Recently, a man said to me that if he and his wife were making love under the stars on a beach, he’d be faking it. He’d be faking it because that’s not what gets him off. What gets him off is playing it rough. He wants dirty sex. Exciting sex. Not romantic sex.
My friends, this is why this guys sex life will always suck. He is too focused on himself and what he can get out of it.
Sex is not solely about you. Let me say that again. Sex is not solely about you.
Sex by its design is other directed. It is about both of you giving yourselves to the other. Sex brings unity were there was once disunity. Sex unities two into one flesh.
Sex is fun, but the “funness” is really secondary to the unity that it brings.
When sex is directed at the other, there’s no need to fake it. This is what that guy didn’t understand. The other is the one that excites you. Your husband or your wife is what is erotic.
Not the occasion, not the circumstances, not what he or she can do for you . . the person!
Pillows, sheets, candles, lighting, how a person is dressed, and so on are completely secondary to the encounter with the other. We have to get this through our heads; otherwise, we will not flourish in our sexuality.
Too many of us have trained ourselves to need all this other stuff to enjoy sex. But it’s just not needed. Surprisingly, if you focus all your energy on really loving and pleasing your spouse, you will find, in due time, the less you will need to send you into orbit.
And we are all about simplicity these days. Why are we trying to complicate things. Let’s uncomplicate things.
An Objection
Now I have been accused of advocating an estrogen focused sexuality. That is, a sexuality that is geared towards simply pleasing the woman and not the man. I am told that my view lacks “excitement and testosterone.”
I think, though, it all depends on what we mean by excitement.
Let’s not fool ourselves. We have known for quite sometime that what we find excitement in can be trained. The virtuous have trained themselves to be excited by the really good, whereas the vicious have trained themselves to be excited by evil—that is apparent goods.
I, personally, am training myself to only be excited by my wife. What can I say, she excites me. I love the way she looks. I love her personality. I love her gentleness, her virtue, and her dedication. I love her sacrificial sprit. Her willingness to give and a host of other qualities she possesses.
I don’t’ ever have to “fake it” because what I want and desire is just the person who wants and desires me.
The Way Forward
Has it always been this way. Of course not. We are going on our 10th year of marriage and it has taken a while for us to fully appreciate the deeper meanings of sexuality.
But it all begins with choices. Over time, these chooses my wife and I have made have built a chamber where my wife and I can enter. Be it on the beach or somewhere else. It needn’t matter, because what excites us is each other.
What all of these choices have in common is this: we try to never treat each other as a mere means to an end. If I, for example, do treat her as a mere means, then I am reducing my wife to an object of my sexuality.
What this means is I try to never pursue my wife in a lustful fashion. Yes . . . that’s right. A husband or a wife can lustfully pursue their spouse. This occurs when you seek sexuality simply for yourself. In and out with no regards for the other.
No wonder so many spouses feel like they are being used.
How To Ruin Your Sex Life
True and lasting intimacy is not found in you selfishly seeking the big “O”. Orgasms are wonderful and great. I highly recommend them to those who are married. But don’t confuse the fruit of sex with the substance of sex.
In fact, the best way to ruin your sex life is focusing on orgasm because it turns you inward rather than outward.
And like I said, sex is always outwardly driven.
No Satisfaction
This is a radically differently way to view sexuality. Our culture has warped many of our minds. Unfortunately, many of us have trained ourselves to be excited by the unexciting. And we will reap what we sow.
There’s a reason why the guy faking it could never find satisfaction. There’s a reason he is bored and lonely and despises his wife and women as a whole. He has trained himself to be excited by self-absorption. His soul is crying out for communion but he has forgotten how to communicate. He doesn’t see a person to cherish, protect, and love; he sees an object to use, exploit, and despise.
Which Path?
The question that you must ask yourself is which path are you training yourself for. I hope you choose the path that leads to a selfless love, for it is truly satisfying.
_______
You might be interested in my The Ecology Of Sexual Spiciness
I’ve discussed it in other blogs and podcasts, but briefly:
-if a child is molested, the child thinks he’s going to die
-if a lady is raped, she thinks she’s going to die
-if a baby is unwanted he is too often aborted and he dies
-masturbating to porn, a guy’s seed (life, you know) is spilled onto the ground or spilled into a kleenex and flushed down the toilet: death
-the pornography itself: turn off the electricity and it’s gone. Poof.
