A Single Reader Asks: Why Do Married Women Have Such a Hard Time Enjoying Sex?

I get the sweetest letters from y'all. Some letters seeking advice. Some letters sharing their story of overcoming and then coming coming coming. (twinkly-eyed Mona Lisa smile) The letter I'm going to share with you today arrived in the form of a comment. The comment is still on the post she commented on. But there are so many posts. So many comments, that I wanted to bring this one up front and center. Good stuff, darlings. Enjoy.

I'm unmarried and still a virgin (in my 30's), so perhaps I shouldn't be reading this on some puritanical level, but, well, I did.

Anyway, maybe I'll understand more fully when my desires and imaginations give way to actual reality one day if God should give me a husband - in other words, I have to admit that any reaction I have to your writings is definitely not backed up by experience. But I just hafta wonder -

Why is it that marital sex is so often painted as a difficult thing for women to enter into or enjoy? Unmarried teenager girls often cannot contain desire and the sexual opportunities presented to them, and have sex often enough - they don't go dragging their feet to their teenage lovers' sexual advances. Why is it that christian married women so often present sex as something that takes so much work for them to want or to truly enjoy?

I am so eager for the day when a man might take me completely and utterly in love for one another before the Lord. Is it really so hard in actuality? Will I really have to work on it so much or won't it just be able to be something that we rush into with joy and longing naturally, easily, with innocence and overwhelming desire and excitement?



Dear Anonymous,
Sweetheart, there is no way for me to know exactly what your first time will be like. I wish for you with all of my heart that it is a passionate beautiful orgasmic soul-affirming experience.

In answer to your question, why do married women often find it so hard to enter into and enjoy married sex when unmarried teenage girls often cannot and do not contain themselves?

Well the first thing that comes to mind as a reason is married women have such a hard time letting themselves go and abandoning themselves to marital pleasures is that when they were teenage girls they could not and did not contain themselves. The mind is a harsh judge, and the mind/body connection is strong. So often even after a woman believes God forgives her for sex that was too soon, she has a very difficult time forgiving herself and this judge in her head keeps the party in her loins from throwing all the confetti they rightfully deserve while partying with her husband.

Shannon Ethridge made a beautiful illustration of this dynamic when she was on The Today Show. She said so many women internalize the message that bad girls do and nice girls don't. So (my paraphrase here) they get off on bad girl sex. When they put that wedding ring on their finger, it may take much longer than the 5 seconds to put the wedding ring on their finger to convince their mind and heart and body that good girls do, they do it often and they do it with great pleasure that uninhibited pleasure gives them a strong bond with their husband. That's the core message of my novels, that sex doesn't have to be bad to be good. Good sex can be verrrry verrrry good. ;)

Another factor, another potential obstacle to a married woman truly entering into sweet erotic abandon with her husband is messages of shame soaked into her body by other people in her life who treated her body with disrespect or outright abuse. I've been very upfront in my story (see My Story in sidebar) and in the first year of my blog that "my first sexual experience, hell, my first era of sexual experiences, were coerced, and of a very abusive nature". These wounds left shrapnel in my heart and in my mind and through the strong mind/body connection, even in my body. For a long time, places that my abusers touched me would sound off horrid memories of shame and disgust every time that part of my body was touched again. Even when touched by my loving husband. The body/mind connection is strong. And God designed our skin to have a direct hotline to our memory. With the intended purpose to be that we are strongly bonded to our husband by the myriad of pleasurable loving safe passionate GOOD feelings we experience every time that part of our body is touched. The icky sad difficult but not impossible thing is when that part of our body is touched by an abuser and the skin/bonding/memory system built into our heart and body is activated, what we body memory bond to is bad sex, bad feelings and an unhealthy person who had NO business doing what they just did to us. The body has to unlearn. The heart has to unlearn. The mind has to unlearn. But God's healing power is strong. His desire to heal us is unflagging. So we go to safe people, receive love and prayer and therapy and we unlearn the bad stuff and learn the good stuff. It takes time.

So dear one, I had a lot of bad stuff to unlearn. Of course, the wish from my deep heart for you and for every other woman is that you don't have such horrid messages to unlearn. That you can entrust your self to the care of God and entrust your body and heart to the loving tender erotic care of your husband, unleash your feminine force on him and together have the time of your lives! That's the idea, darling!

(big smile)SW

One more thing, as a 30 year old single lady you are most welcome here. My welcome message asks that those under 18 invite their mom to come enjoy my blog or come back when they are older. Hot married sex is worth waiting for, trust me! You are over 18 and desiring healthy sex. So darlin' you are welcome to hang out here and read. I'd love to be a part of your journey toward healthy hot sex with your husband. I'd be honored!

Sometimes our feelings lie to us

I have a skinned knee. It got banged up pretty bad when I took a spill last Friday. Torn ligaments on the right and skinned knee on the left.

