29 Days to Great Sex Day 20: Deciding Your Boundaries

In any marriage, one spouse is going to feel more adventurous in the bedroom than the other.

We’ve been working through the 29 Days to Great Sex, and last week we were concentrating primarily on how to create those fireworks–how to make it feel as wonderful as it was meant to (and one commenter actually reported that she and her husband broke the bedframe ).

Yesterday, I encouraged you all to go to God and ask for Him to restore passion and life and vibrance to your sex life, because God is the author of passion and life. If you feel dead, or bored, that’s not from God.

It’s good to have both of those things as the context for what I’m going to talk about today:

How do you decide what’s okay to do and what’s not?

Over the last few years, the vast majority of anonymous questions I’ve received have been about that sort of thing: my husband (or my wife) wants to try something in bed, and I’m not comfortable with it. What do I do?

In many marriages, one spouse is more adventurous than the other. That’s only natural. How you negotiate, though, can be tricky. So let’s look at some basic ground rules that can help us:

1. Our Whole Body is for Sex

Sex is supposed to be fun. God made our bodies to feel great during sex–and he didn’t create it so that only certain body parts feel good. As we looked this week on the pieces about foreplay, the more you involve other body parts, the better!  When you read Song of Solomon, you’ll find tributes to just about everything. Sometimes, however, we get hung up and think that only certain positions are holy, and everything else is somehow wrong.

I don’t buy that. We’re supposed to get lost in each other, and to enjoy all of each other. That’s part of the celebration of being intimate and naked together.

2. Sex is More than Physical

At the same time, sex is more than just a physical connection. It’s also a spiritual and emotional connection (I deal with this at length in The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex, and indeed it’s divided into those three sections: how to make sex great physically, emotionally, and spiritually). One of the reasons, I believe, that married Christians tend to enjoy sex more than those who aren’t married is that we know that it isn’t just about the physical. When we make love, we’re also expressing our commitment for one another, and our hunger for true intimacy.

The world doesn’t understand that because our culture has divorced sex from relationship and commitment, and so all they have is the physical. And that’s why our culture has become increasingly pornographic. When the physical is all you have, eventually the physical feels empty. To get the same high, you have to do more and more extreme things physically (in the same way that an alcoholic needs to take more drinks to get the same buzz). So why are things that are once taboo now talked about openly on sitcoms? Because our culture is getting more pornographic.

And that is going to impact our own idea of sexuality. If what is portrayed as sexy are these extreme things–threesomes, sex toys, etc. etc.–then some of us will get very enticed by that.

My caution is this:

While there is freedom in the marriage bed, and while the whole body is good, if you start seeing sex in terms of riskier and more perverse things, you may lessen its ability to truly bring you and your spouse together intimately. You’ve lost the spiritual connection. So be careful that you always experience sex, first and foremost, as a way to say “I love you”, and not just as a way to get selfish fantasies met.

3. There is Great Freedom

Nevertheless, there is great freedom in the marriage bed, and I’d be hesitant to pronounce anything that does not involve a third party–or fantasizing specifically about a third party–as sinful. That being said, just because something isn’t sinful doesn’t mean it’s good to do. Like 1 Corinthians 6:12 says, “Everything is permissible, not everything is beneficial.”

4. While Acts May Not Be Sinful, Selfishness Is

One more caveat, and I’m going to use oral sex as an example (I hope I haven’t lost any readers by actually typing that, but honestly, I need you to know what I’m talking about). I don’t believe this is sinful, and I do believe that it can be argued that Song of Solomon alludes to it. Kissing is fine, and the mouth has more germs than most other parts of the body, so if you’ll kiss a mouth, I don’t think there’s a big problem–if you’re comfortable with that.

However, I received an email from a woman recently who said that her husband demands that they start every encounter this way. There were other issues as well, but the simple fact was that he preferred this to kissing her mouth or even to any shared physical pleasure. That’s just pure and simple selfishness.

There is nothing wrong with being “giving” during a particular sexual encounter and concentrating on one of you for a time. But if that becomes the majority of your sex life together, there is a huge problem. That’s not real intimacy; that’s just being selfish. And it needs to stop.

