Sheila Wray Gregoire's Blog, page 60
April 13, 2020
Defeating Porn: Are We Creating Panic?
How serious is the porn issue we face today, both for ourselves and for the next generation?
Should we be panicking, or is it all going to be okay? I say neither… but also kind of both?
All during the month of April, we’re going to be looking at the porn epidemic and try to get a handle on what the right response should be. Last week we started it off by looking at the effects of porn, and by reminding us that not all porn users are male. Today I want to help us get some perspective on the porn problem, so that we take it seriously, but we don’t make it bigger than it is–like I talked about in my podcast on how porn is like coronavirus. So I asked Connor to dig in to the research and write it up for me, and I’m going to turn it over to him in just a minute.
But first, I want to remind us of something. Yesterday was Easter, the day that we remember Jesus’ resurrection. Because of Him, we are no longer slaves to sin. Because of Him, we now have the Holy Spirit, and that means this:
For God did not give us a Spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
2 Timothy 1:7
He who is in us is greater than he who is in the world. Let’s remember that, as I turn this over to Connor.
Some people may know me as Sheila’s son-in-law (husband of Rebecca) or as editor and occasional voice on her podcast. Some of you may be aware that I am the technical director for the site, whatever that means (I know what it means, but the description of what I do is technical and boring to most). I have also previously written for Sheila on what to do if your husband is spending too much time playing video games (which has seen a sharp and inexplicable increase in readers during the quarantine). But today, Sheila has asked me to write a post about something different. Something serious. Something important.
So let’s talk about the research and how to put it into context.
To a Christian like me, the research on porn paints a bleak picture.
For years now, my studies and my work have required my becoming pretty familiar with the current landscape of research around issues like porn. It isn’t pretty. Some things have become pretty apparent over the last few decades: Porn is more easily accessible than ever before [1], it’s use is prevalent (especially in younger age groups) [1, 2], and it carries the risk of harmful side effects. And I am not just talking about side effects that are harmful by Christian spiritual and ethical standards, but also by secular standards. We are talking about sexual dysfunction, marital dysfunction, emotional impairment, and behavioural problems [3-7]. And a lot of the numbers are BIG…
… However, panic is not the solution. Firstly because panic is not actually a solution to anything, but secondly because there is hope.
It is not the end of the world
As humans, we are kind of rubbish at applying stats to our personal situations. Nevertheless, I want to try to put the research in context so that when we can use it to our benefit rather than let it cast us into a well of despair.
Find freedom from porn!
Your marriage, and your thought life, do not need to be held captive to pornography.
There is freedom.
Beat porn–together!
I want to find freedom!
Exposure to porn does not automatically destroy someone or make them a monster.
When looking at research that reports effects such as increased sexual aggression and objectification of sexual partners, especially by males, as well as reduced marital, relational, and sexual satisfaction [8-12], it is tempting to conclude that you should avoid anyone who has consumed porn in the past, or who is still consuming it. But here is an important statistic to keep in mind: Over the last decade, random-sample surveys around the world have been reporting 80%-90% of people under the age of 50 have been exposed to porn through movies, magazines, or the internet.
“Wait, that number seems insanely high! How is that supposed to help us?”
Well, I hope it will do two things. The first is to make it clear that this is a pervasive issue that doesn’t just affect a small group of ‘deviants.’ But the second is to show that porn use does not totally define our worth. Our world isn’t 80% made up of rapists, sociopaths, and monsters. In fact, most marriages (including happy ones) will contain at least one partner who has been exposed to porn, and who has perhaps even intentionally sought it. But how can happy marriages with porn use exist when the research says so many negative things about porn’s effects?
Not all porn use is equal.
There are a number of different factors that researchers need to consider when they study porn use. They need to think about the age group of the porn users, the age of their first exposure to porn, previous sexual experiences, how frequently they seek porn, and what kind of porn they consume. Often, a study will focus on a group of people who are similar in one or more of these factors. That means many of the scary statistics about the effects of porn are specific to people with compulsive porn-seeking behaviours, or to people who experienced very violent porn at a young age, for example.
There are big differences between someone who accidentally came across a magazine one time at 16, someone who seeks porn several times a year, and someone who has been consuming hours of porn each week since they were 12.
Does that mean that porn use is okay in moderation? No, there are still plenty of side effects, including increased or decreased libido, erectile dysfunction, premature or delayed ejaculation, distorted expectations in sex or of sexual partners, etc. These side effects may or may not be present in your spouse if your are married to someone who uses or has used porn, which leads me to my next two points.
Porn does not automatically doom our marriages to failure.
One study in the US showed that 56% of divorce proceedings cite an “obsessive interest” in pornographic content as a contributing factor [14]. That’s another big scary number, and my knee-jerk reaction is to read that and freak out, but it is important to break down what that number actually means.
What it does NOT mean is that:
If you or your spouse has used porn there is a 56% chance you will divorce
56% of marriages will end in divorce because of porn
Porn alone is responsible for 56% of divorce
These points seem obvious when we think about them, but often we simply don’t think about them. We see a big number and immediately think, “Wow, porn is the ‘Destroyer of Worlds.'” But remember, most marriages will have at least one partner with porn use in their history. That means it is unavoidable that there will be some degree of porn use in most divorced marriages, but also in most marriages that don’t end in divorce. Also, this study is not talking about SOME porn use. It is talking about EXTREME porn use, and even then, it is not the sole factor in many of these divorces. The divorces typically involve extreme porn use AND abuse, infidelity, drugs, gambling, or compulsive spending, among other things.
Stats like these should reinforce our idea that porn is a serious issue that can have serious consequences, but they are not necessarily relevant to our marriages in particular.
Your own situation is the one that matters the most.
I really want to get across the point that not all stats about porn are relevant to you or your marriage, even if you or your spouse have a history of porn use.
Say you discover that your husband (or your wife) has a history of porn use, whether you stumbled across the information yourself, or your spouse disclosed it voluntarily. Do not panic just because of what the stats say. Your spouse is not a stat. For example, if the stats say that based on his patterns of porn use he is more likely to seek violent or degrading sex, and to view you as an object, but he has only ever been tender and affectionate during sex, don’t fuss over that stat. It’s not relevant to you.
If, on the other hand, you are religious and come across a research that says porn use in adolescents reduces their religiosity over time and pushes them towards secularism (which it does [15]), and you have a young teen, that is relevant and concerning to you. (I will be writing a post next Monday that will address porn use in adolescents, so if you want some information on what to look out for and how to help your kids steer clear of porn, definitely check it out.)
Or say you are married to someone with a porn habit who shows concerning behaviours and side effects associated with their porn use, let the research be a comfort to you. If your husband uses porn and also pressures you into acts that you find uncomfortable or degrading, if he makes you feel unattractive and unappealing, if he blames you for his lack of satisfaction in bed, or if he pursues other women behind your back, it is not your fault. It is not about you. It is about his porn use and how he allows it to poison him and your relationship. You are not alone. There is scientific documentation that he is not the first to have been affected this way, and the cause is not you.
Porn is not forever.
Whether someone uses porn infrequently or on a daily basis, whether porn has caused them no visible ill effects yet or has completely changed their personality, help should be sought. Because here’s the thing: porn addiction can be treated. Previous porn exposure can be healed. Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross was not too small to redeem us from sexual sin. Porn attempts to replace real intimacy with a shallow, poisonous imitation, but a dependence on porn can be overcome with help.
Porn use and its associated problems often stem from events or exposures in adolescence. There are plenty of counselors, both Christian and secular, who are trained and certified to help people recover from that, or from the damage caused by another’s porn use. Accountability groups can also help. One great tool we have long recommended on the site is Covenant Eyes. Rather than blocking sites, it sends a report of questionable internet usage to your accountability partners.
Maybe you or your spouse will be one of the people who can just quit cold turkey and never look back. Power to you. Perhaps outside help will be required. There is no shame in that. Maybe lots of help will be needed. Maybe it will take years. Maybe there will be relapses. Maybe there will be fights. Maybe it will seem like too much for one person to shoulder. Let God lend you strength. People can quit porn and undo its effects.
But only if they are willing.
Don’t expect porn to go away on its own.
Sometimes people do just stop. And the statistics show a decline in frequent porn use with age [16]. However once again, it is your specific situation that matters. If you have tried quitting cold turkey but keep relapsing and don’t make progress, it might be time get some help. Or if you are married to someone who has told you they are trying to quit, but who isn’t taking any measures toward that end, it may be time to have a conversation and even bring in a third party to support you in saying, “no more.” And if someone truly is uninterested in getting over their porn use, it is unlikely that any amount of counselling, accountability, or prevention measures will stop them from seeking out and consuming porn.
Wow, ending on kind of a bummer…
No, that was not my intention. I just want to help us understand that porn is preventable, treatable, and not the end of the world, buuuuuuut it is still a serious issue that needs to be addressed seriously if we want to beat it. And again, when you see stats or research about porn that scares you, don’t panic. Stats are general. You are specific. Take a breath, look critically at what it means overall, and ask yourself if it applies to your situation. If it does, decide what it means for you and what you should do with the information.
Finally, I would like to apologize to the spellchecker on this site for my Canadian spelling of behaviour, but I refuse to change.
Have you come across stats or research about porn that seemed terrifying at first? Are there any stats that still concern you? Let’s talk about them in the comments below.
Sources
We hear so many stats about porn that aren’t necessarily taken from reputable studies. Here are some reputable ones that I have found if you want to take a look!
Stavropoulos, Vasilis & Alexandraki, Kyriaki & Anderson, Emma & Latifi, Mohammad & Gomez, Rapson. (2018). Adolescent Pornography Use: A Systematic Review of Research Trends 2000-2017. Current Psychopharmacology. 07.10.2174/2211556007666180606073617.
