Sheila Wray Gregoire's Blog, page 48

Spice Things Up with the “Intimately Us” App!

If I were going to make a marriage app for couples to spice up their marriage, what would I focus on?

I’ve often wondered that. I’ve thought about how I’d encourage fun “games” where couples get challenges to do more foreplay, but in a fun way, that helps them explore each other’s bodies and figure out what feels good.

I’d try to do something that would break up the routine that we too often get into, so that we can feel fun and flirty again.

I’d design something that would let couples talk about what they’re comfortable doing–and what they’re not. And have an easy way to suggest new things to try that don’t make anyone feel pressured, but instead feel excited!

I’d include info that would help people learn some basic stuff about sex and anatomy that they may have missed (and last month’s series on libido, and how many women just aren’t receiving pleasure from sex, shows that this is really needed!)

I’d make sure that app wasn’t crass, or gross, or focusing on sex toys or porn or weird role playing or anything like that.

And I’d include lots of fun ways for couples to feel more emotionally connected, too, because without the emotional connection, sex is empty.

Thankfully, I don’t have to create that app, a fun & sexy app has already been made!

And thank you to Intimately Us for sponsoring this post!

Intimately Us is a fun & sexy app that helps couples prioritize sex and bring passion back to their marriage.

So many of us want a passionate sex life, but we don’t know how to get there. We don’t know how to start those conversations. We don’t know how to get out of the rut. We don’t know how to tell our partner we want more foreplay, new positions, or just more romance!

But the Intimate Us app makes all of that easy–and fun!

Try new things in a fun, pressure-free way with the app’s sexy games for couples!

First up on the menu is the “Play” section–and this section’s fun!

Brainstorming new things and exploring what feels good can be awkward. Even just the idea of trying new things is daunting–where do you start?! Is it going to be embarrassing? Is my spouse going to like my ideas or not?

That’s where the games come in.

First of all, before each game you can go and turn off anything you’re personally not comfortable with. Don’t want any prompts including oral sex, the shower, or blindfolds? Simply turn it off! Then, when you’ve selected your comfort settings, you can simply follow the prompts for some spicy fun! And since the app is the one suggesting what you’re doing, you don’t need to spend a ton of time trying to brainstorm new things to try–it’s all done for you. 

And once you figure out what you like, you can create your own foreplay ideas list, just for you!

The Intimately Us free game comes with some great ideas to launch you into sex–but the spicier stuff is reserved for the paid version. Roll the dice, and then you land on a square, and receive a prompt. The early prompts just help you talk and connect, like this:

Later prompts get you to start disrobing:

And then the steamier prompts build you towards sex tonight! Here’s a Chili Level 3, but I’m not going to show you higher than that because it’s just, well, weird with our names there!

With all the options, you can either skip if you don’t like it, and choose something else, or you can hit the chili pepper if you want to get to the steamier stuff more quickly!

I want to play that!

And that’s not the only game. There’s also “Let’s Get It On”, “Talk Me Into It”, and “Pleasure Island“. 

With each game, you have two choices: Play it where the app roles a dice and your card appears, or play it where you’re given three ideas, and you can pick one for your spouse to do, and discard one that you really don’t like, taking turns. The paid version opens this up to endless possibilities! (here’s just a tame foreplay one, but they get much steamier):

What’s great about this game is that YOU choose–but you’re still pushed to be a little adventurous.

You have three choices, and you do need to choose one. But you can stick to what you’re comfortable with–and discard what you’re not.

The app is not about turning you into someone you’re not. It’s allowing who YOU are to come out!

That’s really the aim of the app–encouraging you to have fun and try things, but keeping you safe, relaxed, and not feeling pressured or pushed. Your relationship, your intimacy, is at the forefront.

It’s not about pushing your comfort zones as much as building your sexual confidence and fun!

And you can build that confidence with other fun things, like Battlestrip, creating your own foreplay routine, or even sending sexy invite texts. They have a whole bunch of them, and you just choose one and message it to your spouse!

Next up is the Discover section–because Intimately Us is personal to YOU.

Yes, it’s an app that helps you spice things up and have better sex. But it doesn’t end there because the creators of Intimately Us understand that great sex starts with a great marriage. The “Discover” section is focused on building intimacy, with conversation starters, a platform to discuss sexual boundaries, date ideas, and more.

This is one of the big things that sets it apart from other apps in its genre–the ability to personalize it so much to you and your marriage.

And the Sexplorations List is an awesome addition I may write more about, because I like it so much. It has a bunch of questions where you answer yes, no, or maybe, and can add a note–so that your spouse understands you better. It’s your chance to explain why you don’t like to be groped (or why you do!).

Do you like euphemisms for body parts or to use specific words? The app lets you choose. And the prompts to have conversations about your comfort level, what things you’d like to try, or what are your big turn-ons and turn-offs mean that this isn’t just a generic sex check-list app, but a chance to develop intimacy. And that leads us to the next section:

The Intimately Us app was created to help you connect with your spouse in whole new ways–in the bedroom and out of it.

Take time creating a bucket list of things you want to try, and even set up reminders for each other to help you affirm your spouse the way they say will mean the most to them! The “Dream” section also includes a chance to write out fantasies you have had, type out intimate memories you have had with your spouse (sexual or not), and even list all those little things you love about each other.

The Intimately Us app is fantastic for couples who don’t want to just try new things, but want to actually get better at sex.

Next up: Learn!

Not only are you given lists of hundreds of new things to try and games to spice things up, but Intimately Us has an extensive “learn” section to teach you how to improve sexual technique, how to increase mutual pleasure, and how to try new things if you haven’t done them before. Many of the lessons start easy and amp up as you feel more confident, so if you’re a bit daunted by things like manual stimulation or oral sex or if you just want to figure out how to get better at those types of acts without having to google it, this is a great resource for you.

(And seriously, who wants to Google that stuff? Get the app instead!)

One of the features I love best is the Sex Life Checkup. It’s 40 questions you talk through (not all at once!) on things like arousal and desire, routine and ruts, sexual health, and more. Sometimes it’s easier to talk about things when YOU’RE not the one asking the question–the app is!

Both Rebecca and I had a chance to talk to Daniel, who created the app, and try it out, before it went live. We loved his vision for helping couples discover their sexual preferences and confidence and being able to talk with each other about things, without getting crass or gross. And we love that he lets you toggle OFF anything from the very beginning that you’re just not okay with.

It really is an app that’s focused on YOU and your marriage. I’ve only scratched the surface in this post–there’s so much to discover (and do!

Top 10 Ways to Put Sexy Back into Your Marriage

Does your marriage feel “sexy”? Or does it feel “safe”? “Routine”? “Boring”?

There’s nothing wrong with safe. There’s nothing even wrong with routine! But let’s face it: sometimes you just want to get sexy back again.

Note: This post contains some affiliate links.
In those early days of marriage, we likely felt the relationship was “sexy” because we made an effort.

We shaved our legs. We took care of ourselves. We pulled out all the lingerie we were given at that bridal shower or bachelorette party.

Then, in the months or years since, maybe your relationship has revolved far less around sex and feeling excited by each other and far more around kids and bills and logistics and just getting through this next day. And you realize you’ve got this great guy–but you also don’t feel super excited by him anymore.

Everything has just gotten, well, boring.

But you can bring sexy back!

I’m not talking about how to be more adventurous in bed or how to spice things up–though these things are important, too! I’m not even talking about flirting with your husband.

Today I just want to talk about everyday things you can do and habits you can put in place to keep that “sexy” vibe front and centre in your relationship, rather than relegating it to somewhere deep in the basement, in a box behind the furnace, that you just pull out when emergency strikes. If we want to increase libido and just plain feel more sexy, then we need to incorporate more “sexy” things into our daily lives.

We’ve been talking about libido all month–looking at why women may not want sex; what to do if your wife doesn’t want sex (or your husband doesn’t want sex); figuring out what a good frequency of sex is; and more.

And this month’s been kind of, well, heavy.

So I wanted to take the last two days of the month and end on a high note! Let’s put some fun back in our marriages–some sexy back in our marriages.

I’ve talked about this before, but I wanted to update this list to encourage us to laugh more and have more fun. So choose one or two ideas that I’ve got below, and don’t overthink them. Just do them! (That’s module 4 in Boost Your Libido, by the way!). And see what happens.

So today, I present to you 10 things to bring sexy back to your marriage–by engaging the senses!
Bring sexy back by engaging the sense of sight 
1. Wear pretty panties. And match the bra!

Last year, while on an RV trip with my hubby, I realized that I had forgotten to pack underwear. So we went to Wal-Mart and I bought one of those 10-packs of women’s underwear.

But I didn’t realize those particular panties came up to the belly button.

I have never felt so unsexy in my life.

Don’t wear ugly panties.

Seriously, ladies, when pretty panties are so readily available, take advantage! And, if you’re able, buy a matching bra. Or here’s what I do: for each bra that I own, I choose one panty that’s expensive that matches, and two much cheaper versions that coordinate well. And then I’m always wearing an “outfit”! And I’m sure to parade around the bedroom in it in the morning so Keith knows what’s underneath the clothes today.

So rummage through your underwear drawer and throw out all the ugly stuff. Go do it now. And then pick up some pretty stuff!

You may also enjoy:

My series on how to choose lingerie that fits, and makes you feel amazing


2. Flash him.

You’re allowed to be an exhibitionist for your husband. Add a bit of excitement by trying to flash him at least once a day. When you’re walking around your bedroom, open up your robe. Hike your skirt up in the car (if you’re on a deserted road!). Even cuddle under a blanket naked (or topless!) to watch a movie.