I noticed something this morning and I believe it has a deeper meaning. My knee hurts. It hurts nearly all the time. At night, when I go to bed, just the touch of the sheets touching my knee is painful. And it has happened every dang night. And I found myself starting to think in a whiny tone, "Well daaaang it's never going to get any betterrrr. It still hurrrrrrrts!". Then I looked at my knee. This morning, I took a good look at it, and there is a ring of fresh new pink skin all the way around the scab. It IS getting better! Healing more by the second. Sometimes our feelings lie to us. Whether it's our sensation feelings or our emotion feelings, they don't always tell us the whole truth.

New Direction

Hey y'all. Remember when I said, "I wish there was a way for me to get paid to talk about love in all its forms, sex, marriage, healing, personal growth, and receiving all the joy our five senses have to offer." Well God is granting me the desire of my heart.

I'm gonna get to hang out with y'all a lot more often!
and I'm so happy about that!

Remember that husband I was giving some suggestions to when I got the g-spot giggles? Well, right after that, another TMB husband asked me, "are you going to be putting together a recommended toy list with best price links for us?"

and it hit me. Honest to God, I've been so busy with my current job that I forgot. I'm already a Liberator reseller. You know, I actually got the paperwork approved quite some time ago. I am a Liberator reseller. It's my heart to offer Liberator products at a discount with enough profit to make it worth my while. I've got the URL reserved, I just haven't spent the development time and money to do the site.

If y'all would join me in praying about this, it would really mean a lot to me. With my current job coming to an end, now might be the right time to bring the online store to life. I need wisdom and direction as I want to do what's right for my family. As far as I can tell, that means I continue to earn an income. It would mean a lot to me to earn that income by helping women and helping marriages.

Okay. That was Friday.

It's Monday afternoon, and I hardly know where to start, so I guess I'll start by saying Wow!

God was really busy this weekend.
So was I.
In less than an hour since I first posted this prayer need, I've received offers to help get the website started and orders for Liberator products before the first page of the website even goes live!

I remember from waaay back in the day when I did Henry Blackaby's Experiencing God Bible study, he said "pray, and then watch what God does." "God is doing a work and he invites us to join what He is already doing."

God is obviously doing a work healing women and awakening marriages and he is allowing me to tell my story and play a part.

(happy sigh) My God. {literally}

I'm continuing to work on the project management and writing the content for the new site www.sensuouswife.com. In the meantime, the site is forwarded to this blog. Can y'all please pray for a really good CPA who understands e-commerce? So far, everything y'all pray for, God has been serving up on a silver platter, so I'd be dumb not to ask for more!

Love,
SW

PS It means the world to me that I'll be able to work at home with the kids this summer. I'm so deeply grateful. Thank you all for your prayers and encouragement.

One more thing....
I'm still doing my old job for a while which means I'm working two jobs right now. Please pray for strength and protection and quality time with my family.

Window Shopping

You people are just...my readers are really wonderful.

Whoami has offered me these jumpstarter questions to get my mind turning in the right trajectory. I find them very energizing!

At some point, I may feel it appropriate to process this offline, but for now, I don't mind brainstorming here. I think it might be nurturing and supportive and good.

So here goes:

The first one is clarification- by new role do you mean at that company or a new role in life?
Neither one.
Since the division of the company that I work for is going away, so will I.
My roles in life will not change. I will still be God's beloved, Delighted Husband's friend and lover, Dear Children's Mom, my friends's friend and (somebody's) talented new teammate who does (?). Who that somebody is and what I will be collaborating on is yet to be defined. I find it very comforting to realize that my core defining roles will not change. I'm still defined by all the loving relationships in my life. I still have all the talents and skills and passions to bring to bear in my working life. More actually, after this gig. I've learned a lot and accomplished a lot here.

What I meant when I first posted "new role" was I believe my title and function will be different at my new career home. I don't want to go inhabit the same title and function at another organization. I want another title and function. I want another tribe actually.

How much does the family need the money you are earning now. Is this job or a similar paying one critical to the family finances.
We could live without my money but we'd really rather not. Delighted Husband is a wonderful provider and I am also a valued contributor.

If you could do anything you wanted to, and money wasn't an object, what would you do?
That's easy. I'd move my creative work from backstage to front-and-center. I'd have an agent actively shopping my books to publishing houses and I'd be spending 3 hours a day writing my books. I'd be spending several other hours a day working with a creative team building other deliverables like music and screenplays and video treatments. I'd have a balance of time with solitude to listen to my characters and write down what they say along with creative collaborative happy yak time with other artists and producers creating beautiful deliverables.

