Love Is Not Self-Seeking & Other Inconvenient Truths

It’s daunting to realize that all of those scriptures about how we should treat each other and demonstrate love apply to marriage.  Sure, I want to “bear with one another” when discussing worship changes with a friend I see once a week in Bible class, but bearing with my husband when he forgets for the 103rd time to turn off the shower head and I’m doused with water while attempting to draw a bath, ugh.  “Share one another’s burdens” is relatively easy when my girlfriend needs a shoulder to cry on but less appealing when it involves my hubby relating for 226th time the struggles of completing a work project only identified by an acronym that I knew the meaning of back in 1998.

In my self-help dominated world, I would prefer to open up my Bible to the chapter entitled, “How to Achieve a Godly Marriage in 30 Days.”  Instead, God chose to reveal Himself and His will with narratives of His people, commands and guidelines, passages of worship and prayer, and relatively little straight advice.  Sure, the Proverbs have plenty of tips, but “Better to live in a desert than with a quarrelsome and ill-tempered wife” (21:19) is not what you want your husband to read so much as “Step 1:  Bring her flowers every day. Step 2:  Compliment her cooking.  Step 3:  Remember her half-birthday.”  And so on.  Even when I look for the word “marriage” in my Bible, it occurs 49 times.  That’s all?!!

Yet the recipe for a good marriage is throughout God’s Word.  Because marriage is the crucible for personal relationship growth; it’s where we most reveal our capacity to live as loving people.   That’s why 1 Corinthians 13, a passage about how we should love one another in the church, has become standard fare for wedding ceremonies.  It applies.

Extrapolate a little further, and you’ll see that all those love principles apply to the marriage bed.  Imagine placing in parentheses the phrase “in the bedroom” after every description in 1 Corinthians 13.  Thus, “Love is patient (in the bedroom), love is kind (in the bedroom).  It does not envy (in the bedroom), it does not boast (in the bedroom),” and so on.

Eventually, we get to “Love is not self-seeking (in the bedroom).”  But to be honest, sometimes we are.  At the very least, we’re “scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.”  We have a tendency to sing Janet Jackson’s What Have You Done for Me Lately? in the back of our minds.  We want sex when we want it, where we want it, the way we want it, and sometimes not at all.  Don’t bother me with your sexual needs; I’ll let you know when mine need fulfilling.

This is particularly tempting for the woman because men want the sexual act more than we do or at least require less atmosphere, preparation, and general ta-da! to be raring to go.  So we can often set the terms.

It’s somewhat like arranging furniture in a new house.  When moving in, we women want to direct the placement of love seats, settees, end tables, coffee tables, wall art, bookcases, lamps, knick knacks, and crisp House Beautiful magazines.  He’s content to walk in, plop the recliner in front of the TV, and call it a day.  But since he won’t get to sit in his recliner with drink in one hand and remote in the other until you’re happy with the living room configuration, he hauls stuff from one spot to another until you deem yourself satisfied.

We’re often in control, ladies.  But love is not self-seeking (in the bedroom).

Think of the marriage bed equivalent of perching his Lazy-Boy to face a big-screen.  What would that look like for you?  When’s the last time you went in there and thought about what he would like?

I’m not suggesting that you do something against your conscience, simply that you think about pleasing your spouse.  Sex is the most intimate expression of caring for another human being – or at least it should be.  Sex, the way God designed it, isn’t about getting our own Meg-Ryan-in-a-diner moment or “getting it over with,” it’s about finding ways to give your marriage partner intense affection and pleasure.

And that, my friends, brings us to 1 Corinthians 13:13:  “The greatest of these is love.”

The Maintenance Plan

My husband approached me in the bathroom with the corners of his mouth slightly upturned and asked, “Do you want to copulate this morning or wait until this evening?”

Really?  Is this what we’ve come to?

After telling him it might be time to consult the Romance 101 manual again, I informed him that I didn’t have time that morning.  Sex would have to get penciled into the calendar for that evening – somewhere between cleaning the kitchen, putting the kids to bed, folding a load of laundry, donning pajamas, removing make-up, and passing out on my mattress.  So much for romance.