-two men expose themselves to excrement, which the body is trying to extricate so you don’t die
-two men or two women can never make life, despite governmental or public sanction. In our society it doesn’t matter. As long as you FEEL like you love the person you are doing the rituals of death with. Feelings become the god of the age. Still: not life. Smiles, maybe. But underneath?
-a man and a woman who are not married, but are cohabiting and pretending to be married. They have the guise of marriage. It looks like marriages, but it isn’t. They are only fooling themselves. They are posers. Then they wonder why they have problems. Then they think I can’t be with a person who’s so selfish, little realizing they themselves are selfish for thinking you can have a marriage without sacrificing yourself and your life and your future and the relationship ends up in death. Cohabiting couples are more likely to break up, have abortions and sexual abuse, both child and partnership violence and breakups. They are fraught with conflict, sexual problems (duh?) and money problems. But see? We’re smiling, so everything must be Okay. Little do they know the vampire has struck and they are, in fact, dying.
-BDSM roleplays sacrificial rituals of death that go back at least to the Biblical Canaanites, if not further. Here: let’s romanticize me taking away your soul with your permission. See? Isn’t that fun? Now let’s dress it up and tout it as the new female erotica. Who can we seduce now? Isn’t being manipulated fun? Let’s make movies about this and seduce our whole society that sex between a husband and wife is boring and we need these things from Ace Hardware to spruce up our love life (Ace Hardware? What does Ace Hardware have to do with love?). We just wanna have fun.
Death is fun?
At least in China they do their Sexuality of Death without all the glamour. Yesterday it was reported Chinese family planning officials forced a woman to abort her daughter when she was seven months pregnant. Her crime? She already had a child:
According to reports, Jianmei was beaten and dragged into vehicle on June 2 by family planning officials while her husband, Deng Jiyuan, was at work. Jiyuan told Ling of All Girls Allowed that five men had abducted his wife and taken her to a hospital where they held her down.
“They covered her head with a pillowcase. She couldn’t do anything because they were restraining her,” the husband stated.
The officials asked her to pay fines worth more than $6,000 but when the money wasn’t given, they forced Jianmei to sign an abortion “consent” form. They inked her thumb and pressed it forcibly against the form.
Toxins were then injected into the brain of her unborn daughter.
“I could feel the baby jumping around inside me all the time, but then she went still,” the mother recounted to Ling.
The forced abortion took place on June 3. After enduring painful contractions, she gave birth on June 4 to her deceased child.
Still, occasionally, in our society, the hurt of the Sexuality of Death can be seen. There’s evidence. But it’s getting scarcer and rarer. You can see it in the report of what the 18-year old man testified yesterday day in the Penn State Jerry Sandusky child abuse scandal. CBS reported:
“I spaced,” the alleged victim said. “I didn’t know what to do with all the thoughts running through my head, I just kind of blacked out and didn’t want it to happen. I froze.”
He testified that after he broke off contact with Sandusky, the former coach came to his home and yelled at him for not spending more time with him. He told the court that the argument got heated and that eventually hid behind a bush to avoid Sandusky.
“I got extremely, extremely scared,” testified the man. “With all the connections he had if he really thought I would say what happened that he could hurt me or someone close to me.”
Hid behind a bush? Good for him. At least someone is getting it.
-Your boyfriend or girlfriend wants to move in with you? Run away.
-A same-sex friend want’s to do what? Run away.
-The porn vampires come out at night and say “click here,” “click here.” Run away.
-Your partner wants to tie you up? Are you kidding me? Tie me up? And then he’s showing you porn pictures of happy women with dog collars around their necks and says, see all the happy faces? Run. Run away.
Somehow in our culture we still identify child abuse as something sick and dirty and wrong and hurtful and deserving of punishment so that we do not promote it in the public sphere. But everywhere else, the Sexuality of Death is just fine.
This day, chose life, the Bible says, over and over. But no. We like our death, all dressed up, with celebratory parades and dances and loud, pulsing music, and beautiful gowns and bodies and grinning faces, ear to ear on the celebrity pages giving the pretense of life, but imposters all.