Bring sexy back by engaging the sense of hearing 
3. Have sexy, breathless conversations

There is something ever-so-sexy about whispering. Maybe it’s the breath in the ear even more than what’s being said, but try, every time you hug your husband, to whisper something sexy, even if it’s just “I love feeling your arms around me” or “I missed you today!” Don’t say it; whisper it!

Bring sexy back by engaging the sense of taste 
4. Use gum, mint, or breath strips at specific times of day

When you’re on the way in the door (or when you know your spouse is about to come home), pop in some gum or a breath strip. I absolutely love those breath strips, but when you use one, your mouth tastes great, and you feel more confident kissing your spouse.

Make sure you do kiss, too! Once you pop in that strip, head on over and give your spouse a 10 second kiss!

Bring sexy back by engaging the sense of scent 

5. Add some sexy scents to your bedroom

Did you know that essential oils can boost your libido? Seriously, scent does a lot to help us to feel sexy! And even if essential oils don’t work to boost your libido (the science is mixed), the smell is still amazing, and smell paired with good memories creates an emotional response anyway!

So choose some essential oils (I’ve got ideas at this post) and add a few drops to a spritzer mixed with vodka & water and spray it on your pillow at night. Put a few drops on a candle. Or better still, get a diffuser for your bedroom!

6. Use the lotions and colognes you have in your bathroom

If you’re like most people, you have body lotions that were given you in gift baskets cluttering up your medicine cabinet or under your sink.

But why not actually use them? Slathering lotion on your body helps in three ways: It reminds you of your body below the neck, which can help rev your libido. It feels luxurious so that your skin feels better and doesn’t itch (again, a plus for libido); and it relaxes you.

And encourage your husband to use some cologne (if you like it), too. It doesn’t have to be just for special occasions. Just read Song of Solomon to see the time the lovers spent preparing for each other. It’s good to get in the habit of pampering our bodies so that our spouses can enjoy them!

Bring sexy back by engaging the sense of touch 
7. Grab something handy!

We talked recently on a podcast about how many women don’t like to be groped. But many men actually enjoy it when their wives become more assertive about sex!

Think of sexy things you can do with guy’s clothing to help both of you feel sexy. Sure, a woman feels better in pretty underwear. But you know what’s sexy on a guy? A tie. Get creative! Grab that tie and pull him towards you into a kiss. Run the tie along your body, as if it’s an extension of him (and he’ll wish it were!).

What if he doesn’t wear a tie? Well, does he have a belt? Hook your fingers in it and pull him towards you (using the buckle right above the crotch). If he wears a toolbelt, grab a tool and use it to drag him towards you. Help him to associate different items of clothing that he wears to work with flirting with you!

 
 
8. Give naked massages–regularly

I love a great back massage. It helps me decompress, helps remind me I’ve got a body, too, and helps me to focus on that body and get out of my head so that I have an easier time transitioning to sex.

And massages when we’re naked together? That just feels luscious. There’s something so special about human touch!

9. Shower together

Jump in the shower together regularly and lather up! It doesn’t have to take a long time, but have fun being naked together and rubbing against each other even if you’re not having sex. The more you feel each other naked, the more you’ll think of each other that way.

10. Sleep naked

I’ve never been a particularly sleep-naked-kind-of-gal because I tend to get so COLD at night. But I have a friend who swears by it! Sleeping naked helps her to always feel sexy with her husband.

So we bought a super warm duvet and now it’s easier for me to do on occasion, too!

Being naked is the ultimate in sexy, because it’s something you can ONLY do with your husband.

So show some skin!

Want to take this all one step further?

One of the benefits of injecting little bits of sexiness into everyday life is that it can boost your sexual confidence. And if you want to take that one step further, try The Intimacy App, an exciting and helpful app that can spice up your marriage and your communication in the bedroom. I’ll be talking about it tomorrow, but you can get a sneak peek at it!

There you are–10 ideas to bring sexy back. But I’d love to hear some of yours, too! Let me know in the comments: How do you keep that sexy feeling alive? How do you keep “feeling like a woman”? Let’s talk!

Sheila Wray Gregoire

Founder of To Love, Honor and Vacuum

Sheila has been married to Keith for 28 years, and happily married for 25! (It took a while to adjust). She’s also an award-winning author of 8 books, including The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex, and a sought-after speaker. With her humorous, no-nonsense approach, Sheila is passionate about changing the evangelical conversation about sex and marriage to line up with kingdom principles. ENTJ, straight 8
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What Does It Mean to Be Attracted to Your Husband?

What does it mean to be “attracted to your husband”? What does that actually feel like and look like?

I’ve been talking about libido all month on the blog, and one of the problems when we’re talking about libido is trying to understand what we even mean by being attracted to someone and wanting to have sex.

So here’s an interesting question I talked about 4 years ago on the blog, and I’d like to re-run it because I think it’s a great discussion topic!

A reader asks:

My husband and I have been married almost 5 years. We’ve never had a great sex life, but in the last year or so it’s gotten a lot worse.

A combination of my husband suddenly having 14+ hour days, me feeling very lonely and isolated, me initiating sex occasionally but often feeling rejected, me feeling too fat and unattractive (both because of my own insecurities and hurtful words coming from my husband)….there are definitely a lot of issues at play, and we are planning to start counselling soon to address some of them. My husband has recently told me that it is difficult for him that I do not “lust” after him. I’ve never been one to be physically attracted to guys, and never really had a movie star crush.

I do really enjoy having sex with him, and love feeling so connected, and it’s not at all that I have low libido…..but he feels I don’t want him in the same way we see some wives around us wanting their husbands and being specifically physically attracted to him. Is my lack of attraction to my husband something that we can work on and make better, or is this something we just have to accept and move past? I don’t want him to feel hurt and unattractive, but I also don’t know how I go about changing this.

I’m so glad that someone wrote with this question, because so often couples just don’t understand this about each other, and it leads to all kinds of totally unnecessary hurt.

I know she raises several issues in her email, but I’d like to deal with this question of why doesn’t she feel more visually attracted to him?

Here’s the problem with different libidos and misunderstandings

 (and I’m going to talk in generalities here, so if you don’t fit in this, that’s totally okay. Not everybody will! But these are some of the most frequent problems I see):

Men tend to be more visually stimulated. They see a woman, and they want to make love. So when they see their wife, they immediately get turned on. (Research is now emerging saying that this can’t actually be shown, and may largely be cultural, not biological. But in general, this seems to be how it works).
Many women, on the other hand, don’t get turned on in the same way. In fact, women aren’t usually aroused BEFORE we’re making love. We tend to get aroused AFTER we start.

TV shows and movies, though, often portray women with the same kind of sex drive: we see a guy, we start panting, and we want to make love.

As I explained in the very first module of my Boost Your Libido course, we often don’t understand that libido can look different for different people, because it’s always portrayed the same way in shows: You pant, you kiss, you take your clothes off, you end up in bed.

So that’s libido, right? Pant-Kiss-Clothes-Bed.

So if  you’re at home, and you’re not panting, you figure you don’t have a libido. You must not be attracted to your husband.

But many women are able to get aroused and into sex once they start. They don’t feel the same desire beforehand, but once arousal kicks in, so does desire.

For many of us, instead of being Pant-Kiss-Clothes-Bed, it’s Bed-Clothes-Kiss-Pant. And that’s okay! It doesn’t mean you don’t want your husband. It just means your libido works differently.

One is more spontaneous, and one is more responsive. But they both get you to the same place.  

Is this a lightbulb moment for you, when you realize you’ve been seeing attraction and libido all wrong?



I hope so! And I hope I can give you encouragement that you CAN boost your libido–it just may not look like the movies.

In this 10-module video course, I walk you step-by-step through understanding what libido is, identifying your roadblocks to libido, and figuring out how to turn yourself ON again! And we look at how the brain, body, and emotions all contribute to our desire (or lack of it). It’s super fun, and right from the beginning you’ll experience HOPE that you really can anticipate and yearn for sex in your marriage!























Let’s get back to that assumption that we should be weak-kneed and turned on when we see our spouse, though.

To a certain extent, that does often happen at the beginning of a relationship, even for those of us who do have more responsive libidos. Those “infatuation” feelings, when you get the electrical surge if he touches you, are quite common. Scientific studies, though, have found that these feelings only last about 18 months. Then they’re gone, and you’re left with a more mature love–and just as much ability to enjoy sex.

This woman says that she does enjoy sex but she’s never really gone weak-kneed over seeing a guy. Again, very common.

Back in the 1990s when I was writing my thesis about the portrayal of women in advertising, I started looking at some of the studies about arousal and media. And what I found was that women tended to get more aroused looking at pictures of women rather than men–even though they weren’t lesbian at all. I don’t mean to be gross here, and forgive me if this veers on inappropriate, but here’s what the researchers concluded: when women look at images, they don’t “lust” after the image as much as they picture themselves as the image (that’s why women in ads are often portrayed looking away rather than directly at the camera; it’s easier for women to picture themselves AS that woman).

What can arouse many women, then, is the idea of being wanted, not the wanting itself.

TV shows and movies bear this out, too. As I talk about in The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex, the scenes that women find most erotic are often not the “down and dirty” ones, but instead even passionate kissing where there’s been a major lead-up of sexual tension. Matthew and Mary from Downtown Abbey; Bones and Booth from Bones; Jim and Pam on The Office; even Elizabeth and Darcy in Pride & Prejudice. It’s not about graphic depictions of sex as much as it is the passion that the couple feels towards each other.

