Why is it that passion in the bedroom is so hard to experience for so many Christian women?
We’ve been talking this week about how God made sex to be amazing (with a slight detour for my post-election post!), and we started off the week looking at how sacred sex and steamy sex are not opposites at all.
One of the issues that was brought up in that post, and in the comments, is how often women feel like freedom in the bedroom is somehow a bad thing. So today, for my Marriage Moment, I thought I’d take a look at how freedom and passion all intersect when we know God!
Sheila’s Marriage Moment: Why Can’t More Women Feel Free in the Bedroom?
Why is it that so many women feel as if they don’t have real freedom in the bedroom?
The missionary position is okay, but anything else is too worldly. We should make love a lot because our husbands need it, but to experience real passion for our husbands–well, that just seems not quite proper.
I think there are three reasons.
First, real passion involves a loss of control. To feel real sexual pleasure means that we have to turn the thinking part of our brain off and be carried away by the moment. But that’s something we women have often fought against our whole lives. We’re used to always being on the alert. That’s how we feel safe.
To turn our minds off and to just experience–that’s really scary.
And yet that’s what God wants for us. He knew that we women do feel like everything bad that happens is our fault, so we have to try so hard all the time. And so God made our sexual response to work only when we’re not trying. He wants us to feel freedom!
But that’s hard for a second reason: many of us grow up with the message that sex is primarily for men. He’s the one who needs it every 72 hours and who will be tempted if he doesn’t get release. He’s the one who is visually oriented. Sex was something we had to guard against as teenagers because it was so dangerous to boys. And the idea that a woman would have real passion of her own seems strange, because men’s passion is so dangerous. Why would we want that, too?
Then there’s the third reason: pornography and our culture have taken sex and “owned” it. They degrade sex and make it really shallow, dirty and degrading. In our rush to combat porn, we often reject everything remotely associated with it, including passionate sex. What we forget is that porn got the idea for passionate sex from how God made sex–we didn’t get the idea from porn.
We women are often raised with very weird messages about sex. Passion feels scary, because you’re out of control. Sexual passion seems dirty, because it’s associated with porn, or dangerous, because it’s associated with men’s downfall. And so we often retreat, trying to find the Christian version of “safe sex”, which is tame and loving, but not necessarily very free.
What if we reclaimed sex to be passionate for women, the way that God intended? What if we rejoiced in real vulnerability, which meant being out of control with someone you love? And what if, as we experienced more and more of God’s passion, we were able to let our guard down more with our husbands? I think that would bring some much-needed freedom to a part of life that we try far too hard to make tame.
Do you have a hard time seeing sex as hot and holy at the same time?
I wrote this book for you–to help women find real passion. If that’s what you need, don’t miss out!
Here’s a comment from a woman who has finally discovered passionate sex:
One woman left this comment on my post about sacred sex, and I just wanted to share it here because I thought it was so important:
Like this post? You may also find these helpful:
[adrotate group=”1″]
Sheila Wray Gregoire has been married for 29 years and happily married for 24! She loves traveling around North America with her hubby in their RV, giving her signature "Girl Talk" about sex and marriage. And she's written 7 books. About sex and marriage. See a theme here? Plus she knits. Even in line at the grocery store.
As a man, I love it when my wife is passionate about sex. Yeah. I understand she’ll do it sometimes to make me happy, but honestly, I love it so much when she does it to make herself happy. I love it when she does it because that tells me that being intimate like that with me brings her so much joy. We men see women go crazy over so many things in life and we often wish “Why can’t I be what brings you so much joy?”
When you’re afraid around us or ashamed of your body, it gives us a message. You think we’re just like everyone else. You think we’re still judging you negatively. You think we are still untrustworthy, and that message really hurts. Few are intentionally sending that message, but it is indeed sent.
Being passionate about sex tells us you’re passionate about us. You can be the best housekeeper or mother or cook or everything else, and no one is knocking that, but it misses something if you’re not passionate about us.
Interestingly, all of this is the same attitude we’re to have towards God. Yes. Sex is very theological.
It goes both ways. When husbands barely acknowledge that their wives exist (at least that’s what it feels like) except for being housekeepers and moms, we hurt. So badly. And often we throw ourselves into everything else to cover up that pain. It’s a bandaid fix, but it’s something. So if a guy is watching his wife pull away from him, he should look at himself and ask if he is pursuing her enough. This is not always the case, but from what I’ve seen and experienced it is.
Yes, Angie!! When I shut down and don’t respond passionately it’s almkst always because I feel
Like a piece of furniture or a maid-useful but not desirable. (I’ve told my husband this-we are in a season of working on things).
Sometimes it makes a wife feel like the things she’s doing are all things hat could be outsourced and paid for. Not like a cherished woman who is invaluable as herself-not a list of to-dos.
When you get to the point of feeling like a maid, nanny, chauffeur you might as well become the best at that!
I love your comment! Makes me understand my husband a little more. I appreciate your candidness.
Personally, this is something I struggle with. The ‘everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial’ scripture comes to mind. I did not have a conservative religious upbringing, in fact, my ‘motto’ when it came to sex was basically ‘I’ll try anything at least once’. Let’s just say that that attitude hasn’t really been beneficial, and there was definitely too much worldly freedom there!
Now, I have been actively trying to follow a biblical model for sex, and marriage in general for the past year (in fact, I just realised that today is the first anniversary of accepting Jesus!), but it is made difficult with a hurting (through my past actions), unbelieving husband, who thinks ‘Christian’ sex is boring, and that God doesn’t like us having any ‘fun’. I am struggling to change this view, because there are some things that we used to do, that I now consider ‘out of bounds’, not because God said so, but, because of my past, those things are sort of ‘triggers’ for me. However, hubby and I aren’t on the same page about this, and I am struggling to find the right words to help him understand where I’m coming from. I have stuffed up so badly in the past, it is a miracle that we are still together, and honestly, we often run out of time, and energy to delve any deeper into our sexual issues. We both want more, but the things we want are basically opposites, even though essentially what we want is to be closer sexually, but in this season of life we just don’t have the ability to work anything out!
I just feel like we are ‘stuck’ and I don’t know what to do about it!
This is so wonderful to hear! I’ve been “afraid” for lack of a better word to enjoy my husband in the bedroom because I was basically told growing up that sex was bad and that was my mindset. I couldn’t just click that off right away after being married. My husband would ask for some variety and I would resist, afraid that if I got too much into it that it would be bad in God’s eyes. I love that you said you have to loose control. It’s so true! My husband is currently deployed, this is his third tour, and with every tour I I have had the ability to take a step back and really think about my marriage, kind of like my own reset button. With every tour I have read a Chrisitian book or two on marriage and have gotten lots of great advice. But with this tour I’ve done more research than ever, discovering what Blogs were and finding some amazing Christian marriage blogs! It’s so wonderful to learn the beautiful design of marriage that God has for us! Now if my husband would just get home, I could apply what I’ve learned instead of just taking notes!! Haha beautiful post, thank you so much for sharing!
Oh, Elaine, I’m so glad that I could help you! And let me say: thank you so much for your sacrifice. I know it’s your husband who’s serving, but I also know that you must sacrifice so much, too (and your kids must as well if you have them!). We’re very grateful to you, and in awe of you.