If sexual purity is so important, why did God give us such a strong sex drive? How come we are so visually-oriented? Why do we want sex as much as we do?
After all, when someone has an addiction to alcohol or drugs or cigarettes, he can quit it for good. Sex isn’t like that. Married men with a sexual addiction can’t abstain from sex for the rest of their lives. Their bodies are not their own, and they have a responsibility to keep their marriage healthy through physical oneness. While single men can abstain from sex, they still have to contend with the 72-hour cycle of semen build-up. Imagine giving up heroine but still having to resist a compulsion given by God to shoot up every 72 hours for the rest of your life.
It seems incredibly unfair. Was God setting us up for failure? I thought it was, “lead us not into temptation.”
By way of answer, let’s first separate what God has done, and what we have done.
God gave us a drive for sex for several important reasons:
a) Attraction – Our sex drive helps us to select a wife. Of course, this is not the primary criteria for compatibility, but it does get our attention.
b) Procreation – The command is to “multiply and fill the earth.” Our sex drive compels us toward our wives to fulfill it.
So far, these are the same reasons that God gave a sex drive to animals. The next reason He gave to us alone.
c) Oneness – as Paul has said, this is a mystery. I don’t completely get it, but oneness in marriage is designed to help us understand our oneness with God. How does our sex drive help us gain oneness in our marriage?
a. It causes us to become one physically. (This we get.)
b. It compels us to initiate. As husbands, we are to lead in the area of sex in our marriage. Most of the time, it doesn’t matter what is going on in our relationships with our wives – we still want sex. We could have just had a terrible fight, but the sight of our wives undressing will get us in the mood. While our wives may not understand this and may even be insulted by it, our ability to switch gears so quickly serves a purpose. The fight suddenly gains its proper perspective in the context of our relationship. Often, we are able to set aside our pride and apologize to mend the relationship.
c. It keeps us humble. God made men strong in many ways with the ability to operate independently, but we are not designed to be completely self-sufficient. We need our wives to meet our sexual needs, and physical intimacy is the key to our vulnerability. Our hearts are never more open than they are after sex (provided we don’t fall asleep, of course).
Sex motivates us to make changes. We will do the dishes if it speaks our wives’ love language. We’ll replace all the light bulbs, do the laundry, put the kids to bed, get the oil changed in the car…whatever!
That’s what God has done. What we have done is pervert what God intended. We have fed on a steady diet of ungodly images, text and sounds, increasing our sexual appetites in the process. We’ve trained our brains to think of women as objects rather than people. We’ve made our wives compete against other women and other images.
Sure, it’s difficult to reserve our attention for our wives alone. Our physical urges and the temptations with which we are faced daily are formidable. But as Stephen Arterburn & Fred Stoeker say in their book Everyman’s Battle, “We must choose to be more than male. We must choose manhood.” Being a man rather than just a male means doing what’s hard to honor God and our wives.
2 Comments
May 8, 2009 at 4:23 pm
This seems balanced and respectful of God’s creation and our responsibility to His creation; maybe more balanced than what I’m gleaning from “every man’s battle.”
My question, concern, lack of understanding is with the “wife’s” responsibility in the partnership of marriage. I acknowledge that there is a definate sexual cycle in myself (as a male) and that I have a responsibility to exercise/administer/control my body just as I have to “feed and care for” it. But if she is unwilling to help me care for myself, what am I to do?
Thus a new cycle of denial, temptation, etc. etc. until something is done about the what seems to be a normal physical need. Yes, I can battle the “temptations” but I cannot defeat God’s creation.
Searching for truth,
May 14, 2009 at 7:22 pm
Hi, thanks for the comment. I want to be careful in my reply, because I know this is a painful reality for many men.
The Bible clearly states that we are to mutually submit our bodies to our spouses:
The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife’s body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband’s body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife. Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. (1 Corinthians 7:3-5)
However, I’ve never found it helpful to use Scriptures as a weapon. You might get compliance from your wife, but you won’t get commitment, which is what you really want.
The best way to address this problem is a lot of hard, sacrificial work, but if you do it, you will experience fulfillment not only in your sexual relationship but also in most other areas of your marriage. Here’s the formula:
* Set aside your own physical needs for a time.
* Pray every day that you can be a better husband to your wife.
* Try to make regular deposits into her emotional bank account. (Some deposits are bigger than others. I recommend reading The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman to learn what would make the biggest deposits for your wife.)
* Expect nothing in return. If you only do this to get her to meet your needs, you’re not showing unconditional love.
* Forgive her when she neglects you and when you give more to the relationship.
* Keep making deposits even when it doesn’t look like it’s working.
Eventually, one of your deposits will change the heart of your wife. When she feels abundantly loved, she will be willing and even excited to reciprocate. It may even free her up to recognize that she can enjoy sex more than she thought.
I’m speaking from personal experience. You can read about my revelation on this post: 100/0
I hope this is helpful…please keep the dialog going if it is not.
Blessings…Michael