We don’t like our Christians pointing these things out. You can be a Christian as long as you smile and either keep your mouth shut or agree that indeed, death is to be preferred to life. Christians are judgmental, you know. You don’t want mommy or daddy telling you to not put your hand on the stove or to drink that poison. So let’s shut them up. Eventually it’ll be lock them up. See how tolerant we are? Or we could throw them to the lions like the Roman’s did. At least get some entertainment out of the deal.
Rome: Hey, there’s a society steeped in death. We’ve been down this road before?
But, I think I might have been slightly wrong. Don’t misunderstand me, I am not down playing any of the above mentioned ‘colors,’ but I think we are headed for some troubling times—and this is certainly not to be apocalyptic.
I think this because HuffingtonPost, Fox News, and News.com are all reporting that some experts are now saying by 2050 ‘sex robots will revolutionize sex tourism.’ One export said ‘robots would become so human-like in appearance, function and personality that many people would fall in love with them, have sex with them, and even marry them.’
That’s right; you heard it. Personal sex robots are on their way to a local market near you. Maybe, if technology advances the way it is, we will only have to wait until 2015!
I can already see the advertisements:
Not satisfied with your current sex life? Don’t worry about it; soon you can buy or even ‘rent’ a new ‘lover.’ Are you sick of having pillow talk? Don’t worry about it; soon you can program your ‘lover’ to say or NOT say what you want. Worried about having a baby? Don’t worry about it; soon your lifeless ‘lover’ will be unable to procreate. Worried about catching a STD? Don’t worry about it; soon your ‘spouse’ will be sanitizable. As one expert says, “all androids are made of bacteria-resistant fiber … guaranteeing no sexually transmitted diseases are transferred between consumers.’ Are you worried that people will think you are a nerd? Don’t worry about it; soon Cosmo’s front cover will read ‘had sex with a robot and it was great!’ If Cosmo says so, having sex with a robot has to be cool.
Worried? Don’t be; the experts say that ‘the lifelike sex robots would offer people a guilt-free sexual experience.’ Finally, guilt free sex! But that’s not all folks. Even better, you can have sex with a robot programed to ‘like you’ and have a ‘similar personality’ as you, which the experts say is essential for marriage.
Can I just say it?
WHAT IS WRONG WITH US?
Have we become so corrupt that we can’t see the insanity here? Good is evil and the evil is good. We have taken a personal-affirming, life-giving act between a husband and wife and thrown it into the gutter. I am sorry my friends, but this is just perversion at its height—the finial stroke on the Sexual Revolution’s canvas.
Now you might be has grossed out by this as I am (I am not even enjoying writing this). But don’t fool yourself because you might have already unknowingly accepted the premise/s justifying the existence of sex robots.
You see, when asked about what is driving the demand, some experts say, ‘concern over human trafficking, sexual transmitted diseases, beauty and physical perfection, pleasure from sex toys, emotional connection to robots, and the importance of sex . . . are all driving forces.’
Now, let’s do a few thought experiments to see where you are.
Do you find yourself fantasizing and wishing your spouse could be more beautiful? If yes, are you willing to (or wish you could or idolize those who can) spend loads of money on plastic surgery to insure your spouse looks like a plastic doll? Oh no, here they come.
Do you find yourself preferring a sex toy to your spouse? Are you always needing some new sex toy to spice up your sex life? Why not add another one?
Are you attached to your sex toys such that ‘you can’t live without them,’ as one woman I read said? Well, a robotic man will ‘always be there for you.’ Right?
Is sex just sex to you? Is it just some physical stimulation to distract you? Do you really see no meaning underlining the act? Is orgasm so important to you that you’re willing to self-masturbate yourself to sleep? Why not a sex robot? You can program it to sing you a lullaby: ‘Hush little man-child (women-child) you’re not a pervert . . . ‘
Do you think a moral way to solve the humanitarian concern over human trafficking and sexual transmitted diseases is to give perverts a sex robot? I know, this seems insane, but I have to ask it. One only needs to read Elizabeth Kolbert’s ‘The Case Against Kids‘ to see how horribly pragmatic we have become as a culture. The temptation for many of us is to allow some evil that good may come about. We all want human trafficking and sexual transmitted diseases to forever go away. But a good end can never justify a evil means. If you are tempted to think like this, then you have already implicitly accepted the validity of the sex robot existence–even if you find the idea repulsive.
