Date Night Advice series: TOP10 Dumbest Reasons to Date
Dumb Reason #2: Sexual Intercourse
We left last week’s post with the question, “Is sex a performance?”
Here’s the crux of the matter: if sex is just a performance, then a great sex life will require a lifetime of great performances.
If that’s so, you’ll want to start learning your lines now. Rehearse in the mirror. And while there, perfect your pouty face.
“No that’s too sad… now you look more confused… OK, how about that “you’ve-been-naughty” look… No. That looks too scary… Now you look angry.
Are you angry?”
Is that the sex life you want; taking all of your cues from TV, film, the web, books and magazines; entering marriage with blockbuster expectations for each and every sexual experience?
Inadvertently that’s what we do when we expose ourselves to the images, ideas and fantasies churned up by Hollywood, and then go off and marry a real person.
Could this reality be the source of so many disappointing honeymoons and subsequent second-rate marital sex lives?
Let’s get right to it: In your private moments together, do you long to bond as intimate lovers or as paid actors?
I would suggest that a truly authentic sexual encounter is one so free it could never be performed. Instead of demanding a performance, the ultimate sexual experience requires freedom from performance.
Sex is about the person, not the performance; the one person you’ve promised to love until death (whether you feel like it or not); the same person who’s made the same commitment to you. Sexual intimacy should flow freely out of that relationship, instead of being formed artificially through rehearsals.
Performing is what you have to do for your teachers, bosses, co-workers and clients. If you have to perform for your lover you’ll eventually burnout. If they don’t grow tired of you first. Either way you can chalk it up to a lack of “sexual compatibility.”
In contrast, true sexual compatibility can only develop between two lovers committed for life, confident in the affections of each other, buoyed by a mutual respect based on character instead of chemistry.
Does that sound like something you can figure out in the back seat of a car, or even through a couple years of cohabitation?
Please, I urge you out of the deepest desire for your richest joy in relationships (marriage or otherwise): cease to concern yourself with sexual compatibility and look for a lover who would hold you close even if for some reason you couldn’t “perform” sexually at all.
More importantly, determine to be that lover. And then prepare to be that lover.
Forget about the acting lessons. Let’s set sex free from performance.
Instead of great sex, find out what makes for great relationships. If you learn the latter, you just might wind up in a marriage where you’re blown away by the former. But even if you aren’t, would you rather live a life full of great sex or great relationships? And before you answer, consider which of the two will matter at the end of your life. Then focus your energies accordingly.
We’ll have just one more post in this series on “sexual intercourse.” We began the series with scripture and I want to end on that note, so next week we’ll learn what farmers can teach us about fornication.
DNA: It’s What’s For Dating
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The LoveEd study guide series, Beyond Sex & Salvation, will empower you to prepare for relational success when it counts: BEFORE YOU FALL IN LOVE! It’s NOT for couples, but for any wise individual who thinks they might want to get married sometime before they die. Check out the first two 8-lesson study guides in our store. You can walk through it on your own, but it’s more fun with friends, so consider putting together an FMU LoveEd small group study. Even better? And ask a married couple you respect to lead it!
Image source: flickr.com/photos/pedromourapinheiro
