 |
| A pair of Olympic figure skaters. The man is holding the woman's hand to support her as she leans back almost horizontally. Image source. |
Links to all posts in this series can be found here: Blog series on "The Great Sex Rescue"
---
So, continuing with my review of The Great Sex Rescue: The Lies You've Been Taught and How to Recover What God Intended [affiliate link], now we are in chapter 2, "Don't Sleep with Someone You Don't Know." I have many opinions about this chapter, so I'm going to divide it into 2 blog posts. This post will cover pages 20-29.
This chapter is about intimacy. It's about how sex is supposed to be about fully knowing your partner:
That's why sex was created not only to be physically intimate but to be an emotional and spiritual "knowing" as well. When all three types of intimacy are present-- spiritual, emotional, and physical-- each works in tandem with the others so that they feed one another. The more you laugh and feel close, the more you desire each other and make love. The more you make love, the more connected you feel, which makes your commitment stronger.
Uhh. As an asexual, I want to say, not really??? When people talk about sex and intimacy like they inherently go together, it's very confusing for me. I can't figure out what they mean.
(Also, I would be really interested to hear an aromantic perspective on this! Probably this passage of the book excludes aromantics in a different way...)
There is a good point being made here in this chapter, but the ace-exclusion keeps hitting me and making it hard for me to connect with that good point. So let me try to summarize how that good point could be made, in a way that doesn't exclude aces:
Perfect Number's free advice on how to rewrite the "intimacy" chapter so it doesn't exclude aces:
Perhaps when you have sex with your husband, you feel like you are just following a role about what you're "supposed" to do as a good wife. The sex you are obligated to do for your husband. Or maybe it feels like he's just using you, and doesn't care about how you feel about sex. Maybe you're unhappy about this because you desire a sex life where sex is intimate- not just physically, but also emotionally/spiritually.
We're here to tell you that your desires matter. It's right for you to communicate about what you want, and expect that that should matter to your husband. You are not obligated to have sex where you feel like you are being used and/or your own desires are being ignored.
Yes, my perspective- as a queer person- is that it's about knowing yourself and knowing what you want, and communicating and negotiating about how that lines up with what your partner wants. There's not really a "right" or "wrong" to it; instead, you follow the principles of consent, honest communication, caring for each other, etc.
But Gregoire and her co-authors seem to be coming at it from the perspective that it's wrong when a man ignores his wife's desires and the church tells her that's just the way it is (so far I agree, this is indeed wrong)- Gregoire says the reason this is wrong is that sex is supposed to be a wonderful emotionally-intimate pleasurable experience.
So I'm saying you shouldn't have to put up with that, because what you want matters. Gregoire is saying you shouldn't have to put up with that, because GOD SAYS the correct way to have sex is this amazing intimate spiritual/emotional connection.
I realize that my approach is a more difficult argument to make. It feels a bit weaker. The whole argument depends on you having the confidence to know what you want and to boldly say that you matter, as a person, intrinsically. I completely understand that some people coming from a conservative Christian background don't have the confidence to make that argument- how could they, when their entire life they've been taught to "put God first, others second, yourself last" and that every positive emotion they have should be viewed with suspicion because it could be "temptation" or "selfishness"? In this ideology, you don't consider the question "what do I want?" You just follow God's rules.
So... I do understand the value of hiding behind God when you make your argument that what you want matters. I understand that the argument "this is what God wants" comes across a lot stronger than "God doesn't have an opinion on this specific issue, but here's what I want, and that matters." And maybe when people are just starting to work their way out of that conservative anti-self ideology, it does help them if they hear messages like "here's the kind of sex you're supposed to have" because they simply don't have the ability to make a stand on "this is what I want, and that matters." (That would be "selfish"!)
You know, speaking of "hiding behind God"- actually, all the patriarchal Christian teaching is "hiding behind God." Like, oh look, a man is saying that the bible says men are the leaders, that he's not sexist but this is just what God said, by a wild coincidence men get to have all the power, etc etc etc.
But anyway, the problem with this "here's what God designed sex to be" teaching (that Gregoire is advocating) is that it will exclude people. If you try to make statements about the way sex is supposed to work for everyone, well, that's just ridiculous, because everyone is different.
Okay, continuing on with "The Great Sex Rescue":
A few years ago, I was invited by a large news and lifestyle website to debate about sexual ethics. I was making the point that any two bodies can have intercourse, but when we reduce sex to being merely physical, we ruin intimacy.
Another guest, who had starred in some porn films and wrote a porn blog (how do I get myself into these things?), talked about how intimate she found sex. But all she could say was, "When I have sex with a man, even if it's a man I just met, the intimacy is amazing!" Can you truly be intimate with someone when you don't even know their name?
It's not just porn stars who confuse intimacy with sex either. When I'm on Christian radio talking about The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex, it's generally assumed that I won't say the word sex in case children are listening. We have to say intimacy instead. But perhaps that's part of the problem-- we're treating intimacy and intercourse as if they're always synonyms. But are they?