As much as I wish that our every sexual encounter was a long and soulful experience, sometimes we’re relegated to what my husband once termed Maintenance Sex.  Perhaps you can only fit in a 10-minute quickie before breakfast.  Maybe you have to schedule a half-hour into the calendar because otherwise it won’t happen.

But that maintenance can be very important.  Think about it this way:  It’s fun to make home improvements.  New carpet, fresh paint, kitchen or bathroom renovations are exciting and satisfying.  But we can’t ignore the minor repairs that the keep the house going –steaming the carpet, painting touch-ups, cleaning those kitchens and bathrooms.  Both are good for your home.

The same with sex.  We married couples might wish that our sexual encounters were as spectacular as the community fireworks display, but shorter encounters can be fun too, like playing with sparklers.  They’re all firecrackers, baby.

If you neglect simply meeting that God-given need for each other, eventually it will affect your relationship.  In case you haven’t noticed, men often get cranky when they haven’t had a sexual release in a while.  Women often feel neglected when they haven’t been sexually pursued and appreciated.  I’ve known a few couples who were at each other’s throats for several days when they suddenly realized in the middle of an argument, “Oh yeah, we’re sexually tense!”  They made love, and voila! a bit of sanity and perspective returned.

I’m all about the music-in-the-background, candles-in-the-bedroom, silky-lingerie, sweet-talking, slow-going love-making.  But sometimes, you don’t have an hour or so to devote to sex.  Don’t feel like those scheduled sessions or spur-of-the-moment quickies aren’t valid in increasing physical intimacy.

Sometimes, it is the most selfless love to shove all the folded laundry off the bed, lock out the demanding children, resolve to be five minutes late to work, and make time to meet your spouse’s needs.  Sometimes, it is the most selfless love to throw off the robe, grab the KY, and get tangled up for a few minutes on the unmade bed.  Sometimes, it is the most selfless love to engage in Maintenance Sex until you can get your real groove on – like at an overnight hotel stay or a fortuitous night when the kids all fall asleep a little early.

 “The husband should fulfill his wife’s sexual needs, and the wife should fulfill her husband’s needs. “ 1 Corinthians 7:3 (NLT)

The One-Eyed Snake

The following post was written about a month into my blog. It was intended for wives only, but the feedback I have received from offended husbands since that time has given me pause. I unwittingly hurt the feelings of several men out there. I have considered taking the post down, but (1) while I would certainly change some words (such as "disappointed"), I still believe that many wives felt this way at first; and (2) I can't deny that I wrote the post this way originally and, as we all do, have grown since then. I would not write it the same way today, but the original post is below. For more on my thoughts, see The Wonderful Male Body and Man vs. Woman.

The first time I saw a penis, I was disappointed.  Weren’t you?

Young men dream of naked women and long to gaze upon the wonders of the female body.  Meanwhile, let’s face it, ladies, there’s nothing actually attractive about a penis.  A perfect pedicure in pink with posies on the toenails – cute.  A flowing satin and sequin evening gown gracing the bald mannequin in the Caché display window – beautiful.  Sitting on the beach and watching a purple-hued sunset as the ocean and the sun briefly embrace – breathtaking.  Michelangelo’s colossal yet graceful carving of the warrior and psalmist David – well, it depends on where you look.

The sculptor’s David is definitely a looker, but most women I’ve talked to agree that a Garden of Eden leaf garment would have been a nice touch.  We don’t really need to see another man’s penis.  Our husband’s is quite enough, thank you.

Despite all the phallic references in art and architecture, we’re not obsessed with looking at them.  In fact, the pornographic magazine for women Playgirl debuted in 1973, went out of print in 2008, and returned to print in March 2010. So what happened?  Well, the magazine was a feminist reaction to the likes of Penthouse and Playboy; a what’s good for the gander is good for the goose statement.  It struggled to gain sufficient readership (i.e., women), finally stopped printing, and went to online publication.  Its print comeback is due to another phenomenon:  In 2009, the new director of marketing admitted that Playgirl’s audience is predominantly male.  So the biggest outlet for women to look at men’s privates stayed alive by moving from its dwindling female audience to a gay male readership because, frankly, we gals don’t care.

