A fulfilling married sexual life is in part dependent on its start. Many couples have difficulty transferring their premarital passion into their marriages because they have false expectations about married sex, they lack accurate information, and they are unable to communicate openly about themselves and what each envisions as a healthy, fulfilling married sex life. Many of the couples who come to us for sexual therapy say their sexual problem started on their honeymoon or shortly thereafter. Often the pain and disappointment could have been avoided if someone had talked with them openly about sex and taken the time to guide them through a process of discussing and negotiating their expectations for their sexual relationship in marriage. That is what we hope to do for you in this chapter. Have fun as you read and talk through your expectations.
WHAT TURNS YOU ON?
A colleague of ours once said, “If you want to turn on a woman, talk to her. If you want to turn on a man, stroke him.” Even though that is a big generalization, there is some truth in our friend’s observation of the difference between men and women sexually. What is true for you?
Take turns finishing each of the following statements.
YOU AND ME
My first impression of you was _______________________.
What I like about you is ____________________________.
My general image of you is __________________________.
What puzzles me about you is ________________________.
My most frequent daydreams about you are _____________.
I love it when you _________________________________.
I feel uncomfortable with you when ___________________.
When I am upset with you, I ________________________.
When you are upset with me, I _______________________.
I worry about you most when ________________________.
Our physical involvement makes me feel ________________.
The best feeling in any physical, sexual contact is _________.
I feel sexual sensations when _________________________.
When I fantasize about sex, I picture ___________________.
What turns me on is _______________________________.
The surest turnoff for me is __________________________.
What I think you need to know about me is _____________.
When I imagine having sex with you, I feel ______________.
When I think of our future, I _________________________.
What works for you sexually will continue to change, grow, and develop throughout your marriage. Continue talking about your sexual feelings, needs, and desires. Plan into your marriage a yearly review of this “What Turns You On?” section.
YOUR SEXUAL PATTERNS
To whatever degree you are physical with each other, you will have established certain patterns. Talk about those patterns with one another.
Sexual Desire
Becoming one sexually begins with sexual desire. All of us are created with that urge.
• How often do you feel the urge to be touched and to be close or for sexual arousal and release?
• What stimulates those urges in you?
• How do you handle those urges?
• What changes have you noticed in your sexual desire since you started dating?
Initiation
Initiation is acting upon your desire.
• How do you handle your desire (e.g., ignore it, substitute physical exercise, call a friend, pray, masturbate, or express it with each other)?
• If you act on the desire with each other, who initiates that action?
• How do you express that desire to each other?
• Are you happy with how that happens?
• Is it mutual?
• What about your response to your sexual desire would you like to change?
• What about your partner’s response to his/her sexual desire would you like to change?
Pleasure
Pleasure is the process of enjoying one another. To what degree have the two of you been or are you currently physically involved with each other? Circle any behaviors on the list below.
Hand-holding
Hugging
Polite kissing
Total-mouth kissing
Intense, passionate kissing
Full-body rubbing with clothes on
Breast stimulation over clothes
Genital stimulation over clothes
Breast stimulation under clothes
Genital stimulation under clothes
Full-body pleasuring, no clothes
Oral-genital stimulation
Total sexual experience, except entry
Total sexual experience, including entry but without orgasm while inside
Total sexual experience, including entry and thrusting to ejaculation
• Does your involvement agree or disagree with your beliefs?
• If it agrees, is that mutual?
• If it disagrees or is not mutual, how might you change or get control of your sexual activity without shutting down your desires for one another? List behavioral changes that you could make. (For example, plan your times alone so that you could be interrupted and set clearly agreed-upon boundaries.)
• Do you experience discomfort, guilt, or inhibitions when you are engaged in physical touching with each other?
• If so, discuss how you might manage your times together to reduce or eliminate any negatives connected with your physical interaction.
• What kind of touching is most pleasurable to you?
• Are you aware of experiencing any arousal?
• Are you aware of any restrictions you have on allowing yourself sexual pleasure other than the decisions you have made to limit your sexual involvement before marriage?
• What events, feelings, or actions have contributed to your times of greatest pleasure without violation of your boundaries?
Letting Go
Letting go is the releasing of sexual intensity.
• Are you a person who needs control in your life, or are you able to let go and take risks?
• Have you ever experienced sexual release?
• If so, through what forms of stimulation?
• If not, has that been by decision or because of inhibition?
• What expectations do you have for sexual release and satisfaction in marriage?
Affirmation
• What do you feel after a time of being close physically?
• What do you need from your partner at that time?
• How might you express your affirmation of your partner?
