In our book Married Sex: A Christian Couple’s Guide to Reimagining Your Love Life, Debra Fileta and I address five major roadblocks that are preventing couples from having a thriving love life in the bedroom.
- Theological Roadblocks
Because the church speaks so often of saying No to sex before marriage, some people absorb the thought that God wants us to say No to sex period. Debra writes, “We spend so much time teaching people to save sex for marriage but so little time teaching them to savor it after marriage.” There’s this little hesitation that we shouldn’t enjoy sex too much, or that there’s something lustful in thinking about it too much (whatever too much is). But the biblical record calls sexual passion in marriage “the song of songs,” a phraseology that escalates and celebrates what’s being discussed. Song of Songs 5:1 reads, “Eat, friends, drink, and be drunk with love!” In referring to Proverbs 5:18-19, describing a husband being enthralled by his wife’s beauty, renowned Old Testament scholar Dr. Bruce Waltke points out that the writer “admonishes that inhibitions be left behind in the marriage bed.”
This is why we go to great lengths early in the book to lay an expositional groundwork for celebrating, enjoying, receiving and even planning mutual sexual pleasure. For some couples, that means women understanding that the Song of Songs begins by stressing how sexual pleasure is for the wife, too, not just for her husband. For other couples it might mean being open to a wider experience of sexual intimacy by focusing on the five senses (each one of which is celebrated in the Song of Songs; see the chapter “The Five Senses of Sex”) or seeing sexual experience in marriage as an oasis in the midst of difficult seasons (See the chapter “En Gedi Sex”).
To enjoy sex as God intends us to enjoy it, we need to take off the theological inhibitions and embrace the biblical celebration of sexual intimacy in marriage.
2. Psychological Roadblocks
The existence of psychological roadblocks is partly why I wanted to write this book with a licensed counselor. If there is trauma or betrayal in a person’s life, that needs to be dealt with before sex can be a place of joy, trust and mutual pleasure. Security and safety are essential guardrails for long-term sexual satisfaction, and you can’t have that while reeling from betrayal or trauma.
Psychological roadblocks go beyond something as serious as betrayal or trauma to include believing psychological lies. Debra deals with faulty “sexpectations”—psychological lies that mislead couples about sex and keep them frustrated. She also wrote the chapter “Going Backward to Go Forward” to help people look at their past to see what’s holding them back in the present.
3. Relational Roadblocks
Many times sexual hang-ups are actually relational hang-ups. Sex won’t fix the relationship, but the relationship can help fix what’s going wrong in the bedroom. Marital sex is an outgrowth of the relationship so if the relationship is hurting, sex will suffer accordingly. Some couples don’t need sexual tips as much as they need relational enhancement. Debra has a section in which she helps readers work through, “is this a relational issue or a sexual issue?” I write a chapter entitled “Better People, Better Sex,” showing how practical the pursuit of biblical virtues can be. They serve us individually and as a couple, making us more attractive as sexual partners and helping us to shed the vices that make us less attractive as sexual partners. Virtue is a friend of sexual enjoyment, not a foe. Debra has another chapter entitled “Above the Sheets,” which addresses other relational issues holding people back.
4. Physical Roadblocks
Sex is a physical act. There are things you need to know about bodies that will help you pleasure each other. And of course you’re making love to a body that is different than yours. That’s why Debra wrote a chapter entitled “Your Body is a Wonderland,” to lay out the basic understanding of the male and female bodies. It’s why I wrote a chapter “What Gets Him Going” and Debra wrote one entitled “What Gets Her Going” and we collaborated on one entitled “What Gets You Going” to talk about specific ways to pleasure your spouse and to learn how to receive pleasure on your own. We stress throughout this book that you shouldn’t treat your husband like most husbands like to be treated if that’s not the way your husband likes to be treated, and you shouldn’t treat your wife like most wives like to be treated if that’s not the way your wife enjoys being pleasured. Every body is different, but understanding typical truth is a good starting point to get to your spouse’s particular truth.
5. Boredom Roadblocks
Doing the same thing over and over and over can get…boring. Even though sex can be intense and wonderful, like anything, a little creativity never hurts. Christians are often held back in this regard as we understandably are wary of reading or viewing certain material out of a belief that we don’t want to fill our minds with stuff created by people who don’t share the biblical belief that healthy sex is reserved for the marriage of a husband and a wife. That’s why Debra and I interviewed and/or polled over a thousand couples to get ideas, anecdotes and testimonies of things couples have learned to add spice to their love life. It’s probably not a good idea for couples in a small group to share, “You wouldn’t believe what we did the other night!” But with anonymity, a book can change the names (our examples are all true, but lawyers insisted all the names be changed) of the couple but provide practical, inspirational ideas for what couples have learned to do.
We share how couples have learned to grow their intimacy by unleashing the five senses of sex—what couples do to incorporate smell and sight, sound, touch, and even taste. Some of these anecdotes are sweet or even funny (a wife that uses sound to “simmer” by listening to music that gets her in the mood to make love to her husband, even while she’s heating up macaroni and cheese for her children); some are intense and descriptive. And I’ll be honest here: these examples are what makes this book a bit more explicit than some people anticipated. It’s not pornographic, but it’s specific. If that type of description will cause more harm than help (temptation instead of inspiration), you might want to steer clear of this book. If you think anonymous examples from other couples who share your belief in keeping the marriage bed pure could be helpful, then be prepared to be inspired.
The Goal of a Fulfilling Love Life
I told one podcaster that the purpose behind Married Sex isn’t just to increase couples’ enjoyment in the bedroom; it’s to increase those “after sex smiles” between a husband and wife later in the evening or the next day when they remember what they’ve done, how they’ve enjoyed each other, and share those private, sacred, knowing looks of remembrance that are beautiful and special. It’s to increase a couple’s worship of God who can openly and unabashedly praise God for creating us male and female, for thinking up and engineering the pleasure of sex, and giving us helpful guidance in the Bible to experience sex to its fullest extent. It’s to make our homes feel more secure for our children with the natural affection that results from a husband and wife being intimate on a regular basis.
That’s what you’re getting in Married Sex: A Christian Couple’s Guide to Reimagining Your Love Life. If you’re facing any of these roadblocks, I believe you’ll receive biblical, sound and in many cases even licensed counsel (thank you Debra!) to help you chart a new path forward in the bedroom.