Reading: Sexual Intimacy part 4

Sexual Intimacy: Part 4

By Kristine Koetje-Balder

TEN WAYS TO CULTIVATE SEXUAL INTIMACY WITHIN MARRIAGE

1. Deal with Hurts. Some couples struggle with intimacy because they have grown to not like each other. Unresolved tension keeps many couples from being tender. Some couples can't come together because they trip over the rug where they've swept their past issues under. Or perhaps they're carrying scars from past abuse, physically or emotionally.  

TEN WAYS TO CULTIVATE SEXUAL INTIMACY WITHIN MARRIAGE

2. Have meaningful conversations regularly. Spouses need regular, intimate conversation with the other in order to feel loved, appreciated, and accepted. Your spouse's hopes, dreams and needs change and evolve with time. It is very true for women that connecting with their husband emotionally and through meaningful conversation actually heightens the fires of physical intimacy. The following are key points that bring heart awareness for sexual intimacy to occur:

Our mates are not trying to frustrate us 

Our mates tell us what they need  

Avoiding problems usually only intensifies them 

Sexual feelings cannot be separated from our emotions   

Attending to our mate's feelings and needs makes them feel profoundly respected

TEN WAYS TO CULTIVATE SEXUAL INTIMACY WITHIN MARRIAGE

3. Prepare your mind throughout the day. Start positive talk to promote a healthy attitude toward your sexual intimacy.   Flirting, innuendos, and gestures can all be a part of the thoughts for the day.

4. Practice spontaneous acts of love. One of the husbands I met with stated that one of the most encouraging moments in his marriage was when his wife unexpectedly wrote a small letter, expressing her appreciation for him and in the place where one would normally put "I love you,” she wrote, "I respect you.” Or how about a handwritten note or text message encouraging your spouse with a feature of his or hers that you admire. Hebrews 3:15 teaches that every believer needs to be encouraged daily in order to escape temptation. Your spouse needs you to encourage them daily as well. This is not just with words but also with acts of love.

TEN WAYS TO CULTIVATE SEXUAL INTIMACY WITHIN MARRIAGE

5. Grow in spiritual intimacy together. I recommend to pray and read the Word with your spouse each night before going to bed. Connecting spiritually promotes physical intimacy.

6. Have regular "State of the Sex Life” conversations. If this type of conversation seems embarrassing or wrong, then this may be a sign that your sexual relationship is not going well. Talking about sex with your spouse helps you to better know your spouse and their needs, and it honors God. In fact, the book of Song of Songs models this conversational openness about sexual intimacy in marriage. 

TEN WAYS TO CULTIVATE SEXUAL INTIMACY WITHIN MARRIAGE

7. Schedule and follow through with regular date nights - If you and your spouse's dating life looked like it does today, would you have married? I know that kids, work, and the daily grind have changed since then, but you can't expect a burning desire for your spouse if your interactions have turned into business transactions. 

TEN WAYS TO CULTIVATE SEXUAL INTIMACY WITHIN MARRIAGE

8. Have times of non-sexual physical touch - So often the plentiful gestures, like holding hands when dating, become almost non-existent when married. If the only time that you and your spouse touch each other is when it's time to have sex, you are doing yourselves a great disservice. Physical affection does not have to be just sexual, and it can bring great joy. Back massages or cuddle times without the expectation of sexual intercourse every single time, may even be a good way to tell your spouse that you are giving him/her a back massage without expecting a pay off at the end.  They'll appreciate and won't feel like the massage was a bait and switch.

TEN WAYS TO CULTIVATE SEXUAL INTIMACY WITHIN MARRIAGE

9. Don't forget health and hygiene. When doing your best to take care of your health and hygiene, it helps to eliminate barriers of personal insecurity and keeps you from offending your spouse.   

