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Christiandom seems to be making a mess out of something beautiful God intended for married couples to enjoy. Sex is only for procreation? Orgasms are demonic?
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There’s a whole book in the Bible that seems to describe a mutually pleasurable experience of sex between husband and wife:
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As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.
He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love.
Song of Solomon 2: 3-4
My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies. 2:16
How fair is thy love, my sister, my spouse! how much better is thy love than wine! and the smell of thine ointments than all spices!
Thy lips, O my spouse, drop as the honeycomb: honey and milk are under thy tongue; and the smell of thy garments is like the smell of Lebanon.
A garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed. 3:10-12
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See!!!! This is good and godly! There’s so much more in Song of Solomon where the two lovers cannot get enough of each other and use very descriptive words and imagery.
To me, the idea of sex is an obvious way in which Christians can truly say “intelligent design,” right? You can let your mind wander about why God made man and women, how He carefully designed man and woman, paid special attention to the positioning of body parts, etc. He had something up his sleeve, didn’t He? Why is the Song of Solomon book in the Bible, anyway?
Yet, respected Pastor Doug Wilson defined specific roles for the sexual act between a husband and wife and put a damper on the idea of the sex act in marriage as a mutually enjoyable experience.
Here is a controversial quote from his book, Fidelity: What it Means to be a One-Woman Man, which went viral in the summer of 2012:
When we quarrel with the way the world is, we find that the world has ways of getting back at us. In other words, however we try, the sexual act cannot be made into an egalitarian pleasuring party. A man penetrates, conquers, colonizes, plants. A woman receives, surrenders, accepts.
This is of course offensive to all egalitarians, and so our culture has rebelled against the concept of authority and submission in marriage. This means that we have sought to suppress the concepts of authority and submission as they relate to the marriage bed.
Someone sent me another very bad example of twisting scripture to make sex into an act solely for the purpose of producing offspring. And the sad thing is that people believe this kind of stuff, just as they believed Wilson. Hold on to your hats, people.
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There are enough challenging and hurtful things going on in Christiandom. Can we please leave the beautiful gift of sex that God created for couples to enjoy out of the mess? Thank you very much.
Here is Reddit conversation on the topic.
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Spiritual Sounding Board 
JA
I’ve heard all about Onanism. I think that those who began teaching this missed the point. It wasn’t about spilling seed. It was that it was prophesied that Jesus would come from the family line of Judah, and Onan obviously didn’t want kids. So God killed him, and the next brother was supposed to do the duty.
Keep in mind that the “custom” was that of the first born. The first born of the brother of Onan would NOT have been considered to be the child of that of the brother, but of Onan.
And since Jesus was to come from the line of Judah, the widow of Onan played a prostitute to Judah.
It was Satan that didn’t want Jesus to be born. This really has nothing to do with Onan at all, but that of Jesus and Satan.
But, people only wish to take from this Onanism, the spilling of seed. And yet, the spilling of seed is discussed with the word “discharge” in the Law of Moses, in that one is unclean until he, um….takes a bath.
Anyway, that’s what I get out of the story.
But in any case, the Apostle Paul shows that sex is for pleasure, and OUT OF THAT comes a baby…MAYBE…if God permits.
THIS might be interesting to some:
Hebrews 13:4
Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.
NOTE: The word “bed” is the Greek word koith, from where we get the German word Koitus, which, in the English is “coitus”, which means “sexual intercourse”.
Ed
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Bystander said
Jesus also said he gives you all authority under Heaven, which includes, well, mocking false teaching.
You may be overlooking the point of my first post. You’re called to emulate all of Jesus’ personality, not just the meek, mild, “humility” part, but the brash, outspoken, brazen, take- no- crap- off- anybody part, too.
If you choose to be a quiet-ish, mellow, and low key person in debates for yourself, or when commenting on actions or views of other Christians, that is all fine and dandy, but please don’t make it sound like all Christians have to follow your lead, or else they are not being “Christian.”
Other Christians are welcome to model Jesus’ behavior of boldly and assertively confronting false teachers and evil doers and calling them out, if that is their preferred style.
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Bystander said,
You’d be surprised.
Men who are abusive tend to be very entitled and self centered, even in the area of sex (so I have read in books and blogs about the topic).