Don’t you see it my friends? Many of you have already accepted the existence of a sex robot without even knowing it. Your desires speak loader than words.
If you want a great sex life with your husband or wife get this CRAP out of your marriage bed. Sex is about a husband and wife truly giving themselves to another. A fundamental aspect of our existence is that we are wired to give ourselves as gifts. That is why it is better to give than to receive. You can’t give yourself to a robot; no matter how great the programming is.
Self-absorption is never satisfying. The more you focus on yourself and what you can get, the more frustrated you will become. It always has and always will.
So, do you want some advice on how to ‘spice up’ your sex life with your married spouse? Stop using your spouse to self-masturbate and focus on loving him/her. Focus on serving him/her. Focus on just being with him/her. He is your husband; she is your wife.
Orgasm is not the end; it’s just the fruit.
For you, the end is your spouse; for your spouse, the end is you. Such a communion of persons results in a beautiful expression of life: a child–our culture’s hidden art piece.
The Sexual Revolution told you sex is all about you. And now it can be all about you—you and your programed robot. Such a combination can only result in a hideous expression of death: a narcissistic-self– our culture’s visible disaster-piece.
He’s leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his fingers intertwined, like he’s praying, and he’s looking at me with a pleading look on the one hand and a please don’t answer the question on the other. If I’m able to answer this question in any cogent way at all he knows he’s going to have to say goodbye to a friend that he’s depended on for comfort almost daily or even daily for fifteen years and it’s like pulling a dead puppy away from a little boy whose been crying over the dead puppy just a little too long and instead of growing up the little boy clings to the dead puppy for comfort, knowing that if he doesn’t let go he can’t become a man.
Every boy knows this. You don’t need me to tell you. In fact that would be the first reason to give up porn: you can’t become a man if you don’t. I don’t mean the TV version of a man. A man on TV sitcoms is shallow and selfish and short-tempered and petty. No. I’m talking about a man who has dignity and deserves respect and can hold his head high and can be proud, not arrogantly so that he pushes people away, most of all his loved ones, but proud in the sense that he has nothing to hide.
Nothing to hide. That would be the second reason to give up porn. The power of porn is the secret. Porn tells you you have to hide. You can’t be known. If anybody knew your little secret the facade would come crashing down like the Wizard of Oz: “Ignore the little man behind the curtain.
That’s what you are when you do porn: a little man behind a curtain. The fantasy of porn is you are a big man. Look at these robust images of pleading females just ogling for your flesh. How come that doesn’t happen in real life, man? I mean, little boy? I had one guy tell me point blank (I didn’t even have to bring the subject up.) that porn was easier than having to have a relationship. Yeah, ain’t that the truth: having a relationship.
That’d be a third reason to quit the stuff: It’s NOT a relationship. It’s training you to NOT have a relationship. It’s self-worship. It turns you inward. You become your own idol. The problem is you make too small of a god. You aren’t big enough to worship. You tell me, well, I’m not a Christian. Okay. Fine. Here’s a non-denominational thought for your non-Christian brain: Jesus said, the pure in heart shall see God. So turn that on it’s head and what do you get? The impure in heart will see ________? Tell me what you see if you are impure in heart? You’re not religious, right? But you are impure? You’d dispute that porn isn’t impure? Are you kidding me? Who are you fooling? You actually believe this poison you’ve been worshiping is (can I say this?) pure? Pure?
You know it’s not. And if you tell yourself it’s fine while you drag your mind through the gutter you are a fool. You don’t have to be a Christian to know you are a fool. And impure. And if you are impure of heart you are going to see something, just not God. So go ahead, you non-Christian (or Christian or priest or pastor for that matter. Porn is no respecter of persons) and tell me what you see.
That’s another reason to quit porn. It tells you lies you believe. You don’t really believe them, but then again you do. And you know it’s sucking your very life away. Away. Away. Here’s a true story. I could multiply it a million times if I had the time to hear all the stories.
