It is in the sexual experience that we have the possibility of reaching the highest peaks of ecstasy. Because of the powerful potential of sex, the wedding night is an anniversary event, the significant turning point in every couple’s relationship. You now are each other’s. You have a whole life of togetherness to look forward to. What happens between the two of you that night will be imprinted on your memory forever. In those moments all by yourselves, after the many days of preparation and anticipation, you are free to abandon all previous restrictions. You will no longer have to leave each other and go to your separate living places. You can relinquish all physical boundaries. However the two of you have functioned sexually thus far, this is a first!
What can you do to make your wedding night a special time that leaves you with warm, wonderful feelings? The two of you bring to this night your own unique needs and desires. Your wedding, the reception, the travel to where you will be staying, and the actual setting of that first night will also affect your time together. Whatever your specific circumstances are, we believe there are some basic criteria to a “successful” wedding night for every bridal couple. We’ll share those suggestions in this chapter.
REALISTIC EXPECTATIONS
The planning you’ve done and the discussions you’ve had regarding your first time together as a married couple—when it is time to consummate your marriage—will help you set clear expectations. Those realistic discussions are key to your wedding night.
Timing
Allow plenty of time. We recommend you allow at least twelve hours between arrival at the hotel and your departure. The ideal would be between twelve and eighteen hours.
Feelings
Expect a wide range of possible feelings. You may be excited to be alone together, or you may be sad because you are leaving your home and family. You may be eager to enjoy each other’s body sexually and may have no sense of reservation about sharing yourself completely and openly, or you may be hesitant and fearful. You may be energized, or you may be exhausted. You may feel like being tender and close, or you may feel intensely erotic. There is no ideal; the only “requirement” is that the two of you let each other know what you feel and accept each other’s needs for that night. Success means you connect and enjoy where you are rather than try to measure up to some false expectation of how you should feel the first night.
Preparation
Allow for bodily preparation. If it has been a long time since you showered, shaved, and brushed your teeth, taking time to freshen your bodies for your time together will refresh you and increase your desirability to your spouse. Prepare any contraceptive measures you plan to use. Make sure you have all the necessary supplies and are very familiar with their use.
Connection
Allow for emotional and spiritual connection. You may want to talk through the details of the wedding. Perhaps taking some time to reflect on Scripture passages that you or someone else chose for your wedding ceremony will be a time of inviting God into your marriage—whatever works for you. Joyce read our Scripture passage out loud and we prayed together on the way to the hotel, so as not to take time once we got there! Be sure you are connected emotionally and spiritually before proceeding sexually.
Sexual Activity
Allow for pleasure without any goal-oriented demands. Remember lovemaking is just that. It is a time of delighting in your bodies without any need for arousal, orgasm, or intercourse. You may want to prepare your bodies and then just enjoy falling asleep in each other’s arms. You may enjoy a time of passionate kissing and fondling and then fall asleep and continue later that night or in the morning when you wake up. Or you may enjoy the pleasure of each other’s body and a full sexual experience. Before you move ahead, take plenty of time to enjoy the type of physical connection you engaged in before marriage.
What is most important is that you don’t go further than both of you desire. Let the most tired, conservative, or hesitant one set the pace and the boundaries. One spouse’s pushing for more than the other desires will be remembered negatively for years to come. The consequences are not worth getting what you want at that moment! Limit sexual activity the first night to what both of you would freely desire.
Success
Define success for your first night so that there is no way you can fail. If your only expectation for your wedding night is that you both enjoy being together without any demands to do more than the most hesitant of you desires, then you will surely succeed and have no regrets. Many first nights are made less than ideal by comparison with some external standard, but if you don’t set such a standard, your wedding night can be ideal for you.
Expect to feel many emotions as you experience the realities of fatigue, adjustment to each other, being newly married, the newness of your setting, and for some, the “firsts” of your sexual activity. Recognize that you have the honeymoon and many years following it to get to know each other totally. You will grow in your sexual enjoyment as you become more comfortable communicating clearly exactly what touch and sexual activities you find most exciting.
THE SEXUAL EXPERIENCE
It is not important whether you consummate your marriage (have your first married sexual intercourse) on the wedding night, the next day, or later during your honeymoon. It is important that you do not avoid each other. After a while, if you have not had sex and one of you is getting concerned about that, call time-out. Find out what is going on and how you might help.
Whenever you have sex for the first time after your wedding, go slowly! So many times, couples who have waited for marriage to have sexual intercourse are so eager (just as we were) that they bypass all the wonderful caressing, kissing, and fondling that were such a vital part of their physical interaction before. Now that they can do the “real thing,” couples often forget about caressing, or they think the caressing and kissing are not necessary. But that is what made their bodies so hungry for the real thing; when they skip all that intense connecting, the sexual experience can be very quick and leave both feeling disappointed.
We recommend that you spend at least as much time enjoying the pleasure of each other’s body as you would have on any date or time together before marriage. You might begin with your clothes on. As arousal and desire for more builds, gradually take off each other’s clothes. Again, let the more hesitant one lead.
