Category Archives: Current Issues in Sexuality

What Does It Take To Change Your Marriage…and the World?

Feeling Exhausted

A lot of stuff has been happening around me lately that has charged my environment with an intensity it didn’t have a year ago this time. The details of events don’t matter—well, they matter to me, but not for this post. Suffice it to say: I’m exhausted by outrage culture.

Now righteous outrage can be a good thing. Societies have made real progress when good people become angry enough about an injustice to work for important change.

However, in our technology dominated world, we don’t work together so much as rage together. That is, we tend to equate saying something online with doing something. We get angry, spout our views, and congratulate ourselves for being involved or activist.

Being Part of the Club

Let’s say you get on Twitter and say something passionate and/or controversial. You might get flak, but I guarantee you someone, somewhere will applaud you for your courage. Perhaps several someones.

You may even be 100% right, and the question I still have is: How did you make a difference? Did you convince the people who didn’t agree with you before? Or just rally an audience to similarly express their outrage?

We see this with marriage websites too.

  • Wanna believe feminism is to blame for you not getting sex in your marriage?
  • Wanna believe all men are pigs who’ll objectify and harass anything in a skirt?
  • Wanna believe a man’s lusting is the fault of how women dress?
  • Wanna believe that this teaching, or that teaching, or this one is the reason why Christian marriages are struggling?

We tend to seek out exactly those resources that tell us what we already believe or want to believe. You can find a website that will cater to your outrage and make you feel part of the club.

What we often need, however, is something that challenges us to reconsider our beliefs. We might well come right back to a tried-and-true perspective, but even then at least we better understand the other side. As a result, we can better speak with people who disagree with us and perhaps persuade them to our side.

There is a limit to this, of course! We should not open ourselves to toxic theology or sinful practices. I’m talking about challenging ourselves to get outside our comfort zone, not into the danger zone.

Making the Long-Term Effort

Plenty of spouses express outrage about how their marriage is going or their lack of sexual intimacy. But outrage is easy. Long-term effort to effect real change is hard.

Outrage is easy. Long-term effort to effect real change is hard. #marriage @hotholyhumorous Click To Tweet

Outrage often demands burning down what exists to build something new in its stead — and sometimes that is only option. You don’t negotiate with Hitler; you topple his regime. But most of the time we’re not fighting that kind of evil, and let’s hope you don’t want to topple your whole marriage!

In many most situations, changes comes through incrementalism. Though we’d all like to have the magic bullet, it’s reasonable goals, compromise, and persistence that make the difference. Over time, baby steps turn into big strides.

Thus, you may need to put forth a lot of time and effort:

  • to help your spouse feel safe enough to open up to you about their struggles
  • to address the sexual baggage you each entered marriage with
  • to resolve the obstacles you face
  • to introduce better sexual perspectives and activities
  • to demonstrate consistent and committed love

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

Galatians 6:9

Becoming the Solution

Of course, putting a lot of effort into the wrong things will not yield the results you want. Which is why we should dig deep into Scripture, pray for wisdom and guidance, and check in with our spouse about what they long for in your marriage.

But we’ve got to stop telling ourselves that we’ve done something just because we talked about it. Declaring what you think to the world, to your Facebook friends, to a blog’s comment thread, even to your spouse or to your therapist isn’t enough. In fact, sometimes you’d be better off to shut up and just do something.

It’s an unpopular opinion in the marriage ministry world, but I don’t believe communication solves everything. Or even most things. Love in action solves things.

It's an unpopular opinion in the #marriage ministry world, but I don't believe communication solves everything. Or even most things. Love in action solves things. @hotholyhumorous Click To Tweet

Communicating with your spouse helps you know what love in action looks like for them! But it’s not enough. Your actions have to speak louder than your words.

Perhaps this is why all of my books suggest actions to put into practice what you learn. Even my conversation guide for couples, Pillow Talk, addresses what you can do and specific sexual activities you can try.

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Changing the World

These lessons go beyond our own marriage. Think also about your broader life:

  • Are you opposed to a marriage course your church has taught? Research alternatives, suggest a better one, and even offer to teach it or recruit facilitators.
  • Are you heartbroken by the breadth and depth of abuse and mistreatment? Volunteer your time or donate to organizations that help victims.
  • Are you appalled by the level of divorce in our society? Encourage your church to add premarital and marriage counseling to its resources, perhaps in concert with area churches. Recommend marriage classes and/or mentor other couples.
  • Are you unhappy about the messages your church teaches about sex, or their lack of teaching on it? Suggest a marriage event and invite a speaker who can address the issue well (e.g., Juli Slattery or yours truly). Offer to facilitate a class on the subject. Start a small group study that goes through a marriage book.

