If you want great sex, then you simply have to let yourself be vulnerable.
It’s the start of our second week of the Sizzling Summer Sex Series, and last week one of the big things I was addressing was how to find real passion. The answer? We need vulnerability. It’s the key to women’s sexual response, too.
This week we’re going to be looking at how to spice things up, and why sex sometimes gets boring. But before we can spice things up, we have to deal with one more thing. We have to let go of our control freak tendencies.
I spend a lot of my time on the road in our RV giving my Girl Talk to churches–a hilarious, fun night where I share God’s threefold design for sex (emotional, physical, and spiritual intimacy), and then talk about how to get there. And inevitably I get people crying, too, because I share some personal stuff we all can relate to. (It really is a great evening that’s super seeker-friendly, and I’m booking for the next season now! Email my assistant Tammy about how you can bring it to your church or women’s group).
This year, after one such event, I was talking with some of the organizers, who were all pumped up about how well the evening had been received. “People totally need to talk about this stuff!” one woman said. But then one of the organizers managed to get me alone, as I was clearing off my table, and said that she had a question to ask.
She desperately loved her husband. She loved her family. She loved God. But her libido had just disappeared.
No matter what she did, she just couldn’t relax during sex or get any kind of desire for it. And she was so sad about this, because it wasn’t what she wanted–for her or for her husband. What was she supposed to do?
As she told me her story, inwardly I started to panic a bit. There wasn’t anything obviously wrong. Then I had a real God moment. I just said, “Are you a control freak? Like do you have trouble being vulnerable and letting people help you?”
I knew that came from God, because as soon as I said it she burst into tears. “Oh, my goodness, I totally am! I have to be in control all the time, and I hate that about me.” And then I told her that this was the root of her problem.
If we are trying to be in control, then sex will never, ever be great.
And we won’t desire it, either, because sex, at its essence, is the opposite of control. You have to be willing to let yourself go in order for sex to feel good. In fact, God specifically designed it that way so that we would totally be vulnerable with our spouses, forming a bond that we would get with no one else.
So if you have very little libido, if you are reluctant to try new things, if you have a hard time getting aroused or reaching orgasm, then maybe you need to ask yourself: “Do I need to be in control all the time?” Because that may be the heart of the problem.
Is Your Libido Sub-Zero? Here’s how to boost it!
You need my Boost Your Libido course!
I talk about the different aspects to libido (our thoughts, our feelings, our schedules, even our hormones!) and how all of those work together to either make or break a sex life.
And I show you how you can make small changes which honestly make all the difference! You don’t need to live with this frustration anymore.
Want Great Sex? You Need to Let Go of Control
What does it mean to be in control? It means that you have full control of all of your thoughts. You know what’s happening. You’re aware of your surroundings. You’re standing on guard. Nothing will take you by surprise.
But sex doesn’t work well that way. For you to actually enjoy yourself, you have to be able to stop concentrating on what’s going on and just start FEELING. Sex is about FEELING, not so much about THINKING. If you overthink things, sex won’t work well.
Often one of the biggest roadblocks to actually reaching orgasm, for instance, is that we’re so worried about it. In order to really achieve an orgasm (as I talked about in my post on orgasm, and as I go into much more depth, with more tips, in The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex), you have to just let the waves take over you. If you’re constantly thinking, “am I there yet? Will I? Will it happen?”, it won’t. The waves can’t take over if you’re thinking too much.
So great sex means you need to turn off the constant dialogue in your head. And that’s hard.
Great Sex Means You Aren’t Really, Well, Proper
A proper woman is someone who is fully buttoned up, with the tea kettle on, not a hair out of place, and very gentle speech.
Great sex is the opposite of all of that. You can’t be worried about what you look like, or what you sound like, or even what you’re doing if you’re going to be able to enjoy yourself.
Why is that we try so hard to be proper in our everyday life? We care what others think of us. So it’s as if we’re walking around outside of ourselves, watching ourselves, making sure we’re doing everything right. We train ourselves to be conscious of our every move.