We often recommend that married couples begin their sexual times by bathing or showering together. That is a way to relax, connect, and prepare your bodies for each other. If this idea sounds good to both of you, try it.
We would recommend playful genital touching under the water and plenty of time before and/or after to really be passionate with each other before pursuing direct, erotic stimulation. In or out of the bath, touch, talk, kiss, and explore every inch of one another’s body to the degree that you both feel free to do that. Soak in the good feelings of being touched and touching. Have fun as you do. Nibble on each other. Let each other know how much you enjoy the other. As you enjoy yourselves, if anything you do is negative for the other, positively invite a different touch or activity. For example, if a touch is too light and ticklish, ask for a heavier touch. Or if kissing gets too intense or forceful, invite softer lips.
As you become ready for direct genital stimulation, invite that by guiding your partner’s hand to your genitals or rubbing your genitals against your partner’s body. Explore and learn together what feels good. Do not expect that you will automatically know how to touch each other in the way that feels best. Accept your spouse’s guidance as a loving desire to enhance the experience for both of you and take away demand for you to automatically know what feels right to him or her.
Allow the arousal to build in waves, enjoying the genital stimulation and then moving to other parts of the body. You want to keep each other hungry for more touch, not saturated so that you get irritated with the stimulation. This is particularly true for women. Direct clitoral stimulation is often more irritating than it is arousing. Most women prefer a flat hand over the clitoral area or fingers on either side of the clitoris to stroke the shaft rather than the tip of the clitoris. Direct stimulation can quickly, with a slight shift in its intensity or location, change from causing peak arousal to instant pain. That is why it is so important for you, the woman, to signal your husband to let him know what you desire—because there is no other way he can know what you need and know when the stimulation gets too intense. You, the man, would do better to vary the stimulation automatically and keep your wife wanting more. If you, as the woman, want to be stimulated to orgasm before entry and that is not a demand for performance but comes from the level of your arousal, go for it!
Entry should be attempted only at the woman’s invitation. It is her body that is being entered; therefore, she should guide the penis into her vagina. When you, the woman, feel ready to allow entry, let your husband know that you desire him. It might be easiest for you to get on top of him while he is on his back. He or you can apply lubricant to his penis and separate your labia (lips) and apply lubricant to the opening of your vagina. Use his penis as a paintbrush over the opening of your vagina and on your clitoris. Poke the penis into your vagina just a little. Tighten and relax your PC muscle as you do. Intentionally relax your vaginal muscle as you guide his penis in. You may need to push against his penis to push through your hymen and vaginal muscle.
If you experience resistance, it is usually because the labia are stuck together, you’re pushing at the wrong place (that is, you are not quite at the opening or do not have the penis at quite the right angle to enter the vagina), your hymen is a little tough to break, or your vaginal muscle is not relaxed. The latter is the most likely. Remember you are both new at this; just enjoy the process of trying. Play around with different positions if one doesn’t work. Stretch or dilate the vagina and try again. Get a hand mirror and together try to figure out what is happening. Do not keep trying until you are frustrated. Stop while the attempts are fun, get some sleep, and pursue pleasure again when you have time to do so leisurely and are not tired. Don’t rush to try entry, but continue to pleasure one another. Play with attempts at entry in the process of enjoying each other. If frustration ensues, seek help.
When the penis actually enters the vagina, you may want to stop, withdraw, celebrate, and try entry again later. Or you may just lie quietly together and enjoy the closeness of this special moment. Then gradually build rhythmic thrusting. Rest every now and then to slow down the process and enjoy every sensation. Engage in kissing, breast stimulation, and clitoral stimulation while you are resting together. When you both decide you are ready to thrust to ejaculation, build the frequency and intensity of the thrusting gradually. Think of trying to enjoy every moment and make it last as long as possible, like licking your favorite ice-cream cone. Resist the urge to thrust or to pursue ejaculation. That will end your time quickly and may be disappointing. If that should happen by mistake, don’t get down on yourselves. You have years to learn to extend intercourse. Savor the good feelings of being together and stay connected. If you, the woman, need more stimulation, ask for that. The husband can also offer it.
Spend time talking and cuddling when you finish. Affirm each other. Let each other know what you enjoyed. Share fantasies of other possibilities for sexual play if those ideas don’t intimidate. Have tissue, a washcloth, a small towel, or some type of wipes at the bedside to catch the seminal fluid and vaginal secretions after sex. There will be a bit of a mess, but the woman can easily handle that by putting tissue or a washcloth between her legs to catch the secretions as they seep out of her vagina. The man can wipe off his penis as necessary.
