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| Image shows some roses and white towels on a bed, with the text "The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. 1 Corinthians 7:3 NIV". This is a very cringey verse to put on a pretty background, like an inspirational meme, but I found LOTS of people on Google image search who have done just that. Uh, okay. Image source. |
Links to all posts in this series can be found here: Blog series on "The Great Sex Rescue"
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So, now we're in the second part of chapter 3 of The Great Sex Rescue: The Lies You've Been Taught and How to Recover What God Intended [affiliate link] (p 50-60).
This section starts out talking about 1 Corinthians 7, which has that line about "The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband." ("Marital duty" means sex.) Some bible translations say the husband and wife should not "deprive" each other, so that's why this section of the book uses the term "deprive."
Anyway, the point is, the bible says the husband should not deprive the wife, and the wife should not deprive the husband. It's equal. It's symmetric. But you wouldn't know it from popular evangelical teachings on marriage, which always talk about how the wife needs to have sex even when she doesn't want to, otherwise she's "depriving" him, which would be just terrible- and then nothing is mentioned about the husband's responsibility toward the wife's sexual needs. (Typically, those kinds of evangelical marriage resources will say the husband has to care for the wife's emotional needs, or something along those lines.)
Gregoire and her co-authors are making the point here that if a married woman is having sex regularly but not having orgasms, then she is the one being "deprived." Interpreting this 1 Corinthians 7 passage to say it's not just about making sure your spouse gets *sex* but it's about *sex that feels good for them* and/or *orgasms*.
This is HUGE. This is GROUNDBREAKING. I'm, seriously, this is blowing my mind.
See, the way I always heard this passage interpreted was, yeah, it says the husband owes the wife sex, and the wife owes the husband sex, but actually in practical terms, women don't really want sex, so in real life you're not really going to have a situation where the "husband owes the wife sex" aspect would be important. In practical terms, we only really care about the part where the wife owes the husband sex.
But, wow, viewing it as "each spouse has a responsibility to give the other spouse sex that feels good" instead of just "sex", that is a GAME CHANGER. Like, !!! I cannot even begin to describe how much of a big deal this is.
But, wait, let me stop for a second to add this: So, I'm writing this blog series specifically from an ace perspective, so I do have to point out the idea that you're required to have sex with your spouse... is not really great for aces. I'm not sure that making it symmetric really helps. In my case, I am a sex-favorable ace, so I do want to have sex, but for aces who are sex-indifferent or sex-repulsed, this would play out differently.
Anyway. So the point of this section is, suppose you have a husband and wife, and they've been married for years and the wife has never had an orgasm, but she makes sure to have sex with her husband a few times a week, so he won't be "deprived", and he has an orgasm every time- in this situation, there is so much concern over whether or not the husband is "deprived", but actually, IT'S THE WIFE WHO IS "DEPRIVED."
!!!!!
YES!
Because it's not just about *sex*; it's about *sex that feels good*. Which is a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT THING.
Here's an idea I've been thinking about: Sex is not just one thing... it doesn't exactly make sense to say you "like sex." It depends hugely on the extent to which your partner cares about listening to you and making it a good experience for you.
Some examples:
Example 1: There's a short film called "Ace and Anxious" (video is here, via this blog post), where an asexual woman does some research about the health benefits of sex, and decides that she should try sex to help with her anxiety issues. She posts an ad on Craigslist and starts interviewing men who respond to it. Now, here's my main issue with this: The sex that one might have with strange men who respond to a Craigslist ad is very much NOT... like... how to say this... it's not the ideal of what sex is supposed to be. When she read medical papers about the health benefits of sex, that doesn't mean all sex is good for you- it would only apply to sex that is consensual, enjoyable, feels good, you know what you're getting into, etc.
I have my doubts about whether random men from Craigslist would come into this with the expectation that their priority is to make it a good experience for her.
Example 2: Let's say there's a female sex worker and a male customer. People describe this situation as the man "paying for sex" but I think there's something a bit off about that. He's not paying for "sex" in the general sense of what sex is, he's paying for the experience of having someone have sex with him in a way that makes it all about him, and he doesn't have any responsibility to care about if it feels good for her.
