Podcast: https://bit.ly/4ts13Kh
We talked earlier this week about self-image. Our self-image has a massive impact on our sexuality, and it’s a factor in many sexual problems.
Our sexual self-image was largely formed before we knew what sex was. Your parents’ attitudes about sex were communicated to you by their actions and words from birth onwards. Things that happened later in life did shape us some, but for many, the blessing or harm was done long before puberty.
Girls get the good-girl/bad-girl stuff, and good girls don’t want or enjoy sex. They are taught their genitals are dirty. They are told boys can’t control themselves, so they have to fight them off. Boys are taught they are slaves to their hormones, making them sexually selfish and may see their penis as a monster that will hurt their wife if they don’t restrain it.
Most of us have guilt and shame about our sexuality. It could be about something we did in the past. It could be something that was done to us. Many feel some desire they have is wrong.
When we have sex, all of our fear and brokenness are there in bed with us, along with our spouse’s fear and brokenness. There can be so much baggage that sex is all but impossible.
What does God say?
God says your sex organs are good. Very good even! He says what you do with them, in marriage, is a beautiful thing. He urges us to share and explore our sexuality with our spouse and to enjoy doing so a great deal.
Have you ever examined your sexual self-image? How do you see your sexual parts? How do you feel about what you do with those parts? What about the things you don’t like to do? Why don’t you want to do those things? Dig below “Because”; what’s really going on? Where does any of this conflict with what God says?
How might your sex life change if you felt positive about your sexuality? What if you felt sex with your spouse was right and sacred? What if it was okay to really enjoy sex? What if it felt right and intimate rather than dirty or base?
By the way, these things are not just for women. Many men feel guilty about their “high drive” or what they would like to do sexually. Men also feel guilt over sex they know they pushed their wives into in the past. Many men have a love/hate relationship with sex. Such things are as detrimental to sex as her baggage.
Ideally, you and your spouse talk about all of these issues together. Share all of the negative stuff you feel about sex. Talk about where that comes from. Support each other and repeat truth to each other. Then together, walk away from the bad and into the sex life God wants for you.
~ This is Paul, and Doing Sex Well is a process.
Related Resource: Sexual Brokenness and Healing | Dan Allender & Jay Stringer
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Image Credit: © Paul H Byerly created with ideogram.ai & Paul Byerly
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Image Credit: © Paul H Byerly created with Nano Banana 2 & Paul Byerly