There once was a man who hated his job. The odd thing was he trained for this job and went to college and spent thousands of hours and thousands of dollars to become good at this job and there was a time when he felt really accomplished at this job because he was good at it, but, alas, it had lost it’s allure.
Simultaneous to learning his career he was also learning to cope with his problems by masturbating to unrealistic images of ungodly women doing contorted unnatural ungodly things. It was like his career had two tracks: One where he learned a respectful, fulfilling, creative career; one where he learned to frit away his time in the gutter. When his job became difficult, as every job does now and then, even if you like it, he’d go to porn for a little buzz, a little pick-me-up, and he’d feel better for a little while, but he couldn’t get back to his work, because he’d trained his mind to want to wander into the gutter along with all the ungodly women doing contorted ungodly things whenever his problems came to bear on his life.
One day his boss caught him looking at ungodly women doing contorted ungodly, unnatural things, right there in the boss’ business on the boss’ time. This particular young man was lucky, because the boss could have fired him on the spot as a lot of companies have a one and done policy. They don’t take kindly to employees coming to work, pretending to work and fritting away their time in la-la land. It’s called stealing. This would be another reason to quit porn. Nevertheless, this particular employee had a gracious boss, who took the young man aside, who was used to coping with his problems by thinking of ungodly women doing contorted ungodly, unnatural things, and said, as much as he liked the young man, he didn’t want to pay the young man to frit away his time living in a fantasy world and if the boss ever caught the young man fritting away his life on company time again he would be immediately fired.
The young man (boy?) was very repentant, because, even though he hated his job, he liked the money, and fritting away his time with ungodly women doing contorted ungodly, unnatural things wasn’t important enough to the young man to give up his job and eventually live under a bridge so the young man gave up porn cold turkey. He realized that if he was going to quit porn at work he had to quit porn everywhere because he couldn’t very well concentrate at work if he was continually thinking of breasts and butts and other private parts flailing around here and there. He’d found that if he did it at home or on his cell phone at other places that even if he put his phone or computer away the images were still rushing through his brain like an uncontrollable flood and while at times he’d entertain these thoughts just to get through the day, he’d decided, on his own, without his therapist or pastor or anyone else for that matter telling him, that it wouldn’t be fair to his boss to be thinking of these ungodly women doing ungodly contorted unnatural acts instead of concentrating on his work even if he wasn’t looking at those types of things at work anymore. In other words, his conscience kicked into gear. This would be another reason to quit porn.
And an amazing thing happened. Over time, even over a few weeks, he discovered his job again. It’s like he’d been in a desert and didn’t know he was thirsty. How he ever became so discontent he’d no idea. This would be another reason to quit porn. His mind cleaned up. It no longer, or rarely at least, dipped into this fantasy world, and he began to concentrate on his work. He saw he’d made errors on his job. He saw he’d been incomplete. He saw he’d been, basically, incompetent, because his job required him to be meticulous, but he couldn’t be meticulous, when he was thinking of UWDCUUT and various body parts going this way and that. He realized the lion’s share of his discontent with his job had to do with his own failure to perform and be creative in his field and the discontent he felt so strongly was not really about his job at all, but about his own failure of character. He came to this thought on his own without reading any fancy books on porn or talking to his therapist or pastor or anyone else for that matter.
He found that when he discovered these mistakes and oversights that he felt really accomplished for doing a good job and his enthusiasm for his job began to return. He was thinking clearly and seeing there were a lot of things he’d been overlooking. He thought of new ideas to improve things. His creativity came back. His passion for his work came back. In fact, he no longer dreaded coming to work and liked his job again.
This would be another reason to quit porn: it takes your creativity away and replaces it with sloth, unfulfilled desires, discontent, impatience and anger.
Discontent, impatience and anger are the blood brothers of porn. It teaches you to meet your needs now, instantly, whenever you want. Getting what you want when you want it is only a click away. I would submit to you that getting your own way when you want it will turn you into an unbearable prick which would be another reason to quit porn.