(And honestly, this is basically the view of sex I internalized from Christian marriage advice. Like, a wife doesn't really like sex, but she does it for transactional reasons- she gets a lot of benefits from the marriage, and the sex is the price she pays for those benefits.)
Example 3: Two people choose to have sex with each other, and their main motivation is that they really like to have sex. In this situation, of course they will each have the expectation that it's going to feel good for them, and that they need to make sure it feels good for their partner. They are equals, and there aren't any external "transactional" aspects of it, therefore they know that the sex itself is meant to be a good experience for them and for their partner.
Example 4: It occurs to me that, in an earlier section of "The Great Sex Rescue", when it mentioned the problem of husbands having a mindset that's influenced by porn, maybe this is what it's talking about. I think (?) in porn videos, sex is portrayed like every single part of it is enjoyable- if the viewer doesn't enjoy watching it, they can skip that part, or change to a different video. It doesn't really give a realistic sense of "you need to care about what your partner wants, and sometimes it's going to be something that feels boring or inconvenient for you." So then you have men who think their wife is asking for something completely unreasonable and abnormal when she wants him to do things that feel good for her, if they're things he's not really interested in himself. He expects that sex is just going to be what he wants, and she will also automatically love all those same things.
(Hmm, I've heard A LOT of evangelical warnings about how porn is the worst thing ever... I thought it was because having knowledge of a wide range of extreme ways to have sex/ BDSM/ etc might make your own partner seem "boring"... or something about being able to see what naked people look like, and then comparing your partner to them... Okay but this explanation, about how porn doesn't give a realistic depiction of the extent to which you should listen to what your partner wants, this explanation makes the most sense to me.)
So, there are my 4 examples. My point is, there could be huge variations in people's thinking about the extent to which sex is about their own pleasure, and the extent to which it's about making it a good experience for their partner- and those will yield COMPLETELY different results. So the idea of "sex" as a concept that one can make generalizations about doesn't really make sense, because the experience is so dependent on one's partner's attitude. Perhaps if someone "likes sex" we should take that to mean "I am able to get pleasure from it even if my partner only puts a little bit of effort into making it feel good for me", or perhaps it means "I'm very good about setting boundaries about only having sex with people who make my pleasure a priority" (and they are able to attract enough potential partners that even after this screening process, they still have plenty of opportunities to have sex).
(Or, wait, lol, something else just occurred to me- usually when people say they "like sex" that means they have a high sex drive. I feel very ace right now.)
(Another thing I wonder about is, how many people do you have to have sex with to get enough data to make generalizations about how you feel about "sex" as an abstract concept? If you've only had sex with 1 person, I don't think you really know anything about how you feel about "sex" in general, you only know how you feel about "sex with this specific person." Please note that I have no interest in gathering such data for myself, so I will just never know how I feel about "sex as an abstract concept.")
This is all speculation... I don't know if this really makes sense to anyone else- maybe I'm missing something important. I just want to write it here because I haven't seen people talking about sex in this way, but this is how I think about it.And, honestly, straight women have it the worst in terms of how likely we are to have a partner who believes there's some "default" way to have sex, and doesn't believe he needs to care about whether that works for her, surely it will work for her because that's what sex *is*, and then this "default" way doesn't work for her and she doesn't even realize she could demand better. I worry about the straights.
So. The point is. 1 Corinthians 7. It's not just about giving your partner "sex", it's about giving them sex *that feels good for them*. And that is a HUGE difference.
(Full disclosure: "The Great Sex Rescue" is targeting an evangelical audience that takes bible verses very seriously, with the mindset that if we read something in the bible, and we interpret it as the author and/or God intended, it's true and we should live our lives in accordance with it. I do not believe that. I do not believe the bible is inerrant. So I love this book's interpretation of 1 Corinthians 7, but at the end of the day, 1 Corinthians 7 does not have any power over my life. See: It Doesn’t Actually Matter What Jesus Said About Divorce and "The Author of Leviticus Would Have Been Cool With It".)
The next section of "The Great Sex Rescue" is about how a lot of Christian marriage books say that women's sexual pleasure is important, but they actually mean it's important that the husband thinks the wife is having a good time, so the husband feels like he is good at sex. (Specifically, the books "For Women Only" and "The Act of Marriage" are mentioned here.) In other words, these Christian marriage books- which "The Great Sex Rescue" is criticizing- say that not only is a wife required to regularly have sex with her husband, she is also required to pretend she loves it. Otherwise it would destroy her husband's manly self-confidence, or something.
