rose

CHAPTER 2

LISTEN

TO PURSUE ALL of who you are sexually and share your sexuality freely with your husband, you’ll need to listen to your body. Your body will guide you if you learn to listen to it.

You might be wondering what we mean by “listening to your body.” When I (Joyce) was in first grade, the teacher asked us to put our heads on our desks, close our eyes, and tell the class what we saw. The tighter I closed my eyes, the blacker it became; I saw nothing but darkness! You might be turning up your hearing aid but still aren’t “hearing” anything. Don’t be discouraged—you can learn to hear what your body is telling you.

To help you understand this concept, let’s use an analogy. What happens when you are hungry? Do you notice little twinges of hunger before you really need to eat? Or do you just suddenly notice that you are ravenous for food? If you are around children, you will find that some are too interested in life to notice their hunger for food, while others seem to always be eager to eat.

Likewise, men and women are all wired with varying sensitivity to their bodies’ sexual hungers. It’s also possible that a person’s innate sexual signals may be blocked by life events.

If you’ve accepted and affirmed God’s design of you as a sexual person with all of the intensity He intended for you, you may already be in tune with your body’s sexual messages. If you do not know how to listen, here are some suggestions that have helped other women. These tools may help you to increase your body-listening skills too.

Good sex doesn’t just happen, but you can make it happen by listening to your body.

To increase your body-listening skills, it’s important to have knowledge of five essential areas: your body, your sexual triggers, your brain, your hormones, and your potential. Let’s start with the body.

Listen to Your Body by Knowing Your Body

Women are created to be sexually responsive. Our understanding of anatomy, physiology, our brains, and Scripture all affirm women’s design for sexual responsiveness. You may be a woman who knows this as a reality for yourself, you may be one who experienced this at some point in your life but now don’t, or you may be a woman who is upset with us for this teaching because you have never enjoyed sex. You may be angry with God and with us. We encourage you to read this section, whatever your situation.

To pursue sexual enjoyment for yourself and share your sexuality with your husband, it’s important that you know the physical facts, as well as your unique body. Even as physical bodies are designed to work in all ways, not just sexually, some enter the world with sensory or other functions impaired or lose function because of some event in their lives. This can be true sexually as well. People with limitations or physical difficulties will likely require adaptations to experience life as fully as possible.

Both win when the woman learns to listen to her body and goes after what she needs while the man listens to her and responds to her desires.

So let’s first address how women’s bodies are designed. A newborn girl lubricates vaginally within the first twenty-four hours after birth, even as a newborn boy has an erection within the first five to ten minutes of birth (as measured by Masters and Johnson researchers[10]). We as women typically are a little slower in our responses than men. Some say women are like a slow cooker; men are like a microwave. But you and your husband may be the opposite—there are always exceptions to the generalizations about male-female differences.

Adult healthy women also lubricate vaginally every eighty to ninety minutes while they sleep.[11] This is true even for women who are not consciously aware of sexual responses. Some women report, or their husbands’ observe, that even though vaginal lubrication and nipple erection—the physical manifestations of arousal in women—are happening during sexual play, they are not feeling aroused.

This gap between physical manifestations of arousal and feelings of arousal exists because women function on two tracks—the physical and the emotional. These two tracks have to be in sync for you to experience the arousal responses. In other words, women must feel emotionally connected and cherished and be aware of their bodies to feel aroused. In contrast, men typically function on one track; when they are physically responding they feel aroused.

Which is true for you? Discuss this with your husband.

Listen to Your Body by Knowing Your Sexual Triggers

A woman’s entire body can experience sexual feelings and responses. It is important to know and understand those areas of your body that are particularly sensitive to sexual impulses, feelings, and stimulation.