God made sex to be AWESOME!

It’s supposed to be great physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

Feel like something’s missing?

Check out The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex!

That’s why the scene in the original Pride & Prejudice (the best version, of course) when Colin Firth dives into the lake is often talked about as so “hot”. It’s not that he looks particularly good; it’s that the viewer knows that he is just tortured by his thoughts of Elizabeth and he’s trying to rid his head of them. It’s how much he wants her that becomes so attractive to the viewer.

For many women, that’s the key to desire: Feeling as if we are desired. 

And we’re aroused by the thought that a guy is passionately carried away by us.

Now, again, I’m not trying to say that a woman can’t get aroused by seeing a good-looking man or that she won’t enjoy looking at her husband. Just over 20% of women in our survey of 20,000 reported having the higher libido, and many talked about how visually stimulated they were, too. I know I’m speaking in generalities; forgive me for that, but the generalities happen to fit this letter writer. She has a high libido by her own account. But she doesn’t “lust” after her husband in the way that they think other women do. 

But let’s take a step back: Why do we think OTHER women “lust” after their husbands like this?

He’s saying that he feels really hurt because his wife doesn’t act like “other” women, and it’s causing him to reject her. But how does he know what “other” women feel?

Look–the media portrays women’s sex drives as if they’re just like men’s. And quite often, that’s not true (and in many cases, men’s sex drives aren’t as strong as the media portrays, either). Libido exists on a spectrum. It isn’t that “everybody is like X”, or even that “all men are like X” and “all women are like Y”.

Since we don’t tend to talk about this stuff with friends in detail, so we tend to believe the media’s depiction of men’s and women’s approaches to sex.

Stop.

The media lies.

It doesn’t matter what the media shows; what matters is whether you two love each other and have fun together. If that’s true, then does it really matter if it’s not exactly like the movies?

Just because a woman doesn’t “lust” after her husband does not mean that she doesn’t want him.

You want to make love to him because:

You enjoy making love.
You enjoy feeling close to him.
You want to relax.
You want to have fun.

Those are all good reasons!

So hear me, women: Just because you don’t look at your husband and go weak-kneed does not mean that you aren’t attracted to him.

And guys: Just because your wife doesn’t jump you every time you take off your clothes does not mean you don’t turn her on.

Just understand each other, have a lot of fun together, and work at making sex feel great!

Most of all: don’t let the media tell you what your relationship should be like.

As soon as we start comparing our marriage to what we think other people do, we’ll tend to fall short. If you’re enjoying each other, then what difference does it make what other people are doing?

I know this letter writer had other issues–rejection from her husband; insults from her husband about her looks; stress and exhaustion. Those are important, too, but I’ve written about them before. Today I thought I’d just focus on that one issue, and I hope that perhaps I’ve said something that may help you feel reassured about your feelings towards your husband, too!

So tell me this: do you think the media portrays women’s sex drives wrong? What do you think it feels like, years into marriage, to be “attracted” to your spouse? Let’s talk in the comments!

If you and your husband are having a lot of these misunderstandings about sex and libido, my Boost Your Libido ecourse can give you hope–and practical tools–to WANT your husband again!

Check it out here.

The Libido Differences Series:

Can Higher Drive Spouses Be Content with their Sex Lives?
How Many Times a Week Should Couples Have Sex?
A Word to Low Libido Spouses
10 Questions for High Libido Husbands to Ask if Their Wives Don't Want Sex
The Frequency Podcast: What if Libido Differences Aren't the Real Issue?
8 Questions for Wives to Ask if Their Husbands Don't Want Sex 
4 Reasons You May Feel Sexually Frustrated--Even if  You're Having Sex
What Does It Mean to Feel Attracted to Your Husband?

And don't forget to check out:

The Boost Your Libido Course!






















Sheila Wray Gregoire

Founder of To Love, Honor and Vacuum

Sheila has been married to Keith for 28 years, and happily married for 25! (It took a while to adjust). She’s also an award-winning author of 8 books, including The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex, and a sought-after speaker. With her humorous, no-nonsense approach, Sheila is passionate about changing the evangelical conversation about sex and marriage to line up with kingdom principles. ENTJ, straight 8
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Are libido differences really about libido–or are they often about orgasm?

We’ve been talking about libido all month, and how to navigate libido differences. And as I’ve been repeatedly saying, our survey of 20,000 women (and others) have shown that often when a woman stops wanting sex it’s because sex never did much for her in the first place.

Like Keith and I were talking about on our Start Your Engines podcast yesterday, why should women want something that does nothing for them?

There’s a (rather graphic) scene in the movie Spanglish (which is honestly a very insightful movie about marriage) where Adam Sandler and Tea Leoni (who are married) are having sex. The wife in this marriage is very self-centered, and the husband is trying to navigate the relationship and deal with this when he feels very lonely. And as they’re having sex, she reaches orgasm, and then stops sex. She’s done, and she’s satisfied, and she’s happy–and then she decides it’s over. And he’s left hanging.

It’s one of the only movies I’ve ever seen that portrayed it well, and I think every male watching that movie will understand what frustration that must be to the guy. How is it that sex is over just because she’s done? Why doesn’t she care about him?

And yet, what we found, is that in over 50% of marriages, this exactly thing is happening all the time–just in the opposite direction.

Married Christian women do orgasm about ten percentage points more than the general population of women, which is great. But we still reliably orgasm only 48% of the time, compared to 95% for men.

That’s a huge orgasm gap.

And so, should it be any wonder if many women stop wanting sex? If men lived that Adam Sandler-Tea Leoni scene several times a week for years, how would many men feel? And yet this is exactly what happens to women.

I know many women don’t fight for their own orgasms, but that’s also because we grew up hearing in books like Love & Respect that sex is a men’s need, not a woman’s need, and that it’s our duty to give him release. So we prioritize a man’s orgasm, and figure that we’re selfish if we want one.

In the long run, this will cause low libido women. 

Lack of women’s pleasure can eventually cause sexless marriages.

I’m not saying that’s the only reason for sexless marriages, and I wrote last week about 10 questions husbands could ask themselves if their wives didn’t want sex. I know there are more issues than just her pleasure. But we’ve found that this is the biggest reason that women lose libido, so I want to highlight a few comments that came in off of that post.

One man humbly wrote:

> > 2. Did you take time to ensure that your wife felt pleasure?

I have to admit that I’ve been guilty of this before. I’ve tried to turn it around and focus on her as well, but in the past I haven’t been as good about this as I should have been

10 Questions to Ask if Your Wife Doesn't Want Sex

Responding to a comment I made saying, “And many, many, many women who report that their husbands won’t do foreplay, because intercourse should be enough,” Emmy wrote:

Indeed. I’m married to one such a guy. I’m really puzzled, where on earth does it come from. I know it is not out of malice. He really is convinced foreplay does not “belong”. It is not that he would not want me to have any pleasure. He rather takes for granted I automatically do.

Emmy

10 Questions to Ask if Your Wife Doesn't Want Sex

Another woman told this story:

Immediately after my husband I were married I started having very frequent and painful UTI’s. After every sexual encounter no matter how many prevention techniques I used, I always had an infection and was constantly running to the doctor and on antibiotics. Nothing I did helped. After six months of this (even a trip to the ER it was so bad), I was ready to never have sex again. And instead of receiving compassion from my husband, he gave me advice that we need to have more sex. His logic was that my body needed to adjust to being a wife and the quicker that happened the better. And so the mindset was reinforced that sex is not for me. My pleasure has nothing to do with it. I do not matter in the marriage bed. This is an extremely hard mindset to break. After over a decade of marriage, I still feel that sex has very little to do with me – other than my body has to show up.

The UTI’s finally started to lesson in frequency after my infected gall bladder was removed. My immune system was on over load and couldn’t fight off infections in multiple spots of my body. That was year three of our marriage.

I have never recovered from this horrible start. My husband has never apologized and I can’t seem to move past it. I just feel stuck. Even after all these years, sex is a duty and I can count on two hands the orgasms I have had. How does a wife try to move forward with out her husband understanding the amount of trauma that he helped cause? As much as I try and talk with him, he just doesn’t seem to understand. I want an intimate and passionate sex life and I need compassion and selflessness from him in the bedroom. I hope all husbands understand that.

10 Questions to Ask if Your Wife Doesn't Want Sex

Or here’s a question that just came into the blog that’s quite typical:

I am in my 60’s been married to one man for 42 years and have never had an orgasm. Do you think it is too late for me?

THIS is what happens when we emphasize a man’s orgasm and ignore a woman’s pleasure.

How can a couple be regularly having sex for 42 years and have it be entirely about his pleasure, and never about hers?

This is far too common. We do this far too much, and we do it for good reason. Our Christian marriage resources tend to tell women that sex is a duty, and they don’t tell men that her pleasure is HIS responsibility. Rebecca, Joanna and I turned in our second-to-last edits on our book The Great Sex Rescue on Monday, where we looked at the best-selling Christian resources, and compared the messages in them to our survey responses from 20,000 women. It’s amazing how women’s sexual pleasure is ignored in almost all general marriage books, while women are constantly told not to deprive their husbands of sexual release. 