Yeah, even when conservative Christians talk about women enjoying sex, they still need to make it all about men.
Gregoire and her co-authors say this:
We find it problematic to tell a woman she must enjoy something without also telling her that she can expect him to make it enjoyable.
Dayyyyyyaaammm. Good point.
This kind of teaching would make a woman very hesitant to speak up during sex if she doesn't like something, or if something is painful. Yes, I've been there. Like, trying to come up with the most polite way to say "I don't like that" because I've internalized the idea that if a man feels "rejected", that would be the WORST THING EVER. Ughhh, let me tell you, it just doesn't work. The only way to figure out how to have sex that feels good for both of you is HONEST COMMUNICATION. But sex advice from conservative Christians says wives shouldn't be honest if they're unhappy about something during sex, because men are so fragile and can't handle it, or whatever. (See: If A Wife Is Required To Have Sex, That's Not "Intimacy".)
Then Gregoire and her co-authors give us these useful guidelines:
Rules about Speaking Up during Intercourse
How to speak up:
- If it hurts, say something-- even if you're just "a little uncomfortable." You deserve pain-free sex.
- If something is keeping you from getting aroused (more on how to "get there" in the next chapter), say, "Let's stop for a moment and try something else."
- Want more of something-- or less of something? Tell your spouse when something is feeling good (even if it's just by moaning). If something isn't feeling good, take your spouse's hand and put it where you'd like it to be.
- Don't fake it-- orgasm, arousal, anything.
How to help your spouse speak up:
- When you're not sure if your spouse is ready for penetrative sex yet, ask!
- If you sense your spouse is not enjoying things, stop and go back to kissing and touching for a while.
- Watch your spouse's cues. If it's obviously not enjoyable, be the one to pull back and say, "Let's take a rain check." Show your spouse sex can stop without you getting angry.
When I read this, I'm like YES! This is so good! Christians should all be talking about these rules, instead of telling women "yeah sometimes sex hurts, but it doesn't take very long, so just do it- men really need it." [This is not a quote from anywhere, this is my paraphrase- but yes, that's what they say.]
But on the other hand, I read these guidelines from Gregoire et al, and I'm like, THE BAR IS ON THE FLOOR. If something hurts, of course you should say "stop." Isn't that obvious? Why do we even need to tell people this?
But unfortunately, yes, Christian women do need books that tell us "You deserve pain-free sex" because we have been told the EXACT OPPOSITE, many many times. The first time I ever believed that I had the right to COMPLETELY REFUSE to have painful sex was when I was pregnant, because the information I read about pregnancy said that if sex is painful, that could be a sign that something is wrong and could harm the baby. That was the first time I ever felt I had a "good enough reason" to draw the line there and absolutely refuse to have painful sex. Before this, I tried to get out of having painful sex, but I was always weighing my feelings against this idea that "men need it" and trying to find what level of pain I could tolerate that could satisfy his "needs." I hate how badly I've internalized that.
In my experience, I've found that secular sex-ed resources are pretty good about emphasizing the importance of honest communication during sex, to give each other feedback on what works and what doesn't. I've read many secular sex-ed resources that emphasize how each person's body works differently, so there's not really any specific sexual technique that will always "work"- the only way to figure it out is to listen to your partner when they tell you what works for them.
Also that bit about "Show your spouse sex can stop without you getting angry", the bar is IN HELL, you guys. But, YES, it definitely is necessary for Gregoire to say this, because in conservative Christian culture, if a wife withdraws consent, she is "depriving" her husband, and of course you can understand that a good godly Christian man would be angry about that, right?
In my experience reading secular sex-ed materials, however, they are good about emphasizing that consent can be withdrawn at any time, and if somebody gets mad about that and acts like you owe them sex, that is a forest of red flags.
Later in this section, Gregoire and her co-authors say this:
And that pain matters. Having someone derive pleasure from something that causes you pain compounds the hurt.
This is huge. This is so important. This is completely the opposite of what I was taught that marriage is supposed to be.
