The S Word

When I was about 15 I wrote this worship song:

Thank you thank you thank you
thank you thank you thank you
thank you thank you thank you
God for making breasts.

Although I might now want to insert "my wife's" into the last line I think the sentiment still pretty much stands.  And I don't believe I am the only man who feels this way...

Indeed, in Proverbs 5:18 in the NIV Bible it beseeches men to rejoice in the wife of their youth.  And if any of them need any clarification as to what exactly that means it gets pretty down and dirty in the next verse by saying 'may her breasts satisfy you always'.  Flip, I can barely believe it.  But there it is right slap bang in the middle of the bible - God made breasts at least in part to bring satisfaction to husbands.

And if you are finding all this a bit saucy then don't even look at Song of Songs chapter 4 and all its talk about going to the mountain of myrrh until day breaks and to the hill of incense until the shadows flee.  Or, for that matter, chapter 2 when the woman says that the man's fruit is sweet to taste and how she want him to refresh her with apples from his apple tree.

No matter how quiet we are about it in christian adult culture the bible bellows out sex-talk like a slightly embarrassing grandfather.  We can't deny it - making whoopee is a profoundly biblical thing to do.  God made us to bonk.

So, as point number one.  Let's embrace that fact.  Let us see our wives as fellow explorers on a God-ordained voyage of orgasm and arousal.  It is a great adventure that married couples can go on together.  Paul the apostle (who didn't have the pleasure of taking the journey himself) regularly recommended to his churches that married couples should spend a good amount of time in bed together (or something like that) to keep their relationships strong and their love sweet (or something like that).

And then as point number two, swiftly off the back of that, let's recognise that for many of us talk of arousal and orgasm and adventure and pleasure rings very hollow when we think of sex.  We might not be married despite holding a ten-year membership on Christian Chat Cafe.  We might be married but have physical issues that cause major problems with sex.  Or we might be married and physically as buff as they come but just can't seem to make it work with our spouse.  Increasingly I am realising that a huge number of us fall into these categories... and we trudge around in them feeling lonely and frustrated.  And, if we sit in them like that for too long then we start to doubt the goodness of God and the goodness of women and the goodness of our penises and we start to act out destructive behaviours to either deny that sex is good or to pursue it in avenues that we shouldn't (and the bible has a lot to say about that as well).

Sex is another one of those issues where it really pays to understand the now and the not yet of the kingdom - where we can simultaneously embrace the promise and the wonder and the beauty of God's kingdom and at the same time be real about the way that is currently intermingled with the residue of the corruption and the struggle of our fallenness.

What I think we really need in our church are men like an old housegroup leader of mine.  He was a GP so he had a bit of inside knowledge on the issue but he still chose to put it out there all the time (and I mean all the time!).  He would always find ways to talk about sex, the problems with sex, the pleasures of sex and the beauty of his wife's body (I always felt a bit uncomfortable during those conversations, especially when it was summer and she was stood in the room wearing what a lot of women wear in summer).  What I loved so much about him was that gave permission for all of us younger guys to talk with him about it.  He helped me realise that some of the issues I had as a newly-married man were pretty common and fully legitimate to bring before God and trusted guys in the church.  And he encouraged me to embrace the truly biblical understanding of our genitals; as pleasure palaces and intimacy builders, as love tools and worship instruments.

So when we chat please can I ask some of the older guys especially to be asking us younger guys how our sex lives are?  And for us to be asking each other this in a sensitive and loving kind of way, giving permission for us all to share our struggles and our issues and our concerns.

And at the same time let's encourage those of us who are married to pray for great sex with our wives and to work hard at helping them and us together go on this voyage of delight that has been charted out for us by our God.