I used to talk primarily about how low libido wives can boost their libidos (and I do think that’s vitally important, and I hope my course can help!). But it is only part of the puzzle–an important and crucial piece, but only one piece.  And in doing our survey, we found this huge group of women for whom sex had never felt good at all, or else rarely did.

And so perhaps libido isn’t always about libido.

Maybe we just need to give women something to look forward to.

You may also enjoy:

Women, It’s not Selfish to Want an Orgasm
Whose Responsibility is it That She Orgasms? (podcast)
Godly Sex is Mutual Sex

Again, I understand that there are often many more issues (hence why I asked 10 questions of higher libido men, and not just one about pleasure). And I understand that for many women, sex does feel good, but exhaustion and emotional labor get in the way of being able to want sex. I do get it.

But perhaps if we normalized the idea that women should feel pleasure, too, and that it shouldn’t be acceptable to go for 42 years without an orgasm, we’d see far healthier sex lives.

 

Start Your Engines Podcast: On Frequency, Libido–and Being Sex Starved

It’s time for our men’s podcast–and this week we’re continuing our conversation about libido differences and looking at frequency.

Keith and I focused on high drive husbands and high drive wives–and questions to ask if you’re feeling sexually deprived.

So first–listen in!

Listen to the Podcast Here

Browse all the Different Podcasts

See the Last Women’s Podcast

We talk about libido in very stark terms–so that we often misunderstand it and make problems worse.

One thing that Keith brought up in the podcast is that men are told that they will always have these ravenous libidos, and lust becomes a way of proving your manhood. In fact, the way that we talk about lust as being “every man’s battle” can actually make porn problems worse in young men (or start them in the first place) because guys think that if they don’t lust, they’re not real men. 

This also makes high drive wives feel very unloved, because they’re told their whole lives that their husbands will be all over them. So what happens if they aren’t?

We tackled a bunch of things in this podcast, from how scheduling sex can help if you’re married to someone with low libido; how we have to ask if we’ve been doing what we can to nurture our sexual relationship, rather than just assuming our spouse is at fault.

And, of course, if you want your wife to want sex, you have to give her something to want in the first place. So make it good for her!

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A Timeline for the Podcast

TIMESTAMPS:

0:30 What is the average frequency of sex in marriage?
6:10 How do we best discuss different libido levels?
7:45 The most likely reason your wife might not want sex
12:40 Reader Story: From a higher libido wife
15:00 Why your sexual needs might not be met just by having intercourse
20:45 Your wife isn’t methadone
24:00 In the church, why do we talk about lust the way we do?
26:15 A message for lower drive husbands
32:07 Some final tips to help your sex life

Things Mentioned in this Podcast

31 Days to Great Sex--a great challenge for couples
Can Scheduling Sex work for you?
How often do couples make love? What’s a healthy frequency of sex? (with links to the studies we mentioned)
A Word to the Low Libido Spouses
10 Questions for High Drive Husbands to Ask Themselves
8 Questions to High Drive Wives to Ask Themselves
Can We Understand Sex from a Woman’s Perspective?

And, of course, sign up for my email list so you’ll be notified when The Orgasm Course is available!

How can we have those conversations when we’re feeling sexually frustrated? Do you agree that sexual frustration is often not just a frequency problem? Let’s talk in the comments!

Sheila Wray Gregoire

Founder of To Love, Honor and Vacuum

Sheila has been married to Keith for 28 years, and happily married for 25! (It took a while to adjust). She’s also an award-winning author of 8 books, including The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex, and a sought-after speaker. With her humorous, no-nonsense approach, Sheila is passionate about changing the evangelical conversation about sex and marriage to line up with kingdom principles. ENTJ, straight 8
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Are We Caring for Our Marriage or Just Craving the Benefits?

Entitlement can kill a marriage.

We’ve been looking at libido differences in the month of September, and if I had to sum up what I’m trying to say, it would just be: “Be a decent person and care for your spouse.” I encouraged low libido spouses to think about their spouse and prioritize making love more. I encouraged higher drive spouses who were getting healthy sex to be content. I encouraged higher drive husbands and wives who weren’t getting enough sex to examine themselves and see if they may have contributed to the problem.

In short, I’m just asking all of us to look first at what we can do to strengthen the marriage, and be kind to one another.

But it’s gotten a little heated in the comments this month, because libido differences often trigger deep pain in many people, and I get that.

In the middle of all of that, Sarah O, one of my wonderful commenters (and I do appreciate all of you who comment regularly; I think of you like friends and check in to see what you’re all going to say next!), sent me an email with some thoughts she’d been having, inspired by our discussion.

I loved it, and asked to share it with you. So here is Sarah O!

Marriage was not our idea. We didn’t invent it. Marriage was created by God as a blessing and a gift.

Our individual marriages are the same–they’re meant to be blessings and gifts.

So imagine that on your wedding day, Jesus gives you a small tree.

It is living, breathing, and there is no other like it in the whole world. It was created specifically for YOU, you and no other. If you care for it well, it will produce fruit to sustain and shelter you.

Take note, however: it is not yours to keep. At the appointed time, you will return it to Him.

Jesus tells you that the tree is very delicate and will require both of you to care for it.

Not to worry, He Himself will provide everything you need, but you have to do your part.

Food for the Tree

In order to grow, thrive, and produce fruit, the tree needs: time, patience, love, kindness, humility, service, good cheer, acceptance, courage, justice, faithfulness, commitment, truth, and consistent care (1 Corinthians 13). Jesus provides these things to the workers. The workers feed the tree.

If the tree is well-cared for by both parties, then it will product fruit to nourish and sustain the couple.

Fruit from the Tree

Words of affirmation, physical touch including sex, quality time, acts of service, gifts, comfort, protection, and an improved, more Christ-like character. The fruit does not feed the tree, the fruit feeds the worker.

As the workers, our focus should be on the health of the tree and making sure we bring everything God has given us into its service. Too often, we are focusing only on our desire for the fruit.

Eventually, we become so zealous about the fruit that we become picky and entitled.

We cease to give thanks at harvesttime – unless we got enough of our own favorite fruit, we don’t care about the nourishment we DID receive. We develop quotas around each specific fruit and spend so much time in the storehouse looking at our supplies that we become distracted. After all, there are TWO workers. Shouldn’t the spouse be tending the tree?

And so when the fruit becomes scarce or less varied, we are much quicker to search and point out all the ways our spouse failed to care for the tree than to recognize and take ownership of how we became distracted.

We started loving the fruit instead of the tree. We start treating our spouse as a hired hand instead of a partner. And then the tree withers and even dies.

But imagine, for a moment, the vision of a tree well-tended. A tree with dedicated workers who do not allow themselves to becomes distracted. Workers who consistently give thanks for whatever fruit they receive, and then go back to tending the tree. With each season, they learn better how to care for the tree. They learn small techniques that product different, sweeter, fuller fruit. They learn each worker’s strengths and weaknesses, and develop a fuller partnership. They reap blessing upon blessing.

When one worker trods to the tree, weary but determined, and finds their spouse has seen their hardship and tended the tree for them.
When fierce storms strike or the hot sun beats down, the couple takes shelter in the safety of the tree’s shade and strong branches
The couple harvests fruit for each other, having come to know the tastes and appetites of their partner
Their children play without a care in the tree, knowing it is strong and secure. They use this beautiful tree as a benchmark in their own lives and relationships
The couple rests in peace and fullness under their beautiful tree
Other workers with other trees learn from watching a thriving partnership. Their trees improve from this couple’s example.
When one spouse is called home before the other, the tree is full of enough fruit to sustain the remaining worker for the rest of their days

Thank you, Sarah! We’re supposed to build a marriage, and yet many of us are wanting the benefits without the work.

I wish we could all get back to caring for the tree.

Now one thing that’s so important in Sarah’s story is that Jesus gave the tree to BOTH of us to tend.

One person cannot do all the tending, no matter how much they work. It won’t produce a healthy tree.

It’s like what one commenter said last week:

it has taken me 25 years to get to the point where I am saying no more, I cannot do this anymore. It has taken a toll on my mental and physical health to continue to service my husband in spite of eight of the factors you listed above. I have woken up to the reality that he has been sexually, emotionally, and spiritually abusive throughout these years and I let him because I thought I had to to be a godly wife. …

 It was one of your posts two or three years ago that began to open my eyes to reality. You quoted Gary Thomas, I think, when he said something to the effect of God loves people more than institutions. If the cost of saving a marriage is destroying a woman, the cost is too high. I read that when I was at my lowest, darkest place due to demands he was making that were degrading and immoral. I thought I HAD to make things work, that I could not deprive my husband…..he often used that scripture to coerce me. Y’all have helped me to seek hard after God and untangle the web of twisted scriptures used to torment me. I’m in counseling now. I have learned so much. It has been hard work to heal from decades of abuse. I couldn’t even call it that until a few months ago. I have a long way to go still.

Hopefully Healing

Commenting on 10 Questions to Ask if Your Wife Doesn't Want Sex

So you cannot fix a marriage on your own or get a marriage healthy on your own.

We’re not asking you to do that. 

But what all of us can do is stop focusing on what we’re supposed to get out of marriage and start focusing on caring for that marriage. Like commenter Doug said last week, sometimes you have to be the one to make the first move, even if your spouse has also hurt you. But someone has to go first.

So go first. Care for the tree. Don’t look for the fruit.

If your spouse never reciprocates, it’s not up to you to keep the tree healthy, because you were never meant to do that on your own.

But we are called to do what we can do. And when we do that–just think of how beautiful that tree can be!