Bev Betkowski, “1 in 3 boys heavy porn users, study shows,” Eurekalert.org, Feb. 23, 2007. http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_release... (accessed April 10, 2020).
Poulsen, Franklin & Busby, Dean & Galovan, Adam. (2012). Pornography Use: Who Uses It and How It Is Associated with Couple Outcomes. Journal of sex research. 50. 10.1080/00224499.2011.648027.
Dolf Zillmann and Jennings Bryant, “Effects of massive exposure to pornography,” in Pornography and Sexual Aggression (New York: Academic Press, 1984); Dolf Zillmann and Jennings Bryant, “Shifting preferences in pornography consumption,” Communication Research 13 (1986); 560-578, Dolf Zillmann and Jennings Bryant, “Pornography’s impact on sexual satisfaction,” Journal of Applied Social Psychology 18 (1988): 438–453, Dolf Zillmann and Jennings Bryant, “Effects of Prolonged Consumption of Pornography on Family Values,” Journal of Family Issues 9 (1988): 518-544.
James Weaver, Jonathan Masland, and Dolf Zillmann, “Effect of erotica on young men’s aesthetic perception of their female sexual partners,” Perceptual and Motor Skills 58 (1984): 929-930.
Anthony Mulac, Laura L. Jansma, and Daniel G. Linz, “Men’s Behavior Toward Women After Viewing Sexually-Explicit Films: Degradation Makes a Difference,” Communication Monographs 69 (2002): 311-328.
Christina Rogala and Tanja Tydén, “Does pornography influence young women’s sexual behavior?” Women’s Health Issues 13 (2003): 39-43
Brown, J. D., & L’Engle, K. L. X–rated sexual attitudes and behaviors associated with US early adolescents’ exposure to sexually explicit media, 2009. Communication Research. 36 (1), 129–151.
Doornwaard, S. M., Bickham, D. S., Rich, M., Vanwesenbeeck, I., van den Eijnden, R. J., & Ter Bogt, T. F. Sex–related online behaviors and adolescents’ body and sexual self–perceptions. Pediatrics, 2014. 134(6), 1103–1110. doi: 10.1542/peds.2014–0592
Donevan, M., & Mattebo, M. The relationship between frequent pornography consumption, behaviours, and sexual preoccupancy among male adolescents in Sweden. Sexual & Reproductive Healthcare, 2017. 12, 82–87. doi: 10.1016/j.srhc.2017.03.002
Lo, V. H., & Wei, R. Exposure to Internet pornography and Taiwanese adolescents’ sexual attitudes and behavior. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 2005. 49(2), 221–237.
Wei, R., Lo, V. H., & Wu, H. Internet Pornography and Teen Sexual Attitudes and Behavior. China Media Research, 2010. 6(3).
Dolf Zillmann, “Influence of unrestrained access to erotica on adolescents’ and young adults’ dispositions toward sexuality,” Journal of Adolescent Health 27 (Aug. 2000): 41-44.
Jonathan Dedmon, “Is the Internet bad for your marriage? Online affairs, pornographic sites playing greater role in divorces.” Press Release from The Dilenschneider Group, Inc., Nov. 14, 2002. http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releas... (accessed June 10, 2020).
Perry, S. L., & Hayward. Seeing is (not) believing: How viewing pornography shapes the religious lives of young Americans. Journal of Social Forces, 2017. 95(4), 1757–1788. doi: 10.1093/sf/sow106
The Barna Group, 2014 Pornography Survey and Statistics. Proven Men Ministries. http://www.provenmen.org/2014pornsurvey/ (accessed June 7, 2018).
April 10, 2020
A Good Friday Love Letter to a New York Doctor Husband
He left heaven to enter into our pain and suffering, and show us how to live with love, passion, and abandon. And then He showed us that the triumph of life is not achieving power over others, but giving oneself up so that others could be free. He set the whole world on its head.
I hope you all have time today to think about the cross, and to remember.
A friend of mine, Rajdeep Paulus (call her “Raj”), who has written some wonderful young adult books, with Swimming Through Clouds being the first one, has also written posts for me before about teaching kids about sex. She lives in New York, with her husband Santhosh, who is a hospitalist, Family med residency site director at Huntington hospital and in charge of Northwell Health’s task force to battle human trafficking on the healthcare front. (She wrote about him, too, in a Dad’s Response to 50 Shades of Grey).
She shared this post with me which just broke my heart, and I wanted to share it with you today, that we could all be praying effectively for what is happening in our world right now, and that we will all be reminded of what it looks like, in today’s world, to live out Jesus’ command to love.
Love Letter to Dr. Paulus, aka My Sunshine, aka Bubs
Dear You,
Time.
Tears.
Trust.
Touch.
These mark the North, South, East, and West of my lovers compass. Our love story is pulled in all four directions, especially during this time.
Time.
I need time with you.
#BubsinScrubs
Your time is drained at the hospital. I need time to talk. You need time to sleep. I need time to love you. You need time to love you. Because now I have a surplus and you watch the clock stop on lives every day. One after the other, lost to the virus that changed time for all of us.
When you knew it was going to get bad. The time when most of us were just starting to hear the word COVID19, you texted me from work. Pick up our college kid, you said. Now. I said, Now? You said, Time is critical. Get her home, you said. Now? I asked again. You got ticked. We’d talk about it when you got home, you said. So after a long day at work, you walked in and we exchanged words. Not the nice kind. I questioned your border-line hysteria, but you knew it was only a matter of time before States would go into lockdown. You questioned my rationale. I didn’t want to rush Hannah away from her friends at the already tumultuous conclusion of her sophomore year. Did you even hear me? you said.
We can slip from love and trust to anger and hurt in seconds when we’re stressed.
You weren’t right to be hurtful. But you were right about the timing and time. The girls and I left the next day and picked up Hannah. She was so brave when she hugged her friends goodbye. And when we got home and she saw you, her lip quivered. I didn’t have enough time, she said. But I listened, she said, her tears flowing. Things are about to get really bad, you said. I realize that now, she said. I’m glad you’re home, you said.
Today I sat at a red light and burst into tears. I need more time with my parents. I begged God for more time. I beg God more often these days. We get right down to business. There’s no time for hints or hide and seek. I just tell God. And when I can’t talk, my tears are my prayers.
Tears.
The first night you came home from the hospital weeks ago after losing your first patient to the virus, your tears were gone. You cried on the drive home, and the red of your eyes gave you away. You said it was different than losing patients in the past. More sad somehow, but you couldn’t say for sure why.
#BubsinScrubs
Then the next day happened, and your sadness grew. Day after day, there’s less time for curtains. Tears escape while reading all the notes of gratitude on Social Media. Tears puddle each time the girls pray for you before dinner. And tears flow for both of us each time we talk about our parents and aunts and uncles. We don’t want to lose any of them to this. This thing. This thief of time. This trigger of tears.
You lost your first coworker today to COVID.
A nurse. A really nice guy, you said. You said spirits are down. Everyone feels closer to the collective sadness when you lose one of your own. But you can’t afford to cry while you take care of your patients. They need to see hope in your eyes. Plus, tears mess up your glasses and you can’t take the gloves off to wipe them. So you steal away for a minute when you can to process in your office. Alone together they keep saying, but alone-alone is what it feels like at times.
But not all tears are for the lost.
One of your patients who was on the doorsteps of death recovered. His breathing improved. He bounced back. Came off the vent. Got his discharge papers. Beat this thing. So the hospital staff lined the hallways all the way around the corner and clapped and cheered as he walked to the Exit. A win. You all needed it. Hope. It felt good to trust again.
Trust.
I trust you with patients’ families, talking them through end of life decisions for their loved ones, tears trickling as you recount these tough moments every night. How the families trust you. How this trust—uncontested at times—wrecks you.
So the other day when you told an adult daughter she couldn’t see her dying father with all the stringent policies in place to limit the exposure and spread of the virus, she said, Okay. Through tears. No questions asked. She understood. But you couldn’t bear it. Her tears. Time slipping.
So you asked the nurse supervisor for a moment. Permission to say goodbye in person. It would be more work for everyone. Gowning up. Protective gear. Exhausted staff accompanying her. The nurse supervisor said she can’t but she couldn’t bear the weight of another No either, so she asked the next person in charge. Could we? Just this one time? For this one daughter?
And he said, Yes. So you called her back and in days of so much loss, this little win carried you. She was right to trust you. Your kindness touched her.
We had the talk last night. Trust me, you said.
We have to talk about this now, while we’re healthy and are able to make sound decisions, you said. Before any of us gets sick or is too emotional, you said. And you told me your wishes if you get sick. I didn’t cry as you spoke. I swallowed the me in the equation and focused on the you in us. I don’t want you to have to wonder what I want, you said. So I’m being clear, you said. If say, 10-14 days go by, and I’m still on a vent, take me off, you said. Don’t hold on to me if I won’t make it, you said. Trust my coworkers to guide you, you said. It shouldn’t come to this, but it could, you said, and then you walked away to get sleep. The night comes too soon and the morning sooner.
I toss and turn all night, wrestling with Jesus.
Don’t make me make that decision for him, I beg. Keep him safe, I plead. Watch him. Protect him. Surround him, I cry. God. Please.
Touch.
We haven’t touched much since the virus hijacked our world. We were on a date, Ramen at Slurp out in Stony Brook a month ago. We were supposed to be at a Bulls-Magic game in Orlando, a Christmas present I bought you after I told Hannah I was going to buy you a new Bulls’ sweatshirt. Mom, you can do better, she said.
Flights cancelled and tickets sold, you still had the day off so we took the long drive out to Port Washington, and the noonday sun took the edge off the chill in the air as we walked off our meals on the boardwalk. When your phone buzzed, your face changed before you answered. You were pretty sure this call would change everything. It did.
