I’m going to write about something I wish we talked about
more: sex in marriage. And how it can be hard, and confusing. Most Christian
couples seem to struggle with it, but no one ever talks about it. So I thought
I could at least write down a few things that have helped me over the years, if
only as reminders for myself:
A healthy sex life
does not come naturally or immediately. Did we meet, get engaged, and get
married in one night? This sex thing is a relationship. It putters. There are
ups and downs. It takes work. One couple shared that it took them a few days to
figure out the technicalities during their honeymoon. One couple told me they
didn’t really start enjoying sex until after their five kids were grown.
Everyone has baggage.
Our first kiss was at the altar. Neither of us had dated much, if at all,
before each other. But there is still so much baggage, which I’m starting to
think just means we’re normal people living in a super-messed-up world. There
is so much in the way of expectations, shame, guilt, habit, fears, that we’ve
inherited or absorbed from our families, books, media, both from the Christian
world and the secular world. It is impossible to ignore the effects of
pornography. We are so far removed from Eden before the fall, when it was just
about the two of us and God—nothing else.
My spouse is God’s
chosen sexual partner for me, even if it’s not always what I would have chosen.
Not my choice, God’s choice. Not accidental, but purposeful. Not good, but
somehow best. Probably because my choice would have concerned primarily myself,
whereas God is not as interested in what I want as in what I need, or what my
spouse needs. He’s not interested in sex as an end to itself, but as a means to
something more important.
Our sex life wouldn’t
be better if we had experimented more before marriage. It’s what our
culture tells us, but the personal experiences of friends seem to testify to
the contrary.
Whatever I’m
struggling with, even if I think I am weird or abnormal, I’m not the only one.
In fact, the more I think I’m alone, the more likely a ton of other people are
dealing with the same thing. Sometimes the sense of isolation is the worst, the
idea that there is some norm that we are falling outside of, and getting over
that feeling is half the battle. Like we’re always hearing, Satan likes to
isolate us, to make us think we’re defeated before we even begin.
It’s not “his” issue,
which hurts “me,” or vice versa. It’s our issue. Everything our world
teaches us about sex is that it’s about me; it’s only about someone else to the
extent that it makes me feel a certain way about myself. But here God asks me
to unlearn that, and relearn a mindset where I take ownership of the issues we
face, together. He asks me to stop the mental commentary in my head and asks me
to be open to sharing my hurts and thoughts. He asks me to get into my spouse’s
head and imagine how he is feeling. He asks us to do it together.
I think our world has so heavily conditioned us to view sex
in a certain way—as consumers, as performance, as an end unto itself—that it is
nearly impossible not to think in unhealthy or unloving ways. It is nearly
impossible for selfishness or guilt or insecurity or doubt not to creep in, and
in those times, I hope I remember these things. Sometimes I get a glimpse of
what sex can be—a powerful thing in which God is present, which actually draws
us towards God and each other, which shows us something about God and each
other that we couldn’t have learned otherwise, which redeems the naked shame
from the fall, which shows us what waits for us in eternity. Sometimes it can
be funny, or awkward, and that can be just as poignant. It is all so far from
where our world has come, but I have to believe these things are true, and
possible, and that in the meanwhile, it is okay to talk about it sometimes, to
find it a work in progress.
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