Let’s save some of the outrage and channel that energy into the effort required to make a real difference in our lives and for others. We may not see results tomorrow, but in the course of a lifetime, we will reap the harvest. And gain the greatest reward.

Look, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done.

Revelation 22:12
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Get Off Your Screen & Have Sex with Your Wife

Your wife told me to write that. At least some of your wives.

Yes, this blog is primarily for wives, but today’s post is aimed at the husbands. Specifically, those husbands who are spending time with screens—phone, TV, tablet, computer, gaming systems—when they could be enjoying romance, intimacy, and sex.

Let me start first by saying that I’m not talk about watching porn on a screen. That is a big problem, but I’ve addressed that issue in other places like here, here, and here.

Instead, I’m talking about screen activities that are perfectly fine when used in moderation. It could be social media, video games, reading posts and commenting (yes, I see the irony), or online news—and all of those things are just fine. Except when they get in the way of something better: the intimacy in your marriage.

How much time do you really spend on screens?

Most people underestimate their screen time.

For example, in a recent study of 2,000 baby boomers and millennials—as usual, skipping us Gen Xers, but oh well, whatever, never mind—researchers concluded the average American spends 5.4 hours per day on their smartphone. Yet, 82% of respondents thought their personal screen time was below the national average.

Yet the average viewing time on Netflix is 71 minutes per day. Men spend an average of 96 minutes per day on video games, though “gamers” spend quite a bit more and also tend to watch videos of other gamers to improve their skills.

Do you really know how much time you spend on screens?

I wouldn’t know how to answer for myself, especially since my job has me on a screen for most of my day, and my flexible work schedule means I can be off-the-clock one moment and working the next. But I bet my answer would be less than the actual amount.

You know who might answer more objectively for all of us? Our spouses.

If your wife has said your screen time is excessive, it may be time to do an honest evaluation of where your focus is throughout the day or week.

If your wife has said your screen time is excessive, it may be time to do an honest evaluation of where your focus is throughout the day or week. @hotholyhumorous Click To Tweet

How much time do you spend with your wife?

Statistics on how much time couples spend together was oddly more difficult to find. However, the UK’s Office for National Statistics suggested an average of 2½ hours per day, and a study published in the Journal of Marriage and Family in 2015 found that couples were exclusively together for about 2 hours on weekdays and 3 hours on weekends. Since those match up pretty well, I suspect 2½ hours is a good estimate for couples generally.

However, what’s interesting is the difference in how men and women view time spent together. Note this observation from researchers: “Women report spending about 20 minutes less per day with their husbands than men report spending with their wives, even when diaries show agreement between husbands’ and wives’ activities…. This implies different interpretations of what counts as shared time as opposed to differences in actual time spent together. Evidence shows that husbands would like to have more time with their wives, but women would like more quality time with their husbands rather than simply more time together.”

In practice, this means that if she’s sitting next to you on the couch while you’re on the screen, you may think that counts. But for her, it doesn’t. Your attention is elsewhere, so it doesn’t feel like time spent with her.

But honestly, if your wife told me to write this to you, you’re likely not even spending two hours a day with her. Why not? Didn’t you get married to spend time with this awesome woman who loves you and wants you and shares a toilet with you? (Believe me, as a wife and mom of two boys, regularly sharing a toilet with a man is a sign of love.)

What does this have to do with your sex life?

Well, for starters it’s hard for your wife to have sex with you when you’re not there. Not surprisingly, there’s even research on that count, with a 2007 study of 6,029 couples showing that the less time couples spend together, the less sex they have.

But there are other potential problems as well:

She can’t compartmentalize like you. Plenty of men can shut down the smartphone or video game, switch their mind to thoughts of sex, and engage. Many wives, including higher drive wives, cannot flip the switch that fast. They need time together to ease into lovemaking. So not only could you be less willing, but she may be less willing too, because the build-up time isn’t there.

You’re getting dopamine with screens instead of her. An intriguing study reported that gamers experience fewer problems with premature ejaculation than non-gamers. Sounds great, right? Except “gamers reported lower levels of sexual satisfaction and … one explanation for lower rates of premature ejaculation could be due to gaming’s ability to alter the brain’s reward system. In other words, men who play a lot of video games may be lasting longer in bed because they just aren’t that into having sex.”