• What affirmation would you expect as part of a total sexual experience once you are married?
YOUR BODIES
A woman who attended one of our premarital classes said, “I’ve never really liked my body. How do I bring this up to my fiancé before the honeymoon? I’d like to talk about it, but I don’t know how.”
How you feel about your body will affect how openly you will be able to share yourself, how freely you will be able to soak in the pleasure of your spouse’s touch, and how enthusiastically you will go after sexual pleasure for yourself. If you do not feel good about yourself, you will have a hard time giving to or caring for someone else.
Your body image is your attitude about your body, especially your bodily appearance. Everyone would like to have that “perfect” figure or physique. Women are often concerned that their breasts are too big, too small, too flabby, too far apart, or too whatever. Men are concerned with the size of their penises, worrying that a smaller penis means they are less of a man and thus less likely to be able to satisfy a woman. The truth is that, despite all the Internet ads, the size of breasts or penises is unrelated to sexual pleasure or satisfaction.
Some people are generally dissatisfied with their appearance; others are unhappy with their weight. Still others struggle with how they are proportioned.
If you are fairly accepting of your body and if your view of your body matches your ideal, you have a good body image. Body-image problems occur when there is a large gap between how you view your body and what you see as ideal. If the way you would like to look is different from the way you think you do look, you will have difficulty accepting yourself and will probably have difficulty being free with your body sexually. If that is the case, what can you do to bridge the gap? How can you bring your view of yourself closer to your ideal?
The first step toward body-image enhancement is to examine your view of yourself. Is how you see yourself consistent with how others see you? When you talked about your body with your partner, did his or her feedback affirm your view of yourself? If not, what has contributed to your inability to accept and appreciate your body the way it is? Past sexual abuse, childhood physical abuse, a painful illness, and lack of warm touch and holding during infancy all contribute to a poor body image. Negative verbal messages about your body from peers, parents, or other respected adults may have contributed to a poor body image. You may need your spouse’s ongoing affirmation, both verbally and through touching, to mend those past hurts. You might spend some time in front of a mirror each day, thanking God for having designed you the way He did.
The second step in bringing your own body view closer to that of your ideal is to determine ways you can change your body. There are many different ways this can be done. Losing or gaining weight and exercising are the most commonly pursued options. Women may also use makeup and different hairstyles; men may choose to shave or not shave and vary their haircut. Both partners can vary their choice of clothing, straighten or correct faulty teeth, or improve their posture; ultimately even plastic surgery is an option.
The third and final suggestion for bringing your ideal closer to your real view of yourself is to reevaluate your ideal. What are you measuring yourself against? Who are your models? Are you looking at the extremes held up by the media? How do these “ideal” images compare with the significant and valued people in your life? If your expectations are so far out of reach that you will always feel dissatisfied, we recommend the following process: Commit yourself to one other person who will hold you accountable to get rid of the current ideals and start selecting more realistic body models. If your new models are people with whom you can talk freely, ask them how they achieved their physical condition.
The struggle to feel good about your body is a process of becoming open with yourself and your partner. This includes honesty concerning your feelings about yourself, feeling comfortable being in the nude, caring for your body, and allowing yourself to receive validation through touch and verbal feedback from others in your world. A sense of comfort with and acceptance of your body will contribute to freedom and pleasure in your sexual experiences. Compare your views of yourselves with each other.
YOUR EXPECTATIONS
Take time to fantasize together about your ideal sexual experience in marriage. Even though you may not have thought about it, you probably have a picture of your ideal sexual experience.
What do you envision happening between the two of you and inside each of you during deeply satisfying lovemaking? When do you expect to have your first sexual time together on your honeymoon? When and where will it happen? Who will initiate? Do you imagine that experience will lead to intercourse? How often do you expect to have sexual times on your honeymoon? What about after the honeymoon? What percentage of those sexual times together will lead to intercourse? What parts of your current physical involvement would you like to continue after marriage? Which ones would you hope to change?
What expectations do you have of each other, generally and sexually? Take time to list ten expectations you have for your spouse. Then, across from each expectation, identify how you would be affected if your spouse did not fulfill these expectations. Share these with each other and talk about creative ways to meet your expectations without putting negative demands or pressure on either of you. Demands stifle; giving softens. Practice giving to each other without demand.
YOUR SEXUAL PAST
The two of you bring to your sexual relationship unique past experiences. Your families will have modeled and communicated different views of sexuality. Understanding those differences and your uniqueness will be essential to knowing each other sexually. You may have sexual secrets that seem very risky to share. You may still suffer the consequences of past hurts. It is completely understandable that you might feel hesitant to talk about your sexual past. You may worry about the effect your revelations will have on your partner. That is a realistic concern. In fact, you may want to discuss your decision with a counselor before you take that step.