Men are proud of their penises.  But it’s like a couple of guys looking at a new set of golf clubs; they admire the clubs, talk about the structure and materials used, and imagine everything they can accomplish once they get on the green with these babies.  For women, a penis is more like a vacuum.  I don’t choose the tool based on its looks or structure, but rather what it can do for me.  Looks, schmooks, what can you actually do with that thing?

This also explains why men give their penises names like Mr. Happy, the Studmaster, Big Mac, etc., whereas I had a friend who said that her grandmother called it “the one-eyed snake.”  Sounds right to me.  Not particularly attractive, possibly dangerous, and definitely unpredictable.

I’m not knocking God’s handiwork here.  But men are visual.  Women are not.  We’re more impressed with the sweet nothings whispered in our ear, the lips that entwine with ours in a passionate kiss, the calloused hands that turn inexplicably gentle when they trace our thighs.  In fact, if you turn out the lights, we can enjoy all those parts of the show and never feel the need to see the instrument used in the grand finale.

Now, a word of advice:  Don’t tell your husband his Love Machine isn’t that exciting to look at.  That’s like insulting Chuck Norris’s gun.  He’s proud of it, by golly.  And any tool that repeatedly gets the job done starts looking pretty good over time.  Even my vacuum looks kind of pretty sometimes.

For a better idea of how to talk about your hunk of a husband, try Song of Songs 5:10-16, which begins with “My lover is dark and dazzling, better than ten thousand others!”

The Oh-My-Goodness-Did-I-Really-Sign-Up-for-This? Sex Talk

When our oldest child grew into the age we thought appropriate to have “the talk,” my husband and I steered him into our bedroom.  We summoned him to sit between us on the bed and, with an illustrated medical book in hand, began to explain the wonders of reproduction.

It was going pretty well, we thought.  We were clinical in our explanation and biblical in our perspective.  Until our child squished up his face into contorted disgust and asked, “So, y’all have done this three times?!!!”

Hubby and I glanced at each other, and as I attempted to gather my composure and fish around in my brain for an appropriate response, my husband calmly replied, “Yes.”  After all, it was true.  We had done it three times . . . multiplied by a factor of another larger number.

We described the beauty of God’s design for marital intimacy and making babies, but the general kid reaction was akin being handed a plate of spinach for dinner – “GROSS!”

Which is exactly the reaction one expects a young child to have.  Sex isn’t intended for kids. It’s supposed to sound nauseating.  Heck, the idea of someone sticking his tongue in my mouth creeped me out for years.  And I was still heebie-jeebied after my first French kiss (okay, he wasn’t that great a kisser).

But we got through the basics, pointed to the tasteful drawings in the book, answered questions, and praised the Maker of families.  Whew! I thought.  That’s over.

So my husband and kid started putting on their shoes to go outside and play, while I exited the bedroom to use the bathroom next door.  Now, in my husband’s defense, we had agreed that we would answer any questions our child asked as truthfully as possible, without divulging more than our child was ready to hear.  But we figured if our kid asked, a frank response was warranted.

Still, imagine my utter shock when I emerged from the bathroom to overhear my husband saying to my child, “Four or five times a week.” OMG! OMG! OMG!  Really, I am at this point internally crying out to God to figure out what could have possibly happened in the two minutes they were tying shoelaces and I was sitting on the porcelain throne.  Hello!  Weren’t we finished with this talk?!!

Later, when describing the situation to my best friend, she commented, “First of all, five times a week?  That is some wishful thinking on your husband’s part, isn’t it?”  Well, of course it was.  With young children in the house, I would have had to have been the Energizer bunny to have sex 260 times a year.  So you couples with little ones who are not getting that much mattress gymnastics, don’t sweat it.  And those of you who are, stop gloating (and sleep now and then, for heaven’s sake).

“Secondly,” my friend said, “your husband is setting your kid up for some disappointment if that doesn’t happen in his marriage.”  Given the Grinch-like grimace my child had displayed when the details of sex were described, I doubted this would be a problem for many years to come.

Back to my OMG moment, my kid now had a BUNCH more questions than we had covered before.  The biggest one being “WHY?!!!”  As in, WHY would the parents I look up to and love ever put those two body parts together in that way for any reason outside of childbearing.