What you see on that screen can impact your view of sex. It doesn’t have to be porn for your screen to be showing you something that isn’t good for your sex life. Look up the most popular shows on Netflix and Amazon Prime and you’ll see that most of them are rated MA (mature audience), meaning they feature graphic violence, foul language, nudity, or some combination of the three. Video games feature voluptuous females built nothing like your average woman. Social media can connect you with ex-girlfriends or show you eye candy. Point being that the world sends us messages all the time about what women and sex should look like, and if husbands take large gulps of those messages, they can start expecting their wives or their sex life to look like the fictional version on the screen.

You may be too pooped to pop. Screen usage is not a sport, and yet physical fatigue is a real thing. From eye strain and resultant headaches, to body aches from sitting in a particular pose or hunching over a keyboard/joystick, to muscle tension and consequent exhaustion, you may be wearing yourself out while on your screen. So much so that a tumble in the sheets is a draw on your last reserves.

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How do you know if you’re on screens too much?

The answer to that question can’t be as simple as: You’re on the screen too much if your wife tells you that you are. Because yeah, some wives have unreasonable expectations or make exaggerations. Just because she says you’re on too much doesn’t mean you are.

But it might. Here are a few questions to ask yourself:

  • Has your sexual frequency decreased as your screen-time has increased?
  • Have you skipped or put off meals to stay on your screen?
  • Do you sometimes or often come to bed too late to engage in sex with your (now sleeping) wife?
  • Are you sometimes willing to have sex but feel “too pooped to pop”?
  • Do you regularly respond to your wife’s bids for attention with “just let me finish this” as you gaze at a screen?
  • Have you ever thought gaming or online activity was more enjoyable than sex?
  • Not counting work obligations, how long could you go without screens? (Be honest.)

And the question I asked myself when my husband (many moons ago) was practically addicted to a computer game called Myst:

  • If you died and your wife was asked to identify you, could she do so just looking at your face, or would she ask the coroner to flip you over because she would only recognize the back of your head?

Obviously, no one question—excepting that last one—means you’re definitely the problem. But think about it. Are you wittingly or unwittingly denying yourself and your spouse the pleasure and intimacy you should have because the draw of the screen is so difficult to ignore.

Well, don’t ignore your marriage anymore. Please, get off your screen and have sex with your wife. Like now. (Since you’re finished with my blog post anyway.)

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5 Things that Burn Me Out on Marriage Ministry

I have several drafted, but not quite ready, posts in my queue, and I have every intention of getting to them all. But I’ve been focused recently on dealing with comments and emails, catching up on reading others’ blog posts and articles, and going through research about sexuality. And frankly, I feel a little burned out at the moment.

Don’t worry—I’m not quitting marriage ministry! Hot, Holy & Humorous will be here for a looooong time, if I have anything to say about it. 🙂

But here’s what I mean. Burnout is defined as “exhaustion of physical or emotional strength or motivation usually as a result of prolonged stress or frustration” (Merriam-Webster). And I do lack emotional strength or motivation sometimes, because I get stressed or frustrated with some of what I hear out there about sex in marriage!

So today, since I owe y’all a post anyway, I’m going to lay it all out there and tell you what gets me burned out on marriage ministry.

Gender Bashing.

There’s always been gender bashing—men complaining about women, women complaining about men. We don’t totally understand each other, and yet we have to live together. So like siblings, we find it easy to blame and complain about the other.

To be fair, I’ve sighed or rolled my eyes about such things as “man flu.” But always in jest and with a sense that we gals have our own stuff too. But the humorous point out of differences is not what I’m talking about.

Example of such humor:

Rather, real gender bashing seems to have ramped up lately, particularly in Christian circles! Either all the problems of the world are the patriarchy or they fall at the feet of those nasty feminists. Good gravy, y’all! Have you not heard that evil was here on earth before man and woman were in conflict? Satan slipped into that garden in the form of a serpent (literally or figuratively, take your pick) and tempted humankind to sin.

Of course there are men who promote the patriarchy and angry feminists who attack men, but the vast majority of men and women around you aren’t them. So stop falling for the manosphere’s and angry-feminists’ hoopla and look at what God says. No, no, not that one verse they pulled out to support their position, but the whole of God’s Word. What does God say? ” In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27).

Stop the gender bashing already. We need to learn to live with these other people with the kindness and respect humans made in God’s image deserve.