And I haven’t even mentioned your wife (or future wife. If you are not married, let’s not forget her. That’d be another reason to quit porn) and how it devastates her and tells her she’s not pretty enough or thin enough or stacked enough or flamboyant enough or contorted enough because she’s very aware somehow these UWDCUUT somehow make you happy or you convey that to her by your judgmental comments now that your brain is steeped on perversion and multiple body parts too numerous to mention. Having just two breasts, for example, wouldn’t really do it for it you, now would it? That’d be reason enough right there to quit the stuff. Really.
In fact, there are lots of reasons to quit porn. We’ve listed a few. Let me summarize:
you can’t become a man if you don’t
you can’t be a genuine person if you don’t
you can’t be open and have honest relationships if you don’t
you can’t be honest with yourself if you don’t
you can’t concentrate on your work or anything else for that matter if you don’t. It literally robs you of your creativity and drive.
you can’t trust your conscience or be conscientious if you don’t
you can’t be productive if you don’t
you can’t be content if you don’t
you can’t not be a prick or control your anger or anything else for that matter if you don’t
you can’t relate to your future wife like you should if you don’t
you won’t be content with your wife and will devastate her or future wife if you don’t
But you didn’t need me or your therapist or your pastor or anyone else for that matter telling you, did you?
If we know what God intended sexuality to be we can spot the counterfeit right away. In these first two podcasts in the “Perversion” series I’m giving my explanation of the Sexuality of Life. In future podcasts I’ll unpack the Sexuality of Death.
In this podcast I review what I covered in the first podcast that marriage is designed by God as the building block of society. The verse from the Bible (repeated in Genesis, by Jesus in the Gospels and by Paul) gives us the foundation of marriage:
For this cause a man will leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife and the two will become one flesh. Genesis 2:24
This verse lays out for us Three Boundaries that must be respected for marriage (and therefore, sexuality) to thrive:
1. LEAVING: A Boundary of Protection
2. CLEAVING: A Boundary of Exclusivity
3. BECOMING: A Boundary of Life
Marriage provides the context for sexuality to be all it was meant to be. Marriage is like a precious vessel and sexuality a priceless ointment that must be stored in the precious vessel. There is only one vessel that can hold this priceless ointment. To break the vessel (divorce), to say the vessel is unnecessary (cohabitation), to say any vessel will do and the precious vessel is discriminatory (same-sex), to say we should mix in other ingredients into the priceless ointment (S & M, bondage, porn, fantasy, role-play, etc.) or we can have other ointments in the precious vessel (open marriage) all pervert the blessing God intended sexuality to be (the Sexuality of Life). If we do any of these sexuality doesn’t just become a different flavor. It becomes the Sexuality of Death and will destroy not only your life but your marriage, your family and society as we know it.
I go on in the introduction to suggest that The Sexuality of Life has FOUR PURPOSES:
1. Birthing and nurturing the next generation with children’s original birth parents.
2. Providing spiritual oneness between a husband and a wife
It might be tempting to stop there, but God gives us way more sexual energy then you can possibly spend on making babies and becoming one with your husband or wife! This leads to the two other purposes of The Sexuality of Life:
3. Channeling your sexual energy into creativity and work to be a blessing to your family, your community and the world at large and
4. Moving our spirits toward God in worship.
What do we do instead? Our society shouts from the mountaintops that if you have a sexual desire of whatever stripe or flavor that this is who you are and it is fine to act out on these desires, that these desires entitle you to certain rights and should be blessed by governmental law, that no boundaries are necessary or the boundaries can be redefined until they are absolutely unrecognizable or they can be ignored or scoffed or stretched or thrown away or stomped on in the sewer and to go for all the gusto and do whatever you want and there will be NO BILL TO PAY…EVER. It’s just you, baby! Pleasure here we come. But this takes us directly through the doorway to the Sexuality of Death.
I then introduce in this podcast the nature of marital sexuality, what the Sexuality of Life actually should look and feel like. I suggest it has FOUR ASPECTS. You should ask yourself, if you are married, if the sexuality between you and your spouse looks like these things. If not, something is amiss:
1. Is it MUTUAL? I take this from the word for sexuality in the Bible: “know.” The word “sexuality” doesn’t occur in the Bible (thankfully!) and is in fact a modern term coined in the last hundred years or so. I refer to the writings and recordings of Christopher West who discusses the origins of “sexuality” as a concept. The Bible says “Adam KNEW his wife” and I suggest that sexuality is not just about knowing the other person, but also being KNOWN. For the brief moments of sexuality there is a nakedness and not being ashamed, a reaching back to the Garden of Eden, reminding us what we COULD have been and foreshadowing the unfathomable joys of heaven.