What do you think? Do we become too preoccupied with “fruit”? Let’s talk in the comments!

Sheila Wray Gregoire

Founder of To Love, Honor and Vacuum

Sheila has been married to Keith for 28 years, and happily married for 25! (It took a while to adjust). She’s also an award-winning author of 8 books, including The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex, and a sought-after speaker. With her humorous, no-nonsense approach, Sheila is passionate about changing the evangelical conversation about sex and marriage to line up with kingdom principles. ENTJ, straight 8
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How I Came to Terms with a Post-Baby Body

Our bodies were not meant to stay the same throughout our lives.

Certainly we grow older. But childbirth also has a profound effect. I had three babies in 2.5 years – it was a lot. And with pregnancy comes big changes to your body, many of which don’t go away.

Earlier this week I pointed you to an awesome app for pregnancy–the Stork Advisor. And last week we wrote about the sad side of pregnancy, or how to help those that are dealing with pregnancy and baby loss.

Today Joanna’s back, sharing her thoughts on stretch marks and coming to terms with a post-pregnancy body.

(She wrote this last year, when her daughter Mari was younger and before she welcomed little Talitha, her second, into the world last month!)

I’m a small person who married into a tall family.

My husband is 6’ 2” and I’m 5’ 1” (Here we are at Sheila’s daughter’s Katie’s wedding, just three days before Mari was born).

It was no surprise, then, that when I was pregnant with our daughter, that I was all baby. I had a hard pregnancy – gestational diabetes had me poking my finger 4 times a day and injecting myself with insulin before lunch and dinner, and a lump in my neck that turned out to be thyroid cancer, had me stressed and struggling. I had been an infertility patient before I got pregnant and so having a baby was a joy and delight but I did find the whole process to be so stressful.

My daughter did an excellent job of dropping late in the 3rd trimester, and between her good position, lots of walk, and the fact that I took to a Pitocin drip like a duck to water, I had a remarkably fast labor. But the dropping also had another side effect: stretch marks.

ALL THE STRETCH MARKS.

My stomach is simply covered with silvery vertical lines from side to side. My abs aren’t taut together anymore – another side effect of being so short – and so my stomach is bloppier than it was before I got pregnant.

Obviously, it was all worth it. Every poke and prick, every injection of insulin, every stress about carb counting and worry about “ol’ lumpy”, I would do again for my precious girl.

But still: stretch marks suck.

My daughter is now 19 months and she is obsessed with belly buttons. She enjoys showing mine to me and I’m reminded each time that it looks rather different now than it used to. Somehow, I still don’t like the change.

As I have come to terms with the inescapable fact that I myself have changed because of the child I carried and birthed, I am at once grateful and chagrined and I recognize the privilege it is that I can be both. I have friends who have never been able to carry a baby, despite their deepest desires to do so, and I’m aware that I got the happy ending. And yet I’m still not thrilled about having a row of stretch marks, even as I recognize how ridiculous I’m being about them.

My husband has been nothing but supportive about ye ol’ bodily changes due to childbirth.

I am so profoundly grateful that I married my wonderful Canadian guy. But despite all of the “count your blessings” pep talks I’ve given myself and all of the “you’re beautiful” reassurances I’ve gotten from my husband, I’ve still had my own silly struggles with my silvery row of stretch marks.

If I’m honest, the one thing that has helped me is to remember the wounds of Christ.

We know that he bore our sin and our shame on the cross and died to set us free. We know that he was glorified and resurrected, that he is the first fruits of the resurrection that is our hope in him. And yet, even in his glorified and resurrected bodies he was still scarred and wounded. The nail marks and wound in his side were still visible, even after the resurrection.

Even more amazing: the wounds were what allowed Thomas to recognize Christ. Somehow, the glorified wounds were the proof that Jesus was he, himself.

Many Christian theologians have remarked upon this and believe that we, too, will bear the wounds we have taken for love on our bodies in the new Creation.

That is, I believe I will have stretch marks in eternity. But I also believe they will be beautiful, somehow, and glorified. I don’t know what that will be like, but if I give my ignominious stretch marks the dignity of being crowns of glory in the resurrection, I can’t find it in my heart to despise them. And isn’t that the kingdom, anyway? To hold up the imperfections that would be looked down on and then make them beautiful?

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My daughter is very attached to her lovie, named Lyle.

He is a lion friend with a mane of stubby yarn that she just loves to snuggle and he has been her constant companion. Her other two special friends, Bennie and Emily, play second fiddle to him at best. Lyle of often sucked on, cuddled, and squished and so he’s often very stinky and always a bit the worse for wear. But he’s real to our daughter, and to us. In my musings about my stretch marks, I’ve found myself thinking that, perhaps like the velveteen rabbit and Lyle, I too am becoming real.

Real isn’t how you are made,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.’

‘Does it hurt?’ asked the Rabbit.

‘Sometimes,’ said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. ‘When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.’

‘Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,’ he asked, ‘or bit by bit?’

‘It doesn’t happen all at once,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.

The Velveteen Rabbit

My grandmother, who lived with my family starting when I was 6 until she died when I was 10, was on a ventilator at the end of her life. They took her off life support and read her the final chapter of the Last Battle by C.S. Lewis as her breathing became shallower and then stopped. Grandma died, her body had been broken by years of suffering with myriad medical conditions, and now she is better and whole.

I miss her terribly still, I had a medical appointment yesterday and I just wanted to talk to her about it. She, uniquely, would understand. She is with my sweet cousin Jackie, who died at 20 months, and Christopher Gregoire and the baby my husband and I lost. We rejoice that they are together and that they are with the Lord, but we long for the final resurrection and the New Creation. We will be made beautiful in our suffering then and all will be well.

Lewis had a beautiful vision for how we would experience the New Earth – that it would be more real, somehow, than this world is.

It was the Unicorn who summed up what everyone was feeling. He stamped his right fore-hoof on the ground and neighed and then cried:

“I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though U never knew it till now. The reason why we loved the old Narnia is that it sometimes looked a little like this. Bree-hee-hee! Come farther up, come farther in!”

He shook his mane and sprang forward into a great gallop – a Unicorn’s gallop which, in our world, would have carried him out of sight in a few moments. But now a most strange thing happened. Everyone else began to run, and they found, to their astonishment, that they could keep up with him: not only to Dogs and the humans but even fat little Puzzle and the short-legged Poggin the Dwarf. The air flew in their faces as if they were driving fast in a car without a windscreen. The country flew past as if they were seeing it from the windows of an express train. Faster and faster they raced, but no one got hot or tired or out of breath.

C.S. Lewis

The Last Battle, p. 155

May we all become real as we go farther up and farther in.

A little child will lead them – farther up and farther in!

Joanna originally wrote this post a year ago, just a few months after suffering a terrible, life-threatening miscarriage. A few weeks ago, she and Josiah welcomed Talitha into their little family. She’s healthy and lovely, and now Joanna has even MORE stretch marks! Congratulations, Joanna!

Have you had to come to terms with body changes? What helped you? Let me know in the comments! 

Joanna Sawatsky

Blog Contributor & Co-Author on the upcoming The Great Sex Rescue!

Joanna Daigle Sawatsky holds a Master of Public Health degree and is a trained microbiologist, epidemiologist, and statistician. After a year and a half of infertility, she and her husband, Josiah, welcomed Mariana Grace into their lives just 72 hours after she defended her thesis. A Pittsburgh native who somehow ended up in the Arctic with her husband and two little girls. ENFJ, 1
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4 Reasons You May Feel Sexually Frustrated–Even When You’re Having Sex

Do you feel really alone when your spouse rejects you sexually?

We’re talking about libido all month on the blog, and I opened by talking about how to find contentment even if you’re the higher drive spouse and not getting as much sex as you want--assuming you’re still having sex at least once a week. I also looked at questions high drive husbands and high drive wives could ask themselves if sex just wasn’t happening. 

Last week we looked at how often people do have sex, and what peer-reviewed surveys (as well as our own) tell us about the relationship between frequency and marital satisfaction.

(Hint: it’s not straightforward. Having sex a few times a week seems to lead to healthier marriages than having sex everyday; and the quality of your sex life and the quality of your emotional connection matters more towards marital satisfaction than frequency of sex). 

Today I want to address higher drive spouses who ARE having sex at least once a week who feel really rejected by their spouses.

Again, please understand: What I’m going to say does not apply if sex is very rare, okay? That really is a different scenario.

But on a podcast earlier this month,  one woman left this comment that I think many of my readers can relate to. Describing what it’s like to be the higher drive spouse, she says:

For us, it’s not about the physical. It’s about a deep emotional connection that I share with one person. The pain of being emotionally rejected is so very real. It’s hard because we are effectively told to “shut up and be content” simply because our meaningful connection includes something physical. No amount of talking will ever truly take the place of sex. In fact, talking and then ending the night without sex, is one of the hardest things to face. My husband gets his emotional needs met and considers it good, while I have to figure out how to walk away from my emotional needs because it includes sex. I have had to literally teach myself to shut down any sexual drive, and the emotional connection it brings, and walk away from it entirely. Sex is on his terms. I’ve never felt so distant from my husband, despite the hours of conversations we’ve had (we are both big talkers).

Can anyone relate to her pain? She feels emotional connection during sex (which many people do), and so without sex, it feels like an emotional rejection.

Now, I’m not sure if she’s going several days without sex or several weeks without sex, so I’m not really commenting on this particular woman. I just thought she expressed this better than I could.