Stop the gender bashing already. We need to learn to live with these other people with the kindness and respect humans made in God's image deserve. @hotholyhumorous Click To Tweet

Martyrdom.

This is my tell it like it is post, so I’m just going to say it: Some of you are more invested in being a martyr than making your marriage better. If you’ve been complaining about the same thing over and over and over, and nothing ever changes, you might be a martyr.

I’ve witnessed caring, support, terrific advice, and action items given to someone struggling with the sexual intimacy in their marriage and that person rebuffing all or nearly all of it. They usually give reasons why all that won’t work with their scenario, but at the end of the day, that’s often bunk. They just don’t want to do the right thing or the hard thing to make the situation better. (Admittedly, now and then, leaving the marriage is the best decision, and that’s an incredibly tough choice.)

Ask yourself what you really want when you come to a blog like mine. Do you want ideas to make things better? Or do you secretly wish someone would tell you that you’re right, that you’ve been sorely mistreated, that have every right to be angry? And you may be correct, but what has that gotten you?

If you’re steeped in resentment and bitterness about where your marriage or the sex in your marriage is, write down ten things you’ve tried to do about it. Put the paper away, come back in a few days, and read the list. Be honest: Are all the things basically the same thing? For instance, talking to her, pointing out Scripture, over and over. Did you give those efforts long enough to work? Even if it’s 90% of your spouse’s fault, do you listen to advice on where you need to change?

Hedonism.

I hedged on what to call this category, but I think it’s accurate, since hedonism is the belief that pleasure and the pursuit of happiness are the highest goal in life. Now apply that to the marriage bed, and you get what I hear and see: Spouses and couples chasing the sexual high.

Look, I’ve written extensively about how to make sex more pleasurable and exciting. I’ve got lots of tips here and in my books for spicing up your sex life! But at the core of everything I say is God’s design for intimacy between husband and wife.

Yet that doesn’t seem to be the goal for an increasing number of Christians anymore, or even some Christian sex authors frankly. Rather, you can find information on every kind of kink out there, with some Christian saying it’s the thing that will make your marriage bed sing! Whether it’s:

  • anal sex (a risky practice that has increased in frequency with the use of porn and erotica)
  • sex toys that mimic body parts (I can’t tell you how many women I’ve heard from that want or use a dildo, but would they be as excited if their husband wanted to use a vaginal sleeve?)
  • BDSM (bondage/discipline-domination/submission-sadism/masochism)
  • exhibitionism (having sex in public, or sharing the specifics of your sex life with others, as if you’re aroused at the thought of others reading it)

Or some other fringe practice. We need to be careful not to put pleasure ahead of all other considerations. God calls us to treat our bodies and others with honor, gentleness, and kindness. Pleasure is absolutely good in the marriage bed, but it must remain in the context of agape love and covenant intimacy.

Pleasure is absolutely good in the marriage bed, but it must remain in the context of agape love and covenant intimacy. @hotholyhumorous Click To Tweet

Argumentativeness.

I like debate. Raised by a father who enjoyed the back-and-forth of ideas, I was the child who took to it and remained at the dinner table with him to discuss deep topics and debate theological issues. I continued that practice with others in college and can recall many conversations, particularly with men, in which I verbally sparred over politics, religion, and philosophy. These discussions helped me hone my own viewpoint and sometimes changed my mind.

But what I like individually isn’t the same as what’s good for my ministry and my readers. All too often, I get comments or emails where someone takes me task for a statement I made or asks me a follow-up question on a particular, and while it’s an interesting idea and I might engage if we were sitting at a restaurant table over coffee, it’s not relevant to the primary point or what people need to hear.

Example: If I just spent 900 words explaining to wives that men are not pigs after all, and some dude comes on and leaves a comment arguing one point in a way that smacks of yeah, men are pigs, I’m not approving that comment! I feel bad sometimes about it, when they’ve written 900 words themselves and I know that took some time and effort, but this blog ain’t just about you! Nor is my email inbox or my Facebook page. It is about you, but not just about you.

If you want to debate something from my blog, ask whether your comment will be constructive and whether it’s primary or petty. And if you’re just going to argue no matter what, ask yourself if you wouldn’t rather use your time more productively. Because you’re exhausting the rest of us. Seriously.

Sales pitches.

I hemmed and hawed about including this one at all, because it’s my problem really. But it is causing me some burnout moments, so here we go.

