Sex

This post is likely to make some of you blush.  It's likely to shock some of you.  And some of you - I hope most of you - will nod along in silent support.

A few basics to get out of the way before I dive in to the main topic.  1)  I have posted this with the full consent and support of my husband; 2)  The thoughts herein are intended for married adults though it is safe for anyone of an understanding age to read; 3)  If you have questions or concerns, please feel free to email me or private message me on Facebook if you don't want to leave a comment.  I will not respond to and will delete any comment that is inappropriate in nature. Ok, here we go...

I want an awesome sex life.  I'm a politically conservative Christian who desires a smoking hot sex life.  I may dress modestly and because of my religious and political views, you may assume I'm prudish, but the fact of the matter is, I want great sex.

There are some myths that my husband and I believed for a long time about how you get a great sex life.  The first and probably the biggest for us was that if we did things right before marriage, we'd have great sex after.  I think it was naivete on my part, but I assumed that the sexual tension we held at bay before marriage would magically dissolve once we said "I do."

We were virgins until our wedding night, and to quote my husband, he was, "batting singles until we got married."  Second base was not even close to an option.  We held to what many would call strict "rules" to help us meet that goal, but it was worth it.  We didn't bring sexual baggage into our marriage, and along with that, there was a lot of trust and respect built in by agreeing together to make it that far.  (There's enough there that I could do a whole post just on what we did, why we did it, and what the benefits were, but that's not this post, so I'll save it for another day.)

We thought that if we did that much of it right, then our sex life after getting married would be awesome.  We read some of the right books - Intended for Pleasure, Great Sex Begins in the Kitchen, etc - and things were great for a while.  Then life happens, you settle into a routine, you work on other parts of your marriage, you get super busy at work and/or school, you pursue goals, you have a baby.  These are all normal parts of life.  But they're all normal parts of life that for a long time got in the way of having a great sex life.

I grew up in a very conservative community, and for that I'm extremely thankful.  I'm so grateful, in fact, that I'm raising my own family right here, because I love the way I grew up.  Having said that, there's one thing that my upbringing did a horrible job preparing me for:  sex.  I was always taught that "it" was ok within the bounds of marriage.  I took Anatomy & Physiology in high school and learned about the mechanics of it all (in a class segregated by gender for that chapter), but I was NOT taught how to make sex fun.  And frankly, at 17, I didn't need to know how to make sex fun.

It was rare, but I can remember a few times at bridal showers where I heard older women say things like, "You have to keep it interesting."  "Don't be afraid to try new things."  But really, what did they mean by that?  No one ever really said.

A pastor I knew once said that in his days of premarital counseling, couples would come to his office and ask, "How often is normal?" to have sex.  He quipped that what the wife was really asking was, "How often is average?" and what the husband was really asking was, "How often is possible?"  (How true is that, right!?!)

I was told all through my adolescent years that boys/men think about sex way more than women do, that women should dress modestly to respect the men they're around and help them in the battle of keeping their minds pure, that men should exercise discipline over their thoughts.  All these are true.  Why weren't the boys/men ever told that many women don't think about sex hardly at all?  Why weren't we told that in order to have a great sex life, you have to talk with your spouse about your individual expectations, about what you like and don't like, about what turns you on, about your self perception during or regarding sex?

And why weren't we told that we'd have to work through some of our preconceived notions about sex - whatever they were?  That our parents' marriages and what we knew or didn't know of their sex lives would impact our own?  That seems weird to write even as I type it, but it's true.  I remember having a conversation with my college girlfriends when we were freshmen about who among the 5 of us had ever walked in on their parents and how the parents handled it.  Thinking back on that conversation, I can see the different ways we each perceived sex coming out in our responses, and how what we observed in our parents colored how we viewed sex - we carry that with us into marriage.

And why do we, Christian adults, leave it to things like TV shows, movies, magazines, and the internet (or a "more experienced adolescent friend") to educate our kids about sex and how to have great sex?  I'm sure there are a variety of reasons, but I wonder how many of us Christians are even pursuing having a great sex life?  How many of us are putting in the time, effort, and practice (wink, wink) to get to know our spouse and experience more in our sex lives than just making a baby every now and then.

So, since I wasn't told/taught a lot of these things that I wish I had been told (and I don't blame my parents or anyone else for not going there - I can't say for sure that I'll be able to go there with my kids someday), where am I supposed to go now for answers?  And what about things like dildos, porn, oral sex, anal sex, and even less exotic things like flirting and letting my mind wander - are they ok?  If so when and how?  Where do you go to get lingerie or other sex-related merchandise and not risk seeing something you don't want to see?

Thanks to a friend of mine who shared the link, I've found answers to a number of questions here:  http://christiannymphos.org/

Sex is a complicated subject in Christian circles because, well, frankly, how do you ask detail-type questions without getting too personal or sharing too much?  I'm not going to go to my pastor's wife and ask her for sex position ideas.  That's not to say I don't absolutely love and respect and trust our pastor's wife, but it just... not right.  So this is one subject where the anonymity of the internet is a beautiful thing.

Believe it or not, God created sex, He left us some direction on how to keep it as He intended in the Bible, and by the way, there is some pretty racy stuff in there!  That's not to say that every time or every stage of life is going to include crazy, smoking hot sex.  But it is to say that sex doesn't have to be boring if you don't want it to be - it's up to you and your spouse.

The website I linked to above addresses many questions regarding what's ok, how much is too much, how can you get creative, even how to shop with your spouse for lingerie online - all this from a biblical perspective.  The authors aren't perfect, they don't have it all figured out, but they're willing to share what God's teaching them regarding sex.

I don't know about you, but I don't want a mediocre sex life.  I don't want sit by with average when I could have done a little something and made it spectacular.  I suspect there are many of you out there like me who just need a little advice, some place to go with questions, a community of women who will affirm that you and your questions are normal.  This is for you.  I hope you (and your spouse) enjoy.  ;)

*Note - There are many, many different topics within the broader topic of sex that I didn't even begin to touch.  Please check out the link above - they have an entire blog devoted to the topic and cover so much more there than I could ever begin to here.*