The patient you and your team had seen less than forty-eight hours ago tested positive for COVID19. No one suspected her of the virus, so no one wore protective masks, so everyone in that room got exposed. You were told to return home immediately and self-quarantine for fourteen days. Someone would call you daily to check if you were developing any symptoms. You needed to tell your residents, umm, like yesterday.
So I drove home and you fielded calls the whole way, making a list, crossing names out, remembering one other phone call to make. Our date was over, and your actions were time sensitive. You trust the CDC.
I teared up at the loss of our time together, but I wanted you to be safe.
I wanted our family to stay safe, so I waited for your lead. I trust you, and I’m always touched by how much you care about your peers. Your patients. Our families. The girls. Me.
Those first seven days, you slept in the living room. We blew each other kisses good night. Sat on the couch with space between us as we knocked out Season Ten of The Walking Dead. And we watched. And waited. Seven days went by and you had a headache. So did I. But no one got sick. No other symptoms. The headaches were probably from stress. But thank God, no one in our house felt ill.
Then the CDC changed their recommendations again. Seven days free of symptoms, healthcare workers could return from quarantine to work.
So our time was up. Just like that. And I’ll be honest, I was kinda glad to see you go.
#BubsinScrubs
That probably sounds terrible of me, but the thing is, I know you. You’ve never liked the bench, especially with daily phone calls from the hospital updating you on how the numbers were rising and they were short-staffed.
TV off. Scrubs laundered. Patient lists reviewed. You were ready. But no one was ready for this health crisis that tsunami’d the world. By now we have all, in some way, been touched by COVID19.
Touch.
It’s been four weeks now and you’ve been feeling fine. I’ve been fine.
So now we touch, carefully.
A little kiss here. A hug there. Sometimes a long hug when it all just gets to you. Or me. Sometimes more. Never before you’ve showered after work. Always and only after you’ve changed out of your hospital clothes. More and more each evening and morning before you return to the battlefield that is your job.
Because you need touch so you can touch others.
I need your touch so we feel connected when time is short and tears spill but trust remains.
Through it all, we press on, not because we have the perfect love story, although it’s a pretty darn good one. But because love. It’s the only thing that makes sense when nothing else does. And this tiny part might not make sense to everyone but it’s the only thing that makes sense to me: this brief time on earth isn’t long enough to finish loving someone. Making heaven, God’s best idea. An eternity is exactly how long I need to finish loving you. And my family. My friends. God.
That’s why Easter means more to me than ever.
Good Friday. Jesus dying on the cross for you and for me. Forgiveness for all the things we broke, especially each other in our broken love story. And then, three days later, God breathed life back into Jesus, because He loves us too much to leave us in our pile of broken pieces. Because he lives, I can face tomorrow.
Most of us know the story. This. Is God’s love story to me. And holds my world together when the world around me is falling apart.
I feel held by God and I pray you feel held by him every day when you’re walking into hospital rooms. Taking care of patients. Loving people when their own loved ones can’t get to them.
#BubsinScrubs
To my Sunshine, my best friend, and love of my life, I love you so much, Bubs.
And when you go back to work tomorrow, let this song lift you when the weariness weighs you down: “It may seem like I’m surrounded but I’m surrounded by You.”
God has you. And the girls and I are praying for you. There’s a whole army of friends and family lifting you and all healthcare battalions up. So keep your head up. And keep those daily #BubsInScrubs selfies coming. You got this. Cuz God’s got you.
Love,
Me.
Will you all keep Santhosh, and the rest of the frontline medical workers, in your prayers this Easter? And leave a note of encouragement in the comments for Raj, too!
Rajdeep studied English Literature at Northwestern University, and spent over a decade as an English Teacher and SAT Tutor, during which she married her best friend from Chicago whom she then followed to the island of Dominica where he began medical school. Eighteen years, four daughters, and a little house on a hill in the quaint town of Locust Valley, New York later, she now blogs weekly and writes masala-marinated, Y.A. fiction.
RAJ is a current MFA student at Stony Brook University. Check out her other writings and musings!
Rajdeep Paulus
April 9, 2020
We Read “The Act of Marriage” So You Don’t Have To!
The Act of Marriage is the book I once drowned in a bathtub.
When I wrote The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex, I told the story of reading a sex book before I was married that turned me into a nervous wreck. It gave such explicit directions about what you were supposed to do on your wedding night, the first time out, that I felt pressured and violated. So I drowned it.
I never named the book before; but after doing our survey of 22,000 women, and finding so many other women mentioning the same thing, I thought it was time to come forward.
In preparation for writing our book The Great Sex Rescue, which is due in at Baker Books in a little more than a month, we didn’t just survey 22,000 women. We also decided to read ten of the bestselling Christian marriage books, and the bestselling Christian sex books, and score them on 12 aspects of healthy sexuality. We created a scoring rubric, and looked at whether they were healthy, harmful, or neutral.
As I’ve mentioned before, until I reviewed Love & Respect last year, I had never actually read a lot of Christian books because I never wanted to inadvertently plagiarize anybody. After reading so many in the last few months, I’ve noticed quite a few common themes that Rebecca and I are going to talk about in the next few weeks of podcasts.
Today I thought we’d start with The Act of Marriage, for several reasons. It was so important in my own life, and I think played a big role in the vaginismus I experienced (some of the beliefs that the book perpetrated were highly correlated with sexual pain in our survey, and while it’s not the only factor, it did influence me). But also, The Act of Marriage was really the first mega-selling Christian sex book. Pretty much everyone who married in the late 1980s or 1990s read it before the honeymoon. All Generation X pastors likely used it as their sex education. It was tremendously influential, and laid the groundwork for future sex books, both for good and for ill.
What was so good about The Act of Marriage was that it was the first book to really talk about the importance of a woman’s orgasm, and the importance of clitoral stimulation to that orgasm. In our scoring rubric, it actually scored middle of the pack. It had quite a few good parts to it and positive parts to it. But there were still some very problematic things in the book, which reappeared in so many books written afterwards. So in today’s podcast, I thought I’d read some quotes from The Act of Marriage to Rebecca–who had no warning about any of these–to get her reaction.
WARNING: One of the passages that I read out loud from the book contains a graphic anecdote about rape on a wedding night, which was obviously sexual assault, and yet the author dismissed it as such. This may be difficult for some listeners. The anecdote appears around 29 Min
Browse all the Different Podcasts
See the Last “Start Your Engines” (Men’s) Podcast
I hope you enjoy listening to this, and I’m eager to hear your thoughts!
It’s hard to sum this up in a post, so you’ll have to listen in to the podcast. But I did write my book The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex as an antidote to The Act of Marriage. I tried to be far less paint-by-numbers and far more cognizant of the emotional aspects of sex. And I tried to say, “Hey, sex is wonderful, so let’s figure out how to get there and let’s prioritize it so you don’t miss out!” rather than “You don’t have a choice, you must give your husband sex.” And I tried not to be “women are like this” and “men are like this”, because it’s just not true.
I hope I succeeded!
So now let me know–what did you think of these quotes? Did you read this book when you were married? How did it affect you? How can we do better? Let’s talk!
Are you ready for the honeymoon you always dreamed of?
The Honeymoon Course is here to help you plan the perfect honeymoon and start your marriage (and your sex life!) off with laughter, joy and fun!
Don’t make the same mistakes other couples have–get it right from the beginning!
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April 8, 2020
How One Man Explains the Temptation towards Porn–and How to Fight It
How do men who have recovered from a porn addiction see that porn addiction in retrospect?
As I unpack from my vacation, I’m happy to have a post to share with you this week from Hugh Houston, who has written the book Jesus is Better than Porn. I know so many wives struggle with their husband’s porn use, and I thought it may be helpful to hear from a guy who has owned his addiction and taken responsibility, and who explains his motivations and what went through his mind.
Here’s Hugh:
If only I had never looked at those Playboy magazines at my cousin’s house.
That day some of those images were burned into my brain. I still remember the rush I felt as the adrenalin pulsed through my body.
Was it an addiction at first sight? I can’t say. I just know that in spite of the fact that I had been taught differently, from then on, I began to seek out opportunities to take another peek and feel that same rush. Sadly this compulsive cycle went on for years.
Like many guys I believed that when I got married my problem would be solved. I have a wonderful wife and we have always had a good sex life, but sadly that did not prevent my mind from seeking excitement in other places.
I’m sorry to say that sincere Bible teachers sometimes place the blame on the wife for her husband’s problem with lust or adultery. While it is the spouse’s place to love his or her mate and to seek to please them, they cannot be held responsible for the urges and desires in their partner’s heart.
In order to live with myself while I continued to give in to my impure desires I minimized, justified, and rationalized my totally irrational behavior. In my own dark, confused, and self-justifying mind, what I was looking at didn’t even qualify as pornography. My excuse was, I had only been looking at pictures of women without their clothes on. Didn’t God make women beautiful? Wasn’t God the one who designed men to be attracted to the opposite sex? What I was doing wasn’t really so bad, was it?
Later, when I finally worked up the courage to confess my sin to my wife, she saw things much differently. She said that I had betrayed her with hundreds, if not thousands of women. It felt as if I had invited these women into our home and had sexual relations with them. It made her feel unloved, unworthy and rejected. I had never even stopped to consider such an idea, but when she said it, I knew that she was right.
I was once proud of the fact that I had never spent a dime to purchase porn, but in reality, I was afraid of getting caught. My wife observed that I was trying to present myself as the “good guy porn addict” when I was in reality just a tight-fisted porn addict.
When my wife didn’t seem to have as much time for poor little me as I thought she should, I could always find comfort from those ladies who looked so welcoming and affirming in those touched up photos. My head was filled with lie after lie. Here’s the truth: sin will take you further than you want to go, cost you more than you want to pay, and keep you longer than you want to stay.
Find freedom from porn!