Billions of people on this planet have had intercourse. I don't know how many have actually made love.
WHAT ON EARTH?
Like, what is this??? We're blatantly judging other people who have different feelings about sex than we do? This person is saying sex can be intimate even if you just met the other person, and Gregoire is like, hey everyone, look how obviously wrong this porn star is.
Not cool.
If I were having a conversation with someone who said that sex can be intimate even if it's with someone they just met, I would be confused about it (because I'm asexual) and I would ask them what they mean by "intimacy." They seem to have a different understanding than I do, and I'm curious about that. Actually, I have had conversations like this- and they always end with me still not understanding it because I'm asexual, but at least I am aware that this is a real feeling that some people have. There's nothing wrong with that feeling. I personally don't understand it, but hey, everyone is different.
Ugh. This chapter of "The Great Sex Rescue" should be addressing the issue of married women whose husbands are ignoring their sexual desires, treating sex like it's just about the wife performing the role that the husband wants, and placing no value on their emotional connection. See, THAT is a problem, that is definitely a problem that arises when people buy into the common Christian teachings on sex in marriage. That is what we should be arguing against here. But instead it's like, here is what sex is supposed to be, and everyone who thinks differently is wrong.
Moving along:
For sex to feel intimate, it needs to be about saying, "I want you," not just "I want sex." It needs to be about saying, "I see you. I choose you. I want to experience something with you, and only you. I want to know you better."
You is a key word. You are the focus. Sex is not just about me; it's about me knowing you and building us.
Again, as an asexual, I don't feel this way.
For me, if I wanted to do something that was just about "me and you" then it would be kissing and cuddling. (And other aces will have different answers on that.) If I wanted to do something that was about "me and you and an entirely separate hobby that we've spent a lot of time learning how to do" now that's sex.
I guess I could say that, for me, there's "intimacy" in the sense of "we've had to spend a lot of time working together very closely in order to figure out how to do this." Like two Olympic figure skaters. But I don't think that's what people mean when they talk about sex being "intimate."
Continuing on with the book:
But is this drive for intimacy the message that couples are getting from our evangelical culture? When we read through the bestselling Christian marriage books, this potential for sex to be about "knowing" is mysteriously absent. What we did find was that many of these books portray sex as primarily a man's need-- and a physical one, at that.
Okay, YES, this is a good point. I would like to see more discussion about this VERY REAL problem, and less dictating how sex is supposed to work for everyone.
Next there are some anecdotes from married women whose husbands' behavior during sex is basically an imitation of what they see in porn, rather than being about actually connecting with one's partner and understanding what they want. One of the anecdotes includes this:
But making love takes vulnerability, and it's scary to be vulnerable with another person, especially if you have a rough childhood like my husband. So I get it. But it just hurts and is frustrating.
I've heard stuff like this before- about how sex is "vulnerable"- and I assume it means saying out loud "I like when you did/ I did/ we did [specific action xyz] on [specific sexual body part]", how it's very very hard to say those words out loud because it's about what you like on a very raw and primitive level (rather than something that you can back up with an intellectual argument). And how, if people knew what those raw preferences were, they could draw conclusions about what kind of person you are. (And that can be even more true if you start telling each other what kinks/ power fantasies/ etc you have.)
Like, the weirdness/embarrassment of just simply liking something- something related to genitals, which are intrinsically weird anyway- without being able to rationally explain why. (Or, if the reason why connects to some uncomfortable/vulnerable emotion, like fear that your partner will leave you, possessiveness, fantasizing about having a dominant or submissive role, etc.) That's what's "vulnerable" about sex, right? This was my experience, and it is just now occurring to me that maybe that's not what people mean by it? I would love to hear from readers on this.
But actually, hold up a minute. I'm over here trying to convince myself that it makes sense to conceptualize sex as "vulnerable"- how about instead, we talk about what actually is emotionally intimate and vulnerable? It's talking about your feelings- your traumas, the reasons you need to go to therapy, your fears, your insecurities, mistakes you've made that still haunt you, and so on. You need to do that, in marriage. But also, you need to do that with other people besides your spouse- perhaps close friends, family, therapists, etc. It's not reasonable to rely solely on your spouse for this kind of emotional support. You need other people too. But anyway, it's likely that your spouse is the person you share these things with the most, and that's what it means to be emotionally intimate and vulnerable.
My speculation over whether sex is "vulnerable" because you tell each other which specific ways you prefer having your genitals stimulated... pales in comparison to the very real and deep vulnerability of talking about your feelings.
Maybe I'm totally off-base here, and when people say sex is "vulnerable" they aren't talking about how embarrassing it is to say the words "I liked when you did [specific action] to my [specific body part]"? Maybe somehow it's more meaningful than that?
