Another in the How do you get an uninterested or unwilling wife to have more sex? series.

For reasons touched on below, many young women have rather low sex drives, and get relatively little pleasure out of sex. It's not that they have no interest or no pleasure, rather they are not experiencing the level of desire and mind blowing enjoyment that other women experience.  For some (many?) women this changes as they grow older - the surging sex drive of women in their forties is not just a myth - it does happen.  We have talked to plenty of women who had little or no interest in sex for a decade or two of marriage, and then suddenly it was as if a switch was turned on.

There is good evidence to suggest that a part of this is hormonal. The fact that older women are not exhausted from caring for children no doubt plays a part. Being more sure of herself, and less concerned about every minor imperfection in her body is certainly also a factor. Whatever the reasons, once a woman "gets it", she tends to never lose it.

Once you experience what God intended sex to be, you don't forget it. It's more than just a good feeling between the legs, it's an experience that fills and thrills you in every corner of your being - including some parts you did not know existed. Once you know what that is, you want it, even when you don't feel any physical desire, even when you are tired or grumpy or otherwise not at your best. You want what you know sex can be.

I make this point because I think you can do things to help your bride experience what God intended sex to be. Not by pushing her for more, or for variety, or trying to give her multiple orgasm after multiple orgasm. What she needs is the time and space to become a sexual person - to become herself sexually. She needs to be told she is loved, and that her sexuality is loved, no matter what that sexuality may become.  She needs to be free to try something, and to try it once and not hear about it over and over for the next ten years.  She needs to trust herself, and her lover.

A woman also needs to be able to blow her husband's socks of sexually. I know, you don't think your bride wants to do that for you.  Odds are she has become convinced she can't do it, that what it would take to satisfy you is beyond what she, or for that matter any human, can do. In part, this may be because she does not give herself enough credit - but you may well have set the bar excessively high.

More than anything, she needs you to have self-control, and to love her even when it's not so good. Frustration is understandable, but expressing that can greatly damage her growing into what she could be. Other things that will delay or prevent her becoming a healthy sexual woman are your sexual joking, porn, lust, and selfishly pressing her for things she does not currently want to try. When we push, manipulate, or shame our way into something we want sexually, it may be a matter of winning a battle in a way that decreases the chance of winning the war.

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Yes, that's a bold title - or maybe a foolhardy title.  But for what it's worth here is my take on what sex is supposed to be.

Did God really create sex as nothing more than an act, a necessary evil required to procreate?  Society has reduced sex to feelings between the legs, and tries to fix quality problems with quantity.  Both of these lies have something in common - they make sex primarily, if not exclusively, a physical act. It's all about the body parts, and the pleasure and/or pregnancy that the body parts can give us.

Clearly God intended sex to be the way for us to have children, and clearly He made sex very physically pleasurable (far more pleasurable than it needs to be to get folks to do it enough to "go forth and multiply"). But I am convinced this is just the tip of the iceberg. The more I learn, and the more I hear from others, the more aware I am that sex can touch us on many, many levels.  Sex can "feel good" mentally, emotionally, relationally, and spiritually. Sex both can energise and relax, help us focus, open us to see more, and enhance our ability to understand and empathize with our partner. Sex helps bring healing to our bodies and minds, calms us, make sleep easier, and greatly reduce stress.  Good sex, sex that is enjoyed on many levels by both husband and wife, builds a deep bond that will withstand a great deal.  A healthy sex life makes a marriage strong and deeply intimate.

And what about "enough"? Enough is not about doing it often enough that you don't "feel horny" - enough is about a quantity of quality sex that makes you one with your spouse on many levels.  Enough means you are so satisfied and so in love that you could do more, but you don't feel you bad if you don't.   Enough means you no longer struggle with arousal, or with the pain of being rejected when you need sex.  Enough also means that you are having sex so often that no single time feels like it's make or break.  Enough means you have a mix of okay sex, good sex, great sex, and incredible sex - and if it's just okay this time that's fine, because it was great last time (which was recently) and will be good or better the next time (which will be soon).  Enough is about no longer worrying about it, or even really thinking much about it, because it is a part of your life and you know it will happen.  Enough is also a regularity that makes sex easier for your bride - it's frequently enough that her mind, emotions and body all response better, more easily, more quickly, and more powerfully.

Okay, I can hear a lot of you saying "That's all well and good, but I can't get my bride to have sex with me more than once a week ...". And yes, that is a problem.  Because while sex should not be just physical, you can't have all of the things I mentioned above without the physical act, and you can't have many of those things when sex is infrequent either.  The kind of sex I think God called us to takes frequent, loving, unselfish sex.

But how do you get an uninterested or unwilling wife to have more sex?  In large part that depends on why she is uninterested or unwilling - and that I will be addressing in the next few Saturday tips. For today, I want to give you an idea of the bigger picture, of what sex can be, of how wide it can be, of how many ways it can touch you and connect you to your bride. If you think this tip, or selected parts of it, would help your bride to see the goal better, please use as you see fit. A lot of women just hear nothing but "More, more, more" even though that is not what the husband means or says. Helping her to see the breadth and width of what can be had may reduce her apprehension.

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