It would be quite common, if this is your first sexual experience and you have not been bringing yourselves or each other to orgasm, for the woman not to be orgasmic. When we got married, we didn’t really even understand about orgasm so Joyce probably wasn’t orgasmic at first, but it wasn’t an issue for us. We don’t even know whether she was or wasn’t. We both loved our times together and remember them, including the wedding night, with great fondness. Now those initial experiences would seem disappointing for us, but they were not disappointing then! And that is appropriate. Our accurate knowledge, lack of unrealistic TV and movie models, and our naïveté prevented us from having any real goals. That was a perfect start for our sexual life together. You, too, need not be disappointed if the orgasmic reflex doesn’t happen for you initially. If you are allowing arousal, enjoy that and let it build and extend. Eventually, the reflex of orgasm is likely to get triggered, especially if you are active and uninhibited. If you feel frustrated or feel like crying because you have not had release, recognize that as one way your body may be letting down and releasing the tension buildup of the sexual arousal in your body. Hold each other and share the crying. Do not take it as a sign of failure and avoid each other. Bring that release into your connected feelings.
How important is it for both of us to have clean hands and bodies to protect the other from developing irritations or infections?
It is very important to be clean. Nails should be filed and smooth, hands should be freshly washed, teeth should be brushed and flossed, and genitals should be clean. The hands and genitals are especially important—the hands because they fondle the genital openings, which are a clean part of the body that become infected when exposed to germs, and the genitals because they can easily become contaminated by feces from the rectum. When freshly washed and free of infection, the genitals are clean.
How does a woman stimulate a man so he is prepared for entry by her invitation?
The woman’s invitation for entry should not be a demand that the man must be ready at that moment. It just means that whenever he is ready, she is. Often, if the woman is ready, her arousal will have gotten the man eager too. The woman participates in preparing the man for entry, not only by her own involvement and responsiveness, but also by enjoying her husband’s genitals. Stroking the shaft of the penis, in addition to enjoying his entire body, will usually get a man ready for entry.
Do most women experience bleeding and pain when the hymen breaks during the first entry?
The response can range from absolutely no pain and no bleeding to such severe pain that entry is impossible and there is noticeable bleeding. The last two possibilities are rare. When the vaginal opening has been stretched and a lubricant is used, and when the women guides the penis in at her own pace, there is often no bleeding and only a momentary “Ouch!”
What can I do to reduce my fear of the pain of intercourse? I am a virgin and I am dreading the wedding night.
Unfortunately, your fear is likely to cause pain unless you work past it. The fear will not go away by ignoring it. Talk about it, and prepare, prepare, prepare! Stretch your vaginal opening at least twenty minutes daily. Get a gynecological examination, and ask your physician for dilators. Learn to control your PC muscle so you can voluntarily relax it. Learn visualization and relaxation techniques. Every day when you stretch your vagina, picture your first sexual intercourse. Note when your fear sets in. Replace the fear with positive thoughts and feelings. Imagine the penis in your vagina feeling like a warm, soft, moist, loving sensation. Take charge of when and how entry happens. Use lots of lubricant. Let your husband know as soon as you feel afraid. Stop pursuing entry at that point and just hold and affirm one another, then try again. Often anticipation is the biggest hurdle. Once you actually pursue entry, the fears may dissipate. If you cannot get beyond your fear, get help from a sexual therapist.
What if my wife is initially aroused and then loses lubrication before entry?
This is very common. That is why we recommend using a lubricant every time until you notice you have forgotten to use it. Lubrication occurs within ten to twenty seconds of any genital stimulation. During prolonged love play, lubrication is likely to dry.
Must a woman have an orgasm every time?
Some women feel a need for an orgasm every time; others do not. There is no right or wrong. The woman’s enjoyment of the sexual experience may have nothing to do with having an orgasm. For her it may be the closeness and connection that is most satisfying. This varies greatly from woman to woman. A successful sexual experience is not dependent upon arousal, orgasm, ejaculation, or intercourse.
Isn’t it uncomfortable for the woman to lead?
It depends on how she leads. If she is controlling, demeaning, or demanding, it is very uncomfortable. If she sets the pace by being open about what she is feeling and desiring and her husband sensitively responds to her, it can be wonderful for both. The woman is more variable and complex in her need for emotional readiness, her physical responsiveness, and her sexual desires than the man is. Because of this, it usually works best if the man delights in the woman but lets her set the pace.
If a woman is experienced and her husband is not, it will be very important for her to lead until they are equally comfortable with the sexual activity.
It seems like after waiting so long for sex, we’re going to want to go right to sexual intercourse on our wedding night. Is it detrimental to go right from foreplay to intercourse without getting acquainted with each other’s genitals?
Getting acquainted with each other’s genitals, even though it seems like that would be beneficial to do before pursuing sexual intercourse, is likely to feel rather clinical and exposing for a newly married couple. Even couples who have been married for years sometimes have difficulty being that vulnerable with each other. We don’t think that would be a necessary step to consummating your marriage. It is natural on the wedding night to just let down all restrictions and go for it. Do be sure to include the conditions described previously for a “successful” wedding-night experience so you don’t move too quickly from foreplay to intercourse and feel let down.