No two people are born the same. No two are raised the same. No two people have had the identical life experience. These three major factors—what we inherit genetically, where and how we are raised, and what we experience—will cause us to come to marriage with different needs and desires in every aspect of life. For some couples, these differences show up immediately upon marriage. More often, though, differing needs take time to surface. The years go by, and the marriage moves along from the excitement of the first years to the distractions of child rearing, establishing a home, building a career, and forming a solid financial base. During these years differing needs—including varying sexual needs—emerge and make themselves known.
BASIC DIFFERENCES
To begin with, we must state that there are some very basic differences among normal, healthy people. There is nothing wrong with a person who has a greater or lesser need for sex than his or her spouse. Such a variation is not necessarily the result of life experiences or how one was raised. Our differences reflect that each of us was uniquely and wonderfully made. Just as people vary in their need for food or activities or hobbies, people will have a greater or lesser drive for sexual activity. To understand a difference in need, you must consider the normality of such differences. The importance is working with your differences—make them work for you as a couple. Negotiate differences.
ENERGY DIFFERENCES
As a couple move through their years of marriage, the amount of energy they have available for sexual activity changes. Often, during the first years of marriage when they are excited about being together and the newness is still fresh, the energy available for sexual play is boundless, particularly if both spouses are experiencing sexual satisfaction. But then the couple decide to have children. The woman may still be working when she becomes pregnant, and so she is tired. Or she may have uncomfortable pregnancy symptoms. She backs off sexually because of fatigue or discomfort.
Then the child is born, and there is the usual four-to-six-week period of physical recovery before intercourse is advised. But even after this time, the parents are likely to be getting up at night to feed the baby. Mother is adjusting to the changes in her body, to her new role, and to all the extra work and stress, so even for a year or two after the child is born she may not have much energy for sexual activity. By then the second child may be on the way. When we review people’s sexual history, they commonly report that the decrease in their sexual activity occurred around the birth of the first or second child.
A man or a woman who is building a business or a career, or even just struggling to make ends meet as the family grows, may have little energy left for sexual activities. Perhaps the man is starting a small business. He leaves early to go over the books, works long hours, comes home tired, and is preoccupied because of various business problems and struggles. He finds that he does not have the energy he once had for sex. The same thing could be true for a woman. If she is trying to build her career as an executive, teacher, shopkeeper, nurse, or whatever, energy is diverted toward her vocation and away from sex.
FULFILLMENT DIFFERENCES
Differences in sex drive are determined in part by the level of sexual fulfillment. A woman who never feels sexually fulfilled will have a diminishing awareness of her sexual need. From a logical point of view, this makes good sense. If she is not being satisfied, she will shut down her sexual feelings. Her basic, God-given sexual need is not absent, but the felt need is. Because her need is never satisfied, she is not likely to be able to stay in touch with that need.
Let’s consider an analogy: All of us have a need for connection—to be known and loved for who we are. If I go to a church and am alone and isolated, I may go back another time. If, again, I make no connections, my interest may lessen a little bit. I may wonder what’s wrong with me and why no one is interested in me. I may go back again in a couple of weeks and if, once again, I am alone, I may decide to try a small group. So I go to a class; and if I still don’t get connected, it’s likely that my interest in attending that particular church will diminish. This is not to say that my need for connection, my need for fellowship, my need for community has diminished in any way. Rather, I have simply not experienced anything fulfilling in that particular church. In the same way, if a wife never experiences fulfillment in the sexual relationship, regardless of how much she needs it, she will have less awareness of that need.
If a man feels inadequate in the sexual relationship, he is likely to avoid sex with his wife and fulfill his sexual need through self-stimulation. If a man is not being fulfilled, his sexual need is likely to increase. He is always wanting and yet rarely receiving sexual satisfaction. It may seem as though he experiences satisfaction one out of ten times; he is in a state of perpetual hunger, like a person who is rarely able to eat a full meal. He is always hungry, and even when he does have a meal with enough food, he is anxious about the period of hunger to follow.
We are not certain why women tend to shut down when they are unfulfilled sexually and men tend to feel more sexual hunger with lack of fulfillment. Similarly, the longer it is between sexual experiences, the more eager a man is for sex, the more quickly he gets aroused, and the faster he will come to ejaculation. On the contrary, the longer it is between sexual experiences, the less eager the woman is, the longer it takes her to get aroused, and the more difficulty she has building toward orgasm. We are convinced that the 1 Corinthians 7 passage that instructs husbands and wives to come together regularly is a counter to our tendency to go the opposite direction the less frequently we are together.
EMOTIONAL DIFFERENCES
There may be differences in sexual needs and desires due to varying emotional intensities. Some individuals are very low-key, relaxed and easygoing, experiencing little stress or tension. At the same time they feel little intensity. This is the type of person who is seldom angry or excited to any degree. Their experience in life will usually be relatively stress-free, but also relatively excitement-free. Other individuals experience life at a high level of intensity; they move from one intense moment to another. When they are active sexually, they are involved with all of their being and with great intensity. When they are playing a game or cooking a meal or studying the Bible, they do it at a level of involvement that includes their whole being. When you put a person of low intensity together with a person of high intensity, you are likely to experience different levels of sexual need. This obviously can produce tension in a relationship, particularly when the one with a higher need interprets the partner’s lower-level need as a lack of love or attraction for him or her.
MALE-FEMALE DIFFERENCES
With every discussion of male-female differences, there are exceptions. Some women identify more closely with the generalizations about men, and some men find themselves connecting with emotional needs or traits more likely to be true of women. Yet, the understanding of typical male and female differences is helpful for most couples to minimize conflict and enhance mutual acceptance. That is why each couple must talk about their differences.