I always heard Christians talk about how marriage is hard. Marriage is about self-sacrifice. Marriage is about giving up what you want, because you have to consider your spouse first. Marriage isn't about making us happy, it's about making us holy. Kids these days don't want to get married because they're selfish and don't want to give up their self-centered lifestyle. Marriage is about dying to self. Sacrificial love. It's hard but it's so worth it.
The example that comes to mind is that wives are required to endure pain during sex, to satisfy their husband's "needs." I was taught that this follows the basic characteristic of what marriage is- it's normal to suffer in order to please your spouse, that's just what marriage is. You're willing to go through pain because you love your husband.
I remember I heard one Christian speaker give another example once- she said that sometimes in the middle of the night, if she wants to drink water, she asks her husband to get out of bed and go get her some water. And, she said, he has to do it, because the bible says husbands have to love their wives as Christ loved the church and sacrificed his life for her. (LOL, if I tried that on my husband, he would say "go get it yourself." Unless there was like, a real reason that I couldn't get up and get it, like if I was sick, pregnant, etc.)
Captain Cassidy has also written a lot about the Christian expectation that you should "die to self" in marriage. And about how, when she was with her ex-husband, he seemed to have an attitude like "last time I went somewhere with you that I didn't want to go, so now this time you have to go to church with me even though you don't want to." (I can't find the specific post of hers that talked about that- if anyone has the link, please share in the comments.)
Basically, the idea that marriage is about forcing your spouse to do things they don't want. And being forced to do things you don't want, for their sake. There's totally a cultural phenomenon where Christian girls, age 21ish, married for less than a year, make posts on social media to say "marriage is so HARD and sometimes I hate my husband because he is so annoying, but God has been teaching me so much about how to love my husband, I'm so lucky to be his wife, marriage is hard but it's SO WORTH IT" just dropping red flags EVERYWHERE, but they think this is normal. Like this is what marriage is.
When I was in college, our campus Christian group brought in a married couple to talk to us about marriage- the wife talked to the girls, and the husband talked to the boys- and she just kept saying the important thing in marriage was "dying to self" which meant "you have to have sex even if you don't want to." And I thought that was totally normal, back then. You do it because you love your husband so much, so the pain is worth it if it makes him happy. Now, years later, the more I think about it, the more disturbing it is. This was the role model couple that came to teach us. Teaching us that marriage is about doing things that make you unhappy. Forcing yourself to have sex that you don't want.
I remember about a year or so after Hendrix and I got married, I was thinking about how surprised I was that our marriage is so fun and I still love him. Like, every day, I get to live with him, I get to see his cute face, and it's just wonderful. It was totally unexpected that I would feel this good, when Christians always told me "marriage is hard."
So no, I don't believe "marriage is hard." I think life can be hard, and the thing about marriage is that when your spouse is going through a hard time, their problems become your problems. But the marriage should be a source of safety and support to help you get through life's problems. It shouldn't be that the marriage itself is the source of the problems.
It's harmful to teach kids that "marriage is hard" because then if they get into a bad marriage, they won't realize that it shouldn't be that way.
(See: "Marriage Is Hard" and What My Marriage Is Actually About (It's Not Sex And It's Not Jesus))
And... even now, as I'm thinking about this, it feels a little surprising to me as I consider the idea, "Wait, so, in a healthy marriage, would there ever be any times that you're forced to do something you hate, for your spouse's pleasure? ... No? I can't think of any?" It's shocking to me to actually ask this question and realize the answer should be "NO", because that was such an essential part of what I was taught marriage is. That's the definition of marriage, I thought. That's what it means. Being forced to do things you don't want. Having someone derive pleasure from your pain. Being willing to do that because you love them so much.
(Like I said, I worry about the straights...)
Yes, in marriage, there will be some times that your spouse gets sick and throws up, and you have to clean it up, for example, and obviously nobody likes doing that, but that's a very practical thing, and like, a very normal way of showing compassion, to take care of someone who's sick, which could apply in a lot of relationships, not just marriage. I'm not talking about that- I'm talking about when Spouse A wants to do something that Spouse B hates, and Spouse B believes they need to force themself to do it, because that's what marriage is about.
No. Eww, no. WTF?
