The Fantasy Fallacy

“Finally, there is a brave Christian woman out there that will talk about this subject! It's about time women get real about their sexual struggles and stop looking for love in all the wrong places. I found this book to be insightful, captivating, and full of practical application. It's thrust is towards personal wholeness and fulfilment... with or without a man! Great stuff!!! Have fun reading about her personal journey told with refreshing honesty.”

“When I browsed through this book, I knew right away that I would easily relate to it. And the more I read, the more I could not put it down. Shannon Etheridge delivers a very straight forward, loving message about bringing our lives under full submission to God's will and desire.

Having been caught up in my own struggle, I didn't think anybody else was dealing with the same things I was dealing with. But to read the personal stories that Shannon puts in her book really helped me to stop "beating myself up" and realize that I'm not the only one, and there is a way out. The biggest point that stands out to me is that sexual compromise begins in your mind and/or your heart before it manifests anywhere else in your life.”

Shannon is a million-copy best-selling author, speaker, lay counsellor, and advocate for healthy sexuality. She has a master’s degree in counselling and human relations from Liberty University, Virginia, and has spoken on the subject to young people, students, and adults since 1989. Shannon is passionate about challenging adults and teens to embrace a life of sexual integrity and encouraging married couples in their pursuit of sexual fulfilment. She counsels women who have looked for love in all the wrong places and equips parents to instil healthy sexual values in children from an early age.

Her approach to healthy sexuality is grounded in her own painful experiences of sexual abuse and painful years as a promiscuous teenager. Shannon overcame her past to become the faithful wife she desperately wanted to be, following 6 months of individual and group counselling. Now she speaks boldly and bluntly about the benefits of sexual integrity and sexual intimacy within marriage. Shannon Ethridge is the Gold-Medallion Award-winning author of 18 books, including the bestselling Every Woman’s Battle series, the 5-book Loving Jesus Without Limits series and her book aiming to take her work beyond the Christian book market, The Sexually Confident Wife.

Shannon and her husband of 20 years, Greg, live in a log cabin in east Texas with their two children, Erin (18) and Matthew (15).

In ‘The Fantasy Fallacy’, Shannon Ethrirdge has created an essential academically reliable, biblically sound and spiritually protective work in response to the potentially damaging effects of ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’.

"Hopefully," she prays, "This will usher in an even BIGGER tidal wave of (healthy) sexual curiosity, than Fifty Shades of Grey!" Taking the topics raised in the secular book, and thinking about how Christians should respond to sex and dominance in relationships, bestselling relationships author, Shannon Etheridge, tackles the issues head on with a sound biblical approach and without skirting around the difficult issues.

With so much talk about this ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’, Shannon is keen to promote a pastoral, biblical informed response supported by facts and real life accounts. Taking God's design for sex and relationships and comparing it to the relationships in ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ make this book an essential tool for those in ministry and those wishing to engage with the issues seriously. If you’re involved in dealing with the fall out from Fifty Shades among the vulnerable or young, this book was written with you in mind.

Erotica has invaded more than our minds - it has exploded onto our bestseller lists and into our bedrooms.

Many are looking to sexual and emotional fantasies as avenues to fulfilment. Our fantasies, however, are not reliable guides into the future -0 they are actually rocky road maps from our past. Best-selling author Shannon Ethridge theorizes, 'Fantasies are simply the brain's way of trying to heal itself from unresolved tragedies and traumas. We mentally compartmentalize our pain to make room for pleasure.'

Fantasies have deep psychological roots, and if acted on many of them can do deep psychological damage. Rather than let fantasies rule us, let's take out the sting and bring them under God's rule, allowing the Lord to heal us from the brokenness and insecurities that cause inappropriate fantasies to haunt us.

Without being judgmental or condemning, Shannon helps us dissect several common and often-disturbing topics, such as:

• a distorted fascination with pornography
• the mental pursuit of multiple partners
• the lure of gay and lesbian desires
• bondage, domination, and sadomasochism (BDSM)

With tips for controlling unwanted fantasies and resources for providing a safe haven for recovery, The Fantasy Fallacy helps us recognize and heal our emotional pain and equips us to help others do the same.