More Good Sex
As I mentioned on yesterday, Good Sex begins with God’s view of sex. The physical act of sex should proclaim spiritual and emotional oneness, and spiritual and emotional oneness heightens physical pleasure and fulfillment in sex.
Practically, Good Sex, continues with oneness in communication. You and your spouse should spend time talking about your feelings and needs. I know this is scary and uncomfortable for some because you were probably raised to not talk about sex. I was raised in a home where my parents simply did not talk about sex. If they did talk about sex, it was, “boy, you better keep it in your pants” and girl, you better keep your dress down.” That was the extent. Anybody feeling me on that? And the inability to talk about sex in marriage – likes, dislikes, needs, desires, frustrations – has stifled and stagnated Good Sex.
Good Sex must have great communication.
Many couples never really make the communication connection, especially about sex. I mean, these couples learn how to master the mechanics of sex, but really never spent time developing the necessary skills for creating intimacy through good communication. They have never learned how to relate at a deeper/oneness level. Therefore, a lot is missing from their sex life. This principle highlights the real problem of premarital sex – couples become bed mates before they become soul mates. Sex gives the appearance that a couple is close. Moreover, sex speeds up everything, so that a couple doesn’t have time to listen to and communicate with each other. And, the couple ends up playing catch up for the rest of the relationship. Not only that, there seems to be a preoccupation wit manipulation, one or both trying to figure out ways – touching the right spots, saying the right words, playing the right music – to get the person in bed. I digress.
Good Sex must have great communication.
1. Communicate your feelings and needs openly and honestly. There is no real intimacy without transparent and honest communication.
2. Tell the truth and be specific. Don’t beat around the bush by speaking in code, making obscure statements, and speaking in sexual parables that only Jesus can figure out. It’s cruel to keep your spouse guessing about what you mean and what you want. Now, this may feel a little uncomfortable at first, but keep practicing and talking; you will become more skillful in expressing, truthfully, your likes, dislikes, needs, frustrations and joys.
3. Schedule and plan a face to face talk about your sexual relationship. Prepare and pray before the face to face. (The average couple spends on an average 4 minutes a day face to face. It is impossible to develop relational depth and intimacy in four minutes. Bring two lists: 1) What I love about our sexual relationship right now and 2) What I would like to see different in our sexual relationship. My wife and I have practiced this and continue to practice this.
4. Make “I” statements – A wife may say, “Baby, I need you to spend more time talking to me, holding me, taking your time to get me in the mood.” A husband may say, “Sweetheart, I would like for us to have sex more frequently during the week.” Another “I” statement may go like this: ” I would like for us to talk about how we can solve the desire dilemma in our sex life.” These are just a few examples. This was an uncomfortable process for us in the early years of our marriage. But, through a lot of practice, we have become pretty, pretty good at making and fulfilling “I” statements. Good Sex really does begin with great communication.
5. Remember that you love each other. The conversation is about cooperating with each other and helping each other.
6. Come ready to solve the problem, not complain and argue about the problem. Spend time encouraging one another, not criticizing one another. We change faster through encouragement than we do through criticism.
Good Sex must have great communication
I know this is a sensitive subject, but it is a subject that the church cannot afford not to talk about. I don’t pretend to know all there is to know about sex, but the aforementioned list has been some of our learnings after 14 years of marriage. We continue to learn what it means to develop intimacy in our relationship.
This conversation is incomplete without your voice. What would you add to this list?
BTW, my Honey Brown, Tonia, is aware and gave me permission to talk about and publish the personal information that I have shared and will be sharing in these posts.
Stay tuned for more: Sex is not the same as intimacy. How do we build intimacy in order to maximize our sexual relationship?
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Tags: Sex
March 30th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
Yes, communication is important. I read that, “communication is thus the blood of marriage, that carries vital oxygen into the heart of our romance”. The poet in me loves that sentence!
Also, I think compromise. We all have personal desires and preferences. Compromising is a way of telling our spouse that we love them more than our own self “rights” or “wishes”. In this act of “dying to self”, God in turn blesses us.
Communication and compromise, def important in all aspects of our marriage.
Thanks for the post Big P!
December 13th, 2009 at 10:54 pm
"Thou sayest it" man!
The topic of sex is my biggest critique of the church. By "the church," I'm tallking about the entire body of Christ. We don't do it. Having had experience with spiritual bondage on the topic of sex, I can understand that some people would be affected in different ways. But previewing your post after this one, with Google having 800k hits (prob two million or more hits by now), we have tragically failed everyone–ourselves, our spouses, our children, and God–when we allow the world to teach about sex rather than the Lord. So that stuff about "keeping your pants up and your skirt down," as my mom told me was her "sex education" from her mother–who had 13 kids–does not fly during a time when people have mutiple babymommas and daddies.
I know your topic goes in a different direction, but I just thought it was worth mentioning.