What are some commonly identified differences between men and women that affect their sexual relationship?
For women, sex tends to be a total-person experience. Men tend to focus more on the sexual parts.
Women usually need to connect and feel loved to open up sexually, whereas men get interested in sex in response to visual stimuli or being physically stimulated. So when a man comes to bed all ready and anticipating sex but hasn’t connected with his wife, she will not respond positively to his approach, and he may feel hurt and rejected. For her, it is not about her love for him; it is about her feeling cherished by him.
Women are just more complex than men. Women function on two tracks, the emotional and the physical, and these have to be in sync in order for a woman to be responsive sexually. Men tend to be ready emotionally when they are ready physically. The physical arousal carries the emotional for most men. It is like men have an on-off switch that is easy to find and figure out. Women have many buttons that have to be finely tuned and adjusted to be able to function well sexually.
Men tend to be more goal-oriented, and women tend to be more into the process of lovemaking. Men focus on arousal and release. Is he able to make hers work? Women focus on pleasure and communication. Women love to be held and caressed; men love to be stimulated and brought to ejaculation. Not that women don’t eventually desire arousal and release, but that is a by-product of the process, not the goal.
Women vary more from one woman to another, and the same woman varies more from one experience to another than men do. Men tend to be more predictable than women are. If you’ve lived together even a week, you will have discovered this difference. As John Gray, in his book Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, states:
Men are like the sun. They rise every morning and set every evening. Women are more like the moon. They are different every day but will likely circle back around next month. Women’s ever-changing quality can be frustrating to a man. Yet, we are convinced that it is the combination of male constancy and ever-changing, complex femininity that is the key to keeping sex alive in marriage over a lifetime.1
THE DIFFERENCES MAY SEEM LIKE
| SHE | HE |
| 1. All he ever wants is sex. | 1. Why wouldn't she want sex? |
| 2. He never takes the time to listen to me. | 2. All she ever wants to do is talk. |
| 3. Why doesn't he remember what I tell him? | 3. Why is she always changing her mind? She's so fickle. |
| 4. He likes the room cold. | 4. She likes it warm. |
| 5. He'd rather get to bed. | 5. She takes an hour to pre-pare for bed. |
| 6. He likes to be on time. | 6. She's willing to be late so she can take time to be gorgeous. |
| 7. He loves for me to dress sexy to come to bed. He gets turned on just looking at me. | 7. She likes me to love her as a person and not make her feel like an object. When I do, it turns her on. |
| 8. I'd love to sit on the couch and have an evening of just kissing. | 8. Why would she want to kiss, get all turned on, then not have sex? |
| 9. I'm a night person. | 9. I'm a morning person. |
| 10. I need conflict resolved before having sex. | 10. Sex is my way of getting close after conflict. |
| 11. He gets aroused and wants sex if I fondle his genitals. | 11. She pushes my hand away when I reach for her breasts or genitals. |
Men tend to measure sexual satisfaction by quantity, whereas women tend to measure it by quality. So when a man rates their sexual relationship, he will tend to think of how often they are together. When the woman discusses her evaluation of their sexual relationship, she will likely be thinking about the quality of their times together. This difference has led to many arguments related to the topic of, “How are we doing sexually?”
The differences between men and women are both the source of greatest conflicts and the basis of the most intense intrigue. Our goal is to help couples make their differences work for them. We teach them to negotiate their differences, embrace their uniqueness, and have fun noting how they differ.
ADJUSTING TO DIFFERENCES
If the couple are going to survive differing levels of sexual need, they must find ways to adjust to those differences. The starting point is communication. Until a couple have clearly defined their differences, there is no way to resolve them. Each spouse must take responsibility for himself and his own feelings. He must express his feelings clearly, rather than criticize his spouse. Openness is crucial. Anything that can be done to reduce defensiveness will help make this kind of discussion more productive. When people feel accused, they become defensive. If they feel that what they are saying is being received and understood and reflected, however, they are likely to be able to continue the exploration (see Chapter 12 on communication).
Once the couple have discussed their differences, they must identify the changes that will enable them to adjust to their differing levels of sexual need. For example, if a man is frustrated because his wife is always too tired, the two of them must work out ways to lessen the fatigue so she can get in touch with her own sexual need. (If the fatigue is just an excuse, a cover-up for the real reason for lack of interest, the plans that are made will be sabotaged. The cover-up will be discovered quickly.) If a woman is frustrated because the man is expending all his energy on weekend softball games or building his business or watching sports events on television, the change in lifestyle must be acceptable to both. Radical solutions usually don’t work. Moving the television into the garage will produce only frustration and anger rather than greater sexual desire, unless he decides to do so.
In adapting to differing levels of needs, stay open to various sexual options. There are many ways to satisfy sexual needs, and there are many different types of sexual needs. For example, many women report that they do not necessarily need sexual intercourse, but rather are hungry for cuddling and touching. Many men would be willing and happy to be involved in such caring and touching experiences if they knew that this was as far as it needed to go. The same is true of women. Many times they would be willing to participate in an experience if they knew there would be no demand for arousal, response, or intercourse.
When a woman is not needing sex for herself, she may be happy to manually stimulate her husband to the point of release. She may enjoy that process. Many women report that they are willing to satisfy their husbands if they don’t feel like pursuing sex for themselves. Similarly, if a man does not feel a sexual need, he may be willing to bring his wife to orgasm if that is her desire.
Finding ways to meet each other’s needs without making a demand on the other is the crucial dimension in resolving differences. As with so many other issues, spouses need to discuss their differences, make plans, experiment, and be open to move toward finding fulfillment without demand. Even in the sexual experience, Philippians 2:4–5 can well be used as a guideline: “Do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus . . .” (NASB).