YOUR DIFFERENCES
Although the wife wants to be sexually satisfied by her husband, this desire is awakened in her long after she has discovered that she loves him enough to die for him, while a man on the other hand desires to possess a woman physically long before he cares sufficiently to raise his little finger for her. That the love of a woman normally comes from the soul to the senses . . . forms one of the chief differences between the two, and often leads to the greatest misunderstanding.1
In our culture, emotional intimacy seems to be something women need much more than men. Women tend to feel the desire for sex when they feel connected with their husbands, while men tend to feel connected as the result of a positive sexual experience. The most common stereotypes in our culture are that men “play” at love to get sex and women “play” at sex to get love. “Briefly stated, love is linked to self-esteem in women. For a man, romantic experiences with his wife are warm and enjoyable and memorable—but not necessary. For a woman, they are her lifeblood. Her confidence, her sexual response, and her zest for living are often directly related to those tender moments when she feels deeply loved and appreciated by her man.”2
You may or may not relate to these findings that describe men and women. What is important is that the two of you plan for your differences and understand some common issues that are gender unique. Some differences between men and women that affect sexual relationships are reported to us regularly. Which of the differences on the following list are true for you? You may have additional differences to add to the list.
Male/Female Differences
| He likes the room cold. | She likes the room hot. |
| He is result oriented. | She is process oriented. |
| He wants to solve her problem. | She wants him to listen to |
| her problem. | |
| He wants sex. | She wants romance. |
| He wants to engage in activities. | She wants to talk. |
| He likes intense kissing. | She likes pliable kisses. |
| Sexually, he goes for more. | Sexually, less makes her |
| hungry for more. |
A great resource for dealing with male/female differences is John Gray’s book Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus.3
Knowing what is a turn-on for you and your partner, being clear about each of your visions of a positive sexual encounter, and understanding, accepting, and adapting to your male/female differences are positive ways you can validate each other’s expectations for your married sex life. The intimacy that will develop between the two of you as you pursue this process of determining and maintaining clear expectations will be a key to a great sex life.
Why should I have to learn about sex?
Can’t I just do what comes naturally?
If we lived in a primitive society and started experimenting sexually from the time we felt any sexual awareness, we might know what to do naturally. In primitive societies we might also be “initiated” by an older person of the opposite sex. Because of our Christian and moral values, however, it is inappropriate that we practice such experimenting and initiation rituals. Nor do we watch others have intercourse unless we watch distorted sexual encounters on television and in movies.
Thus, the only way you can learn how to enjoy a satisfying sexual relationship in marriage is to educate yourselves, teach each other, and learn with each other. Whether or not your childhood or dating experiences have prepared you to easily find sexual pleasure and satisfaction, you can learn to be a good lover!
I’ve never had sex before, and I’m afraid my wife is going to be disappointed with my lack of knowledge.
Talk about your concern and learn together. Just as you don’t get a quality education by reading the first page of several different books, you do not become a competent lover by repeating the same inadequate experiences over and over. You become a competent lover by listening to each other’s guidance and learning through years of intimate sharing with the same person. The greatest sexual fulfillment comes for those who learn and grow throughout a lifetime commitment to each other.
In movies and TV men are portrayed as ready, willing, and assertive, and women are passive and available. Is there any truth to this?
This myth produces incredible demand! It demands that the husband behave as though he is interested even when he is not. It demands that the wife be responsive to her husband’s arousal even when she is not interested. Even though both can decide to participate in a sexual time together when one is feeling the desire and the other is not, it should not be by demand. Sex should always be a choice. Demand is a killer to a healthy, long-term sexual relationship.
While there are typical gender differences between men and women, women can learn to be assertive and men can learn to be sensitive. Men do tend to be more competitive, assertive, and rational, and are often not as aware of their feelings as women are. Women tend to be more gentle, nurturing, intuitive, emotionally responsive, and relationally oriented. All men and all women exhibit some portion of all of these qualities. Breaking away from these traditional role expectations is often beneficial to a couple’s relationship.
If you develop your potential in the areas of expression that are not as natural for you, your sexual life will be enhanced. As men learn to know, share, and be sensitive to feelings, and as women become more assertive in expressing their sexual desires, needs, and wishes, their capacity for ecstasy is heightened.
Real men truly become “real men” as they discover and develop their romantic and intimacy capabilities. Sensitivity is a positive male attribute!