And let me say something specifically to those of you who are the more adventurous spouse: It’s also being selfish to demand something that your spouse is truly not comfortable giving. While I don’t think there’s anything wrong with oral sex, for instance, if a spouse really doesn’t want to do it, then you should never, ever push them. Why would you break trust with someone you love over this? Is it worth wrecking the ability that sex has to bring you together? The marriage bed is meant to be an extremely safe place. If you turn it into something that isn’t safe because you’re insisting on something that your spouse doesn’t want to do, then you’re wrecking something precious.

Besides, if it is something that isn’t really sinful–or even that extreme–you’ll likely find that if you spend a few years being really giving and helping your spouse to relax and feel wonderful in bed, then he or she will be far more willing, and even eager, to try other things later on.

5. Dare Yourself

Now a word to the spouse who isn’t as adventurous. I do think it’s okay to say no to some things that you really find distasteful. However, if they are not sinful, I’d encourage you to ask yourself why you think they’re distasteful. There may be some ways that you can incorporate some of these things into your love life in a non-threatening way, and I’ll look at some of them tomorrow.

But some spouses–and let’s be honest, it’s usually men–do enjoy trying different positions and different things more often than women do. This is logical. Women are far more physically vulnerable in sex. Changing positions can be difficult to get used to. Some can make us feel even more vulnerable. And once we find a position that does work for us with an angle that makes us feel great, we’re often less willing to try other things.

Tomorrow we’ll talk about ways to have fun without feeling threatened, but let me just say this: it’s okay to say no to some things. But then dare yourself to make what you do enjoy absolutely amazing for your spouse! And dare yourself to make sure that you really connect on an emotional & spiritual level, too. Because if you’re doing that, and you’re making love with regular frequency, you’ll likely find that trying some of these other things becomes less of an issue in your marriage, for both of you.

If you want to know what I think about specific acts (and I’m unwilling to put some of them here for fear of what search engines would think of me!) there’s a whole chapter on that in The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex, as well as an expanded philosophy of how to decide what’s okay to do, looking at God’s view of sex. I wrestled with that chapter a lot, and if you want somewhere to go with some real questions, you’ll really appreciate the book!

Great Sex Challenge 20: Today’s Challenge actually has three parts! Part 1: Feel each others’ whole bodies. Start at one foot, and go up the one side of your spouse’s body, touching and licking or squeezing or whatever you want, all the way to the top of the head, and then all the way down the other side. Really see how amazing each others’ bodies are. Part 2: Once you’ve done that, have an honest discussion about some of the things you’d like to try, you’re scared of trying, or that you have already done but you really didn’t like. Some couples find it easier to talk about this with the lights off so they can’t see each others’ faces, or while spooning so you’re not facing each other. I know it’s an awkward discussion. But try to have it. And here’s part 3: At the end, both of you affirm to each other how much you love and cherish each other–whatever you do in the bedroom. It’s that spiritual connection that is always most important!

29 Days to Great Sex:

Day 1: The Act of Marriage
Day 2: Starting Fresh
Day 3: Loving the Skin You’re In
Day 4: Pucker Up!
Day 5: Reawaken Desire
Day 6: Why Your Hubby Wants You!
Day 7: Moving in the Right Direction
Day 8: 14 Ways to Play as a Couple
Day 9: Prepare for Sex throughout the Day
Day 10:16 Ways to Flirt with Your Husband
Day 11: How to Find Your Hubby Attractive
Day 12: If you’re Having a Hard Time with these Challenges
Day 13: Getting Your Head in the Game
Day 14: What if You’re Not “In the Mood”?
Day 15: What is Foreplay?
Day 16: How to Orgasm
Day 17: The Pleasure Center
Day 18: Foreplay Can Be for Him, Too!
Day 19: How to Come Alive Again

Next: Day 21: 5 Ways to Spice Up Your Marriage

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Related posts:

1. 29 Days to Great Sex Day 18: Foreplay Can Be For Him, Too!
2. 29 Days to Great Sex Day 17: The Pleasure Center
3. 29 Days to Great Sex Day 16: How to Have an Orgasm
4. 29 Days to Great Sex Day 14: When You Don’t Want to Make Love