Some types of abusive husbands do not care if their wife derives pleasure from the act or not, it’s all about them and if they get off. No doubt men like that find comfort in Dough Wilson-ian / gender complementarian / patriarchy teachings, since they support these ideas.
You said,
I just don’t think that it is widely taught that women are not supposed to like sex.
Most gender comps assume married women hate sex and are not interested in it to start with, and they assume that most (or all) women don’t get hot and bothered for shirtless photos of buff movie actors like Brad Pitt or Ryan Gosling.
Hence, the many sermons by male preachers where they tell married women (I have heard a ton like these over my life, on TV and a few in person),
/start sermon:
“Remember married ladies, men like sex, so be sure to give it your spouse often. Remember, wives, men are “visual” so stay skinny and pretty ladies!
“Married Men: remember wives are emotional, delicate things who are not into sex, women are not visual, so don’t worry about going fat and bald.
However, be sure to bring your special woman pretty flowers, dust the furniture without being asked, and bond with her in conversation; that is what pleases all wives: emotional intimacy.”
/end typical marriage / sex sermon
You never hear male preachers assume single women hate sex. Quite the contrary.
Many preachers and Christians who write romance advice for Christian readers assume we single women are gettin’ our freak on with 456,564 different men (including married Christian ones) nightly.
Hence, all the warnings from pastors to men, married and single:
“Remember men, flee from temptation, as Joseph fled from Potiphar’s wife! Never put yourself in that position by being alone with an unmarried woman!!”
You know, because all single women are just like Potiphar’s wife (who was married, LOL, she was not even single), just dying to get our nasty, sexy little claws into married men.
I do think some of these guys don’t expect women to want sex or to like it. But in the view of the married men who give these sermons, it is oh so very important that the MAN gets sex, and how the MAN prefers it, and WHEN.
Preacher Driscoll wrote a book called “Real Sex” (or was it “Married Sex” or “Real Marriage”) and unless my memory is bad (and this is based on the excerpts I read on the web), he is all concerned in that book that married men are not getting ENOUGH sex and not the TYPE they like.
Driscoll goes so far as to suggest that even when the woman is going through her monthly period, that the husband should still get sexual access to her body if he is randy, so he tells women in the book to perform sex acts X, Y, Z, on the man, or let the man do “X” to her.
Driscoll (who, IMO, is a huge, huge idiot about women and many other topics) has no understanding that for many women, their period can be a time of sickness, back ache, stomach cramps, etc. So some woman will not want to “service” a man at all during that time, in any position at all. (Or let the man do stuff to her.)
Again, unless I am mistaken (this is based on excerpts I saw), Driscoll does not discuss in the book the sorts of sex WOMEN like.
Driscoll does not acknowledge that women have a sex drive, or that women have sexual needs, wants, and preferred sexual acts, just as some males do.
Someone here who has read the entire Driscoll book, you may correct me if I am wrong, but I’d like you to provide me with a book page number, excerpts of where he does talk about such. I have read excerpts of his book online, I’ve read reviews of it that contained long excerpts, etc.
In his Song of Songs sermon, Driscoll (based on the parts I heard) tried to tell women that God commands them to, or expects them to, perform a certain sexual act on their spouses…. he tries to guilt trip them into doing this deed.
At no time (based on the snippets I heard of that sermon) did Driscoll tell husbands what sex acts to do on their wives.
Why? Probably because Driscoll does not care or realize that some women have sex drives and their own preferences in the sack. Men like him only care about what the guys want, and that the guys get it. Again, anyone out there who heard the entire sermon, please fee free to correct me if my understanding of this is inaccurate or lacking (with a link to the transcript, please).
I’ve seen equally sexist and weird comments about married sex, or any sex at all, by male Christians, some of whom are not even preachers. There is an underlying assumption or attitude from some of them that they don’t care if the wives enjoy sex, or they assume women don’t like it anyhow, so who cares about what they want/ prefer.
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RiRi,
ABout your link to the blog by Dalrock and the bra snapping and tingling. I glanced the blog over.
The guy at that blog links to the Vox Popoli blog and a couple of other blogs I recognize as basically being Christianized versions of secular PUAs (pick up artists – they teach men how to get into a woman’s pants by playing mind games on women and so forth).
Such “Christian” men also tend to adhere to very rigid gender role views.
