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Links to all posts in this series can be found here: Blog series on "The Great Sex Rescue"
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[content note: NSFW descriptions of arousal and "sexual progression"]
We are now in chapter 4 of The Great Sex Rescue: The Lies You've Been Taught and How to Recover What God Intended [affiliate link], which is about arousal. I have MANY OPINIONS so I'm going to just cover the first part of the chapter (p 61-65) in this post.
Before I actually talk about what's in the chapter, I want to define "arousal", for the extremely naive readers. Arousal means physical changes happening in the genitals, to get ready for sex. The penis gets hard, the vagina gets wet and open. (The sex-ed resources I've read tend to just say the vagina gets wet, but I had vaginismus, and getting it to be "open" was the biggest issue. If it's not wet, you can use lube, but there's no shortcut to "open.") If these changes do not happen, PIV [penis-in-vagina] sex is difficult or painful or impossible. Also you can't have an orgasm if you're not aroused.
Years ago, I had heard the word "arousal" and I believed it meant emotionally wanting to have sex. Like, normally, you feel like "genitals are super weird, why would I ever want to interact with someone's genitals?" but then you're with your partner who is super attractive, and you're kissing, and you're so into them, and you think "you know what, I like you so much, I *would* interact with your genitals. For you, it doesn't seem so weird any more." I thought that's what arousal was. LOL. Nope. It's actual physical changes in your body.
The book does not directly give a definition for "arousal", but it's clear that it is talking about a physical process that needs to happen, in order for PIV to feel good for the woman and not be painful. Even though it doesn't explain it super-explicitly, if Perfect-Number-10-years-ago had read this, it would have been enough for her to realize "wait, I'm understanding arousal wrong." So that's helpful.
ANYWAY.
The chapter starts with this anecdote:
When Piper (one of our survey respondents) and her now husband were dating, they enjoyed a few steamy made-out sessions. But both Piper and her husband were dedicated to waiting until marriage for sex, and whenever Piper felt like they had let things go a little too far, she'd declare a fast from kissing for forty days, when they would shift gears and focus on Jesus. [Note from Perfect Number: omg a 40-day "fast" from kissing, that's so evangelical, this is so real.] She liked kissing, but she also felt very convicted about it.
After their wedding, they awkwardly tried to have intercourse-- with tried being the operative word. They quickly discovered that Piper suffered from vaginismus, and penetration was too painful. For the six years it took for them to finally achieve penetration, they did other forms of stimulation that helped him [Note from Perfect Number: !!!! only him?] reach orgasm. But the disappointment and frustration grew.
I asked Piper if she had felt aroused before she tried intercourse for the first time. "Nope," she admitted. They had tried to make it straight from Toronto to Ottawa without going through Kingston [this is the metaphor this chapter uses for how arousal is a necessary step in getting an orgasm]-- and they had stalled out. Piper said she often wondered what would have happened if they had just tried intercourse one of the times she felt "steamy" before they were married. It's not that she wishes they'd had sex when they were dating; it's just that she wishes the first time they tried to have sex, she had actually been aroused. Maybe if that had been the case, her story would not have been what it was. But she'll never know.
This anecdote is followed by 2 other anecdotes which are similar. So we have 3 stories here where a man and woman made the decision to "wait till marriage" to have sex, had some "steamy make-out sessions" before marriage, but stopped themselves from having sex. They were very proud of themselves for doing the "right" thing and stopping and not having sex, and then on their wedding night, sex was painful for the woman and really didn't go well, which was a huge disappointment. She later learned that arousal is a thing, and wondered if maybe they would have been better off if they had had sex during one of those "steamy make-out sessions" before marriage.
All three women still say they don't believe in sex before marriage. They just wonder, and they wish sex had started differently.
This is blowing my mind. Gregoire and her co-authors believe you shouldn't have sex before marriage, but here they are floating the idea that, hey, there are some situations where maybe it would have been better if they'd had sex before marriage. They're just asking the question, not saying they actually agree with it, but WOW.
I've never ever ever seen anyone in the "don't have sex before marriage" camp give any sort of hint that there might possibly be benefits to having sex before marriage. No, generally I've heard about how premarital sex is the worst thing ever and will ruin your life. Or, the less "extreme" ones might say, it won't ruin your life, it's not cool how Christians treat it like it's the worst sin, really it's just the same as other sins, but still, it's a sin and it's bad and no one should do it.