My response was simply that God was a good, gracious God, and He made sex not simply for reproduction but to produce physical enjoyment and intimacy between a husband and wife.  It is a sacred thing.  And one day, my kid would understand – when ready, when married.

A few more inquiries were posed, but my husband and I cut them off at some point.  We clarified that we would not discuss the details of our sexual life because it is a private thing between married couples.

Our world talks about sexual details constantly, like it’s everybody’s business.  But it’s not.  Most everything I do with my husband in the bedroom is like the diary I kept as a young girl.  I wrote special, secret thoughts on its blank pages, secured the journal with a clasp and tiny key, and hid it somewhere that only I knew its location.  The fact that it was secretly mine, and mine alone, made it that much more special.

I pray that my children experience every blessing God has in store for them in their marriages.  That they choose their spouses wisely, treat them as Scripture instructs, and give themselves fully in the daily drudgeries of life and the sacred intimacies of the bedroom.

And I also hope that my grandkids ask a veritable plethora of interesting questions when my kids have to give their parental sex talk.  I can’t wait for payback time!

The Rule

Once there was a couple divorcing just as my family was joining a church.  The husband had been a church leader and spiritual mentor to several but had recently thrown away his religion and his pregnant wife for an adulterous relationship with a fun-loving floozy.  The church was abuzz and aghast with this horrendous news.  While a small group of church members was discussing the circumstances, one woman turned to her husband to issue the proper warning:  “If you ever do that to me,” she said wagging her finger, “you will be a grease spot on the driveway.”  Point taken.

Meanwhile, I have a rule to avoid such turmoil:  Never spend time alone with any unrelated male.

Billy Graham had the same rule (insert “wife” instead of “husband”), and plenty of other Christians have gotten on board as well.  On its face, the rule seems overly restrictive.  “So really,” you say, “I can’t catch a ride with a male friend? Have lunch with a college buddy? Put in overtime with a co-worker on an urgent project?”  Yep, yep, and yep.

I adopted the rule because I know myself.  I know who I’ve been (1 Corinthians 6:9-11), how far I’ve come, and how much I want to remain on the good side of this sex thing.  Prior to my marriage, I never sustained a relationship with a guy in the same town longer than four months.  I had boyfriends for longer, but those were distance relationships, and I channeled Stephen Stills’ Love the One You’re With whenever the mood struck.  Knowing my own sinful ways, I do not want to go there again.  And the surest way to avoid a crash is not to get in the car.

Of course, plenty of people don’t have the same history.  They couldn’t fathom ever desiring anyone but their spouse.  But believe it or not, there isn’t a huge leap between eating appetizers with the guy from the next work cubicle to digging around in a king-sized bed to retrieve your black thong while he puts his trousers back on.  There are certainly steps.  But the world is littered with people who swore that they would never cheat on their spouse, but could monogram a scarlet A right on their front shirt pocket.  How did they get there?

Here’s one thought of how:  Getting to know people can be interesting, relaxing, and fun.   Imagine sitting across the restaurant table with a male co-worker for a harmless lunch.  I’m getting (1) his full attention; (2) a meal I didn’t have to cook; and (3) no window into his messy house, his irritating habits, or his less-than-sane extended family.  Remember how you felt that way when dating your husband?

Meanwhile, the man I adore, to whom I pledged my undying love, is (1) watching football while I corral rambunctious kids to the dinner table; (2) adding salsa to my carefully seasoned dish; and (3) dropping his dirty socks on the living room floor, burping, and explaining that we are bringing coleslaw to the family reunion this summer . . . again.

Whether we wish to admit it, 98% of us are capable of adultery.  If all the pieces fall into place, we are sitting ducks for the adultery bullet that Satan is all too willing to fire.  If King David, whose psalms demonstrate an unbelievable intimacy with God, succumbed, are we absolutely sure that we aren’t possible victims of our own blind arrogance?

Anything worthwhile is worth protecting.  Don’t go looking for trouble.  Make some rules.  Stick to them.  Be true to your man, and to the Man Upstairs.

“Give honor to marriage, and remain faithful to one another in marriage.”

(Hebrews 13:4 NLT)