Your marriage, and your thought life, do not need to be held captive to pornography.
There is freedom.
Beat porn–together!
I want to find freedom!
In a testimonial at the end of his book, “Pure Desire”, author Ted Roberts described the lunacy of the person involved in pornography with these telling words: “I was involved in compulsive behavior. I was the producer, director, and star of my own self-absorbed, self-destructive disaster movie.”
One evening I found my wife crying and she said:
“Every time you made a decision to look at pornography, you made a decision to hurt me. You chose them over me and were rejecting me. Every time you looked at porn it was like you were slapping me in the face or kicking me in the stomach. I trusted you too much. I was totally unprepared for this. I think that’s why it cuts so deeply.”
All I could do at that moment was to sigh and say I’m sorry. If only I had taken action sooner. If only I had not been so selfish, foolish, and afraid to tell someone or ask for help.
For my wife, my porn use was all very personal.
In her mind, I rejected her for women who were more beautiful and sexier than her. This is both true and false. Yes, my choice hurt her and in making that choice I was turning my back on her to look at other women. But I did not do what I did because she is not beautiful enough or lacks sex appeal. After all, men who are married to actresses and fashion models also struggle with addiction to pornography. When looking at pornography, the first picture of the first woman is never enough. There is an insatiable desire to look at another and then another. There is no such thing as perfection and no such thing as satisfaction. There is only an unending search for the next high, the next rush and the next thrill.
The Bible explains how temptations work in James 1:13-15:
James 1:13-15
When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.
It is so easy to rationalize, minimize, and justify our actions. How convenient to say: “The devil made me do it.” Or “I only did it because my wife let me down once again”. Or to rationalize that all men have this weakness and even when I try to resist, it’s just no use. The Bible is like a mirror placing us face to face with reality. The plain and simple truth is: God is not to blame, and my wife is not to blame. I did it because I wanted to.
When I told my wife one day that I looked at those pictures of naked ladies out of boredom, she saw right through me. She said: “Why didn’t you decide to look at pictures of horses or sunsets or race cars?”
Several years ago, I attended a class on sin and temptation where the speaker referred to desire as the “grandfather of death”. What insight! Why was I sick and tired of being sick and tired? I had given in to my desires.
Willard wrote this in the Renovation of the Heart (p.122):
“Feelings are, with a few exceptions, good servants. But they are disastrous masters.”
Romans 6:23
I had placed my feelings and my desires on the throne of my heart. What cruel masters they are! I let my feelings rule my life and my life was a wreck as a result. Desires which are out of control will quickly lead to sin, and the wages of sin is death
The apostle Paul described this devastating problem in 1 Timothy 6:9-10. Here Paul talks about the longing to be rich, but the same could be said of all of our carnal appetites:
1 Timothy 6:9-10
Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.
This is exactly what happened to me regarding lust and porn. These harmful cravings plunged me into ruin and destruction. The love of those pictures pierced my soul with many griefs. I fell into the trap of foolish and harmful desires and reaped a myriad of noxious consequences.
Sin is crouching at my door. It desires to have me. I must master it.
A friend of mine often says there is always a fixed amount of time between the thought or desire and the action. We must wage the battle during this window of time.
In the past, when I would give in to my weakness, the amount of time between the thought and the fall would be minimal and I did nothing to stop it. I felt powerless.
Now, as soon as the desire or thought pops into my head I work to “master the thought”. I move to eliminate it immediately. I know that otherwise, I will end up dominated by it. So I work to act quickly and decisively. This is essential in order to find a new life.
What makes a temptation tempting? I’ve mulled this over in my head over years. Why am I not tempted to smoke a cigarette or to drink a beer? I see those things and I don’t give them a second thought. Some people struggle for years to give up these habits. The difference lies in the desire. I am only tempted by the things I desire. I believe we create, or at least we permit, our own temptations.
If this is the case, then the key to victory in this battle against sin and temptation is to attack our desires.
It is essential to work at changing or controlling our desires. Today I can’t tell you I’m no longer tempted in the area of lust, but the degree to which I am tempted has diminished dramatically. God created us as beings with many capacities.
Change is not easy, as you already know from your own experience. How many people sign up at a gym in January with a determination to get in shape, but by March have already lost their drive?
The Bible tells us that God always provides a way out when we are tempted to sin:
1 Corinthians 10:13
No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.
Change is possible.
Sin comes along and offers what looks enticing. And like a fish looking at the worm in the water, we can’t see the hook that lies underneath. Through prayer and by focusing on what we know to be true and right, over time we will see the worm and think about the hook and all of the pain it will bring. By intentionally focusing our thoughts on good things, our desire for what is wrong will diminish and no longer run rampant, dominating our minds. One of the greatest blessings I’ve gained now that I’ve found this new freedom is to have a clear head, with clean thoughts.
Hugh Houston has been a missionary for the last 35 years and has been married for 40 years. Hugh and his wife have four adult children. They love talking to people about Jesus and the new life he offers. Hugh has written a book called “Jesus is Better Than Porn” which tells the story of his journey out of pornography.
Click here to check out his book!
Hugh Houston
April 7, 2020
When Porn Wrecks YOUR Sex Drive–Not Just Your Husband’s
This month, as we’re talking about pornography’s effects in marriage, let’s remember that men are not the only porn users.
In fact, women make up an increasingly large portion of porn users, and women deal with a lot of the same effects of porn as men do.
Recently a woman wrote in with this question:
Reader Question
I had being struggling with a porn addiction for many years. In the past year God has given me the victory over that sin. The only problem is now I have no sex drive. I have been married almost a decade. Currently I’m expecting another child, I have purchased your Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex. It’s a brilliant book and totally changed what I thought about sex. Also my husband and I are working through your 31 Days to Great Sex book as well. It has been a great eye opener, however I just can’t seem to enjoy sex.
I still have sex anyway as I know it’s important not to give up. I was having pain after the birth one of our children along with numbness, and realised I wasn’t getting aroused enough. I’ve been to a pelvic floor physio and my pelvic floor was too tight. It has started to release. But most times I still feel numb. My body has started to become more sensitive to my husbands touch but I just can’t get the past unfulfilling encounters out of my head to relax and enjoy it. I have a great faithful loving husband, who is a hands-on dad and helps with housework, etc. He also does everything well foreplay-wise and tries his best to arouse me. I’m just scared he will get bored and fed up with me not really getting into it. I’ve never experienced an orgasm with him, only on my own with porn. What can I do?? Will it just take time to retrain my brain to enjoy it again the way God intended?
First, as always, keep getting help from the pelvic floor physiotherapist
I believe, based on some of the spellings in the original letter, that this woman is not from the United States, and in Europe, Australia, and Canada, pelvic floor physiotherapists are more common than in the United States (it seems to me based on what commenters tell me and what a government’s heath system pays for) and are sought out more. So that’s wonderful. Seeing a pelvic floor physiotherapist DURING pregnancy and then in the postpartum period can be so helpful.
A pelvic floor physiotherapist can help you relax those muscles, deal with scar tissue if you have it from tearing or episiotomies while giving birth, and develop more sensation. So that can be a big help, and I want to laud her for seeking out that help.
What this letter demonstrates, though, is that so often our problems are multi-faceted. So she’s dealing with porn, but she’s also dealing with physical trauma from childbirth. I wish things were much simpler, but isn’t that the way that life goes sometimes? Sigh.
Okay, now let’s deal with how porn affects a woman’s libido and arousal level.
Women, especially, can reach orgasm almost entirely through fantasy. Porn cements that.
In fact, some studies have been done showing that women can reach orgasm without physical stimulation at all, if they fantasize explicitly enough. Others can reach orgasm through fantasy, and then with only a minute of very directed physical stimulation.
The idea of thinking yourself to orgasm is not new. In the early 1970’s, the Masters and Johnson research team documented the strong connection between sexuality and thought.
The connection is particularly strong in women, says Dr. Ian Kerner, author and sex therapist. “The brain is the most powerful sex organ,” he says. Men, he adds, have a much harder time making themselves climax without any touch whatsoever, but there are documented cases in women.
CBS News
Orgasm By Thinking: Is it Medically Possible?
Now, I am not saying that this is what this woman is doing. But here’s the thing: When you watch porn, you’re cementing this reliance on fantasy for orgasm rather than stimulation. Even if you masturbate at the same time, the arousal is tied with the image or the fantasy.
If this woman grew up doing that, then her sexual response has relied on what her mind is doing far more than on what her body is doing.
A similar thing can happen with men, and it’s often why men experience erectile dysfunction after they use a lot of porn. Now women are experiencing lack of libido and lack of orgasm, because without the fantasy or the images, arousal doesn’t happen.
The solution? Learn to be IN YOUR BODY instead of just in your mind.
Certainly that’s important to do in the bedroom, but let’s start outside of the bedroom.
1. Pay attention to what your body is feeling–all the time.
We do this when we’re pregnant. We’re so curious about feeling our baby move that we pay attention to every movement in our abdominal region to see if it’s gas or the baby. We learn what different things feel like.
But that’s often the only time that we do this. I remember reading about how most people can’t accurately figure out when they’re bloated; constipated; have heartburn; have gas. They know something doesn’t feel right, but they don’t know what it is, because they don’t pay attention. So start paying attention. And that means paying attention to what it feels like to feel well, too. Think about all the different parts of your abdominal area, and what feels tight, uncomfortable, or what feels great.
I know that doesn’t sound sexy whatsoever (and I’m not claiming it is), but just learning to get in touch with our bodies helps so much in getting ourselves aroused. Try yoga so that you learn to connect breathing with movement. Learning how to isolate different muscles, how to slow down, how to breathe–these things help with learning how to feel physically aroused, and not just mentally aroused.
