When I first began recovery, I thought I knew everything there was to know about sex. My choices to sexually sin and the continual need for greater and greater intensity for sexual arousal had taught me a lot about sex. Or so I thought. My sexual acting out had indeed taught me a lot about pleasing myself or someone else to greater pleasure. However, I began to see that pleasing myself or reaching orgasm was only a small part of the whole of sexual intimacy. In fact, most of my knowledge of sexual intimacy was in many ways tainted by the large amount of hyper-stimulation upon my heart and mind due to the use of pornography and masturbation for years.
One of the neatest aspects of our recovery is to actually learn about something we may have always thought we knew everything about. Part of the premise of this thinking comes from a misperception that our greatest need has been sex. When a need is that great, we often put a great deal of importance on it leading us to a false sense of security. Think about it. What young man in high school, when the subject of sex came up, would not want others to know that he had a pretty good knowledge base about sex? Part of our feeling secure is often based upon how sexual or how much we may know about sex, even if we never divulge that it is that important to us. So, to that end, I want to propose something. Allow God to not only transform your mind and heart around your shame and sin but also around your perspectives and practice of sexual intimacy now and in the future.
Whether you are currently married or single, I believe that a healthy understanding of sexual intimacy and sexuality is essential to our continued growth in recovery, both for ourselves and our marriages (including future marriages). We will cover topics such as sexual development, sexual intercourse, emotional connection in sexual intimacy, and oral sex. As I stated before I had so many misperceptions of these and other areas of sexual intimacy.
In order to grow and have healing sexually in our lives I believe our misperceptions must be challenged. Unfortunately, my misperceptions and hyper-stimulation through sexual acting out influenced my pushing the limits of sexual intimacy in my marriage bed. I attempted to bring into our sacred union the acts and over the top sexual practices that I saw in pornography. Those attempts only reinforced my misperceptions about sex. The pushing of the limits left my wife feeling unsafe within our marriage bed and left me empty and frustrated with her and myself. This eventually brought us to stagnation in the true oneness God had for us.
In Genesis 2:24-25, it states, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame” (NIV). One of the tenets of oneness is that the man and woman felt at ease with one another –safe. My misperceptions made it very difficult to be fully “naked” with my wife thus making true oneness suffer. Becoming a man who understands sexual intimacy from a holy and healthy perspective will mean being transformed. Our sexual sin has caused us to conform to the world’s way of looking at sex. But God wants to cause a metamorphosis of your soul and your mind (Romans 12:2). A transformation of your thinking in every area of your being, even your sexuality. Just as giving ourselves to reading of scripture, daily prayer time and regular fellowship helps us transform our lives into a lifestyle that is pleasing to God, being an understudy of how the Lord has created sex within His parameters leads to a holy lifestyle in that area of our lives as well.
As we begin this journey of exploring healthy and Godly sexual intimacy in marriage, I invite you to open your hearts to the changes the Lord may begin to cause within your thinking and your heart. It is so encouraging to know that as we move along this path of recovery and healing, God replaces our sin with His love and strength. And it is also encouraging to know that He also replaces our old thinking and perspectives with His wisdom and understanding that far surpasses what we have ever known or thought about sex before. I look forward to the journey of discovering with you God’s design for holy and healthy sex in marriage.
by David Wever