But let’s assume that she’s having sex at least once a week, and so on the nights she doesn’t have sex she’s feeling rejected.

How do you handle those feelings of rejection?

What do you do when you feel rejected, but objectively you ARE connecting sexually a healthy amount. In that case, the question needs to be, “how can I get over these negative feelings and find joy in my marriage?” On the other hand, if sex is very infrequent, then the question is more, “How can we build intimacy and how can we have fruitful conversations about this so that our marriage is more intimate and passionate?” Very different!

So, again, I’m only talking to people today who ARE getting sex every week.

Another man said something like this a few months ago in the comments (I’m going by memory here because I can’t remember what post it was on):

I have a very high sex drive, and I don’t think women realize how uncomfortable it is to go without sex for very long. After 48 hours, I become very aware of my testicles. They become very tender. After 72 hours, they’re physically hurting. I want to love my wife and be nice to her regardless, but it’s hard not to be testy when everything hurts so much. So I do have difficulty being my nice cheery self when it’s a few days since we’ve had sex. 

So we have the emotional rejection from not having sex, and the physical discomfort from not having sex.

I read both of those stories, and I feel real sadness for these people. But I also think, “that is no way to live.” You shouldn’t have to feel that upset and uncomfortable on a daily basis, and have this impact you so much, when you’re actually having sex an average, healthy amount.

Now, I’m not addressing these commenters specifically, because I don’t know how long the woman is going between sexual encounters. But I have heard enough comments and emails from spouses who are having sex once or twice a week who are still in torment about it. And I don’t think that’s sustainable or healthy.

So I want to say a few things today. Like Rebecca and I talked about on the podcast last week, frequency is often not actually the issue. And so I wanted to make a separate post about this because I thought it was important enough that I wanted it written down to have somewhere to point people.

1. Does sex, when you have it, leave you hanging?

We shared an email in our libido podcast last week from a woman who wanted sex 4-5 times a week, while her husband only wanted it once a week. He was really satisfied, but she was angry, dejected, even wished she’d never got married because of the frustration.

What she was describing was very extreme. But when we looked closer at her letter, one line really stood out:

“I don’t know if he is worried that he isn’t good in bed, because I rarely orgasm, unless I’m the one touching myself during sex? “

So they’re having sex once a week, but she rarely orgasms, and when she does, it’s because she is touching herself during sex (many women do this; if it works for you, that’s fine!).

The issue here, then, may not actually be libido differences as much as it is that she isn’t getting sexual satisfaction while he is. She has a high libido, but she’s often left hanging–or, if she does have an orgasm, it’s not a mutual thing where he’s taking care of her pleasure. She still has to do it herself.

Would she still be this frustrated if they had sex 1-2 times a week, but during those times he took care to bring her to orgasm himself? She’s obviously able to reach orgasm, but what they’re doing isn’t working for her. I think this may be less a libido difference and more a problem of being constantly sexually aroused but not given release, or, when you get release, it’s hollow because it feels as if he’s not participating in it.

(Again, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with touching yourself during sex to bring you over the edge, but if it’s because he isn’t willing to do anything else, or doesn’t suggest that he try something, that could be a problem).

Feeling constantly left hanging in bed can create a desperation in someone that wouldn’t otherwise be there, and could make libido differences worse.

2. Do you feel like you’re not desired or wanted?

Now something from the guy’s point of view. So many men have written in the comments that sex feels empty to them if it’s obviously just “duty” sex and she’s not into it. If she’s just going through the motions out of guilt or obligation, and doesn’t really want to, then he feels rejected and even like she thinks he’s pathetic for needing this, even if he’s reaching orgasm.

Now, sometimes she may be going through the motions because sex has never felt good for her, and he hasn’t done enough to help her figure out how to make it feel good. If that’s you, please pick up 31 Days to Great Sex, and make sure you’re signed up for our emails so that you’ll be notified when our Orgasm Course launches next month!

Other times, he’d love to bring her to orgasm, and he’d love to spend time making her feel good, but she is obviously not into it and just wants it over with.

Now, again, I think it’s important for a man to ask himself these questions if his wife doesn’t like sex. But sometimes you can do everything right and she just doesn’t like it.

In that case, he’s going to feel more and more desperate. He wants to feel wanted, but having sex with his wife who treats it like a duty actually solidifies the idea that he isn’t wanted. So then he becomes even more desperate to feel wanted, and his libido will look like it’s skyrocketing. It will seem like he needs sex so much. But what many couples in this situation have found is that, if she is able to start wanting and enjoying sex (however that comes to be), his libido often goes down to a manageable level, because the problem was not his libido. The problem was his insecurity and feeling rejected.

If you’re a man in this situation, you may appreciate this post on the negative cycle that we can get into with libido. Talk this over with your wife.

3. Is sex your methadone?

Every Man’s Battle tells men that women can be their “methadone when you feel your temperature rising.” It says that when you are tempted to lust or watch porn, you’re supposed to turn towards your wife to help you withstand that. When you quit lusting, you’ll be turning to your wife more often.

This newfound hunger will shock her. She has been accustomed to providing you five bowls a week, primarily through physical foreplay and sexual intercourse. Things were at equilibrium. Suddenly you need an extra five bowls from her. For no apparent reason, you come calling for intercourse twice as often…”Again, this is vaguely pleasant to her.” (p. 135)

Every Man's Battle

I don’t have enough words to describe how awful this way of looking at sex is.

I really, really don’t have enough words, because when we originally wrote the lust chapter for our new book The Great Sex Rescue (coming March 2021 with Baker Books), it was 9000 words. We had to cut it to 5000. So I seriously don’t have enough words.

But this is so wrong. You don’t defeat lust by transferring lust to your wife. You defeat lust by seeing sex in its proper context, and by seeing women as human beings.

If you think that every time you are tempted to lust or watch porn that you have to have sex, then you will be in a state of constant desperation for sex when you are battling lust.

If this is your story, know that no matter how often your wife (or husband) has sex with you, they can’t fix the issue. It’s a heart one. Please see a licensed counselor, join a support group, and learn the roots to lust and how it has taken root in you. When you start seeing sex in a healthy, intimate way, likely your libido won’t feel so desperate to you anymore.

Found this post helpful? You may also benefit from:

4 Things You Must Do if Your Husband Uses Porn

10 Things to Know About How Porn Affects Your Sex Life and Marriage

4. Do you find it easier to feel sexual hunger than dangerous emotions?

Finally, here’s a big one that we talked about in last week’s podcast, too. Sometimes we grow up and we’re inadvertently taught that certain emotions are bad. Men, especially, hear that they’re not supposed to feel insecure, or scared, or rejected, or hurt, or embarrassed. They’re not supposed to be scared, or intimated, or discouraged.

So when they feel negative emotions, those emotions don’t have a safe outlet. And what our brains often do with that emotional energy, if it’s not allowed out, is to transfer it into something “safe”–sexual energy.

Sex makes people feel alive, secure, strong, and confident, and so if they feel anything negative, they want to have sex to convince themselves that those emotions aren’t real or necessary. This isn’t usually done on a conscious level, either. But many people are far more comfortable with sexual needs than they are with emotions.

If this is  your story, then not having sex everyday, or even every other day, can leave you feeling lost and desperate, because you have these very strong sexual feelings that have nowhere to go. But if you were able to work on the  underlying emotional issues, then the sexual desperation and frustration–even the physical frustration–may lessen in return.

It’s okay to be disappointed when you don’t have sex as often as you would like.

It’s even okay to be sexually frustrated.

But if you are getting sex a healthy amount, and you are still feeling sexually desperate (either emotionally or physically), and it’s impacting your ability to feel close to your spouse, then ask yourself if any of these four issues is at play.

Are you regularly reaching orgasm?
Do you feel like sex is a mutually desired experience when it happens?
Do you treat your spouse as an outlet for lu
Do you feel comfortable with your emotions?

I don’t want people to go through the kind of stress that so many of my commenters express. So if any of these questions resonates, please do something about it.

You may always have to live as the higher drive spouse, and have to navigate libido differences, and that’s okay. But it shouldn’t make you feel unloved. It shouldn’t make you feel desperate or angry or in pain. If it does, then that’s a sign that there may be some more work to be done.

Do any of these resonate with you? Is there one you would add? Let’s talk in the comments!

The Libido Differences Series:

Can Higher Drive Spouses Be Content with their Sex Lives?
How Many Times a Week Should Couples Have Sex?
A Word to Low Libido Spouses
10 Questions for High Libido Husbands to Ask if Their Wives Don't Want Sex
The Frequency Podcast: What if Libido Differences Aren't the Real Issue?
8 Questions for Wives to Ask if Their Husbands Don't Want Sex 
4 Reasons You May Feel Sexually Frustrated--Even if  You're Having Sex (September 21)
10 Things that Tank Women's Libidos (September 28)






















Sheila Wray Gregoire

Founder of To Love, Honor and Vacuum

Sheila has been married to Keith for 28 years, and happily married for 25! (It took a while to adjust). She’s also an award-winning author of 8 books, including The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex, and a sought-after speaker. With her humorous, no-nonsense approach, Sheila is passionate about changing the evangelical conversation about sex and marriage to line up with kingdom principles. ENTJ, straight 8
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8 Questions to Ask if Your Husband Doesn’t Want Sex

What do you do if your husband rarely wants to make love?

He can go forever without initiating, and you feel lonely and rejected?