2. Practice mindfulness to help you get rid of porn’s influence–and to surrender to “kingdom” principles of sex
So if the problem with getting over porn is that sex is too much in your mind, how does “mindfulness” help?
Well, mindfulness is simply the practice of noticing what is going on in the moment and paying attention.
With food, for instance, how often do we shovel stuff down without really paying attention? Think of the difference between shoving a spoonful of something in your mouth while standing over the microwave versus sitting at a table, picking up a fork, taking a forkful, and chewing slowly. You notice what you’re eating. You notice the sensations and the taste.
We spend our lives trying to do 13 things at once. Mindfulness encourages you to try one, and to live in that moment. To silence the other voices in your head, and simply to pay attention.
As you practice mindfulness feeling the warm shower in the morning, chewing your food, brushing your hair, stretching, reading the Bible, singing a song–you learn to live not in the future or the past but the present. You learn to pay attention to all of your senses. All of these are the skills that you need to teach your body how to become aroused by what is actually happening rather than by what you are thinking.
You may also enjoy:
How to stop fantasizing when you’re making love
10 things to know about women and porn
The podcast about women and porn
Part of practicing mindfulness is living out 2 Corinthians 10:5–and taking every thought captive. It’s staying in the moment with your thoughts, rather than letting your thoughts run away from you. And when we deliberately choose what to focus on, then we can reframe sex and make it align with what God wants, too.
So when you’re with your husband, think of what you love about him. Let yourself stay present with him. And you may find that sex is even more intense than when you allowed your mind to wander to a fantasy! That’s the way that God intended it to be–about relationship. And it is intense when we focus on it like that.
3. Learn to do Kegel Exercises
As you strengthen your pelvic floor muscles, you certainly help prepare for delivery and the postpartum period, but studies have found that you also often enhance sexual feeling. A good primer on how to strengthen the pelvic floor muscles by doing kegels (learning to squeeze the vaginal muscles) can be found here.
I’d also point people to the Perifit that we talked about last month!
4. Practice being sensual with each other
Move on from mindfulness to taking time to deliberately feel. When your watching a movie, stroke each other’s hair, or each other’s hands. Give foot massages. Give back massages. Be sensual.
Sensual doesn’t mean it’s necessarily sexual–it doesn’t necessarily arouse. But it does mean that you’re paying attention to arousing each other’s senses, especially, but not only, the sense of touch. This helps anchor you in what your body is feeling.
5. Move on to arousal due to touch rather than due to pornographic fantasies
And now we finally get to turn to sex!
(By the way, these things don’t have to be done in order, where you perfect one before you move on to the next. They can all be done together. It’s not like you have to get perfect at mindfulness or at Kegels before you can try this step, but they’re all important).
Sex is going to take a lot more time when you’re trying to get aroused and reach orgasm through physical sensations rather than through fantasy or through porn. Fantasizing speeds things up, but it also wrecks intimacy. You’re not really “there”; you’re using your partner like a sex toy as you imagine something else.
But your brain can be used to help ground you in your body, too. It can help you feel aroused by helping you focus on what your body is feeling, but it’s a different route than porn. It may take longer. It may be frustrating. But it’s so much more fulfilling and intimate and personal!
So take your time. Start with something sensual, like a massage. Touch him and see the effect he has on you. Allow him to touch you in all different ways, and please speak up when it doesn’t feel like much. Move his hand (or whatever) to where you need it. Give him some direction. Even show him how you like to be touched, or hold his hand while you show him what to do. Remember that most women reach orgasm through a way other than intercourse. Let’s work at reaching orgasm that way first before you worry too much about whether or not you can reach orgasm during intercourse.
Find freedom from porn!
Your marriage, and your thought life, do not need to be held captive to pornography.
There is freedom.
Beat porn–together!
I want to find freedom!
6. And here’s the hard part: Tell your husband.
You need him on your side. If you’ve been used to having sex relatively quickly because you don’t spend the time to get aroused the way you need to, then he needs to know that you need more and that something is different. That may be a difficult conversation to have. No guy wants to know that his wife has been fantasizing about someone other than him. You’ll need to give him time to be angry and hurt; time to let this sink in and time to process it. You’ll have to show him that you’re sorry, and show that you’re trustworthy, and that you don’t want to use porn again and that you’re taking steps to stop (like using Covenant Eyes and getting an accountability partner). You need to rebuild trust.
But you also need him involved, because you both are going to have to learn how your body works and responds (and it can! It really can!). If you’re struggling, take a look at our 24 Spicy Dares, where the dares for him to do for her are focused on learning how to make her feel aroused. Show that you can find things sexy and spicy without any porn or a third party whatsoever.
I have so much more to say, and I feel like I’m only scratching the surface. Continue reading this series, because we’ll be talking about recovery from porn later in the month, and there’s a powerful sermon segment I’ll invite you to watch which will add another dimension to this. So this conversation is not over. But for now, recognize that you were created for arousal. It may not be happening now because you may have short-circuited your arousal process. But you can relearn it all. Take the time. Break the hold that porn has on you and learn real intimacy. It’s so much better.
What do you think? Has porn ever hurt your ability to feel aroused? Let’s talk in the comments!
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
Is Porn Stealing His Sex Drive?
You Can Recover From Your Husband’s Porn use
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Sheila Wray Gregoire has been married for 27 years and happily married for 22! She loves traveling around North America with her hubby in their RV, giving her signature "Girl Talk" about sex and marriage. And she's written 8 books. About sex and marriage. See a theme here? Plus she knits. Even in line at the grocery store.Find Sheila Here:YouTube
Sheila's Favorite Posts on To Love, Honor and Vacuum:
10 ways to initiate sex
10 Effects of Porn on Your Brain, Marriage, & Sex Life
Why So Much Marriage Advice is So Trite
How can Sex be Hot and Holy at the Same Time?
Check out some of Sheila's Books:
The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex
31 Days to Great Sex
9 Thoughts That Can Change Your Marriage
To Love, Honor, and Vacuum
Check out Sheila's Courses:
The Boost Your Libido Course
The Whole Story: Talking to Your Daughter about Sex, Puberty, and Growing Up
The FREE Emotional Intimacy E-Course
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April 6, 2020
Top 10 Effects of Porn on Your Brain, Your Marriage and Your Sex Life
The side effects of porn are devastating.
Pornography is ravaging marriages. In our culture porn is treated as if it’s harmless, but it’s not. Porn will wreck the arousal process in your brain and end up wrecking your sex life in marriage.
I receive emails everyday from women who are desperate to fix their marriages, but they don’t know what to do. They married men who never seem to want sex. Or their husbands are never satisfied. Or their husbands call them boring or unattractive. And the root of many of these problems is porn.
Here’s the really devastating part: Because so much of what porn does to you happens chemically in the brain, the porn use doesn’t have to be going on NOW to have these effects. A boy who grew up on porn in his teens, and then managed to stop watching it in his twenties (with occasional relapses) will still suffer from many of these things.
The good news: There is healing! You can rebuild those chemical pathways to arousal. But first we have to understand 10 ways that porn affects the brain, and thus wrecks many couples’ sex lives.
Because I get so many questions about this, and because we’re all stuck inside for the foreseeable future and porn use apparently is on the rise, I thought I would dedicate the month of April to a series on pornography. So let’s start with this one, that I actually ran a few years ago, but I thought I’d update to launch our series:
The Top 10 Negative Side Effects of Porn on Your Sex Life
And remember–women use porn, too! While some of these apply just to men, many of them apply to both genders.
1. Porn Addiction Means You Can’t Get Aroused by “Just” Your Spouse
Do you remember reading about Pavlov and his dog in Psychology? Pavlov would give the dog a nice juicy steak, but right before he did he would ring a bell. He conditioned the dog to associate ringing the bell with getting great food. Eventually Pavlov took the food away, but kept ringing the bell. The dog kept salivating at the bell, even though there was no steak, because the dog associated the bell with the food.
The same thing happens when we see porn. Porn stimulates the arousal centers in the brain. When it’s accompanied by orgasm (sexual release through masturbation), then a chemical reaction happens and hormones are released. In effect, our brains start to associate arousal with an image, an idea, or a video, rather than a person.
When you don’t watch porn and keep sex in a committed relationship, then all of those chemicals and hormones are released for the first time when you’re with your spouse, and it causes you to bond intensely (and sexually) to your spouse. But when you spend a ton of time teaching your brain to associate arousal and release with pornography, your brain doesn’t associate arousal and release with a person anymore.
Either you have to fantasize about the porn, and get those images in your brain, or you have to watch porn first. Often people can “complete the act”, but it’s not intense for them the way porn is. You’ve rewired your brain, and now you’re salivating at the wrong thing.
2. Porn Addiction Wrecks Your Libido
It’s only natural, then, that many people who use porn in the past, or who use porn in the present, have virtually no libido when it comes to making love to their spouse. The spouse is not what turns them on, and so the natural drive that we have for sex is transferred somewhere else. I get so many emails from young women in their twenties who say, “my husband and I were both virgins when we married, and I thought he’d want sex all the time. But after our honeymoon sex went to maybe twice a month, and that’s only if I pressure him. He says he just isn’t interested.” With so many men growing up on porn, this is just to be expected.
So much of what porn does to you happens chemically in the brain, the porn use doesn’t have to be going on NOW to have these effects.
(Click here to tweet this quote)
3. Porn Addiction Makes You Sexually Lazy
In porn, everyone is turned on all the time. You don’t have to make any effort to arouse someone; it’s automatic. There is no foreplay in porn. And so if your spouse isn’t aroused you start to think that it’s somehow their fault. There’s no expectation that we will have to “woo” someone or be affectionate and help jumpstart that arousal process. It’s almost as if we approach sex as two different beings and we’re just using each other, rather than thinking of each other. And thus we never learn how to please the other or become a good lover because we’re always thinking that the other is somehow “frigid”. Pornography teaches you that sex is about getting my needs met; it isn’t about meeting someone else’s needs or experiencing something wonderful together.