The last thing I want to talk about in this chapter of "The Great Sex Rescue" is the section about how society cares about men's sexual medical issues more than women's. First, there's this about medical papers in a secular context:
While PubMed (the National Institutes of Health online database for scientific journal articles) has 41,473 articles for the keywords "erectile dysfunction," it only has 4,809 for "dyspareunia" (aka painful sex). Similarly, there were 1,796 studies on "premature ejaculation" but only 401 for "vaginismus."
And then this, about the conservative Christian world:
It's long been known in medical circles that conservative religious women experience more pain with sex than the general population. Yet if scholars are doing poorly on this topic, the church is doing worse. Both The Gospel Coalition and Focus on the Family have online articles on erectile dysfunction while failing to provide any information on vaginismus, sexual pain, or post-partum pain.
Well... I mean... I have heard lots of Christians talking about women's sexual pain- talking about it like it's normal, and wives need to continue to have sex with their husbands anyway, and that's just the way it is. I don't think I've ever heard it talked about like it's a medical issue, or that you can DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT so that you don't have to have painful sex any more.
Then there's this:
Intended for Pleasure acknowledges the problem [vaginismus] but then totally bungs things up with this claim: "Vaginismus can usually be eliminated in about one week with the following procedure." The book then describes the use of dilators.
LOLOLOLOLOL.
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL.
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL. ONE WEEK! WAS THIS WRITTEN BY A MAN?
I (Sheila) had severe vaginismus, and I tried that. Did it by the book; got the T-shirt. Recovery still took years. And that's not unusual, because research shows that vaginismus can be very resistant to treatment.
I also had vaginismus, and that's one of the reasons I was interested in "The Great Sex Rescue"- because it talks about vaginismus, and how women with this kind of conservative Christian background are more at risk for vaginismus. I think the next chapter of the book talks about this more.
I can't speak to the use of dilators as treatment for vaginismus, because I was never actually diagnosed, never had any doctors do anything helpful, even when I told them "sex is painful"- and actually, I'm glad I had to figure it out myself, instead of viewing doctors as the authority to tell me how my own body is supposed to work, and what I need to do to change my body to be good enough for a man. I'm glad I found out about asexuality, instead of that.
Anyway, the point is, these are real medical conditions, and conservative Christian teaching about sex doesn't do anything to actually help, but instead tells women they just need to have sex anyway, because men need it.
But, here's something that ace readers will want to note, in the section about medical issues related to sexual dysfunction: There is a list of such issues, here in this chapter, and one of the ones listed is:
Hypoactive sexual desire disorder: A clinically low libido.
I point this out because a lot of aces argue that viewing HSDD as a medical problem that needs to be solved is basically saying that there's something wrong with being asexual, and that asexuals need to get treatment and stop being asexual. (Similar to "reparative therapy" for homosexuality.) We don't like this. (See these blog posts from other aces: Journal Club: Why is absent/low sexual desire a mental disorder? and Drug Watch: New Addyi Marketing Campaign, “Find My Spark” and a brief primer on hsdd & flibanserin)
Later chapters of this book talk more about HSDD. I'll be interested to see what they say, and whether aces fit into it.
Okay, so to sum up this section of "The Great Sex Rescue": If wives are required to have sex that doesn't feel good, then wives are the ones being "deprived." My mind is blown by this, seriously. Also, it's messed-up to require wives to act like they are enjoying sex, without requiring husbands to actually do anything to make sex enjoyable. Not cool! Instead of faking it, in order to protect your husband's fragile manly confidence, you should speak up if you don't like something. Communicate! And if you're in pain, definitely speak up! It's really NOT OKAY that conservative Christians say wives are required to have sex even if it's painful. Pain is a sign that something is very wrong, and you shouldn't tolerate that.
So, overall, wow, yes, I'll say I agree with what Gregoire and her co-authors are saying in this section of the book. They make some extremely good points here. And they make some points which are like, bare-minimum-of-human-decency level, but yes, unfortunately those things need to be said too, because conservative teaching on sex and marriage really is that bad.
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Links to all posts in this series can be found here: Blog series on "The Great Sex Rescue"
Related:
If A Wife Is Required To Have Sex, That's Not "Intimacy"
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