The last few weeks Lori and I have been doing a lot of reading, thinking, and talking about the way everyone thinks sex is. We’ve found places where the story we all tell doesn’t hold up. We see places where Christians say things about sex indicating it’s how God created us, but we don’t see any support for it in the Bible. Even worse we see places where we’ve done those things not only in our own marriage bed but also in what we write! We have far more questions than answers at this point – it’s going to be a long journey.
You’ll see the fallout from this in future posts. I suspect much of it will be more asking you to question your assumptions than giving you proof your assumptions are wrong. I pray we can all learn to hold loosely to beliefs that have no support other than being what everyone says.
As a starting place, let’s look at the male sex drive. Biologically men should have a stronger physical drive because we have so much testosterone. Give a woman a big boost in T and she’ll desire more sex. Cut a man’s T enough and his drive will drop off. However, this does not explain the extreme difference in male and female sex drive we all see. Or think we see.
One obvious possibility is men are not actually as much hornier than women as we think, and there’s been a lot written about this recently. Some of it has supporting evidence, some is heavy on opinion and light on everything else. Most of it seems to be intended to convince us women are just like men sexually – an idea counter to an honest look at biology.
One recent study found that for couples together more than three years it was as common for the woman to want more sex as it was for the man. Some of this was one person being refused, some was couples being so busy both want more sex. Is this “change” a result of women feeling more sexually free? Is it because men are so stressed their drives are down? Are a lot of men choosing porn and their own hand over their wife? Regardless of the why the fact is this doesn’t match what we think is the norm.
One interesting idea offered in something I read is that sex is actually more emotional for men than for women. The theory is sex is one of a men’s few ways of making an emotional connection while women are able to feel emotionally connected in many more ways. This could mean some of our “I need it now feeling” is about an emptiness in our hearts rather than just a fullness in our pants. Perhaps we tell ourselves we need it for our bodies because we don’t want to admit our emotional neediness. We see an erection demanding attention as manly while emotional needs are seen as weak.
The ironic thing in all this is most women would be far more about sex for emotional connection than sex just to drain a buildup of fluid. “I need to make love to feel close to you” is a better turn-on for her than “It’s been days and I hurt physically.”
Has our desire to look like tough men made it difficult for our wives to give us the sex both of us want and need? What would happen if we admitted we have a deep emotional need for sexual intimacy?
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I appreciate the tone of this post, inviting us to think differently versus telling us how it is. I will say that when I learned my husband’s sex drive was enmeshed with his deep need for emotional connection, I repented and began to change my behavior.
I am looking forward to seeing where you go with this, but I personally believe that you are on the right track. I would encourage that you consider changing the last sentence, because I think that you misspoke the deeper hidden truth.
“What would happen if we admitted we have a deep emotional need for intimacy?
I think that if you look at reality, that statement is born out. Emotional affairs precede physical affairs for a reason. Men have a sex drive that is biological in nature, and way too much emphasis is placed on that fact, while all but ignoring the deeper truth.
Consider this. It is common enough in literature for women with a promiscuous past to be looked at as wounded, looking for love and connection, but if a man has a promiscuous past, he is looked at as predatory, as a philanderer, and just looking for conquest. There are certainly men like that, but what is the deeper reason?
As someone who has had an affair, I can say for a fact, that sex was not what I was looking for. Trying to figure out how to say this without coming out totally wrong, so I will just toss this out. This is not intended to say that the affair was right, or good. It was totally wrong, and I regret it deeply.
The truth is tho, that the relationship prior to sex was based totally on emotional intimacy, and was in fact more meaningful. It was better. Shortly after sex entered the equation, the affair ended.
Now, a lot could be read into that, but the simple truth is that sex was not what was lacking in my life, which is a curious statement considering I was away from home for 9 months that year, and I was getting by just fine without sex. It was not ideal by a long shot, but it was manageable. Ultimately, I was not able to make it without the emotional connection tho, and that was not forthcoming from the home front, and was in fact denied despite me reaching out regularly. Phone calls were not answered or returned. I’m not placing blame. We both messed up pretty big.
Still, I think it illustrates a deeper need than sex.
Douglas H I agree we have a need for intimacy and we don’t admit that. What I was trying to say was we have a deep emotional need for sex, not just a physical need. I’m suggesting the man who sleeps with every woman he can get into bed is driven far more by emotional needs than physical needs. He is getting the emotional connection the only way he knows how to get it. If he could be honest with himself about why he’s doing it, he might find other ways to feed that need.
I suspect affairs become sexual because it’s a natural next step. When you feel that intimate sex is what you do.
All that said, I think God intended sex to be a major source of emotional connection for men. The problem is not that we use it for that, the problem is we lie to ourselves about why we want the sex. That lie reduces the emotional connection we get from the sex. Then we are like someone eating food with low caloric density – it takes a huge amount to fill the need.
IntimacySeeker It’s so sad men run from a truth that would lead to what they want and what they need.
I think we are in agreement. I think we are just approaching it from a different direction.
What direction you approach it from is largely a reflection of where you are and where you have been, and individual experiences play a role in out perceptions. We may be looking at the same thing from different directions, and not realize it because our viewpoints are uniquely our own.
This concept of emotional connection for men through sex makes 1st Corinthians 6 finally make sense to me.
Madeline12 Nice!
Douglas H Yes, I think we agree.
My approach is generally what I think will make sense to the majority of my readers. How well I do at that is open to debate!
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You’re right! I’m woman, I am waaaaaaay more interested in an emotional connection than draining body fluids 😂. Knowing my husband needs my love is a boost to my spirit, but feeling like he just wants my certain body parts makes me feel useless.