However, this God-given desire for the female body has gone into overdrive with most married men feeding their sexual appetite with unholy sensuality from their environment. When this occurs, the man’s sex drive soars, he begins objectifying women without any emotional connection, and it creates unrealistic expectations for how female bodies should look and how women should respond during sexual contact.
Six Steps to Fulfilling Christian Sex Within Marriage
1. Husbands need to strive towards sexual purity.
The first step to more satisfying sexual intimacy within marriage is for husbands to clean up their sexual practices. Men need to develop eyes for their wife and their wife alone. They need to put filters on their computers and TVs so no sensuality is accessible. They need to cancel all magazines and newspapers that feed them sexually. They need accountability partners to discuss their sexual purity with on a regular basis.
They need a heart change where they become more motivated on glorifying God than gratifying their lustful desires. They need to view each sensually arousing linger on another woman beyond their wife as a sin. “But among you, there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality….” (Ephesians 5:3, NIV). In essence, they need to starve the sexual beast within that has been having a well-fed diet for years and years.
They need to regain control of their sexuality rather than feeling like it controls them. They also need to become transparent with their wives by sharing their sexual temptations and struggles in order to build trust and collaboration. The road is steep and the challenges are immense, but it can be done.
2. Husbands must understand and respect their wife’s need for emotional sex before having physical sex.
Wives often need to have emotional sex before they can have physical sex and emotional sex is anything that helps a woman feel special, cherished, and emotionally close. During the dating phase, men usually wine and dine their girlfriend through lots of quality time, conversation, fun activities, love letters, etc. However, most men stop these activities after marriage yet expect to have sex regularly without realizing how important those behaviors are for women to feel open to sexual intimacy.
Robert Lewis said it well in his ten second, ten point rule. He said married men tend to be ready for sex after about ten seconds of visual stimuli from their wife, such as her getting out of the shower, changing into her PJ’s, etc. However, most women tend to be ready for sex after ten points and a point is anything that makes her feel special and close, such as having an intimate conversation, making them a cup of coffee, calling them during the day to see how they’re doing, etc.
Therefore, the best way for men to cultivate sexual intimacy in their marriage is to cultivate emotional intimacy first. God is clever and it’s no coincidence that if a husband is doing his part by courting his wife in these ways, his number one need for sexual intimacy is often fulfilled. However, if he becomes complacent and stops courting his wife, there’s an immediate natural consequence with her turning away from sexual contact, which is a perfect built-in accountability system.
3. Husbands need to increase their quality time, emotional closeness, and non-sexual touch.
Men’s rate of affection tends to increase when they want to have Christian sex with their wife and some men will only touch their wife when they want to be sexual. Understandably, this makes most women resentful and suspicious towards touch because they know there are ulterior motives. In contrast, women want to feel like touch is an authentic extension of their husband’s love towards them and not a ploy to get their sexual needs met.
Therefore, men need to make it a daily practice to provide physical affection without any sexual expectations in return. In addition, husbands need to provide daily emotional closeness through sharing their thoughts and feelings and spending quality time together. Most women need to feel this level of connection before they are open to sexual contact.
4. Wives need to embrace their sexuality.
Flipping the switch from sex being evil to something beautiful after saying “I do” can be extremely difficult. Therefore, it’s important for wives to remember that God desires for married couples to fully enjoy sexuality.
“Eat, friends; drink and imbibe deeply, O lovers” (Song of Solomon 5:1, NASB).
Christian women often struggle [to give] themselves permission to be sensual within marriage and may need time to see it as a healthy part of who they are.
“….May my beloved come into his garden and eat its choice fruits” (Song of Solomon 4:16, NASB).