4. Porn Addiction Turns “Making Love” into a Foreign Concept
Those arousal centers and pleasure centers in our brain are supposed to associate sex with physical pleasure and a real sense of intimacy. But the intimacy doesn’t happen with porn, and so the pleasure is all that registers. Thus, porn makes sex all about the body, and not about intimacy. In fact, the idea of being intimate isn’t even sexy anymore; anonymous is what’s sexy. We may call “having sex” “making love”, but in reality they aren’t necessarily the same thing. Someone who has used porn extensively often has a difficult time experiencing any intimacy during sex, because those arousal and pleasure centers zero in only on the body. And that’s another negative effect of porn: porn users often need to objectify or degrade their partner in order to achieve pleasure, the exact opposite of intimacy.
God made sex to actually unite us and draw us together; He even gave us a bonding hormone that’s released at orgasm so that we’d feel closer! But if that hormone is released when no one is present, it stops having its effects. Sex no longer bonds you together.
5. Porn Addiction Makes Regular Intercourse Seem Boring
An alcoholic drinks alcohol for the “buzz”. But after a while your body begins to tolerate it. To get the same buzz, you need more alcohol. And so the alcoholic begins to drink harder liquor, or drink larger quantities.
The same thing happens with porn. Because porn teaches us that sex is all about the body, and not about intimacy, then the only way to get a greater “high” or that same buzz is to watch weirder and weirder porn. I think most of us would be horrified if we saw what most porn today really is. It isn’t just pictures of naked women like there used to be in Playboy; much of it is very violent, extremely degrading, and very ugly.
“Regular” intercourse is actually not depicted that often in porn, and so quite frequently the person who watches porn starts to get a warped view of what sex really is. And often they start to want weirder and weirder things.
Now, I’m not against spicing things up, and I do think lots of things can be fun! But when we’re wanting “more” because we’ve programmed ourselves to think “the weirder the sexier”, there’s a problem.
And that’s why I recommend Covenant Eyes (affiliate links below!)
Find freedom from porn!
Your marriage, and your thought life, do not need to be held captive to pornography.
There is freedom.
Beat porn–together!
I want to find freedom!
6. Porn Addiction Makes it Hard to Be Tender When You Have Sex
It’s no wonder, then, that people who use porn often have a hard time being tender when they have sex. Sex tends to be impersonal, rushed, and “forced”. I’m absolutely not saying that all porn users rape their wives, but porn itself is often violent. There’s no foreplay. There’s no waiting to arouse someone. It’s just taking what you want.
Being tender means to be loving. It’s to give and to express affection. Because these things aren’t paired with sex in the porn users brain, tenderness and sex no longer go together.
7. Porn Addiction Trains You to Have Immediate Gratification and Have a Difficult Time Lasting Long
With porn, when you’re aroused you reach orgasm very quickly, because porn users tend to masturbate at the same time. Thus, orgasm tends to be very fast. The porn user hasn’t trained his body to draw out sex so that his spouse can get pleasure; his body is programmed to orgasm quickly. Many porn users, then, suffer from premature ejaculation.
Some porn users go to the other extreme when they start suffering from erectile dysfunction. They have a difficult time remaining “hard” enough during sex because the stimulation isn’t enough. In their case, orgasm can take an eternity, if it’s possible at all.
While both seem like polar opposites, the simple fact is that sexual dysfunction of some sort is one of the big negative effects of pornography.
God made sex to actually unite us and draw us together.
(Click here to tweet this quote)
8. Porn Addiction Gives You a Warped View of what Attractive Is
Sex is supposed to bond you physically, emotionally and spiritually with your spouse. But if porn addiction has made the chemical pathways in your brain go haywire, then sex becomes only about the body. And porn shows you that only certain body types are attractive. It’s not about the whole person; it’s just a certain type of person.
If a woman gains even ten pounds, then, she’s no longer attractive, and the porn user has an honest to goodness difficult time getting aroused, because he associates only a certain body type with arousal. Porn has taught your brain that sex is only about the body, and not about the relationship, so if someone’s body isn’t exactly right, no arousal happens.
9. Porn Addiction Makes Sex Seem Like Too Much Work
All of this combines to often make sex with your spouse too much work. You’re not aroused; you find your spouse not attractive; sex is blah; and sex requires you to make an effort for your spouse, while you’re used to immediate gratification.
Thus, many people who use porn retreat into a life of masturbation. Even if the porn use stops, they often find it easier to “relieve” themselves in the shower than to have to work at sex.
10. Porn Addiction Causes Selfishness
All of this causes a spiral of selfishness where the person ignores his spouse’s needs and is focused only on getting what he wants, and getting it instantly. Often this manifests itself in other areas of the relationship as well, where the spouse becomes annoyed if they have to wait for something, or if they don’t get what they want. Porn has sold them the message: you deserve pleasure when you want it. You shouldn’t have to work to get what you want. Your needs are paramount.
It’s no wonder that shows up in other areas of your relationship.
Sex is supposed to bond you physically, emotionally and spiritually with your spouse.
(Click here to tweet this quote)
People who think that porn is harmless and simply helps people “get in the mood”, or “relieves frustration”, are kidding themselves. The chemical processes in our brains are really complicated, and when you start messing with them, it’s really difficult to develop a healthy sexuality again.
However, it absolutely can be done! Later this year I’ll be working on an ebook about it, but for now, these posts may help:
Marriage Recovery after a Pornography Addiction
Rewiring Your Brain After a Porn Addiction
Also, let’s remember: too often we tell teenagers not to use porn because it’s a sin, and they’re not supposed to lust. I think we need to start telling them these ten things. If you want amazing sex when you’re older, don’t use porn now. If you do, you’re setting yourself up for a world of hurt. Ask teenagers, “who wants amazing sex when you’re married?”, and pretty much everyone will put up their hand. Then tell them: Use porn now, and you’ll make that far less possible, without a major work of God in your life. Tell them the truth.
And make sure that in your house everyone–girls, boys, women, and men–are protected from temptation. I’m a big supporter of Covenant Eyes. No, we can’t rely on it alone, and yes, we need a work in the heart. But if we need to reduce the temptation so that God has time to work, I think that’s worth doing. Covenant Eyes sends emails to people of your choice to tell you when someone has accessed an inappropriate site. If kids know their parents will get an email if they try to find porn, or if men and women know their accountability partners will get emails, they’ll be less likely to surf inappropriate stuff.
Show Grace
One last word–if your spouse is actively fighting a porn addiction, and doing all the right things–getting accountability; embracing truth; being transparent–then please show grace to those who have been ravaged by porn. Especially if the associations in the brain happened when they were young, these people often want to change the most, but it seems really helpless. Rather than pointing the finger in blame, join together to fight the problem together! If your spouse refuses to address the problem, though, then please read this on 4 things you must do if your husband uses porn.
Porn is serious. It wrecks people’s sex lives, it makes people selfish, and it ultimately wrecks marriages. Let’s spread the word, and fight against it!
What do you think? Has porn impacted your marriage? What have been the effects of porn for you? Let’s talk in the comments!
Other Posts Coming in Our Effects of Porn Series:
The Top 10 Effects of Porn on Your Marriage, Your Brain, and Your Sex Life (this one!)
Defeating Porn: Are We Creating Panic? (April 13)
Defeating Porn: What Should Recovery Look Like? (April 20)
Defeating Porn: A Look Ahead to the Next Generation (April 27)
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
Is Porn Stealing His Sex Drive?
You Can Recover From Your Husband’s Porn use
Author
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Sheila's Best Posts
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Sheila Wray Gregoire has been married for 27 years and happily married for 22! She loves traveling around North America with her hubby in their RV, giving her signature "Girl Talk" about sex and marriage. And she's written 8 books. About sex and marriage. See a theme here? Plus she knits. Even in line at the grocery store.Find Sheila Here:YouTube
Sheila's Favorite Posts on To Love, Honor and Vacuum:
10 ways to initiate sex
10 Effects of Porn on Your Brain, Marriage, & Sex Life
Why So Much Marriage Advice is So Trite
How can Sex be Hot and Holy at the Same Time?
Check out some of Sheila's Books:
The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex
31 Days to Great Sex
9 Thoughts That Can Change Your Marriage
To Love, Honor, and Vacuum
Check out Sheila's Courses:
The Boost Your Libido Course
The Whole Story: Talking to Your Daughter about Sex, Puberty, and Growing Up
The FREE Emotional Intimacy E-Course
Are you ready to take your marriage to the next level?
Sign up for our emails and get access to the TLHV free marriage and parenting resource library. We have over 25 downloads and are constantly adding more. Sign up here!
April 3, 2020
So Guess Who Pulled a “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” On Me?
And then you find out that the house is right next door the parents’ house?
Well, let me tell you a story.
Last month, on March 7, I gave a Girl Talk presentation at my daughter Katie’s church, in a small military town about 3 1/2 hours from where we live. I stayed with Katie for a few days (this was, of course, the weekend before Canada shut down) and we went on walks and talked. And she said that, if she were Rebecca and Connor, she would buy a house in Belleville now, before prices went up. (They had been staying in Ottawa because Connor intended to go back to school to get his counseling degree, but then their intention was to move to our town).
They could always rent out the house in the meantime, but at least they’d be in the market before the prices in Belleville skyrocketed.
When we got back from our walk we FaceTimed with Rebecca and mentioned the idea. She and Connor then did a lot of research on counseling degrees and found another way for him to get it. And they came down to Belleville and looked at houses while Keith and I were away speaking in Myrtle Beach (the weekend before the U.S. shut down). After seeing the two that had looked promising online look not-so-great in real life, they were discouraged. But then their real estate agent took them to one more, which was perfect.