Great sex means throwing caution to the wind and letting yourself be primitive, not proper. This isn’t, by the way, because there’s anything “improper” with sex in marriage; on the contrary, God created us so that our most basic and instinctual need to be connected to another human being mimics the deep need we have for intimacy with God. And that intimacy isn’t quite proper, either.
Remember how in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe the Beavers are trying to explain Aslan to the children, and they keep saying, “he’s not a tame lion, you know.” That’s what sex is like. It isn’t tame. It isn’t something you can put a lid on and keep it unmessy and organized. It spills over. It revels. It even screams.
Good Sex Requires Trust
The opposite of control is trust. When we’re in control, we have no need to trust anyone. We’re safe. We’ve got everything under our fingers.
But in order to really enjoy sex you have to be able to trust the other person. What makes sex stupendous is that feeling as if you’re truly one. That feeling of spiritual intimacy feeds the feelings of physical pleasure and makes the latter so much stronger. But you can’t feel like you’re one if you’re in control of everything you do, and he’s in control of everything he does, and you just move together in bed. That’s two people, not one person.
When you trust, though, you can become “improper”. You can really let yourself feel and you can turn your mind off just a little bit. You can stop worrying about what he thinks, or whether he really loves you. You know you’re able to trust (if you can’t trust him because of porn, or because of adultery, that’s such a tough place to be. Before you can truly rebuild your sex life, you likely have to rebuild trust). If you can’t trust him or you’re always worried about what he’s thinking, then it will be very hard to ask him to bring you pleasure, too!
Good Sex Requires Embracing Your Sexual Side
Sex and feeling in control are really polar opposites. Someone in control is ruled by their thoughts, while someone enjoying sex is giving in to feelings. And what are those feelings? They’re sexual.
That’s scary to a lot of people, because it feels shameful. But there is absolutely nothing shameful about making love to your husband.
And there is nothing wrong with feeling overwhelmed in the moment and screaming. There’s nothing wrong with desperately wanting to touch something–or to be touched. There’s nothing wrong with feeling like you’re on fire.
But when we grow up feeling that these things are wrong–that only “bad girls” feel that way–then when we start to have those feelings we often work hard to turn them off.
A great sex life means that you give in to those feelings. You embrace your sexual side. You realize that this is who you were made to be–with your husband. And this is a good thing! You can fuel those feelings with some texts to him during the day, or some nibbles on his ear after dinner, or whispers to him. You can flirt. You can tease him. You can even initiate sex!
Good Sex Means You’re Naked
Finally, here’s the hardest one for some of us control freaks: good sex means you’re naked. You can’t hide. He sees all of you–and he still accepts you and wants you.
So often it’s we who hate our bodies, not our husbands (if your husband has put your body down, read this post). If you can let yourself see yourself as your husband does–full of desire and acceptance–that can be intoxicating.
If you sum all of this up, isn’t this what we truly want? We don’t have to worry about what other people thinking. We don’t want to worry about our performance. We don’t want to feel ashamed. We don’t want to feel judged. We want to be able to turn off these constant voices and accusations in our heads, and just relax and enjoy in the moment. We want to feel one. We want to feel connected.
These are all truly beautiful things, and they are a gift from God for marriage. You really can have them. It just means giving up control.
Can you do it? Your sex life will never be the same.
Your Sizzling Summer Sex Challenge Day 6:
Today’s is a doozy! I challenge you to give up control.
Set the timer for 15 minutes (or 10 minutes if you just can’t take that long) and lie perfectly still. Allow your husband to touch you or try to please you. Just don’t move!
Force yourself to just experience, rather than feeling as if you need to perform. And see what happens!
See all the Sizzling Summer Sex Series posts here.
What do you think? Do you have trouble being vulnerable or feeling out of control in the bedroom? Let me know in the comments! (Or just tell me something general about how this series is going for you! ? )
Marriage isn’t supposed to be blah!
Sex is supposed to be stupendous–physically, emotionally, AND spiritually.If it’s not, get The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex–and find out what you’ve been missing.
