Healthy Sex is about Freedom!

When you have sex with your partner it’s freeing. When you’re obligated to have sex, the freedom goes away. And you know it! We all know when our partners are saying yes with their bodies, but no with their hearts. That’s when sex becomes routine, stale, and  boring. Based on these circumstances it’s no wonder why our partners go out and seek what is missing.

Part of knowing a person is knowing what they like sexually. One of the biggest assumptions we bring into marriage is we assume husband’s are going to be warriors in the bedroom and be able to show their wife. As husband’s we assume our wives will scream with ecstasy the second our penis penetrates the vagina and why would they not want that sort of pleasure each and every night.

That’s simply not true.

Sex in our marriages would be more pleasurable, and more healthy if we could allow our partner to express what they like about sex and how often they want it.

Strivers! When was the last time you talked about what you enjoyed about sex with your partner?

Healthy Sex is about having Fun!

Sex can be fun if you allow it to. As we progress in our marriage and we are having sex, we think about:

• Am I doing it right?
• Is she screaming because she is enjoying it, or is it just to make me feel good?
• I can’t wait until he’s finished so I can (fill in the blank).
• Is that all he’s got?
• Is she just going to lay there, while I do all the work?

Set aside time in sex to just have fun. Healthy sex requires you and your partner to communicate. Sex is healthy when you talk about it – your wants, desires, likes, dislikes, fears, etc…

Let’s think about this logically, how do ever know what we like or dislike. We study, experiment, taste, touch, feel.

Why don’t we do that with sex? It’s clear women are looking for it! 50 Shades of Grey anyone!

 

 

Healthy Sex is about Connection!

If you have been married a few years, you get into a routine. It establishes a sense of normalcy, but oftentimes sex isn’t always a part of the routine.

According to some polls out there, here are some feedback on how much sex isn’t included in daily life of our married couples.

• Married couples say they have sex an average of 68.5 times a year. That’s slightly more than once a week. — Newsweek 
  
• Married people have 6.9 more sexual encounters per year than people who have never been married. — Newsweek 
• 15 to 20 percent of couples have sex no more than 10 times a year, which experts define as a sexless marriage. — Newsweek
  
• 20 to 30 percent of men and 30 to 50 percent of women say they have little or no sex drive. — USA Today 
• 25 percent of all Americans (a third of women and a fifth of men) suffer from a condition known as hypoactive sexual desire (HSD), which is defined as a persistent or recurring deficiency or absence of sexual fantasies or thoughts, or a lack of interest in sex or being sexual. —Psychology Today

In reality, when we are dating, we aren’t having sex all the time with our partners. It just seems like it because our energy is channelled into the chunk of time we spend together, the weekend. Also if the sex, becomes infrequent for either partner, they move onto someone else and the process begins all over again. 

If you look up intercourse in Webster’s Dictionary you find these definitions’ (1) connection or dealings between persons or groups, (2) exchange especially of thoughts or feelings (3) physical sexual contact between individuals that involves genitalia of at least one person.”

So Strivers, if healthy sex is about connection, why can’t we follow a simple definition?

Why are people having affairs, their sex lives are unhealthy.

There are many reasons why people are having affairs. According to private investigators featured in Friday Night’s 20/20 Caught in a Bad Romance,  they see just as many women as men stepping out on their partners.  Several reasons people have affairs are for excitement, adventure, revenge, companionship, attention or just plain lust. In essence the reason for the affair can be wrapped up in one single sentence. MY RELATIONSHIP ISN’T HEALTHY, THEREFORE MY SEX LIFE ISN’T HEALTHY.

In our society, sex is considered the pinnacle of our relationships. An excellent article on WEBMD’s website reflects the reasons why people have sex. It’s mostly around selfish reasons and not for the good of the relationship. In reality, sex should be used as a barometer for the relationship, not the indicator. Your sex lives should be good and healthy because your relationship reflects the same thing. On the flip side, if your sex life is one-sided, it’s because your relationship is also one-sided. Let me make something clear, I didn’t say sex should be plentiful. If you have a family and a job, the odds that you are “hittin’ it” every night or every weekend for that matter is unrealistic. But when you do have sex, it should be enjoyable and satisfying for both you and your partner.

In the book Rescuing your Love Life  by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend, the Hebrew word for “having sex” means “to know”.  In order to have a healthy sex life, you must truly know your partner.

How do you truly know the person you wake up next to every day? Over the next four days, we will examine how you must know your partner in the most intimate way, absent from fear, shame, hurt, or guilt. So we can get back to having healthy sex lives.