I hate selling you stuff. I mean, I love offering you fantastic resources, telling you about my books and podcast webinars, encouraging you to use what’s available to improve the sexual intimacy in your marriage! But I hate selling. I always end up feeling like “Professor” Harold Hill from The Music Man or a snake oil salesman, even though my products are definitely not snake oil.

But the reality is that people don’t buy a product or service unless they’re convinced they should get it. And that convincing—which can be called marketing or selling, depending on how it happens—is increasingly a huge part of being an author and speaker.

Blatant sales pitch below!

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Truth is, I make very little money from what I do. I’ve joked about it before, but I honestly would be better off working as a toll booth operator. And I’ve heard all the encouragement about how one should be in ministry and/or the creative arts for other rewards. But no one tells the surgeon who saves lives that should be enough; they get a paycheck. (And no, I’m not comparing what I do to surgeons who save lives! That would be preposterous. I was simply going for the most exaggerated version and showing they get paid too.)

So my burnout conundrum is always: How can get people to buy my resources, which I believe in 100%, without constantly doing sales pitches? A close corollary would be: How can I make enough money to continue doing this ministry, when my family needs me to bring in a higher and more consistent income? I don’t know the answer, but if you have ideas, I’m willing to listen.

The other thing that’s burned me out is my own schedule, but that’s on me. I’ve had an unusual year, with my older son getting married, releasing four books (only one with HHH), and 19 trips on my calendar. Don’t feel too bad for me, though, because one of those trips is an upcoming Caribbean cruise in November that I got for a steal! Still, it’s all sapped my energy somewhat.

Fair is fair. Are you feeling burned out? What’s sapping your energy?

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Extra Hot, Holy & Humorous

Once again, I’m sharing a few other places where you can find me sharing about God’s design for sex in marriage! I hope you’ll check these out.

Sex Chat for Christian Wives

On our latest podcast episode on Sex Chat for Christian Wives, we discussed female sexual health. Yep, that’s right—we gals need to take care of the lady bits, and we candidly talk about why and how.

Click below to listen and see show notes too!

Episode 65: Female Sexual Health

To Love Honor and Vacuum

A little while back, Sheila Wray Gregoire contacted me and several other female marriage bloggers about putting together a collaborative post on what male teachers about sex need to know—as in things that often aren’t covered as well as they should be. I jumped at the chance to include my thoughts on higher drive wives.

Click below to read the post that appeared last week!

Top 10 Things Female Bloggers Think Pastors are Missing about Marriage & Sex

Rolling Stone

This one is not new, but I’ve been trying to catch up and clear out my email inbox and came across this link again. And you know what? Regardless of anything else that ever happens or doesn’t happen in my life, I can always say that I was quoted in Rolling Stone! Not on my thoughts on rock-and-roll, though I suppose one could refer to sex as rocking and rolling. 😉

New Service Promises to Manipulate Your Wife Into Having Sex With You

May your weekend be extra hot, holy & humorous! Thanks for reading and subscribing.

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Should You Use a Dildo?

When the subject of wives who have difficulty orgasming comes up, oftentimes people suggest using a vibrator. That can be a good addition to a couple’s sexual intimacy, if it’s mutually engaged and doesn’t get in the way learning how to arouse one another well and enjoy skin-to-skin contact. You can see more about my thoughts on that here: Q&A with J: Is It Okay to Use Sex Toys?

But what about penis-shaped vibrators, or dildos?

Women have long used dildos.

A dildo is defined as “an object resembling a penis used for sexual stimulation” (Merriam-Webster). And dildos have been around a loooong time. The first written use of the word dildo comes from a rather bawdy poem written by Thomas Nash in 1592-3, but given its use, the word was probably well-known before then.

Preshistoric Phallus
Thilo Parg / Wikimedia Commons, License
License: CC BY-SA 3.0

Go back further to ancient Greece, 411 B.C., to be precise, and Aristophanes presented the play Lysistrata, in which women go on a sex strike against their husbands to end a war and bring them home. In the wives’ original complaint, Lysistrata explains: “And not the slightest glitter of a lover! And since the Milesians betrayed us, I’ve not seen the image of a single upright man to be a marble consolation to us.” The Milesians manufactured those “marble consolations,” aka dildos, but they were no longer being imported because of the war.

Take your time machine back even further: Archaeologists have discovered penis-shaped objects dating back to prehistoric times. Although experts largely dodge the issue of whether they were used as sex toys, when you see them, it’s a little tough not to think that someone could have used these phalluses for stimulation.

Thus, whether or not to use a dildo is an age-old question. But these days, it’s far easier to get one—just click on an online store and in a few days it’s delivered to your door.