10. Foster an atmosphere that encourages intimacy - Put away the romance novels and turn off the electronics. Keep the lights on. This is a reminder to the wives as husbands are stimulated by sight and being able to look at the body of the woman that God has given as a gift is very much a blessing. Look into each other's eyes. Have a clean bedroom and clean linen. Have some fun and this can include putting on some soft music and lighting candles. (Williams)

TWELVE STEPS OF PAIR BONDING

Sociologist Desmond Morris addressed this important concept and process in his book, Intimate Behavior, and called it "pair formation” or "pair bonding.”  He observed humans in their courting behaviors and saw a process that often included all or most of twelve separate steps.  Each step is progressively different and important. The needs of an initial step cannot be met by skipping ahead to another. Lovers often hope that genital to genital involvement will instantly create intimacy. They fail to realize, to their great detriment, that intimate bonding is indeed a process. This is a simple summary of Desmond Morris's work and provides important steps that can build or recapture a deeper romance and intimacy. I have assigned these twelve steps of bonding and have asked couples to report back in session in terms of the example, the venue, and the emotions that were created with each pair bonding step.

TWELVE STEPS OF PAIR BONDING

1. Eye to body. Our senses feed our mind information about another person. This includes sexual information, but it is a more total observation. We sort and assess this information as we define attractiveness.

2. Eye to eye. People usually watch one another privately and do not directly look into each other's eyes. Strangers will break eye contact because this is an invasion of privacy. A friendly smile or an inviting look is often the beginning of more intimate contact. 

TWELVE STEPS OF PAIR BONDING

3. Voice to voice. Often initial verbal contact is quite casual but furthers the bonding process. The connecting conversation allows more information to be exchanged. Accents, tones of voice, vocabularies, and styles of communication and thinking all give valuable knowledge to the pair becoming intimately involved.

4. Hand to hand. Hand to hand or arm may be more of a supportive behavior at first, as one person assists the other out of a car or lightly supplies directional guidance. It may be a disguised intimacy and lead to more hand-holding if there is a mutual inclination and desire for closeness. Both partners are aware that this is symbolic of a bonding sequence that may in time involve richer intimacies.

TWELVE STEPS OF PAIR BONDING

5. Arm to shoulder. The previous steps can be more casual in nature, but this step intentionally brings the partner into closer body contact. An arm around the shoulder communicates a message of close friendship and perhaps love. It draws the partners together and indicates a deeper desire for intimate companionship.

6. Arm to waist. This is a more direct statement of sexual and romantic interest. The arm is around the waist and close to the private areas of the body. Arm to waist is indicative of a growing intimacy and amorous bonding. Like the preceding step, it brings the trunks of the bodies into contact in an increasing intimacy.

TWELVE STEPS OF PAIR BONDING

7. Mouth to mouth. Kissing on the mouth with the accompanying behavior of a close, frontal embrace is a big step forward in a pair bonding. This is the initial step that can create erotic and genital arousal, especially with prolonged and intimate kissing. The lips have a proportionately larger number of nerve endings than other parts of the body. Also, kissing is a very intimate and personal sharing of ourselves because we are touching another with a part of our body that we use to communicate and nurture ourselves.  

TWELVE STEPS OF PAIR BONDING

8. Hand to head. Perhaps as an accompanying behavior to the intimate kissing, the hands touch and caress the partner's head. The defensive walls are let down and bonding occurs as fingers tenderly stroke the face, hair, ears, and neck. Sometimes the hand will lovingly clasp the head in a communication of caring and intimate possessiveness.

9. Hand to body. Intimacy deepens as the hands explore the partner's body with intimate caresses. The trust and bonding are deepening with caressing of the more intimate areas and further sexual arousal will be experienced.

TWELVE STEPS OF PAIR BONDING

10. Mouth to breast. With this step, the bonding behaviors have become private and a new level of intimacy has been reached. The first nine steps, with the exception of caressing a more intimate part of the body, might be expressed in public and the pair bonding developed without a need for privacy. The female breast is covered in most societies, and its exposure is symbolic of advanced intimacy. 

TWELVE STEPS OF PAIR BONDING

11. Hand to genital. Touching the lover's genitals implies a sufficient level of trust and bond of attachment for deeper intimacies.

12. Genital to genital. The final step of pair formation includes intercourse and the potential for creating life. The design for this pair bonding is that the couple remains bonded beyond the satisfaction of the sex drive and intercourse. 

CLOSING COMMENTS:

Remember that emotional and physical intimacy ignites the rocket in your marriage, but spiritual intimacy fires the afterburners and gets you into orbit. Emotional and physical attraction is what drew you together, but the spiritual connection is what keeps you together.