Then there's another anecdote in this chapter about a woman who did have sex before marriage, and also had these problems (wasn't aroused the first time, didn't get any physical pleasure). So, the point is, it's not about if you're married or not, it's about if you know what arousal is.
We are told in church that the key to great sex is waiting until the wedding night. But if that's the case, why do so many of the women in our survey who waited until their wedding night have the same story as Natalie, who didn't? Here's an uncomfortable truth: your marital status is not what makes sex orgasmic or not-- your arousal level is. Many single women have no problem orgasming, and that fact shouldn't threaten our traditional Christian view of sex. Saving sex for marriage is not about making it more orgasmic but about making it more meaningful-- a deep knowing-- while protecting ourselves from heartache, diseases, and single parenthood. They key to sexual pleasure is not a wedding ring.
That's why, if you want an orgasmic marriage, having sex within twenty-four hours of saying "I do" does not guarantee anything. Our catchphrase should not just be "Wait for sex until you're married"; our catchphrase should be "Wait for sex until you're married and turned on!" Save sex for when you're married, and then once you're married, don't have sex until your body is begging for it.
Okay, so, I have a bunch of things to say about this.
First of all, cards on the table, I had sex before marriage and it was a really good decision for me. (See: I’m Really Really REALLY Glad I Had Sex Before Marriage) I had spent a lot of time working my way out of purity culture, and came to the point where I no longer believed it was a sin to have sex, but I still feared it, and thought maybe I shouldn't have sex with my boyfriend, just in case purity culture was right and it would ruin my life. We already had been living together for a while, and were happy and loved each other and were very comfortable with each other, and I couldn't understand why it would be a bad thing to do this one specific arbitrary action that everybody was making a big deal about (PIV sex). There was no rational reason that this one specific bizarre action would completely change our relationship/ ruin my life/ etc. The only way I could get myself to believe I shouldn't have sex with him was just to make myself fear it more and more.
And it really took a toll on my mental health, agonizing over this decision, not seeing anything wrong with it but needing to make myself believe it might ruin my life. Finally I decided to face my fear and do it. And the first night, we weren't able to do PIV, as much as we tried, and then the second night, we managed to do it. And I was very happy because it didn't ruin my life, so I was ready to move on from it and didn't necessarily see a reason we should have sex again. Since now we already know what it is, and we know it doesn't ruin our lives.
(All of this feels very asexual to me, now that I know what asexuality is.)
We got married a few years later. And I remember, after our wedding was over and we were going back to the hotel room, I thought to myself, wow I'm so glad I'm not about to find out RIGHT NOW that sex makes no sense. Imagine if I hadn't decided to have sex before marriage, if I had just lived with that fear for a few years, doing my best to convince myself that it would be really bad to have sex, and that if we wait till marriage it will be all worth it, that sex on the wedding night will be AMAZING because we waited, and the whole 18 months of wedding planning, knowing the exact date in the far future that I will find out what sex is, trying to make myself really really believe that it would be BAD to have sex before that date, but AMAZING to have sex on that date, all those years of fear and anticipation and mystery, finally leading up to it... on this one amazing special day that we've been planning for 18 months... and then THAT'S when I find out sex is actually painful and confusing and makes no sense. Oh my GOD I'm so glad that's not what happened to me.
(Would have also added a few years' delay to me figuring out I'm asexual. Ugh.)
So that's the perspective I'm coming from here, when I read "The Great Sex Rescue" saying we shouldn't have sex before marriage. I don't agree with that.
But also, the way it's written in the book, it doesn't bother me at all. The book doesn't try to defend the "don't have sex before marriage" rule. There's only that 1 sentence (that I quoted above) about how Christians believe in saving sex for marriage to make sex more meaningful and to avoid STDs/pregnancy. That's the only place where this chapter gives any kind of defense of "don't have sex before marriage." It comes after a page and a half of anecdotes of women who waited until marriage and now wonder if they shouldn't have, in the middle of 2 paragraphs about how a wedding ring doesn't guarantee amazing sex, and plenty of single women are having great orgasms, and then the rest of the chapter is about how to help married women get over the sexual hang-ups they've developed as a result of "waiting for marriage."