When you think of your options, what does each option mean to God, to others, and to you?
To God
Holistically, I think each option (without even listing them) shows a beautiful symbolic link between my heart and God's heart. That's a tall statement, so I'll tell you what I mean by that. When we take delight in the Lord, he gives us the desires of our heart. I believe that before he gives the desires to us, in the process of delighting in Him, our desires change. If I am so tuned into seeking and savoring the delight of God, then pretty much anything I desire is gonna be a good desire. If I am so bent on pleasing him and so keenly tuned into seeking his heart and offering him mine, then generally I'm not going to desire to run out and rob a bank. I trust that whatever creative longings rise up in my heart are good desires that are worth pursuing.
To Others
I believe my heart is good and that it has beauty that will bless other humans. I believe even when my heart goes off the rails and I sin, that my transparency in letting Himself heal and forgive me could also bless others. I've been very real here, very vulnerable and women's and men's hearts have been touched. You people have taught me a lot.
To Myself
This job change comes as not so much of a surprize. Once the initial shock wore off, I realized how very ready I have been for a change. Making some changes in the kind of billable work I do during the workday would mean putting myself in my native habitat full time instead of just every now and then.
Let me give you a visual.
I went to see Prince Caspian this weekend. At the end of the film, Peter Susan Edmund and Lucy are fully actively invested in their roles of kings and queens in Narnia. The going is tough, but they are in their element and that sense of being their true selves gives them the gumption to fight their battles and win. They're in their glory. In their element. Complete with comfortable beautiful royal clothes that fit them as well as their role does. And then, all the sudden they are yanked back to England and they find themselves in the middle of a noisy clangy bangy train station fully of pushypully meaningless busyness and a train taking them away to a soul-draining school they do not want to go to. The royal clothes are gone and they are once again in tight uncomfortable school uniforms and tight uncomfortable braids. In Narnia, they are their special true selves living out their calling. In England they are considered nothing special. It's not so much the tasks, it's the tasks in alignment with their true sense of identity.
You with me so far?
At the end of the film, when I saw the crestfallen looks on the character's faces, I started to weep silently. I wept for the entire screen credit music. I told Delighted Husband, "I feel like that every day. I feel like for an hour every day or so when I'm writing I get to live in Narnia and the other hours in my work day I am yanked back to England."
Spending my paid workday working on creative deliverables will mean I get to stay in Narnia all the time. Tough and beautiful days will come. But without the aching dissonance between who I really am and what I spend my day doing. That's what it would mean to me.

I'll stop there. This is a good place to stop for now. Love, SW

What have you done in the past that is in line with your passion that has worked?, that hasn't worked?

What do you want more of in life?
What do you want less of in life?

When God Closes a Door He Opens a Window

Julie Andrews as Maria Von Trapp said it best: When God closes a door, He opens a window.. Well God has closed a door on this phase of my career and I'm looking forward to seeing Him open a window. Maybe He will use you to give me a thought, an idea, a suggestion.

I've just found out that the corporate powers-that-be have decided to sell off the division I have worked so hard to build. I've more than quadrupled revenue since I took over 2 years ago. There is no role for me in this divestiture, so unless I want to spend my time rearranging chairs on a ship that's going down, it's time for me to go. I'm not being pushed out the door. I can drag out my exit if I want to. I don't want to. So I'm looking for doors and windows. And before I run out and wangle a similar job at a competitor, I want to stop, look and listen.

Is is time for a new location or is it time for a new role?

I think it's time for a new role.

I really like talkin' to all of you. And I really like all of you talkin' to me. I also really like you regulars who never post but read often. A welcoming smile to you, my returning guests in North Carolina, South Carolina and Ohio. I have no idea if it's just random or if there is one of you in each state who ran out and told all your friends. That whole idea makes me smile.

The sense of community in this blog and the act of sharing my experiences to benefit women and marriages has been really rewarding for me. I wish there was a way for me to get paid to talk about love in all its forms, sex, marriage, healing, personal growth, and receiving all the joy our five senses have to offer.

So, dear readers.
Any ideas?

Love,
SW

Shout it from the rooftops

Sometimes the sex Delighted Husband and I share is so good that I want to shout it from the rooftops. I want to shout out, "GOD IS GOOD AND SEX IS GOOD AND THIS SEX IS REALLY GOOD AHHHHHHH"
Which I mostly do scream out in gasping little shouts in our Delightful Bedroom. And I do write little erotic memoirs in our love journal that is kept under lock and key.
But sometimes I want to "shout it out" here. In a blog post. I'm not too sure how I feel about that. Well I know how I feel and think about it. It's just that some of my thoughts and feelings conflict with each other. In no particular order, my thoughts and feelings are....
I don't want Delighted Husband to feel like he's playing to an audience when he's doing me.
I don't want my self to feel like I'm playing to an audience when I'm doing my husband.
I don't want to feel like I'm volunteering to be some Unabomber's masturbatory material.
I do want to give voice to that lump in my throat that says feeling and expressing joy is central to the human experience.
I do want to speak how truly deeply I believe that absolutely MARVELOUS sex happens in the glorious messy glue of marital commitment.
I do want to speak just a TEENY BIT of all I feel inside when a movie or television implies that indescriminate singles are having all the hot sex and married couples are just barely getting by.
I am literally so filled with satisfaction and joy that I cannot shut up about it. Except I feel that I should. Because what if someone I really care about in the regular readers of my blog feels like I'm being inappropriate?
I don't want to miss out on feeling or expressing a big joy because I'm following old screenplays from my loving, whacked, wellmeaning way legalistic upbringing.
I don't want to make any decision based a random outcropping of The Disease to Please.
If my God and my husband have given me a peaceful AOK to post it, then why do I give two hoots what anyone else thinks?
Should I get another blog for hot posts like that?
But then what kind of whacked divided life is that?
Wouldn't I be exiling my erotic self to the lowlands?
And if I did that, then what was all this recovery FOR?
-Sensuous Wife