NOTE: There is nothing here in the Sexuality of Life that is about “getting some” or “giving it up” or “it is my duty.”
2. Is it MEANINGFUL? Here I refer to Proverbs 5:18-19 (I forget to mention the right chapter in the recording! Sorry.) where Solomon writes we are to let our spouse be the focus of our sexuality and our spouse ONLY. We are both to be captivated by our spouse and captivating! I also refer to the Song of Songs 4:12 and 4:16 where the husband says his wife is a garden locked up and she then invites him into his garden to “to taste it’s choice fruits.” It is clear from her statement she enjoys that he enjoys exploring her garden. They explore the garden together.
3. Is it SACRIFICIAL? Marital sexuality is a great way to learn patience and the nature of sacrificial love! It will keep you humble and help you grow up! If you let it! usually there is a disparity in sexual lovemaking between a husband and wife: one wants it less; one wants it more. Both parties need to sacrifice for sexuality to be all it is intended to be. I base this argument on Jesus’ statements about it is more blessed to give than to receive and if you save your life for your own sake you will lose it. Marital sexuality as it was intended to be makes servants of both of us: we BOTH need to sacrifice. One of the verses I refer to is 1 Corinthians 7:3-4 where Paul says your body is not your own. The husband’s body is for the wife and the wife’s body is for the husband. Sexuality is not about one person giving and the other person taking. It is about both sacrificing for the other.
4. Is it life-giving? The Sexuality of Life enhances love and oneness between a husband and a wife. I believe there is a spiritual battle going on outside of our immediate tactile awareness. Couples tell me repeatedly that if they are sexual in the types of ways I’m suggesting here (mutual, meaningful, sacrificial and life-giving) they notice they each other more, there’s a lighter spirit, more joy, more laughter, more flirting, more forgiveness, less anger, and less withdrawal for BOTH OF THEM. I believe that when a husband and wife are sexual with each other in the ways I’m describing here that God literally infuses their relationship with spiritual energy. This spiritual energy literally brings in the next generation, it protects each of the marital partners from temptation (1 Corinthians 7:2 and 5), it enhances trust and security (Song of Songs 7:10), it promotes interest, confidence and contentment between them (Song of Songs 8:10).
If, however, the nature of the sexuality between them is selfish, sexuality will spread other messages between them, and rather than being a blessing and source of joy, it can be a source of doubt, insecurity and chaos. These Four Aspects of Sexuality are fundamental to the Sexuality of Life and if you don’t have them you can turn the Sexuality of Life into the Sexuality of Death without even trying!
One time I sat down and thought through my entire current client load, and went through each client in my mind and looking over my notes and asked myself what percentage of my clients have difficulty with sexuality? Fully 70 percent of them had struggles in this area! I believe it could well be higher than that. What is the deal with that? We live in the most sexualized society in the history of humanity and yet people are fraught with worry, pain and heartache about it? What has happened?
I believe we’ve lost the precious nature of marital sexuality (what I am calling The Sexuality of Life) and we’ve exchanged it for a counterfeit. That counterfeit, I will argue going forward in future podcasts, is the Sexuality of Death and it leads to chaos in human relationships, WHETHER OR NOT YOU ARE MARRIED! I will argue you must avoid it and if you don’t you do so at the expense of your own dignity and the sanctity of your marriage or future marriage and the safety of your own family. Furthermore, your poison spreads to the rest of us and causes the disintegration of society at large! YIKES! A lot is at stake here! More than you can ever know. Do yourself, your spouse or future spouse, your children and/or future children and the rest of us a favor and learn to harness the God-give sexual desire you do have for His Glory and His intended purposes. Ignore it and we all suffer, but most of all you.
In the next podcast I will introduce Uncle Bob, my metaphor for the voice of the Sexuality of Death in our society. You listen to Uncle Bob to your own peril. Stay Tuned!
