How Frequently Should Married Couples Have Sex?

So…

On the top of sex and married folks, here are some things that I recently read:

According to one article: “…on average, married couples have sex 66 times a year, or a little more than once a week, according to the 2005 General Social Survey conducted by the National Opinion Research Center…Frequency of sex for married couples varies by age: Couples 18 to 29 are friskiest, reporting sex 109 times a year, while couples in their 60s do it 32 times yearly.”

According to another: “Married people under 30 have sex about 111 times a year. And it’s estimated that about 15 percent of married couples have not had sex with their spouse in the last six months to one year, according to Denise A. Donnelly, associate professor of sociology at Georgia State University, who has studied sexless marriage.”

No sex in a year?!? That can’t be good.

However, it was after reading a piece entitled, “I Hate Sex with My Husband” that I decided to pen this piece.

Although I do marriage counseling (Christ and Paul spoke the most on marriage and they were single too, right?-I Corinthians 6&7, Matthew 19), I am still single and so since I’m not (and not supposed to be-Hebrews 13:4) having sex, I wanted to pose something more in (long) question form.

After doing quite a few counseling sessions, one thing that *continously* comes up is that sex is *severely lacking* in the marriage bed. And when the frequency (or lack thereof) is “once a month”, “twice every six months” or “I can’t remember the last time” and *then* there are issues with porn, inappropriate online exchanges or even all out affairs, sometimes, I can’t help but to wonder: “What do most couples think when they read I Corinthians 7:5?”

“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.”

You see because here’s the thing: There are a lot of married people who watch porn, have affairs, engage in masturbation (even preferably to their partner), etc. out of pure selfishness BUT there are also many who do these things as a way of figuring out how to cope with the lack of sex that they are having within their marriage. Yet somehow, when this is mentioned to the “non-participating party”, they don’t seem to want to address the reality of this fact.

I liken it to how a lot of husbands seem to always remember that a woman is supposed to submit to her husband (Ephesians 5:22), yet somehow they “conveniently forget” that the same Word also says that if they don’t dwell with their wives *according to understanding* their prayers are not heard (I Peter 3:8). In this same vein, a lot of wives seem to want to quote “Do not commit adultery” (Exodus 20:14) but somehow, I Corinthians 7:5, miraculously, does not personally apply to their marriage bed. *That if theirs is a sexless marriage, their husbands are just supposed to…accept it.*

So, thia leads me to two questions, actually:

“Although frequency does tend to vary from couple to couple, when do you think that a marriage should be considered to be a sexless one?”

“What is a sexless marriage a sign of in the overall scope of the relationship?”

Oh, and I guess there are three:

“When there is a sexless marriage, what do you recommend the other person should do?”

Uh-oh. I guess there are four:

“What should be done to get a sexless marriage back on track?”

I’ hear the problems a lot. I would be curious to hear some of you all’s solutions.

Sound off…