They think women should be passive, quiet, 1950s June Cleaver Barbie types who love to do nothing but bake pies and wait on that man o’ theirs, and they think that “real” mean crush beer cans in one hand, love NFL, belch loudly, and slap their wives on their butts as they walk by their LaZBoy recliner.
Also, these are the sorts of men who blame secular feminists for why Christian men cannot get dates or wives, and/or blame they blame single, Christian men for being single because they “don’t got game” and are “too beta / wussy”.
They are sexist swine who brag about “being alpha,” and they put down men they regard as “beta.”
(Beta = usually understood by them as men who actually treat other women as human beings who have working brains that said women utilize. In other words, these types of men would peg Jesus Christ as a “beta” because Jesus treated women with respect and kindness, and didn’t demand they bring him a sammich and frosty brew from the fridge.)
These Christian PUAs have lots of their own lingo I don’t keep up with, though. I can’t decode all their “Dude Bro” jargon, and I’m not sure I’d want to try. They use the word “game” a lot. Relationships are all a “game” with them, they make me sick.
Sometimes, some types of Christian women buy into their garbage. You will find them on these Christian PUA blogs bad mouthing feminists and lamenting how much more difficult men and boys have life these days.
It’s a shame about the guy behind the Vox blog. He’s smart, and does a decent job rebutting New Atheist arguments, but he comes off as being terribly, terribly sexist. He thinks being sexist is biblical.
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Ann said,
“I know I am in the minority here, but I can see Bystander’s point of view. People in this country do have a right to their opinion.”
I don’t think anyone disputes that, but I think other people on this blog (or where ever else) have a right to criticize the guy’s views, or mock them. He made those views public. He or his views are not above criticism.
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“They think women should be passive, quiet, 1950s June Cleaver Barbie types who love to do nothing but bake pies and wait on that man o’ theirs, and they think that “real” mean crush beer cans in one hand, love NFL, belch loudly, and slap their wives on their butts as they walk by their LaZBoy recliner.”
– Gross! I need some brain bleach.
“Driscoll goes so far as to suggest that even when the woman is going through her monthly period, that the husband should still get sexual access to her body if he is randy, so he tells women in the book to perform sex acts X, Y, Z, on the man, or let the man do “X” to her. ”
– Does he suggest anal sex?
Is there any female Christian preacher talking just as openly and positively about female sexuality?
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Bystander,
Yes, I will stand by my application of the word tyrant to people we call pastors. Whether derived from constitutions and bylaws, covenants, denominational authority structures or whatever, they wield man-made authority to lord it over others. Some may come closer to the Platonic ideal of the philosopher king, being restrained–and even judicious–in the exercise of their authority. Still, they are approximating a Platonic ideal rather than the servant-hood Jesus taught.
Don’t get me wrong. As I have already stated, there are Godly men and women filling the not-to-be-found-in-Scripture position/role to which we assign the term pastor. Maybe you have been fortunate to have encountered only those “pastors” who are Godly. On the other hand, maybe it is just that your personality is such that you have never provoked them into exposing the extent to which they, like all wo/men, are corrupted by power (with Jesus being the only exception).
My experience is that, if you ask questions, and especially if you attempt to hold any given pastor to what the Bible actually says, as opposed to what their denomination says it says, there will be fireworks–fireworks that would be experienced as spiritual abuse by those who are not accustomed to dealing with controversy.
The one pastor with whom I am personally acquainted who came closest to approximating the ideal of Plato’s philosopher king proved himself to be corrupted by the temptations of authority. He insisted on crowding out those in his congregation whose gifts, talents, training and experience were perceived, however unconsciously, as competing with his own. If I understand how the Ephesians 4:11 ministries (that’s ministries, not offices) are supposed to work, this pastor should have been preparing others to do what he did, not pushing them aside so he could shine. It was the organizational structure and the authority it conferred that enabled this Godly pastor to do what he did.
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It’s been nice meeting you all. Best wishes.
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Bystander,
Thanks, not just for having given me the opportunity to hone some of my thinking, but also for, very gently, helping me see some things from a different point of view. I do hope you will return if you see something that piques your interest.
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I’m going back to almost 100% read-only. I have learned some very valuable things here.
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Great! Feel free to jump in at any time, Bystander.
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Ri Ri said:
“BDSM and other weird fetishes were invented by Anglo Christians during the Victorian Era.”