So, my point is, this chapter is very much NOT making a good case for the "don't have sex before marriage" argument (quite the opposite, I would say), and honestly, it's not even trying. (And this is a book for married women, so there's really no need for it to get into what you should or shouldn't do before marriage. Its focus is on repairing the damage caused by the "waiting for marriage" ideology.)
So even though I very much disagree with "don't have sex before marriage," I'm not bothered by what this chapter says, because it's not trying to defend that belief. It's just about giving advice to women who follow that belief, without saying anything about "you SHOULD believe in waiting till marriage."
Another thing I want to say: Their advice is that instead of "don't have sex till marriage", Christians should teach "don't have sex till you're married and aroused." And, WOW. Wow. "Don't have sex till you're married and aroused" is such a hugely different thing than "don't have sex till you're married." So incredibly different. It's hard for me to even describe how different it is.
If it's "don't have sex till you're married"- that's just a rule that other people put on you. But "married and aroused"- now, if people start to believe that, then it's not just about a rule, it's about "do I want this or not?" It's about "is this right for me, at this time, or not?"
That's such an incredibly different thing. That's a huge improvement on the "don't have sex till marriage" rule. Huge. Like, so huge that it changes the entire meaning, I would say.
Also, if you believe in "don't have sex till you're married and aroused", you will know that MARRIAGE IS NOT CONSENT. Which is a big issue in purity ideology- consent is seen as totally not a factor, because before marriage the correct answer is always "no", and then when you're married it's "yes." That's so wrong. Marriage is not consent.
And I would say this means that, if you have decided to "wait till marriage" to have sex, you should expect to NOT have sex on your wedding night. It's very possible that you just can't go from 0 to penetration in 1 night. So you can start trying some stuff, but it may take time to actually get to a point where you're able to do PIV without pain. (And, if it's painful, don't do it.)
And one more thing I want to say about this section: "once you're married, don't have sex until your body is begging for it." Well, lololol, I'm asexual so that doesn't really happen to me. But actually, from the rest of the chapter we see that you don't really have to be in the state where "your body is begging for it", you just have to be aroused and consenting.
Here's the next section:
Each of these women, whether they waited for marriage or not, missed the natural progression of sexual arousal. And that progression looks something like this:
- low-key physical contact that makes you feel close, such as holding hands, having your arms around each other, or short kisses
- kissing and touching that is drawn out when you start to feel aroused
- removing some clothing and learning to touch each other without awkwardness
- exploring each other's bodies to see what arouses you and what arouses the other
- learning to bring each other to orgasm without intercourse
- having intercourse
When you allow your body to tell you when it's time to move forward, these steps naturally follow, one after the other. That's why when a dating couple has sex "by accident," he doesn't just slip into her vagina by surprise. It's often that they've been cuddling and kissing while they talk, and that kissing turns to making out. They start to get turned on, so their hands start wandering, making them even more aroused. And eventually, they get to the point where their bodies are screaming out to them, We know what the next step is. Can we just do the next step already?! They've been kissing and making out and touching for so long that their bodies are saying, We NEED the sex! And it truly feels like they are out of control-- they just can't contain all this passion and desire, and they end up having sex. "Accidental" sex isn't so accidental at all. It's often hours in the making. But for many women, sex initially moves at too fast a pace and steps are skipped. Their bodies never have a chance to say, "I need this!"
Oh my god, this is the best explanation of "one thing leads to another" that I have EVER READ.
Like, I'm not even mad that it says "these steps naturally follow" which is not inclusive of aces. Oh my god, my whole life, I've heard people warning that "you shouldn't kiss your boyfriend, because one thing leads to another and then you will have sex," and anecdotes about good Christian couples who tried so hard to be "pure" but them "stumbled" because of "temptation" and somehow had sex even though they were trying not to, and people saying it's so hard to not have sex until marriage, and so on and so on... I was always so very confused because I was pretty sure that to have sex, you have to take your clothes off, and like... interact with someone else's genitals... and I couldn't imagine there could possibly exist any series of steps that I might do "accidentally" which would lead to that. Like... so you're kissing, okay I understand kissing, and then... and then some steps that I'm not understanding but everyone is telling me they're real steps which could totally happen to me if I kiss a boy... and then sex. How??? It doesn't make sense! But I had to live in fear of those mysterious, impossible-to-understand steps.