Some women are highly responsive to kisses on the neck, while others find such kisses too intense. Still others have no particular response whatsoever to neck kisses. The same can be true of stimulation around the ears. Stroking the inner thighs from above the knees to the genitals can help women be more receptive to genital touching, and can even bring heightened arousal and orgasm for some. The best place to start might be the feet. Studies about sex and the brain[12] have indicated that women are more likely to orgasm when their feet are warm, so you might use that fact to get foot massages from your husband.

Typically, the most sexually sensitive areas are the lips, breasts, clitoris, and vagina. Lips and mouth are intense areas of sexual responsiveness. Lip and tongue contact usually stirs up feelings in the genital area. The same is true of breast stimulation for many women.

Some women tend to resist passionate kissing and breast stimulation, even though they wish for the genital responsiveness. These women may struggle with an internal ambivalence about sexual responsiveness—they want the result, but resist the feelings. Since there are many variations from one woman to another as well as in a particular woman from one time to another, it is vital that you pay close attention to what is true for you and share that with your husband.

Equally important for you is to understand your genital area. Most women respond to clitoral external stimulation. When a woman becomes aroused, the lower third of the vagina engorges to form the orgasmic platform for sexual arousal and response, while the remaining upper portion balloons out to form the seminal pool, which receives and holds the man’s ejaculate so she can more easily become pregnant. This shows how a woman’s body is designed for both sexual pleasure and for procreation.

Whether we’re talking about the neck, lips, breasts, ears, or genitals—and all the way down to the toes—every part of the body can be a source of pleasure. So be aware of what is true for you. Try not to impose onto yourself someone else’s experience. The intensity of your response, positive or negative, can be determined only by you, so that’s why you must listen to your body.

Listen to Your Body by Knowing Your Brain

Research on sex and the brain[13] has affirmed our years of clinical observation of women and their sexuality, as well as added new understandings. Our brains can work for us or against us sexually. The messages we received about sex growing up may have led to eager, positive anticipation of sex in marriage or might have filled us with apprehension and aversion.

Our observation is that sexual responses are easily conditioned early in life—and self-perpetuating unless intentionally countered.

You are fortunate if your early experiences and messages were positive. If those experiences were negative or created patterns not conducive to mutually fulfilling sex in marriage, you will likely need to work with a qualified sex therapist or pursue self-help to undo past negative influences and build positive experiences. That will take education, communication, and relearning the physical sexual process. The good news is that this process can lead to pleasure.

Relearning begins by receiving pleasurable caresses that start far from genitals—on the feet, for instance. This activity removes any expectations of sexual arousal and release—there’s no pressure. The brain needs to be reprogrammed step-by-step; your current sexual experiences are ruled out, and you start over by retraining your body to respond as it was designed to respond.[14]

If your experiences were negative, you may feel stuck and hopeless now, but even as sexual responses can be conditioned, they can be reconditioned.

Maggie had her first orgasmic response when she was babysitting and happened upon pornography. Now in marriage, she can experience orgasm only if she visualizes women’s breasts and genitals (the stimulus for that first response). Other women have learned to respond in a way that doesn’t work with a man. In both situations, women can retrain their bodies to respond to their husbands through the step-by-step program we and others offer.

The female brain is more complex sexually than the male brain; it is also much less predictable and is ever changing. In The Female Brain, Louann Brizendine writes: “In all menstruating women, the female brain changes a little every day. Some parts of the brain change up to 25 percent every month. Things get pretty rocky at times. . . . If a woman’s reality could change radically from week to week, the same would have to be true of the massive hormonal changes that occur throughout a woman’s life.”[15]

Women can retrain their bodies to respond to their husbands.

What goes on in the brain of a woman during a sexual experience is very complicated. Barry Komisaruk and his research group from Rutgers University found that different brain regions in a woman were activated depending on which body part was being stimulated.[16]

You might ask, “What difference does that make to me?” When a woman is touched, the touch activates different regions of the brain as she moves from stimulation to orgasm. Because of this, it’s important to explore with your husband how touch feels on various parts of your body. As you become aware of how different parts of your body respond when being stimulated, you can help your body move from stimulation to response.

