Feeling Used and Unrealistic Expectations

I hear from women fairly often that they don't like sex because they feel their husband just wants their body and they feel used. There are women out there who have really selfish or abusive husbands, but many times when women have this feeling, the problem isn't the husband being awful. It's the wife having unrealistic expectations.

For one thing, men don't have quite the expectations about sex that women have. In many cases, men want the sex itself while women want everything around the sex like feeling close. And while women like to integrate everything, men tend to think of things separately. Women tend to multitask, but men tend to focus. While a woman is wanting sex to be everything about their relationship all rolled into one, with appreciation for minds, emotions, bodies, and abilities as part of the experience of sex, men are usually just wanting to focus on the physical at the moment. So when that happens, women might think they're only being appreciated for their bodies and they get offended. But it's not that they're only being appreciated for their bodies. It's just that appreciating her body is what the man is focused on at that time.

There's a scene in the old Cary Grant movie Arsenic and Old Lace where Cary Grant's character, Mortimer, has just eloped and he takes his brand new wife back to her house to pack her things for their honeymoon trip. He's chasing her around a tree in the yard, hinting at how much he's looking forward to that night, and tells her she's so beautiful. She responds by saying "But Mortimer, you're going to love me for my mind, too." He says cavalierly, "One thing at a time!" He's focused on just one thing at the moment, and it's not her mind.

There's nothing wrong with that. It's okay for men to have that urge and fulfill it within marriage. It's okay for a man to appreciate his wife's body without also paying homage to her mind every time. People used to understand this. The movie came out in 1944. Today, it would be called sexist. But you can't change human nature. It's okay to focus on just the physical sometimes. It doesn't always have to happen on the woman's more emotional turf, where she is most comfortable. It doesn't have to be all candles and going slow. It can be raw and needy and gritty and crazy too sometimes.

If you get your ideas about sex today from Hollywood or pretty much any kind of media, they depict sex as both man and woman crazed for each other and can't keep their hands off each other and it just happens. And it's usually so romantic. Candle-light and soft music, staring into one another's eyes, etc, etc. The problem is, this is not real life.

I'm not saying sex can't be romantic. Only that it isn't always romantic, and it doesn't have to be. And you don't have to both start out equally passionate. It's okay to start and then get warmed up as you go. It's okay to not be in the mood, but engage anyway and let yourself get carried away.

When you're married, you're not the only one who matters any more. You're one with someone else. And if they have a need, you have a need too, even if you don't feel it. Meeting that need might take some sacrifice sometimes.

It's okay for sex to sometimes be about meeting a need or giving to the other person and not about romance. That's not being used. That's being unselfish.

Being used is when you have sex outside God's plan - outside marriage. Those people in the movies who have all the candles and music and can't keep their hands off each other, but aren't married? They're using each other. It looks like romance, and our society tells us that's the proper context for all sex - some feeling of love and passion. But without a marriage, they're using one another. They wake up in the morning and they have no commitment to one another. They walk away, not giving of themselves, but thinking about what they got from one another. A feeling. For a little while.

In marriage, it's different. In marriage, you belong to one another, so there's no taking from one another. You're not being used. You're fulfilling the vows you spoke to one another. You're doing what you're supposed to do together.

Ladies, embrace your husband wanting your body and revel in his appreciation of it. There are times for appreciating minds and times to just be physical together. Learn to love the way you can both drive your man crazy and satisfy him too. God made you to do this. It's not bad to embrace the physical side of your relationship, and that side isn't less important than the emotional or mental side. Your marriage needs both.

If you need to make some changes to make it feel better or to add some romance, that's fine too. But don't fall for the world's idea that sex without romance is necessarily bad or being used. When you belong to one another, giving freely to your spouse is a gift to yourself as well.