But this! This here, this section of "The Great Sex Rescue", this is what they were all talking about! Every time somebody warned me that "one thing leads to another", this is what they meant! OMGGG!
And, there's more to this: In purity culture, this series of steps (or rather, a very simplified version, which doesn't mention arousal) is presented as the slippery slope that happens when people know they're not allowed to have sex, but they still want to do physical things, and they increase the intimacy little-by-little until, unfortunately, they end up having sex anyway. And this serves as a warning for why you shouldn't even kiss before marriage, or whatever.
But in "The Great Sex Rescue," not only is this presented as the steps that couples commonly go through when they're trying not to have sex before marriage, but it's also the steps you SHOULD go through when you are married and you want to have sex. And, the book says, the reason that some women feel like they were more aroused when they were messing around before marriage than when they actually got married and are actually allowed to have sex, is that these steps are important and often necessary for women to get aroused and be able to have sex that feels good.
This is, wow. This is so huge. So this is presented not as like, "these steps are like the counterfeit version of sex that people try to content themselves with when they're not allowed to actually have PIV, but it's a bad idea" but as "this is really what you SHOULD do when you have sex." According to purity culture logic, once you're married and you are allowed to have sex, why would you bother doing any of this other stuff? Just have sex, because that's what you really want. But this book is saying, no, PIV doesn't feel good if you're not aroused first, so you really do have to take the time to get aroused. (It doesn't say you literally have to do these exact steps, but the idea is, you have to take the time to make sure both partners are aroused enough before you can do PIV.)
And also, let me tell you, I am asexual af, so I actually did all of these steps with Hendrix (who is now my husband) slowly over the first 2-ish years we were together- well, all the steps as listed here, except that any steps that include female arousal or female orgasm, when we did that step, it didn't include those. Yes, we did each step, we spent a lot of time on each one, but I was not aroused. There were a few rare exceptions, but not enough for me to realize "hey, arousal is important?"
So, lol, no guarantee that if you do all of these steps, and take the time to enjoy them, you will actually get aroused. Just sayin'.
One more thing from this section of the book: The authors posted a poll on Twitter and Facebook which asked, "If you were a virgin on your wedding night, were you aroused the first time you had sex?" 52% were. Now, obviously a lot of people follow Gregoire on social media specifically because they are having problems in their sex lives and want her advice, so yes we would expect that the number of people who said they were not aroused in this poll is higher than in the general population. But still, wow, this is a problem. I thought I was the only one naive enough to try to have sex without even knowing what arousal was, but apparently not.
And purity culture sets women up for this- we're not allowed to have comprehensive sex ed, we're not allowed to masturbate, we're not allowed to use porn... if you're a good girl who follows the rules, of course you wouldn't have any idea about the role that arousal is supposed to play in sex. Of course you wouldn't. Purity culture said if you have 0 sexual experience, then on your wedding night everything will just magically work, you don't need to know anything or prepare anything beforehand. (I mean, I knew that we would need to have a plan about birth control beforehand, but other than that, nope, I had no idea about anything else that would need to be done in order to be ready for PIV.)
I'm glad to see this book is exposing those false promises. Turns out, for pretty much anything you do, if you don't have a clue what you're doing, it doesn't go very well. Sex is not some magical exception to this. (Even though the entirety of purity culture is built on the assumption that sex is a magical exception to this. That, unlike every other thing that one might attempt to do, sex works best when you have no experience and no idea what you're doing.)
To summarize: This section of chapter 4 is saying that arousal is extremely important during sex- you can't have an orgasm if you're not aroused- but that for many Christian women who "wait" till their wedding night, they are not aroused the first time they have PIV sex, and it's not a good experience. The authors of "The Great Sex Rescue" seem to still believe that you shouldn't have sex outside of marriage, but they don't make any attempt to actually argue for this, so, I'm glad to see that. Also, they actually explain the so-called "natural" sexual progression that purity culture always warned about- how exactly does "one thing lead to another"... I've never seen anyone actually EXPLAIN it, but WOW, this book does, and that's so extremely helpful for me. Because lol that's not how it works at all for me as an asexual.
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Links to all posts in this series can be found here: Blog series on "The Great Sex Rescue"
Related:
I’m Really Really REALLY Glad I Had Sex Before Marriage
For This Asexual, Purity Culture Was All About Fear
Allow Me To Showcase Some Internet People Who Know What's What About Vaginismus
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