CHAPTER 4
YOUR RIGHTS: ARE HERS YOURS?
SOME MEN THINK THAT when they marry, their wives’ bodies become theirs to possess. Here’s an extreme example from a Los Angeles Times article:
When Ramiro Espinosa used a butter knife to unlock the door to his wife’s attic bedroom two years ago and then demanded sex from her, he figured he had the Catholic Church on his side.
But when he tried to use that as a defense last week against charges of attempted rape and spousal abuse, it didn’t quite work. Catholic officials said he was wrong and a judge sentenced him to a year in County Jail. . . .
“People have been dragging religion into the bedroom for eons,” say sexual therapists Clifford and Joyce Penner, who are sometimes known as “the Christian Masters and Johnson.”
In the New Testament, the debate usually centers around a passage in the apostle Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians:
“The husband and wife should fulfill their conjugal obligations toward each other. A wife’s body does not belong to her alone, but also to her husband, and the husband’s body to his wife. Do not deprive one another.”[7]
Give Her Yours; She Gives You Hers
Those Scripture verses are instructions for living, to be personally applied. They’re not to be used as justifications for judging or demanding. Some men use 1 Corinthians 7:3-5 to insist on their sexual rights—or instill guilt in their wives for not fulfilling their “wifely Christian duty.”
Here’s what the passage actually says:
The husband must fulfill his duty to his wife, and likewise also the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; and likewise also the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Stop depriving one another, except by agreement for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer, and come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.
That’s a guide for what you can do to make your sexual relationship better, not ammunition for a battle over what God wants your spouse to do.
The best way to sexual fulfillment is to realize that your body isn’t just yours; it’s also your wife’s. Don’t withhold yourselves; give yourselves freely to each other as Christ gave Himself for the church, without any demand that we respond to His gift.
Your Guide to Great Sex
How can you love your wife as Christ loved the church? It sounds impossible. But the apostle Paul has these words of encouragement:
Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
PHILIPPIANS 3:12-14
You can’t perfectly love your wife as Christ loved the church. But the goal gives you a standard to work toward.
Servant Headship
You’re the head of your wife, as Christ is the head of the church. This concept of headship is laid out in Ephesians 5:22-27:
Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.
Servant leadership includes characteristics Christ modeled:
- He was ready to serve.
- He didn’t shy away from difficult challenges.
- He gave up His rights for us.
Relinquish Your Rights
You have a right to sexual fulfillment with your wife; you’re also commanded to love your wife as Christ loved the church. Christ’s right was to remain with God the Father; He gave up that right for a time because of His love for the church:
Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; 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, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
PHILIPPIANS 2:3-8
Sometimes you may have to give up your right to sexual fulfillment in order to love your wife as Christ loved the church. Consider George Gilder’s observation in Men and Marriage:
It is men who make the major sacrifice. The man renounces his dream of short-term sexual freedom and self-fulfillment—his male sexuality and self-expression—in order to serve a woman and family for a lifetime. It is a traumatic act of giving up his most profound yearning, his bent for the hunt and the chase, the motorbike and the open road, . . . and immediate excitements. . . . This male sacrifice . . . is essential to civilization.[8]
It sounds like a touch of what Christ did for humankind.
Looking Out for Her Interests
To love your wife as Christ loved the church, you’re to regard her as more important than you are; you’re to consider her sexual needs more important than yours.
The rest of the Ephesians 5 passage is a good reminder:
So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, because we are members of His body. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church. Nevertheless let each individual among you also love his own wife even as himself; and let the wife see to it that she respect her husband.
EPHESIANS 5:28-33
So when you tell your wife you’d like to have sex and she’d rather sit and talk and cuddle, what do you do?
As the last chapter suggested, when you go her way, you bring out the best of her sexuality. So you talk and cuddle! But you can’t go into the talking and cuddling with the selfish expectation that you’ll get what you want. It won’t work.
When you truly relinquish your wants, your deeper needs are met. Christ did not empty Himself and die on the cross so that He’d be exalted, but that’s what happened:
God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth.
PHILIPPIANS 2:9-10, NKJV
When you get the focus off what you so desperately want, when you pay more attention to your wife’s needs, sexual fulfillment will result.
Prepare Yourself for Her
Being a Christlike husband means acting the way that Christ, the Bridegroom, does with the church, His bride. When the Bible talks about Christ coming for His bride (Revelation 21-22), it describes Him arriving in all His glory with armies in white robes. You probably won’t approach your wife that way (though it could add humor to a tense situation). Still, preparing yourself for her can reflect loving her as Christ loves the church.
Here are three practical ways to get ready:
1. Prepare your body. During a sexual experience, you and your wife share your bodies most intimately. Coming to sex with a well-groomed body demonstrates your care and invites a positive response.
We recommend showering before sex, though not because we believe the genitals are a dirty part of the body; they aren’t. Having a clean body means getting rid of body odor and sweat and making sure you smell good and feel nice to be touched anywhere. Showering or bathing together can be a way to feel closer to each other as you begin to share your bodies.
Brushing your teeth and shaving before sex make kissing more pleasant. Bad breath is often reported by one spouse as the reason the couple has stopped kissing passionately—yet that spouse may never have told the other that halitosis was the problem. Since passionate kissing is a key to a vital sex life, spouses need to be honest with each other about their breath.
2. Prepare your mind. The brain is often referred to as the primary sexual organ, controlling response, attitudes, and feelings. Your mind-set will affect every sexual interaction, and each time will be different. What happened during the hours before, how you’re feeling, and what you think of the temperature and the look of the room will shape your time together.
Consider what you’re bringing to the marital bed and how that might add to or distract from your time with your wife. Picture how you’d like to be with her. Think through where she may be coming from. Take time to talk about where each of you is mentally, and what each would like.
3. Prepare your spirit. Having sex is becoming one—not just physically and emotionally but also spiritually. Take time to clear barriers in your relationship with God and feel replenished. You’ll be better able to give yourself to your wife and to accept and enjoy what she gives you.
You may find that beginning with a spiritual connection enhances the depth of your sexual bond. Try taking time to read a Bible passage and pray together. Thank God for your sexual experience, and ask Him for all the joy and delight He intends for the two of you as you become one.
Give More
Christ gave Himself for the church. Giving shouldn’t be done in order to get, but it’s usually rewarding.
That’s certainly true in the sexual realm. Not only can you learn to receive pleasure from the giving itself, but giving to your wife—serving her and caring about her—will warm her to give herself to you. Just as demand stifles, giving energizes.
Enjoy your rights and responsibilities in your sexual relationship. Learn to freely give her your body without demand for your response or hers. As you give without expectation, you’ll get.
I am my beloved’s,
And his desire is for me.
Come, my beloved, let us go out into the country,
Let us spend the night in the villages.
Let us rise early and go to the vineyards;
Let us see whether the vine has budded
And its blossoms have opened,
And whether the pomegranates have bloomed.
There I will give you my love.
SONG OF SOLOMON 7:10-12