Are you ever confused by your spouse? Why does she never initiate sex? Why does he always want it? (Sometimes it’s the other way around…)
Why does this apparent incompatibility between men and women exist?
Why didn’t God just make us the same?
There’d be no arguments or misunderstandings about sex if both men and women related to it in the same way.
To teach us to communicate, to serve each other, and to seek understanding of the other.
Instead, we don’t communicate about it, we desire to serve ourselves, and want to be understood instead of seeking to understand.
How do we solve this problem?
Sex is a really complex thing and can be affected by a bunch of factors like stress, fear, depression, embarrassment, fatigue, body-image issues, sexual history, hormones, medication and the emotional state and climate of the marriage.
Assuming there are no huge relationship issues or horrible sexual history, the fix for sexual incompatibility could lie in understanding the difference between men’s and women’s sexual responsiveness.
I don’t mean to oversimplify sex; it is complex, but this one thing could be holding your sexual relationship ransom.
Here is the nugget of truth:
Men: Desire leads to Arousal
Women: Arousal leads to Desire
Men typically (but not always) initiate sex because they have a desire for it and then arousal follows right after. Scientists call it “spontaneous desire”.
Spontaneous desire motivates the initiation of sexual behaviour and can confuse the recipient (his wife) because it seems like it’s coming out of nowhere – which it is. It’s spontaneous!
The recipient (usually the woman) asks herself things like:
Women typically (but not always) don’t feel the desire for sex until they get aroused, and that can take a good 15 minutes! Scientists call this “responsive desire”.
Sexual desire grows after sexual behaviour has started. Women may seem to have a low libido because they don’t often initiate sex and it can take some effort to get “in the mood”.
With responsive desire, sexual arousal follows physical or mental stimulation – usually coming from the husband who is trying to initiate sex. If he doesn’t understand this process he may think thinks like:
The result of not understanding this difference in sexual response is that women may end up believing that there is something wrong with them because they hardly ever feel like sex when their husband initiates.
And, because women don’t understand how their desire works, they think they can’t engage in sex when they don’t feel like it.
Men may become irritated and hurt because their wives are not as interested in sex as they are.
A husband can learn to be patient and invest in foreplay so that his wife is fully aroused before engaging in the act of sex. This will increase the chances of her reaching orgasm regularly and make her more willing to be sexual.
(And, believe me, there are women out there who are not experiencing orgasm, and they should be. Neither of you should be settling for this!)
A wife can stop being irritated by her husband’s advances and choose to interact sexually. As her body becomes aroused, her desire will increase. She can choose to respond to his sexual advances even if her body is telling her otherwise, because her body will follow her mind.
With knowledge comes power. Now that you have this knowledge, Richard and I hope that you will apply it and experience harmony in the bedroom instead of conflict. 🙂
If you are a woman who struggles with low libido, there may not be anything wrong with you! It may be that you don’t understand how your own body functions sexually.
Good news! Sheila Wray Gregoire’s Boost Your Libido course will help you understand your libido and set you free to enjoy your God-given sexuality.
(This is an affiliate link which means we earn a little from it :))
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