We’ve been talking this week about what constitutes a healthy frequency of sex in marriage, and what to do if sex is far less frequent. I talked on Tuesday to low drive spouses, and on Wednesday I posed some questions to higher drive husbands.

Today I’d like to do the same to higher drive wives.

Again, I’m really only talking to wives who have sex less than once a week. If you’re still sexually frustrated, but you do have sex once a week or more, I’ve got another post coming up for you on Monday!

But what do you do if sex has become really rare–once a month, every few weeks, even only a few times a year?

I want to help you address the problem where the husband doesn’t want sex in a way that may actually move you forward.

And so I’m going to be asking what may be uncomfortable questions.

It could be that none of these applies to you, and if that’s the case, that’s great! More on that later. But whenever there’s a problem in marriage, it’s always good to ask the hard questions first, even of ourselves. So I’m going to ask the hard questions, in case relationship dynamics have caused his libido to plummet. And men not having sex is often related more to outside stress issues or medical issues than women not having sex is, but it’s still important to ask these questions. 

1. Is porn use a part of your husband’s present or past?

It’s awful to have to bring this up, but I’d be naive if I didn’t. The #1 cause for men losing their libido in marriage today is porn use. Porn trains the brain to become aroused to an image or a video rather than a person, and makes depersonalized sex sexy, rather than sex with a real, live, human being. One of the big effects of porn is men losing libido and sexual performance.

If your husband uses porn, you are not to blame. But you do need to confront the porn use, draw a firm line in the sand, and even get some help. Here are some posts that can point you in the right direction:

4 Things You Must Do if Your Husband Uses Porn
How Porn Use Before Marriage Affects Marriage (plus our podcast on the same thing)
Top 10 Effects of Porn on Your Brain & Your Marriage

Now, just because your husband has a low libido does not mean that he uses porn. But the question does need to be asked.

Next, let’s turn to questions about your attitude towards your husband. The causes of men’s low libido often relate to sexual confidence, and confidence in general, much more than the causes for women’s low libido do. Men can be very wary of doing things that make them feel like failures, and if they feel like a failure, either inside or outside of the bedroom, that can affect sexual performance, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy where there’s a downward spiral in libido. 

2. Have you ever belittled your husband for his sexual performance?

If your husband’s penis is on the small side, and  you’ve been frustrated because sex doesn’t feel “full” for you, have you told him? Have you been angry because you want some long, drawn out lovemaking sessions, and he never lasts as long as you would like?

Do you want him to make you feel good, and perform oral sex like a pro, but he doesn’t quite do it right, and so you’re always correcting him?

Most men do need direction to know what makes their wives feel good, but a large part of a man’s ego is tied up in feeling as if he can be a good lover. I’m not saying you should fake anything or tell him you love sex when you don’t, but there is a difference between saying, “Let’s learn how to make this feel great together!” and saying, “You’re doing it wrong!”

Making him feel “less than”, especially by comparing him to any previous lovers or to what you may have read in magazines, is almost guaranteed to make him insecure. And if guys are insecure, that can start to affect sexual performance, and thus tank libido.

3. Have you ever belittled your husband for sexual dysfunction?

If your husband suffers from erectile dysfunction, premature ejaculation, or delayed ejaculation, he does need to take responsibility for this and get some help.

Often, too, when younger men suffer from these issues, porn is involved.

However, “often” is not “always”. And if your husband has suffered from sexual dysfunction, and you have been critical or exasperated, then again, this is likely going to push him away from sex. Most of us don’t tend to like doing things if we’ll fail, and if he feels as if he’s failing you at the one thing which should make him feel like a man, he’ll run away from that as fast as he can.

Asking for your husband to seek help for dysfunction is perfectly reasonable and healthy (and even necessary). Being critical or mean about it is not. Even if you’re just expressing sexual frustration, that does matter, because if he feels as if he’s a disappointment sexually, it’s hard for him to want to keep trying.

4. Have you ever betrayed your husband’s trust?

We think of porn as a guy problem, but many women watch porn now, too. Many more read erotica, or watch mini-series after mini-series like Outlander, focusing on how “hot” and manly other men are. If you are effusive in your praise of other men, or if he sees you consistently watching and reading this type of material, while also failing to praise him for those things, he can feel like a failure as well.

And if you have had an emotional affair, or a physical affair, that can rock his sexual confidence as well.

5. Do you share the load for your family?

Another big cause for men’s low libido is stress. If he is working hard for the family, but money is tight, and you complain about this (or spend a ton, contributing to the problem), his stress level will inevitably rise. If you have significantly more downtime than he does, and he feels at the end of his rope, his libido will tank.

Do you each have roughly the same amount of free time? Are you relieving the amount of stress and work your husband has, or are you causing more?

6. Are you a safe place for your husband emotionally?

Can he tell you if he’s worried about something or struggling with something without you getting exasperated or frustrated with him? Do you listen when he needs to talk, or do you try to fix his problems and convince him why he’s wrong?

If he doesn’t feel safe coming to you with insecurities, then that can heighten insecurity, and cause him to withdraw from the bedroom as well.

7. Outside the bedroom, do you build your husband up, or do you tear him down?

When you’re talking with friends about your husband, do you usually make fun of him? Or do you praise him? When he’s talking in a group, do you frequently correct his version of events? Sometimes we don’t realize how badly we speak about our husbands in public.

8. Have you cared for your health and hygiene?

This one’s a difficult one to bring up, as I mentioned when I brought it up in my questions to higher libido husbands, too. Sex is meant to be more than physical–it’s emotional and spiritual, too. No one has to be a size 4, or still fit into her prom dress (or even her wedding dress) decades later to be considered attractive. And certainly society’s standards for women’s beauty are completely unrealistic (and porn has made that even worse).

But at the same time, just because we tend to gain weight with age and childbearing does not mean that it’s normal to gain substantial amounts of weight.

And sometimes, when we feel insecure, we give up caring for our appearance (which is why we may need to be challenged to fight the frump!). I know beauty and weight are landmine subjects to talk about, and I do believe that you can enjoy sex at any weight. But nevertheless, it is more difficult if you’re joined the morbidly obese category. Is this something that you need to work on to show love for your spouse–and yourself?

What if you see yourself in these questions and feel you’ve contributed to your husband’s low libido?

As I said to the men on Wednesday, I’ll repeat myself here to the women, with a few changes:

Take some time to pray through them and ask God to show you how you have hurt your husband. Allow yourself to feel the pain that he has felt–even if he has caused you pain, too. Focus on what you have done.

Then I’d suggest writing him a letter, because we can often think better if we write it all down.

List what you have done. Tell him how you think this must have made him feel. And apologize for each thing.

If you can remember specific instances when you did any of these things, name those instances. Say, “I remember our anniversary two years ago when you were in the middle of a huge job, and you couldn’t get away for the weekend, and we were short of money anyway, and I made you feel terrible about that instead of thanking you for working so hard. And I know that when Jenny and Jim were over last week, I made fun of how you tried to fix the kitchen sink and couldn’t. I know that I speak really badly about you far too much, and I haven’t appreciated you for what you have done, and I’m sorry.”

Ask him to forgive you. Tell him that you know that it may take him a while to trust you again. But tell him that you want to build your friendship and your emotional connection and you want him to feel appreciated, valued, and admired.

What if you don’t think you’ve pushed your husband away?

If you go through these questions, and they honestly don’t apply? (if only the question about porn applies, please follow the links I have in that section).

In some ways, that’s awesome. It means that you likely don’t have things you need to repair.

In other ways, it’s tough. If you did something to contribute to the problem, then you can also do something to contribute to solving it. But if this really wasn’t you, then you’re in a tough spot.

Make sure that there aren’t other issues going on, such as your husband suffering from any other medical issues, like low testosterone, diabetes, depression, or anything like that. Getting seen by a doctor is often very important for men with no libido. Make sure there aren’t major stressors in his life that are wearing on him, and if there are, make plans to help him with those. Often men’s low libido is caused by these issues more than women’s low libido is, and these things should be addressed.

But then say to your husband, “I know we were meant for more. I want us to experience real passion and intimacy, but you are continually pushing me away. That makes me not just sad. It makes me rejected, lonely, and in despair. I don’t want to live in a marriage like this, and I believe that we have to do something about it. We’re missing out on so much. I know sex doesn’t matter much to you, but I’d like to figure out how to show you what all the fuss is about. Can we please try?”

And if that doesn’t work, if it really is that he simply doesn’t like sex and doesn’t prioritize sex, or if he refuses to work on medical issues or stress issues, then I’d advise talking to a licensed counselor. If he won’t go, go by yourself. A counselor can often help you see what’s really going on, and make a plan for how to address it.

Was there a question I missed? Did one resonate with you? Let’s talk in the comments!

The Libido Differences Series:

Can Higher Drive Spouses Be Content with their Sex Lives?
How Many Times a Week Should Couples Have Sex?
A Word to Low Libido Spouses
10 Questions for High Libido Husbands to Ask if Their Wives Don't Want Sex
The Frequency Podcast: What if Libido Differences Aren't the Real Issue?
8 Questions for Wives to Ask if Their Husbands Don't Want Sex 
4 Reasons You May Feel Sexually Frustrated--Even if  You're Having Sex (September 21)
10 Things that Tank Women's Libidos (September 28)






















Sheila Wray Gregoire

Founder of To Love, Honor and Vacuum

Sheila has been married to Keith for 28 years, and happily married for 25! (It took a while to adjust). She’s also an award-winning author of 8 books, including The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex, and a sought-after speaker. With her humorous, no-nonsense approach, Sheila is passionate about changing the evangelical conversation about sex and marriage to line up with kingdom principles. ENTJ, straight 8
FacebookTwitter












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PODCAST: What if Libido Differences and Frequency Aren’t the Real Issues?

