...]
I am pleased to share a guest post today by my copy editor & writer, Rose Gwynn. This entry is in response to my Letter to an Objectified Woman, you will hear from a woman who is stuck in an abusive relationship with her objectifying man and the war within herself [...]
Women were less than. No one would have said that out loud, but growing up in my white evangelical utopia deep in the South, we all knew it was true: men ruled the world. My presidents: always men, my pastors: always men. Most CEOs, elected officials, and anyone I [...]
Oh my River boy. You surprised us, son. 5 weeks early, narrowly escaping death, you, my son, are fearless. And what a terrifying gift you are. Your mother and I simultaneously wept and held our breath awaiting your first cry. And cry you did! It was loud, a voice of [...]
Series #1 From Abuser to Advocate In record numbers women are courageously coming forward with their horrific tales of sexual abuse, harassment, assault, and violence. Wherever you turn, whether to Hollywood or Washington DC, rural areas or urban sprawl, violence and abuse have no central location; they are everywhere. The [...]
“Our sexuality affects everything we do, and everything affects our sexuality. The same is true of our spirituality -- that which is most deeply meaningful to us. We can deny both. But denying them does not mean they are not both alive in every breath and heartbeat of life.” ― Tina [...]
With another bombshell revelation in the news this month, Harvey Weinstein has used his place of power and influence to use and abuse a countless number of women. The response has been powerful with millions of women sharing their heartbreaking courageous stories on social media with [...]
Robert Masters writes in his phenomenal book “To Be a Man”, “What we do sexually is a reflection of what we're doing with the rest of our lives”. This statement is profoundly true, and so is its opposite. What we have done with our lives (or what has been [...]
The pattern I often see when helping others process an unwanted relationship with pornography is a correlation between addiction and the propensity toward emotionally enmeshed relationships. Pornography teaches us to relate with emotional fusion and an inability to differentiate in a healthy way (this is another aspect of PSR). This [...]
I love women and I hate them. I need a woman close by to survive yet I can’t have a woman too close. If she gets too close, I will either self-destruct or annihilate her in a variety of socially acceptable, manipulative, systemic ways, like a brain surgeon using a [...]
When forgiveness is preached it feels so simple, so easy, yet there is nothing simply easy about it. Forgiveness well sort of sucks. I have heard this word so much growing up in church, it has become nauseating (probably why I avoided writing this for so long). Forgiveness is one [...]
The Idolatry of Sex: When Sex is God & God is Sex By: Andrew J. Bauman The category of idolatry rarely comes up when working through sexual brokenness. Yet it seems to be one of the most important categories to engage when attempting to unwind the tangles of [...]
I have been doing work on my own history of misogyny and the abuse that many women suffer daily under a man's unaddressed brokenness. Here I try to describe what is going through a man's psyche as he unconsciously uses a woman to mend his own wounded heart. Dear [...]
What does it mean to love someone without being emotionally enmeshed? How can we be solid within our own true self without other people's decisions completely shaking our foundation? Here I discuss the concept of differentiation and how it impacts relationship. The Differentiated Self: creating healthy relationship Andrew J. Bauman [...]