They put an offer in. It was accepted. And yesterday they moved.
And the house is around the corner from us, about 600 meters away (I don’t know how many feet that is, but it’s like a 5 minute walk).
They packed up their whole house in Ottawa by themselves, and moved all the furniture into the truck by themselves, with no help, with a 5-month old baby on hand, too. Normally they would have had a ton of friends help, but they were trying not to burst their COVID-19 protective bubble.
And then yesterday we did help, because we’ve been isolating for two and a half weeks now, and they’ve been completely isolating using up all their food, so we thought it was okay.
So my grandson now lives right near me! And they are so happy.
I took this picture last night after the baby was in bed, and it finally hit them that they have a house they love in a neighbourhood they love in a city Rebecca loves, and Connor will come to love (he doesn’t know it that well yet!).
A month ago they weren’t even thinking of moving. And today they live around the corner from me.
So that’s why I’ve been a little quiet on social media lately, and why yesterday’s post was messed up in the morning (sorry!). Connor and Rebecca (who also work on the blog) have been busy, and yesterday i was cooking up a storm to feed everyone.
Because they both work from home, we can all self-isolate, and we’ll just appoint one person from the two households to do all of the grocery shopping. Don’t know what I’ll do if Keith is called into the hospital. At that point I’d need to stop seeing the kids or else move in with them and stop seeing Keith! I guess I’ll decide then.
So that’s an update on us! How are you all coping? Let’s talk in the comments!
Looking for things to do in isolation this weekend?
Check out my ideas for 15 things to do for your Honeymoon at Home! These are great ideas for older married couples, too!
We’ve got some ideas to keep kids busy as well during coronavirus.
Don’t forget my stay-at-home date night ideas! They work for date mornings, or date afternoons, or date weeks, or anything!
April 2, 2020
PODCAST: Porn and Coronavirus–How Scared Should We Be?
What do porn and coronavirus have in common?
We hate them both, and we want them to stop! My series on the blog in April will be on porn, and so to launch that series, I wanted to give a big picture perspective on the real problem with porn (hint: it may not be what you think!). Then I zoom through a bunch of reader questions.
First, listen in:
Browse all the Different Podcasts
See the Last “Start Your Engines” (Men’s) Podcast
Main Segment: How Porn and Coronavirus Go Together
To start, let’s back up and figure out why porn is bad. Why is porn a sin? Well, there are three levels to each, and I explain how focusing only on #1 or #2 misses the point:
1. Because God says it’s a sin
2. Because God sets rules based on what’s good for us
3. Because God’s purpose is to reconcile the world with Himself, which means reclaiming the world for the kingdom of Heaven. And THAT includes agreeing with God about the nature of humanity and intimacy.
And how is porn like Coronavirus?
1. Some will have worse symptoms than others
We focus at To Love, Honor and Vacuum on the devastating effects of porn, which are real. But not all men (or women) have problems getting over porn or even have long-lasting effects. Like COVID-19, some will require ventilators, and some will be asymptomatic. So when it comes to porn, let’s treat it seriously, but let’s not be alarmist, and let’s always remember that greater is He who is in us than He who is in the world.
2. We need a zero tolerance.
If there’s even a bit of coronavirus, it will spread. We need to eradicate it.
3. We change our behaviour for the good of others.
Our teens need us to change our WiFi behaviour at home for their good.
4. Quarantining isn’t the long-term answer. We need a cure.
Staying away from porn is great and is necessary. But ultimately we need more–and that involves embracing kingdom of heaven views of sex, intimacy, and people.
Listen in and see what you think!
Reader Question #1: What if my husband wants bondage/spanking?
Here’s a letter that demonstrates what happens when someone starts seeing sex from kingdom of darkness perspective rather than from Jesus’ perspective. When sex is about power and lording over someone, we’ve lost something important!
Before we got married, my husband was a porn user.
Lately he has started asking to act out some of his fantasies. He likes it when I submit to him, likes spanking, and is interested in bondage. These are things I’m not comfortable with because I worry he’s just acting porn out with me, rather than sex being a mutual loving act. (He’s always been kind and not cruel but bondage freaks me out.). I’ve brought it up with him and he has said that porn was a replacement for me, rather than me being a replacement for porn. The submission part I’m (getting) okay with. I’m definitely an in-control person in most of life and it’s good for me to let him be in control too.| My worry is the spanking/tying up stuff. Any suggestions on how to be more okay with this? (It’s also not something I enjoy.)
Any suggestions for alternatives?
Reader Question #2: I discovered my husband’s porn use after he died
My husband passed away very suddenly a year and a half ago. I was recently able to access his google account and came across a porn subscription and hundreds of downloaded photos among other things he clearly hid from me. I’m so angry and feel so betrayed. I’ve worked so hard processing and walking through my grief over his death and now I feel like I’m back at square one.
We were married a decade and had couple of kids together. My memories all feel clouded by this. What else did he lie about and hide from me? How do I reconcile what I know now with the man I thought I knew? How do I let this go and forgive when there can’t ever be a real resolution?
What a sad one! But here, let’s remember point 1, above. People do have different effects. Don’t judge your husband’s whole marriage through one choice that he made. Remember he made other choices, too–good ones–and those define him just as much.
Reader Question #3: It’s not just teenage boys who watch porn!
Just putting this question up to remind us as parents that girls struggle, too.
I am 16 years old. I was first introduced to pornography in the 6th grade and I honestly don’t even know how I started. I think it started with masturbation and then I eventually found porn. I hate myself for my “addiction” and no matter how many times I go to confession ( I am roman catholic) and am forgiven by God, I still come back to it. My biggest struggle is that I don’t know how I could ever tell my parents or a close friend because I know they will view me so differently.
Reader Question #4: My boyfriend’s mom thinks getting married will cure his porn addiction
Here’s a question from another teen girl that makes me want to give everybody’s parents a shake:
I’m about to graduate from high school. Recently, my guy came out with his porn issue. Naturally, I was devastated, but we have been healing our relationship. Now, my parents want me to move away for 6 months. His mom is encouraging me to disregard their wishes and just stay and marry him. My friend’s mom, who is at this point the only person I trust to not have an ulterior motive in counseling me, said that it would be wiser for him to get counseling for his porn and work through some of those issues while I get counseling or my eating disorder. I told his mom that, and she told me that I just need to get married to him, and that counseling won’t help. She said that marriage is the only thing that will make him stop. I don’t know what to do with this whole mess. I’m not even an adult yet but I cannot go to my parents for many reasons. One of which is that they don’t like anyone not from our church, and are trying to keep up our family’s appearance as my father is a respected official. I don’t want to get married yet, because we’re both not ready, but I feel wrong in believing that.
Okay, that’s it for the reader questions! Listen in for all the answers, but I’d also love to hear yours!
One final thing: We know that with self-isolation, domestic violence is on the rise. I received a letter from a brave woman recently who left her abusive husband to give her and her son a better life. I read the letter in the podcast; it’s a touching one. If you are being abused, and if you’re struggling right now, please find a domestic abuse hotline in your area and reach out. You are not alone.
That’s it for our podcast-in-isolation this week! Have any opinions on those reader questions? What about how coronavirus and porn go together? Let’s talk in the comments!
Author
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Sheila's Best Posts
Books
Courses
Freebie
Sheila Wray Gregoire has been married for 27 years and happily married for 22! She loves traveling around North America with her hubby in their RV, giving her signature "Girl Talk" about sex and marriage. And she's written 8 books. About sex and marriage. See a theme here? Plus she knits. Even in line at the grocery store.Find Sheila Here:YouTube
Sheila's Favorite Posts on To Love, Honor and Vacuum:
10 ways to initiate sex
10 Effects of Porn on Your Brain, Marriage, & Sex Life
Why So Much Marriage Advice is So Trite
How can Sex be Hot and Holy at the Same Time?
Check out some of Sheila's Books:
The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex
31 Days to Great Sex
9 Thoughts That Can Change Your Marriage
To Love, Honor, and Vacuum
Check out Sheila's Courses:
The Boost Your Libido Course
The Whole Story: Talking to Your Daughter about Sex, Puberty, and Growing Up
The FREE Emotional Intimacy E-Course
Are you ready to take your marriage to the next level?
Sign up for our emails and get access to the TLHV free marriage and parenting resource library. We have over 25 downloads and are constantly adding more. Sign up here!
April 1, 2020
What Your Marriage Says to Those Around You
Hey, Connor here!
One of my focuses for the last few months has been to modernize all 2800 of our blog posts, including reformatting, updating, deleting, and identifying good posts that could be improved and rerun. When I came across this post, I flagged it for Sheila to rewrite because it says something important about marriage that fits well with our theme of community for this month. It may be old, but it’s worth revisiting!
Connor Lindenbach
Tech Director and Son-in-Law
This originally appeared in 2009–back when we were allowed to go to theme parks!
Sometimes I forget how much other people are watching my marriage.
Do you ever have those days when you just seem to bug your husband? And he bugs you? And you don’t mean to, but you get into this rut.
Yesterday the family went with the youth group of our church to Canada’s Wonderland, a huge theme park with roller coasters, splash park, and rides galore. A member of our extended family (we’ll call him Dave) and his kids came along, as did my cousin, which gave us a great chance to connect.
But the weather forecast for yesterday was abysmal. 80% chance of thunderstorms in the afternoon, 60% in the evening, lots of wind, etc. etc.
And we had to go. We had a group rate good only for yesterday, and we’d rented a bus.
So as I was going to sleep Friday night, I’m thinking of all the different permutations of things that could happen. Which rides will shut in the rain? Which will remain open? Can you go in the splash park if it’s raining, but no lightning? And what should we bring with us to prepare for the rain? What shoes are best in the rain? What about umbrellas?
Needless to say, I dreamt about rain.