Listen to Your Body by Knowing Your Hormones

All the effort in the world won’t help if your hormones are out of balance. Since hormonal balance is a prerequisite to healthy sexual functioning, you’ll need to attend to and take responsibility for your hormonal fluctuations. That’s not always an easy task. You will need to find a physician who is open to evaluating your hormonal levels and guiding you in how best to balance them.

Premenstrual syndrome (PMS) can wreak havoc on tranquility for many; this may be a struggle for you. Do get help. Supplements can provide some relief. It is important to get at least 50 mg of vitamin B6 per day and 400 mg of magnesium. You may find a PMS vitamin/mineral supplement that works well for you. Sometimes prescription medication is necessary.

Hormonal birth control now includes higher levels of progestin, which messes with sexual desire and sexual responsiveness. The increased progestin also can make the vagina more sensitive to pain.

Pregnancy, postpartum,[17] and breast-feeding hormonal changes can also affect women’s sexual functioning. However, hormonal treatment would not be the solution since hormones given to the mother would affect the fetus during pregnancy and the infant who is breast-feeding. An eating plan (see Appendix 1) and a prenatal supplement can help.

Menopause[18] means a drop in estrogen and progesterone production, which causes thinning of the vaginal wall and decreased lubrication. Hormonal replacement is available, but frequently not encouraged due to concern about health risks.[19] For women who still have their ovaries, testosterone production may continue well past menopause. If testosterone lessens, so will sexual drive. A testosterone patch, cream, or pellets can be very helpful, but they require a physician’s prescription.

Neurochemicals and hormones—your physiology—can greatly affect how you feel about sex and how you respond sexually.

Listen to Your Body by Knowing Your Potential

Once you know your body, have a sense of the female brain, and have the confidence that your hormones are working for you in the best way possible, you will be able to maximize your potential for sexual enjoyment.

Physically, be mindful of what you eat; engage in a minimum of twenty minutes of exercise per day;[20] get a healthy balance of sleep, rest, and life-invigorating activity; and freely pamper yourself once a week. All of these will contribute to your sexual potential. For a healthy eating plan that enhances hormonal balance, see Appendix 1.

Who you are sexually is influenced by what’s true about you in general. Do you exercise regularly and keep your body in shape? Do you eat healthily or do you struggle with eating too much, not eating enough, or not eating a good balance of healthy foods? Do you tend to go to bed at 3 a.m. and get up at 6 a.m. so you’re always exhausted? Your lifestyle choices have an impact on your sexual life.

How might you carve out restorative time for yourself and your marriage? If you are willing to pamper yourself, you will be more receptive to feeling sexual impulses and more responsive to your husband’s initiation. Many women find themselves so exhausted from family, household, and career duties that they have no energy left over for their sexual life, a situation that hinders them, their spouse, and their relationship in general.

Design time in your life to pamper your body: This could mean taking a bubble bath, getting a massage, having your nails or hair done, or doing whatever it is that is recuperative for you. As you pamper yourself, take time to develop your inner ear and listen to your body’s whispers. Feed those little impulses to help them grow.

Mentally, nurture positive anticipation of sexual times with your husband. In the middle of your busy day, take a few minutes to think about a hug or a kiss from him. Make sure to resolve conflicts that interfere with your desire to connect sexually, and take note of what helps you feel loved, close, and connected. Being in that closely connected state will enhance your sexual response.

Spiritually, watch that you don’t fall into the trap of believing that sex is a biblical duty rather than an expression of deep spiritual maturity and awareness. Since our sexuality is God’s design for us, as we grow spiritually, we have the potential to grow sexually. Hence, the more spiritual, the more sexual.[21] Go for it!

As you learn to listen to your body, your enjoyment of sex will grow. And you’ll be ready for the next step toward embracing your God-given sexuality in marriage—leading.