When Owen and I were engaged, I bought Sheila Wray Gregoire’s book, The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex and even ended up taking it on our honeymoon! Over the years I have gone to Sheila’s blog countless times to soak up her wisdom and insight on topics pertaining to marriage in general and sex specifically. Because of that, I am incredibly honored and excited to have been given the opportunity to guest post on her site! I hope that something you read in this post will encourage you in your marriage or inspire you for when the day comes and you do get married. Female sexuality as designed by God is a great thing! Never forget that.
We have a problem in Christendom today, and that problem is that we do not have a good grasp on God’s actual design for female sexuality.
Just think about the things you regularly hear these days, particularly in our more conservative Christian circles:
- Men are visual.
- Sex is for the man.
- Just meet your husband’s needs.
The result of this kind of thinking is that we come away with the false beliefs that women aren’t visual at all, that sex is not for the woman in any way, and that there really is no such thing as true intimacy – after all, sex is just a deed you perform to meet your husband’s physical needs.
We have so misconstrued God’s beautiful design for sex that I think it’s high time we go back to the beginning. Journey with me through the Song of Solomon for a minute today so that we might, together, come to a more full-orbed understanding of female sexuality as designed by God. The result of this study can be greater intimacy, stronger marriages, and a healthier view of sex as we begin to understand it through the lens of God’s infallible Word.
The Shulamite woman is Solomon’s lover in the book of the Bible known as the Song of Solomon. As we look at the pages of this book and get to know this love of Solomon’s life, 5 interesting points emerge:
1. Women can desire sex.
Men are not the only ones with sex drives or sexual desires. Women were designed by God with those characteristics, as well. As I pointed out in a recent webinar, sex is not just for your man; it’s for you, too. God designed men and women both to benefit from, enjoy, desire, and pursue sex with their spouse. In fact, Song of Solomon does not open with Solomon being attracted to and pursuing the Shulamite woman. The book actually begins with the Shulamite woman proclaiming her attraction to and physical desire for Solomon:
Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth—
For your love is better than wine.
Because of the fragrance of your good ointments,
Your name is ointment poured forth;
Therefore the virgins love you.
Draw me away! (Song of Solomon 1:2-4)
Interesting start to the book, isn’t it? It does not fit into today’s narrative that women don’t or shouldn’t desire sex all that much. Song of Solomon 3:1-5 is another portion of the book that clearly illustrates this woman’s sexual desire for Solomon as she diligently searches for him, finds him, and draws him into the bedroom to spend the night with her.
In the New Testament, we see this narrative continue as Paul confirms in 1 Corinthians 7 what the Shulamite is illustrating for us in the Song of Solomon. First Corinthians 7:3-5 says,
Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise also the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another except with consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again so that Satan does not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.
Clearly, there is equality here. Both men and women desire sex and feel deprived in marriage when they don’t experience it. Neither men nor women are to view sex as being merely for them or merely for their spouses. Sex is for both the husband and the wife because both were made by God to be sexual beings. To be sure – a strong desire for sex does not make you any less of a woman, despite what the culture may tell you! That desire in marriage is a good thing and is exactly how God desired both men and women to operate.
To read the other 4 lessons we learn from the Shulamite woman, head on over to Sheila’s site, To Love, Honor, and Vacuum!
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If you enjoy studying the topic of Biblical womanhood, I invite you to band together with the other ladies who have gone through my free 7 day email course entitled Womanhood by God’s Design! You can sign up for the free course here.
“Clearly, there is equality here. Both men and women desire sex and feel deprived in marriage when they don’t experience it.”
I believe the Bible teaches sex is for the benefit of the marriage, with both partners benefiting. There is no emphasis suggesting that sex is primarily for the husband, or for the wife. In that sense, I agree that there is equality in sex in marriage.
However, unless I am grossly mistaken, you are suggesting that the sexual desire of husbands and wives are equal. It seems the evidence suggests otherwise. In the web page,
https://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/07/how-strong-is-the-female-sex-drive-after-all/277429/, the author states that psychological researcher Roy Baumeister “and two (female) colleagues set to work reviewing hundreds of studies about human sexuality and found consistently that women are less motivated by sex than men are.” Note that “hundreds of studies” “consistently” showed men are more motivated by sex. No doubt there is some percentage of marriages where the wife desires sex more than the husband. However, that percentage is significantly less than the reverse.
In short, yes, “women can desire sex”, but it is unusual for women to desire sex EQUALLY as much as men. I think you know that, because, at least subconsciously, you are aware that there is substantial evidence to support the stereotype that husbands want sex much more than their wives do.
Hey! Thanks for your comment; you raise an excellent point. I would say, yes, in our current culture and the time in which we live a man’s sex drive does typically tend to be higher than a woman’s, and men do tend to definitely desire sex more than women often do. That is true. However, interestingly enough, I think a lot of that is cultural and what we have been groomed to believe through the narratives we hear about sex both in the church as well as in the world at large. We hear something for so long and then begin to live in accordance with it, assuming it to be normal. When, interestingly, this cultural norm of today where men have a higher libido than women was not always the case. In fact, Sheila (the lady on whose blog I guest posted this post) shared with me after she read my post that she had been doing some research lately and come across some very interesting findings showing that, in Bible times, in the middle east, at the time the book of Song of Solomon was written, it was actually the women who were expected to naturally have a higher sex drive. Not the men. That is why I say I think a lot of this has to do with what we are told about what is masculine and what is feminine in this area, and not necessarily our biological nature as God designed it. In other words, I don’t think God necessarily created men with the natural characteristic of having higher sex drives than women. I think a lot of that is cultural, based on research, etc. Does that make sense?
The Bible states in the beginning in the book of Genesis God created Man and then gave Man a help mate to be his companion because God said it’s not good that Man should be alone so in that context a Woman was created to be a companion for Man and in that the Man would be the provider and Woman would be able to complete the man that is why she is called Wo-Man so no competition or competitor it’s a completion and both Man and Woman are satisfied if it’s Union God’s Way
hey!
myn brain is on fire Girl!!
love your blog!!