Over on Intimacy in Marriage, Julie posted 9 Things I Would Say About Sex if I Had No Filter – and then urged me to write a similar post.

Those of you who’ve followed me very long no doubt think I don’t have any filters. This is not exactly the case, but I don’t hold back much. Odds are I’ve at least hinted at all of these:

1. The Church has totally blown it on sex.

We abdicated our right calling to talk about sex as God sees it, making way for the world to come in with all its garbage. In the 70’s and 80’s many Christian couples went to the world for help with sex because the church refused to discuss it. Christian publishing companies full on censored Christian authors about sex. Way to point away from God!

While things are better today, we still have a long way to go. Christian couples should be having amazing sex, and plenty of it. Most couples are too inhibited to experience what God wants for us, and the church needs to deal with that. Sex is neither a minor nor an optional part of marriage, and treating it as such hurts marriages. We need the pastor’s wife doing a how-to-blow-your-husband’s-mind class for women, while the pastor is doing something similar for the husbands. If they won’t do it, they need to find someone who will (and they need to attend!).

2. I think sexually refusing a spouse is one of the cruellest things a spouse can possibly do.

I see it as emotionally abusive. I understand how it attacks the worth and dignity of the one refused, and it pains me no end. I also know how it undermines the marriage, and given how I feel about marriage, this makes it a crime in my mind.

I understand there are real reasons people have difficulty with sex. I’m all for giving people the time and help they need to work through things, but that means they must actually work on it. Refusing to try seems unbelievably selfish to me.  

3. I don’t understand people who choose their own hand over their spouse.

I figure they’ve never had the kind of sex I’ve had with my wife, because if they had they would have no use for their own hand. It’s like eating grubs: if it’s grubs or starve, then yeah, you eat them. If it’s grubs or wait till tomorrow for real food, I’m waiting.

I suspect choosing masturbation over spouse is about pride, fear, inability to connect, or some other physiological or relational issue.

4. Expecting teens to go for a decade or more with a full adult sex drive and do nothing about it is insane.

How many 30 year olds could to this? And thirty-year-olds have more self-control and less of a sex drive. About 99.9% of teen boys, and almost as many teen girls, are going to do something to get sexual release. There are three possibilities 1) Get married young, 2) Fornicate, 3) Masturbate. Thinking anyone is going to make it through college without doing any of those shows a failure to deal with reality. Parents should pick which of those three they think is acceptable and teach their kids about it.

5. Looking at porn is about as clever as beating on your penis with a hammer. And almost as destructive to your sex life.

Yeah, I’m down on porn. I understand the draw, but I also understand what it does to us, to our wives, to our marriages, to our sex lives, and to our relationship with God. Clearly, this message is not getting through, since half the men in church and almost a quarter of the women are choosing to look at porn. The momentary thrill is nice, but the long-term problems are not.

As for those who say men only look at porn because their wives say no, I say WRONG! Most men come into marriage with a long-standing porn habit. They never gave their wife a chance, and the porn has changed them so they are unable to enjoy sex with their wife as they should. Besides, blaming porn use on your wife saying no is like blaming her for you picking up the hammer…

6. Adultery doesn’t happen when a couple has a solid marriage.

Yes, that includes a great sex life, but it goes way beyond sex. A great marriage means a deep relationship with the ability to talk about anything and everything. It means sharing your entire life, including your dreams, feelings, failures, and fears. Most of us are too scared to open up as we should and it keeps us from having the kind of marriage God wants us to have. This, not sex, is what opens us up to adultery.

You don’t prevent adultery by having so much sex with your spouse you can’t do it with anyone else. The real barrier to adultery is having such a deep connection to your spouse you would sooner jump in front of a truck than be sexual with anyone else.

I’m convinced adultery is almost never about sex, and this is true for both men and women. However, telling ourselves it’s about sex makes us feel better somehow, so we keep telling the lie.

7. I can discuss sex with anyone any time.

I’ve developed a good feel for this, and almost never push people past their limits. I don’t chase people down to talk about sex, but often they chase me down. Once people know what we do, we become a safe place to ask questions they can’t ask anywhere else and discuss things they can’t discuss with anyone else.

8. It drives me nuts when people say something is sin if the Bible says absolutely nothing about it. 

If they want to share what they think and why, fine. If they want to share why they don’t do something and why, fine. If they want to tell people it’s sin when the Bible is silent, I call foul.

I say this as a former offender. I decided certain things were wrong, and I twisted the Bible to support what I wanted the truth to be. I’m deeply sorry I did this, and I’m grateful I was not teaching about sex and marriage at the time.

As a reformed legalist, I’d rather err on the side of grace than legalism. I’m not for any error, but I find grace far less crippling than legalism. Legalism does not prevent sin, it only drives it underground.

9, I think the kind of sex God intended us to have goes beyond anything we can imagine.

I hope there are a few couples out there who have found what God intended (if so, send me a clue), but I’m not sure. I’ve had awesome sex with my wife, and it keeps getting better, but at the rate we’re going I’m going to have to live another fifty years to get to what I think God wants sex to be. There are just so many lies, fears, and inhibitions to overcome.

 Now I’m challenging other CMBA members to do this!

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