Abstinence Promotion: The Bre'r Rabbit and the Briar Patch Approach
Photo by Flickr user Hvnly. Used under a Creative Commons license.
In a post titled "The enemy of desire is duty," Hugo Schwyzer writes about a minister's genuinely creative way to get his congregants to lose interest in sex:
Marvin Lindsay sends me a link to the 30-Day Sex Challenge, famously initiated last month at the Relevant Church in Tampa, Florida. The challenge was simple: all married couples in the congregation were asked to have sex with each other each day for thirty days.
Ok, to be honest that may not have been the minister's intent, but based on the resignation expressed by couples I've known that were trying with difficulty to conceive ("we can't go out again tonight, my partner's fertile this week so we have to stay home and have sex"), and on the similar resignation women have reported feeling about the pressure to perform their "wifely duties," I'm pretty sure that would be the outcome: the enemy of desire is duty.
Just to be clear I'm *not* endorsing the minister's motivations, I'm just observing that *if* one felt, as many people of faith profess, that by and large the pleasures of the flesh are suspect, then getting all wound up in "don't do it" probably isn't the most effective approach.
Not least because "don't do it" generates that whole pesky thrill of the forbidden business. Make it obligatory instead and stand back!
Seriously, *if* you were into that sort of thing (I'm not) then if it wasn't *completley* unethical but if my parent's generation had made everyone have sex, with whoever was orientation-appropriate, in 8th-grade, somewhere between the "What's Happening Inside Your Body" assembly and the obligatory ballroom-dancing/square-dancing lessons I suspect I now be calling this blog "Real Adult Celibacy!"
Yes but...sometimes when a couple has been married for a long time they get in a rut of not having sex and I think it can help to make a commitment to have sex more often.
My husband and I have always been very good friends, but our sex life seems to sort of ebb and flow. Sometimes we have sex a lot and then other times we seem to get out of the habit because my husband has to wake up early to go to work, and the kids woke up several times in the night and so we are tired, and then maybe it's Saturday night and gee we were planning to watch a movie, during which I fell asleep, etc...and so we fall into a pattern of not much sex. You see how exciting my life is! A while ago I stumbled across the book, The Great American Sex Diet (it's pretty well known, you have probably heard of it) and the idea of the book is that you make a commitment to have sex 3 or 4 times a week. So we tried it and it was great! I agree that sex every day for 30 days may seem excessive,especially if the desire is not there, but on the other hand, for tired parents who want more intimacy, who desire desire, a plan need a plan for getting there can be helpful. The way the sex diet works is that couples mark days on a calendar (say like 4 days a week) and the couple takes turns initiating sex and having a plan for what they will do. The book comes with tear out pages of "spices" that are ideas of things to try to make it more interesting. It is all pretty vanilla stuff, but it is helpful to get some ideas that are not the same old same old and there were things that I had not thought of and there were things my husband got from the book that I liked. Also, what's the deal witht he word vanilla anyway? It seems that when people say vanilla they mean boring and also real vanilla bean is one of my favorite things in life. Mmmmm.
The benefits of regular sex to a relationship are more than just the sex. Sure, I like having sex with my husband, but another benefit is that we get along better when we've been having sex. Yes, people being more intimate, listening, helping each other etc. can lead to more and better sex, but just deciding to have sex more often can also lead to those things. When my husband and I have been having sex a lot, the little things that would normally bug me just don't. Like for example a while ago my husband was working from home and at lunch time he came upstairs and made himself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and he just left the peanut butter and jelly just sitting there on the counter, with the lids off. Now that is the kind of thing that would really irritate me and there's a voice in my head that says "What, does he expect me to clean up after him?" I know he doesn't, he was just thinking about work and he forgot all about it. So I just left it sitting there and then after a couple of hours I did put it away and I didn't care and I wasn't mad at him. The reason why I wasn't mad is because we had been having sex a lot.
[Y'know, I hadn't heard of that book, Mag, but from your description it sounds wonderful. I'll keep an eye out for it. Just for the record, I think it's a very good idea to have sex together, and it sounds like the book makes it easy for each partner to be be a party to and not just a part of the process. I just don't think it would be as much fun if you were told you were *supposed* to. Thanks! --fl]
Oh! and I just remembered why I felt compelled to respond to this post in the first place. It is so funny that you have a picture of the book "Four Play" on this post. I read that book a few months ago. I was looking for some fluff at the library and I picked it up-it wasn't very good but it was also not very challenging and did not ask much of me so I read it anyway. I laughed out loud when I saw it on your blog.
