Now, before you get excited like bunnies in the springtime, I anticipate that you may be somewhat disappointed with what I have to say about sex as an act of love, especially if you are a man. I write this only because I have heard so many men ‘normalize’ their obsessions with masturbation, pornography, and frequent sex. Put it this way, if I had been educated on sex and marriage in my late teens and 20s as I am now, I probably would have had much more beautiful, meaningful sex than I had.
So, if you anticipate disappointment, you have all the more reason to read this.
We have likely heard that the joy from sex is a sacred gift of God, a gift given to humanity so that we can experience joy to the extent that God knows it is possible. It brings us closer to what heaven may be and feel like. It is a precious and sacred act of pure love – a love that can only be shown out of mutual respect for one another. It is not an obligatory ‘deed’ of a wife or husband. It was never meant to be experienced as a ‘means to an end.’ In other words, what might occur if one of the spouses feels objectified? It should never be acted out as an obligation. If that is true, the spouse who insinuates an obligation is a person who is ego-centric, selfish, and trapped in a desperate carnal attachment to an instinctual desire. It is the exact opposite of love. Men, keep in mind that your primal instinctual sexual desires do and will never permit you to see your wife as a fungible asset, to be interchanged for masturbation or porn.
Although it is suggested this sexual lust described above occurs more in men than women, the sexual desire for touch and sexual intimacy is not exclusive to men.
Women can express their disappointment towards their husbands similarly. For example, woman have complained that their husbands are not fulfilling their ‘anxious attachment’ needs. This overt female expression may give their husbands an obligatory feeling, which is not true love and, therefore, if fulfilled, absence of purity of heart.
As I suggested earlier, I missed the memo on the meaning of sex having been brought up Roman Catholic. I fell short of the true meaning of sexual acts, how, when, why, and why not to partake.
There is so much to say on this topic, but allow me to conclude by mentioning one sentence within the Bible that makes most women cringe and ‘religious’ men smile. That is “ Ephesians 5:22: “Wives, be subject to your husbands.” I could list a handful of other bits of scripture that would make many women feel entirely uncomfortable, disrespected, and dehumanized. However, just like one cannot pull one line out of a great novel and expect all to understand the story, you cannot pull one line out of text from St. Paul’s writings and expect it to make sense to you. True love is shown in the absence of lust. True love is respectful, conscious, and most importantly, humanizing. It is an act shown in a mutual giving of oneself; that holds one another in the highest regard and esteem.
To love is to will the good of the other. In mutual sex, you are giving yourself to your spouse in a beautiful act of serving the other. This is oppugnant of objectifying your body for your partner’s selfish needs.
Once you truly understand the nature of sex and why God graced you with this state of being, you will never need to see a therapist, enter an ‘erotic’ store, or open a pornographic site. We are not animals. We were blessed with a conscience – which some call spirit. Think about this in a deep and meaningful way.