Part of BDSM is the word sadism. That gets its name from the Marquis de Sade, who described himself as “atheistic to the point of fanaticism.” Even today, most every time I get an Internet blogger referring to involvement in BDSM, and I elsewhere hear that same blogger mention religious views, it is an atheist. (To be fair, it does not seem that atheists are disproportional in DD, go figure.)
Missdaisyflowr said: “It’s a shame about the guy behind the Vox blog. He’s smart, and does a decent job rebutting New Atheist arguments, but he comes off as being terribly, terribly sexist. He thinks being sexist is biblical.”
Vox (Theodore Beale, who also writes for the site World Net Daily)’s previous blog is the reason why I started the search in which God showed me egalitarianism. He is into both PUA arguments and (the aspects he like of) Christian™ patriarchy. He once showed a photo of his wife on that blog – it is technically very attractive facial features, but I never saw a colder, harder face on anyone – including mugshots of criminals. Did he choose her that way, or make her that way? (To the extend that a single photo can tell you of someone, and I grant there are limits to that. But she, a home schooling mother, has a razor tongue to match the face…)
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Vox Day (Theodore Beale) is also an out and open racist.
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“Basically Paul told those who were advocating that to be a Christian one had to be circumcised (cutting off the foreskin) that they should not be taking a halfway measure and should remove the entire male sexual apparatus. BTW that would solve the issue of sexual impurity in the males of that church!!!! Pretty strong mocking language. “Go all the way for God — take it all off.”
I’m currently listening to the audio book “The Evolution of God” and the author discusses this.
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@Ri Ri:
Remember that Some are More Equal than Others, Comrade.
And The Predestined Anointed Elect are the Most Equal of All.
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@Ri Ri:
“Erotic Flagellation” (including “Papa Spank!” Domestic Discipline) was so characteristic of RESPECTABLE Victorian Upper- and Middle-class Men behind closed doors (and of Victorian porn) that I call it “Kink of England!”
Funny thing about Victorian porn; like all their attitudes toward sex, Victorian porn was very indirect, whereas today’s porn is just the opposite — VERY direct. In-Your-Face Direct. To someone from today’s culture, Victorian porn may not be recognizable AS porn. I heard somewhere that a lot of Christian Child (and Wife) Discipline manuals were actually sourced from unrecognized Victorian porn (of the “flagellation” variety). Gives a whole new meaning to “spanking”
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@Daisy:
He seems to acknowledge only “ME MAN! I WANNA! I WANNA! I WANNA!”
Any way, any time.
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This one’s for you, Reverend Bee Jay (with the fauxhawk and puka shells), Head Apostle with the HUMBLE Chuckle, and Reverend Penetrate/Colonize/Conquer/Plant.
From the CULT of the Blue Oyster:
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“He once showed a photo of his wife on that blog – it is technically very attractive facial features, but I never saw a colder, harder face on anyone – including mugshots of criminals.”
Are you really criticizing a woman’s personal appearance in the middle of a discussion about feminism and theology?
Like… REALLY? DID YOU ACTUALLY JUST DO THAT?
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I don’t think she is. Please re-read it in context. She identified the wife to be attractive, but she questioned the way in which the picture was taken to make her appear cold.
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Who is the moron who says sex is for procreation only and that orgasms are demonic? That legalistic ascetic has lost the right to make any public comment. If the twisted individual knew anything about the Bible he would know that God created all good things to be enjoyed, and that God made sex.
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Perhaps Bystander thinks being hyper-critical and insulting is okay as long as you do it with a “godly” scowl and never smile or laugh. “Mocking” is sinful because it involves laughter which is too enjoyable to be righteous. Just like enjoying sex is sinful. Have sex all the time–but make sure you don’t enjoy it!
I am eating food now. Even though I enjoy spaghetti. Oh horrors! How sinful of me! Food is not for enjoyment but sustaining life in our physical organisms.
Btw, I’m too old/sick to enjoy sex. So I’m not going to marry. Also sick of playing a stupid game I can never win–and not impressed by most of the “prizes” anyhow.
Had some people in my Christian singles’ group tell me marriage has nothing to do with sex–it should only be for companionship. Like you can’t go out for coffee with a buddy for that? Sorry, that’s pretty stupid.
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Missed this the first time around. Although I had heard Wilsons stupid quote before, that letter is cookoo bananas.
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