When I woke up, I bounded out of bed, and started to pack separate bags for everybody, since I didn’t know if the girls would be splitting up to go with their own groups. We have these tiny micro-fibre towels, about as big as a tea towel, that can hold 40 times their weight in water. They’re outback camping towels, so I made sure everyone had one of those, rather than carrying around a cumbersome one. I yelled at Katie three times not to wear her flip flops. I supervised the wrapping of the raincoats into as small a package as possible.
And then Keith decided to get out of bed. And he asked what we were having for breakfast.
I was not amused.
Then, five minutes before we had to leave, he asked if I had cut up fruit and vegetables for the bus so the kids didn’t eat junk all day. I gave him that look, but I went downstairs and started cutting some up.
At that point he came into the kitchen and asked what I was doing because we were going to be late. More looks.
By the time we were walking around the sunny park (it never did rain; good thing I had all those raincoats), I was not in a good mood towards my husband.
And then Dave said an interesting thing. I don’t even remember what prompted it. I said something to Keith–but I can’t remember what I said. But Dave turned and laughed and replied, “Okay, Keith, what do you say to that? I’m writing it down! You’re the master. You’re the marriage king. You guys are the rock we all look up to.”
Throughout the day he repeated that:
You guys are the rock we all look up to.
We are what gives Dave hope that a good marriage is possible.
Dave’s marriage fell apart last year, not of his doing. Other marriages in our extended family have also fallen apart. And so that’s the way he sees us. We are the rock.
Are you GOOD or are you NICE?
Because the difference matters!
God calls us to be GOOD, yet too often we’re busy being nice. And sometimes, in marriage, that can actually cause problems to be even more entrenched.
What if there’s a better way?
Take me to it!
I had never realized what my marriage says to those around me.
I decided I really shouldn’t get so mad about the vegetables. You never know what kind of an impact just living out proper family life can have. It was very humbling. And I took a deep breath and started holding Keith’s hand again.
Author
Social Media
Sheila's Best Posts
Books
Courses
Freebie
Sheila Wray Gregoire has been married for 27 years and happily married for 22! She loves traveling around North America with her hubby in their RV, giving her signature "Girl Talk" about sex and marriage. And she's written 8 books. About sex and marriage. See a theme here? Plus she knits. Even in line at the grocery store.Find Sheila Here:YouTube
Sheila's Favorite Posts on To Love, Honor and Vacuum:
10 ways to initiate sex
10 Effects of Porn on Your Brain, Marriage, & Sex Life
Why So Much Marriage Advice is So Trite
How can Sex be Hot and Holy at the Same Time?
Check out some of Sheila's Books:
The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex
31 Days to Great Sex
9 Thoughts That Can Change Your Marriage
To Love, Honor, and Vacuum
Check out Sheila's Courses:
The Boost Your Libido Course
The Whole Story: Talking to Your Daughter about Sex, Puberty, and Growing Up
The FREE Emotional Intimacy E-Course
Are you ready to take your marriage to the next level?
Sign up for our emails and get access to the TLHV free marriage and parenting resource library. We have over 25 downloads and are constantly adding more. Sign up here!
March 31, 2020
The Terrible, Awful Downward Spiral of Libido Differences
Sometimes libido differences can send you on a negative spiral, where both of you are constantly feeling rejected.
In about 7 weeks (yikes!) our manuscript for The Great Sex Rescue is due in at the publishers, so I’m frantically writing. I would have been doing that regardless, but it means this COVID-19 thing hasn’t changed a whole lot for me personally, other than the fact that I keep checking updates and praying constantly.
But the big question we’re asking in that book is, “what teachings in the evangelical church have hurt couples’ sex lives, and how can we see Truth instead?” And so we chose the 15 best selling marriage books, and the 5 best selling sex books, to read and rate on a 12-question rubric that we developed. We looked at 12 different teachings and created a scoring rubric to show whether, on each teaching, the books were harmful or helpful.
A lot of books so far have scored quite poorly, but last weekend I read two that scored really, really well! Intimate Issues by Dillow and Pintus and The Gift of Sex by the Penners both are great books! And that was really, really a relief to read two that gave accurate teaching that was helpful for women’s sexuality.
In The Gift of Sex, the Penners talked about a negative cycle of libido differences that I thought was quite interesting.
I’ve talked about something similar before, but they put it into such great words that I thought I’d quote them on it and then give some commentary. They call this the approach-avoidance pattern:
From The Gift of Sex
One typical problematic initiation pattern that develops is the approach-avoidance game. One person sees it as his or her responsibility to get sexual activity going, so he makes frequent approaches to the other—using sexual overtures, dropping hints, or making direct suggestions. He feels as if he has to mention it eight times if it’s going to happen once. So he is anxiously suggesting sex far more often than he really wants it. His wife would like him not to bother her and feels that she never even has an opportunity to suggest getting together sexually because he wants it all the time. She feels bombarded and unable to get in touch with her desire. So she resists or avoids his approaches.
You can see how the pattern perpetuates itself: The more she avoids, the more anxious he becomes, so the more he makes advances. This increases her feeling that demands are being placed on her that don’t allow room for her desire to build, and so the pattern continues.
After this section the Penners give two examples of couples where this may happen–one with a woman with the lower libido and one with the man, which is helpful to not have it all one way.
I’ve also seen this dynamic happen not only when sex isn’t happening, but also when it is but it feels like “duty sex.” So she (typically it’s a she in this scenario) has sex because she feels that she has to because he needs it, but she gets very little pleasure from it even when her husband would like her to experience pleasure. She rushes him through, and he can tell that she’s not into it. That increases his stress that she doesn’t really want him, and so he wants to reassure himself by suggesting sex again. She takes that to mean that he can never be satisfied, and he’s just a sex fiend.
Those of you who have studied the psychology of attachment will recognize a common dynamic here, that often pops up with insecure attachment in children.
They need to reassure themselves that their parent actually loves them, but the parent finds this annoying and so withdraws further, and makes the problem worse.
So essentially this dynamic creates something very similar to insecure attachment. One spouse feels like they’re not truly desired, loved, or wanted, but the other spouse interprets this to mean that they’re having all kinds of demands placed on them. It’s easy to see how this can go downhill quickly.
But what is the solution o the approach-avoidance cycle with libido differences?
The Penners suggest agreeing on a set time when the higher-libido spouse WILL NOT initiate sex at all, and then having the lower libido spouse agree that at least once during that time period they instead will initiate sex. That gives the lower libido spouse time for desire to build, and helps them get in touch with their own sexuality. And it helps the higher libido spouse see that their spouse actually does desire sex.
So talk to your spouse about this if you think that you’ve developed this pattern. And then agree that this week, one spouse won’t initiate sex, suggest sexual things, grope their spouse’s body, or anything like that. They’ll back off and trust the lower libido spouse to take the lead.
Thoughts if you’re the higher libido spouse in a marriage with libido differences:
I understand the desperation that you feel both to have sex, but also to feel as if your spouse wants you. The problem is that what is happening now isn’t working, and may even be worsening the situation. The lower libido spouse may be afraid to say yes ever, because it seems that you can be insatiable (that’s not true; but that’s how it feels). And the lower libido spouse can feel as if your attempts at initiating are intrusive.
Talk to your spouse about this dynamic, and see if your spouse would be open to that suggestion–you back off for a time, but then, at some point during that time, your spouse agrees to initiate.
If your spouse doesn’t, you can still take steps to change this dynamic yourself by pulling way back on initiation. Stop with any sexual jokes and innuendos. Kiss without expecting it to go anywhere. Above all, do not grope your spouse sexually, because that especially feels intrusive to the lower libido spouse. Pull back for a few weeks if you have to, just to hit the reset button. And then, when you do start initiating again, try to confine it to only one or two times per week at first to see what happens. It could be that if you pull back, after a while your spouse will pick up the slack. But don’t expect this to magically happen after just a few days. Give it some time to give your spouse some space!
Thoughts if you’re the lower libido spouse in a marriage with libido differences:
One of the biggest dangers I see in this approach-avoidance cycle is that the lower libido spouse may start to believe, “I’m not sexual and I don’t want sex at all.” Because your spouse “bugs” you about it so much, and often makes sexual jokes/innuendos or even grabs you sexually when you’re not thinking that way, it feels like sex is always an intrusion in your life. It’s something unpleasant that throws you off.
If this is you, please don’t allow yourself to think this way. Don’t reject sex altogether, and don’t start thinking negatively about sex. Realize that the problem is that you’ve never had the chance to get in touch with your own desire because sex has become something you’re always saying no to. Realize that sex is still something for you that helps you and has benefits for you and is still awesome–even if you don’t want it as much as your spouse. Realize that you can jumpstart your libido and sex can be an important part of your life, too! For women, my boost your libido course was created to help you do just that!
Are you TIRED of always being too tired for sex?
Do you yearn to actually WANT to make love–and figure out what all the fuss is about?
There is a way! And in this 10-module course I take you through what libido is (it may surprise you!), what affects libido, and how we can reclaim the excitement that God made us for.
Tell me more!
But also, please hear me on this one: Sometimes we think there’s no point in even trying sexually, because our spouse will never be satisfied. He wants it all the time, and even if you do have sex, it doesn’t seem to dull his libido. It just increases how much he asks for it!
However, in these situations, couples have often found that if the lower libido spouse starts initiating and decides to allow themselves to feel good, then the higher libido spouse backs off a lot. When they know that they are wanted and that sex is enjoyed, then they don’t have that same need to reassure themselves.
So if you can start initiating sex every so often, and then allowing yourself to enjoy it, you may just find that your spouse’s constant sexual requests get far less frequent. When they feel confident again, they’ll go back to a normal equilibrium.
Here are some posts that can help you initiate sex and feel sexy! And, of course, don’t forget my sexy dares, either. 