[Glad you liked the photo. I searched Flickr with the keyword "duty" and that one came up. Considering how much people fuss about jury duty compared to how much they rave over "vote off the island" sort of TV shows I thought it made a good point, and the fact that the "jury duty" sticker is covering a book about foreplay was even funnier. I haven't read the book but for some reason I'm not surprised it wasn't that great. Thanks, Mag. --fl]
I love jury duty! I had jury duty last fall, my mom took care of my son and I sat around and read all day and was done by early afternoon. My son was still with my mom so I took my dog for a long walk. It was a great week.
I would have liked to actually hear a case, but having a jury assembled put pressure on both parties to settle so that was all good.
[Yup, that's what's happened every time I've been called for jury duty as well. I wouldn't mind being in on it but considering how many people refuse to register to *vote* in order to avoid it, we might be in a minority. Thanks, Mag. --fl]
I'd read about this before and it made me angry. These questions that follow are rhetorical but probably show how quickly any reasoning the church uses breaks down. What happens for members of the congregation who have just had babies, are physically ill (February and March are the biggest flu seasons), or who work very long hours? And what about all the women who get urinary tract infections and yeast infections like clockwork if they have sex more than a few times a week? What about women who flow so heavily as to prevent sex?--or does the church condone and offer instruction in oral sex as an alternative? What about men who are currently having erection difficulties, whether or not they are seeking treatment? Are members encouraged to discuss this 30 day challenge in church or Sunday school so that they have to confess that they're exempt for some reason or defend their inability to have sex? I mean, do people need a doctor's note, "Sorry, I had surgery and the doctor said I couldn't yet." The idea that the church would issue this kind of mandate or prescription is way too invasive of people's privacy. Plus I can't imagine the weirdness that would result in church--do people assume that couples sitting together with a warm glow suffused on their faces have done the deed, and that those who seem tired or not intimate enough have not followed directions?
Like some domestic discipline, I suspect this is more about men's wish to control and to avoid compromise than about increasing closeness in a relationship. If you can use religion as a defense to bully your partner into sex, well that makes sexual coercion and rape within marriage sanctified and turns the less desiring partner into a scapegoat for the marriage's problems.
[Agreed on all counts, B. And each another reason why making sex a *duty* is problematic. And while I'm not sure I was clear enough about this in my post, how much impact over time does "wifely duty" have on otherwise libidinous women? I'd feel pretty lousy having a "husbandly duty" imposed on me. And whatever its intention, that seems a potential consequence of this experiment. Thanks. --fl]
I hadn't thought about it that way, B, but I understand what you mean about a church telling people to have sex for 30 days (starting and ending on specific dates). I think that the 30 days idea is similar to the sex diet idea, but yeah, there's a big difference between a couple deciding together to sex a priority and a church telling all married couples that they must do it. What were they thinking?
But did the people do what the minister told, I wonder? Didn't he actually expect them to not give a damn about his advice if they were sick or tired or busy with a baby?
Most people I know wouldn't pay much attention to what the church tells them to do if they didn't think it was reasonable. But perhaps it's different there?
[Since it sounds like its a touchy-feely church I'm guessing the minister gave people a ton of latitude -- I'm sure it was just a suggestion and not an edict or anything. Thanks, Larus. --fl]
Very interesting idea. My first reaction was much what SugarMag described... that having an outside motivation to have sex regularly is not such a bad thing, so that you can get past the daily habits that prevent it... and once the habit is there, then the intimacy follows. I hadn't considered the aspects that B has mentioned though. I think perhaps that the idea of 30 days of sexy is better as a therapeutic took for couples who are looking for jump start (so to speak) back to intimacy, than as a religious edict.
[I think it really depends on who's idea it is and how optional it is. I agree with SugarMag that it could be really cool. And heck, it could even be cool for the folks in the congregation or maybe some of them. But I still think the risks of it not working out seem a lot higher. Thanks Marianne. --fl]
Thanks, guys. In thinking about this way too much, I also started wondering if this was discussed during church in front of small children. While I have talked with my children about sex, I certainly wouldn't be comfortable in having it discussed in church, especially in this way, which neglects all kinds of other issues that can affect the sex lives of both women and men and can teach them too that their partner is supposed to "put out" no matter what.
Thanks for addressing this issue.
[Any time, B. Thanks. --fl]
I heard about a similar challenge on the Sex is Fun podcast, and they really liked it when they tried it. The host said it really brought he and his wife closer together and made them more physically affectionate with each other. The pressure of accurately judging whether the partner's touch *meant* something or was just a touch was removed, if that makes sense. Plus, that's a lot of orgasms, which is also good for you. And in the context of the podcast, it was a secret challenge that just the two of them knew about, which can also be fun. It's like an inside joke, but sexy.
They certainly stressed that it really would only work if both partners agreed wholeheartedly. I haven't tried it myself, although I might consider it once the semester's over.