We talk about frequency issues and libido issues in marriage as if they’re the problem to be solved.

But what if they’re more symptoms of other problems?

Every now and then we record a podcast that I think is truly important. I mean, I like them all, but some are more important than others (like this one about headship; this one about porn before marriage; this one about marital rape and consent). And this is one such podcast. 

Listen to the Podcast Here

Browse all the Different Podcasts

See the Last “Start Your Engines” (Men’s) Podcast

You can watch this one on Youtube as well!

 

Rebecca and I were going over the data that I shared on Monday about what healthy frequency of sex looks like, but then we used three different reader questions to show how frequency and libido questions aren’t as straightforward as people often make them out to be.

We were looking specifically at these different scenarios–two from higher drive wives and one from a lower drive woman.

In all the cases, libido was presented as the main problem. But in all the cases, she also wasn’t reaching orgasm reliably.

Here are the questions:

I have been married to my husband for a decade, and we have several children. We have a great marriage,  but sex have always been an issue.

One thing I would love to read more about is how to make him last longer.  As the one with the highest drive, that one time a week is SO precious.  So then when he climaxes too early,  it’s hard to not show him how disappointed I get.  And to do a “quickie ” earlier in the day does not work.  If he reaches climax, we have to wait a day or to(but it usually take a week before next time).

It has been hard to get him to understand that there ARE things he can do about it.  

Frustrated that husband doesn't want sex and sex is unfulfilling

I recently got married, and have been dealing with a lot of unexpected anger, and a situation that is the opposite of what I expected. As I emotionally and mentally prepared my self for marriage, I was worried that I wouldn’t want sex as much (since I’m the woman), and I’d have to prepare myself to have sex at times when I didn’t feel like it, and not feel used. That’s what I heard in most of Christian marriage advice.  Both my husband and I assumed he would want sex more.

We were wrong. I could easily have sex 4-5 times per week. He is interested in sex maybe 1-2 times per week. If we didn’t have it at all one week, I don’t know if he would miss it too much though.  My husband doesn’t watch porn or masturbate. He just tells me (and his guy friends) that he “feels so satisfied.” He enjoys having sex when we have it, but doesn’t seem to miss it too much when we don’t. 

I don’t feel satisfied at all. I feel lonely, isolated, and angry. I don’t know if it’s my imagination, but I feel like a chasm is growing between us. He’s the man, so I feel like he should be initiating and wanting sex more. I know this isn’t necessarily true, but I just don’t know how to not feel angry and trapped in a constant feeling of dissatisfaction and hunger for sexual connection with my husband. I flirt with him all the time and try to initiate, often with no avail. I feel like it would be easier to not be married, because then sex just wouldn’t be an option at all. I do think he feels kind of smothered, and seems to retreat more into work and video games. I don’t know if he is worried that he isn’t good in bed, because I rarely orgasm, unless I’m the one touching myself during sex? Or maybe he is just more introverted and needs more alone time than I do, and this is spilling over into our sex life? Please help! I do not want to grow bitter and angry toward my husband, but I feel so much despair and loneliness, and a level of anger that I have never felt before. 

Frustrated as the Higher Drive Wife--but also sexually unfulfilled

Now, it’s easy to point to this woman and say that she should just be satisfied. But note that she isn’t really orgasming–or at least not with his help. So sex, when they do have it, isn’t fulfilling for her as much as it is for him. As Rebecca pointed out, is this really a problem with higher/lower libido? Or is the root of this problem that he isn’t paying attention to her pleasure? If he did, and made sure that he rocked her world 1 or 2 times a week, then would she still feel as badly?

Then there’s this one:

I’m newly married and have an above average sex drive for a woman and my husband has a VERY HIGH sex drive. I’m doing my best to be submissive and keeping him satisfied – because I want to and I don’t want him to be tempted but also because he gets very angry sometimes.

There’s no physical abuse involved, but the distance and guilt trips still make me feel abused in a different way. We had sex yesterday morning and it was out of duty from me, so I could help him have a good day. Last night I told him I just wanted to cuddle, that I REALLY needed to connect with him that way and he still tried when we went to bed. Then again this morning. And I simply said I wasn’t ready and the distance immediately grew. Then he asked me if I even desire him at all anymore. I do!! I really do! But he wants it ALL THE TIME. Some days we’ve done it 5 times. No joke. And I orgasm once. Maybe twice. And I’m ok with that. But I don’t have as high of a drive as he does, but we’ve never once gone even three days without him being satisfied. It’s so challenging!

I feel sick to my stomach when I say no, because I know what’s to follow. And then there’s a guilt trip and he makes it all about him. I have compromised over and over. I even let him masturbate with me laying beside him recently so he ‘wouldn’t be tempted.’ And that still isn’t enough for him.

It’s really beginning to feel more like duty than desire at this point and he doesn’t understand my standpoint. He doesn’t understand that I need TIME to let it build up to the point where I’m actually feeling hot and heavy for him at this point, because of the frequency and pressure that comes along with it from him. Sigh. I’m trusting God in this area and would love to hear some feedback to address the issue of ‘am I wrong to hold back often (often being more than once a day sometimes because his drive is so high) – but never allowing it to go even three days between? I’m so frustrated and feeling almost defeated in this area.

Husband treats me terribly if we don't have sex multiple times a day

I see so many red flags in this last email.

They think he needs constant sex so he won’t be tempted–as if this is her job. Sex isn’t personal. He’s terrible to her if they don’t have sex, even multiple times a day. (In our surveys, 17% of women had sex primarily so their husbands would treat them well, and 7% said they did primarily to prevent their husbands treating them badly).

Sex is not about her orgasm; but only about his sexual needs.

Again, this is not a libido/frequency issue. This is all about how you see sex, how you see intimacy, and how you learn to respect and value each other, and he currently is not respecting or valuing her.

A marriage license is not an excuse to treat your spouse like a sex doll, nor does anyone need to consent to that. This is not healthy.

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I hope you can see how sometimes we think something is a frequency/libido issue, when really there’s something far more going on!
The Timeline for the Podcast
Audio Version:
0:57 The Difficulties of the ‘Libido’ Topic
9:18 The Gain from Focusing on Woman’s Orgasm
17:28 Reader Question: I have the higher drive, but he can’t last long!
20:45 A Call for Men to be More Proactive about seeing a Doctor about Sexual Health
22:22 Reader Question: Help, I’m experiencing unexpected anger in relation to sex!
28:16 Reader Question: He wants it 5x a day, and makes me feel guilty if I ever say no!
31:49 Rebecca’s Rants: You DON’T get to exploit your spouse
36:10 The Lies the Church has Told Men about Lust and Sex
41:24 In Summary: Aim for both spouses to be satisfied

YouTube Version:

0:57 The Difficulties of the ‘Libido’ Topic
9:44 The Gain from Focusing on Woman’s Orgasm
18:07 Reader Question: I have the higher drive, but he can’t last long!
21:40 A Call for Men to be More Proactive about seeing a Doctor concerning Sexual Health
23:17 Reader Question: Help, I’m experiencing unexpected anger in relation to sex!
29:17 Reader Question: He wants it 5x a day, and makes me feel guilty if I ever say no!
32:52 Rebecca’s Rants: You DON’T get to exploit your spouse
37:20 The Lies the Church has Told Men about Lust and Sex
42:45 In Summary: Aim for both spouses to be satisfied

The Extra Things Mentioned in this Podcast

Sign up to our email list to be notified when The Great Sex Rescue (our book with all our survey data) is released, and when our Orgasm Course launches next month!
The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex (everything you want to know about how God made sex–for women!)
Why We Need a New Definition of Sex (plus lots of other posts on what mutual sex is about)
How Often Should You Have Sex as a Married Couple? (Monday’s post we talked about)
A Word of Encouragement to Low Libido Spouses
10 Questions High Libido Husbands Should Ask Themselves if their Wife Doesn’t Want Sex
All about Premature Ejaculation

And really–please sign up for our email list–because we have so much coming up soon that will help you unravel a lot of these issues!

An orgasm course launches next month. Our new book launches in the new year, with all of our survey data, and charting a way forward. And more! Plus you get a ton of freebies when you sign up:

Do any of these reader questions stand out to you? Do you agree that frequency is not always the main problem? Let’s talk in the comments!

The Libido Differences Series:

Can Higher Drive Spouses Be Content with their Sex Lives?
How Many Times a Week Should Couples Have Sex?
A Word to Low Libido Spouses
10 Questions for High Libido Husbands to Ask if Their Wives Don't Want Sex
The Frequency Podcast: What if Libido Differences Aren't the Real Issue?
8 Questions for Wives to Ask if Their Husbands Don't Want Sex (September 18)
4 Reasons You May Feel Sexually Frustrated--Even if  You're Having Sex (September 21)
10 Things that Tank Women's Libidos (September 28)






















Sheila Wray Gregoire

Founder of To Love, Honor and Vacuum

Sheila has been married to Keith for 28 years, and happily married for 25! (It took a while to adjust). She’s also an award-winning author of 8 books, including The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex, and a sought-after speaker. With her humorous, no-nonsense approach, Sheila is passionate about changing the evangelical conversation about sex and marriage to line up with kingdom principles. ENTJ, straight 8
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