Also, another anecdote is from a woman whose ex-husband used to always make sure she had an orgasm- but he approached it like it was about doing things to her, so that he could be a "hero," rather than actually caring what she wanted. This woman says that her ex-husband used sex toys on her even though she explicitly told him she didn't want that- and Gregoire says that this is sexual assault. Yes. Thank you for calling that out.
Next, Joanna (one of the authors) shares about a time in her life where she was struggling with health problems and a miscarriage, and how she continued to have sex with her husband even though she was not able to have orgasms, because she and her husband wanted the emotional connection from sex. She says that the sex was "healing" for her, even though she didn't have orgasms, and that this can be an important benefit of sex.
I'm curious about this because it's different from my experiences. But, good for her, knowing what she wanted to get from sex and being able to communicate with her husband in order to make it work for them.
In the next section, Gregoire and her co-authors respond to the Christian marriage advice (from books like "The Act of Marriage") that wives need to have sex with their husbands even when the husband is being abusive. Here is Gregoire's description of a passage from "The Act of Marriage":
Bill had always treated Susie like a sex object, ignoring her boundaries when they were dating and doing things even when she asked him not to. Susie felt disrespected and invisible. Yet the answer? Realize that Bill needed sex. "Susie had three problems: she did not like sexual relations, she did not understand Bill's needs, and she was more interested in herself than in her husband. When she confessed her sin of selfishness and learned what loving really meant to him, it changed their bedroom life."
Susie had three problems, but apparently Bill had none. The book never suggests that Bill treat Susie as a person or apologize for his treatment of her or understand her needs. Susie just needs to give him more nookie.
(There's also another example of a husband who beats the children, and "The Act of Marriage" says that his wife needs to have sex with him.)
Yes. Christian marriage books say that a wife must continue to have sex with her husband, even if he abuses her/ disrespects her/ doesn't care about her. This teaching is BAD. Gregoire and her co-authors are calling this out.
Gregoire is saying that yes, it makes perfect sense that you only want to have sex with someone who values you. You are right to feel that way, and it is NOT OKAY that Christian leaders want women to have sex with men who don't treat them right. Those Christian leaders seem to think that sex will magically fix these huge problems, but no, that's just not true.
Gregoire says this:
It is dangerous to tell a reader to have sex with an abusive spouse.
YES. Thank you for saying this.
And yeah I realize this is one of those "the bar is on the floor" moments, but there really are bestselling Christian marriage books which say women need to have sex with their husbands, even if the husband has this kind of behavior. Even if the wife feels unsafe, and the husband is not treating her right, she needs to understand that "men have needs" and that's all there is to it. Yes, this is a real thing they are teaching. So I'm glad Gregoire is calling out how BAD this teaching is.
It is perfectly reasonable to refuse to have sex with someone who does not value you. Even if it's your husband.
The next section in the book says that men also want that emotional intimacy during sex. If the wife just has sex because she's obligated to, and her husband's "physical needs" are met, that may still not be what he actually wanted.
Yes, it is good that Gregoire is pointing out that mainstream Christian marriage books don't "mention that intimacy is a benefit of sex for men; only physical release and feelings of respect."
So, again, talk to each other. Honest communication.
And I'll end with one more passage that's not inclusive of aces:
Sex can't be intimate if you feel like you don't matter. In fact, that's not even sex as we've defined it. That's only intercourse, and that's a pale imitation of what God intended. Sex, after all, is so highly personal. You're naked in a way that you wouldn't be with anyone else; you show a side of yourself to each other that you would never show to anyone else; you experience passion in a way in which you are most yourself, in which you let go of control and surrender to the moment. Because of that surrender and vulnerability, sex becomes the culmination of you as a couple, not just you as bodies. It is physical, yes, but it's so much more than that.
Yeah this does not fit my experiences.
And also, when you have abdominal surgery you're also "naked in a way that you wouldn't be with anyone else" so, uh, this fails to convince me that sex is the super-important pinnacle of your life or whatever. Seriously, I would like to propose the "surgeon test"- whenever anyone says a reason why sex is so important, ask yourself if this reason is also true about having surgery. Sometimes it's even MORE TRUE about surgery, like if it's about the intimacy of entering someone's body, for example. If a "fact" about sex also applies to surgery, then it fails the "surgeon test" and I am not impressed.
Okay, so, basically, that's the first part of chapter 2. It's about the importance of intimacy in sex- and yes, this is a very real problem in Christian books about sex, which Gregoire is responding to. She is arguing against the harmful teaching that sex is just about a man's "physical needs" and that women should keep having sex even if the husband doesn't care about the wife's desire for intimacy. It's good that Gregoire is taking a stand on that.
At the same time, though, she talks about intimacy and sex like they are inherently connected, like if you're doing sex correctly, it will be a beautiful culmination of the highest level of intimacy you can ever have with someone... and that just doesn't make sense to me as an asexual.
---
Links to all posts in this series can be found here: Blog series on "The Great Sex Rescue"
Related:
No comments:
Post a Comment