Click to listen to our podcast episode on sex toys!

Are there are concerns about dildo use?

Hygiene

If you looked at that museum photo up there, you might wonder about the hygiene involved in using a stone phallus like that. But today, we have cleaner materials, hot, running water, and cleansers that can help you keep sex toys safe for use.

So hygiene shouldn’t be a big concern, as long as you regularly and fully clean the item according to instructions.

Your expectations

We get used to things when we use them, whether it’s our favorite pair of broken-in jeans or the appliance we finally figured out how to use or the toy we incorporate into our sex life. Using a dildo sets up expectations within your body about size, stimulation, and satisfaction. If you grow to enjoy the sensations of a dildo, will you enjoy the other stuff as much?

Plenty of people argue they’re just expanding their repertoire, and this is a different sensation, not a better one. That’s a good point. Except I’ll be honest: I’ve heard too many wives say things like, “I don’t even need a man. My vibrator works does the job as well or better.”

A too-large number of women have grown used to the stimulation of a vibrating dildo and believe it’s as effective or more effective than their husband’s penis. So let’s ask the tough question of what expectations we’re setting up with the marital aids we use in our bedrooms. How do they change what our body expects and desires?

Your husband’s feelings

Let me share with you an email I received recently from a husband. He wrote about finding his wife’s dildo at their house. He didn’t know about its existence before he came across it, which is clearly an issue that needs to be addressed. But he also says this:

It’s a dildo and the first thing that came to my mind was how inadequate I felt next to that thing. I could understand if the dildo was a little bit smaller, the same size, or even a bit bigger. But this thing is double my size. 9 or 10 inches and really wide. I’m not a very big guy 4.5 inch long and kind of thin. I can’t compete with that thing when it comes to intercourse.

Yep. Dildos can do things men can’t do. Because we can engineer them that way—longer, wider, differing temperatures, vibration, and so on.

I’m always mystified when a wife wonders aloud why her husband opposes the use of a vibrating dildo in their bedroom. Given that the average penis is 5.16 inches in length and 4.59 inches in girth (see Q&A with J: “Is My Penis Big Enough?”), and many dildos are 6-7 inches, how do you think that comes across to a husband? Not to mention that he can’t make motions like that. So is it really surprising to discover that a wife begging to use a dildo could make her husband feel inadequate?

Let’s turn the tables. Imagine if in the midst of lovemaking, your husband said, “I don’t want to penetrate your vagina. I’d rather use a penis sleeve.” (For those who don’t know, a penis sleeve is a hollow, cylindrical device, made with materials that mimic or “improve on” the vagina, into which a man can insert his penis and experience sexual stimulation.) That might be reasonable if your vagina is absolutely, under no circumstances whatever, an option. But to know that your husband prefers that would be hurtful for many wives.

So I get it when husbands object or secretly feel hurt.

Click for a safe place to purchase vibrators that can help not hinder your intimacy. (Affiliate link)

Are dildos really that bad?

Using or not using a dildo is not a salvation issue! And you are free to disagree and choose a different path for your marriage bed, because God gave us free will.

That said, we often ask this question: Where’s the line? That is, what can I include in my bedroom that won’t cross some invisible boundary?

And it’s the wrong question. That approach is about how much you can selfishly pursue rather than what leads to mutual pleasure, marital intimacy, and mature faith. Instead, we should ask: How can we best honor God in our sexual intimacy?

So should you use a dildo? Will that honor God in your sexual intimacy?

I can imagine a situation where the answer would be yes. For instance, a man who is physically, medically incapable of becoming erect could find it intimate to pleasure his wife with a penis-shaped object while touching her in other ways as well. And she might enjoy that experience as well. Even then, I’d consider which dildo to get, but I can see such a choice honoring God’s design for physical intimacy in a marriage.

But most of us aren’t in that situation. Rather, the desire to include a dildo in sexual activity comes from several possibilities, including:

  • Lack of sufficient sexual frequency for her
  • Frustration at not having an orgasm yet, either ever or during penetration
  • Husband not spending enough time or knowing how to help her become aroused and/or reach orgasm
  • Desire to “spice things up” by adding a sex toy

And there are ways to address these issues without the drawbacks dildos often bring. In fact, this blog and my books are chock-full of ideas. I suggest starting with Hot, Holy, and Humorous: Sex in Marriage by God’s Design.

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For more great tips on how to have sizzling sex, check out this book for wives!
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