Sex, Selfish, Servant

In Real Marriage: The Truth about Sex, Friendship and Life Together (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2012), Mark and Grace Driscoll talk about two types of couples in relation to sex. The first type is called selfish lovers; the second, servant lovers. Obviously, servant lovers put the interest of their spouses first; selfish lovers rarely look at the relationship from their spouses’ angle. According to them, there are various ways that we are considered as selfish lovers in this area (pp. 165-166):

An excerpt:

• Rarely have sex. We can simply decide to rarely, if ever, have sex. This is often done through simply and repeatedly denying our spouses’ advances, which shames and humiliates them, causing them to feel unloved, unwanted, and undesired. Eventually they will simply stop seeking to be intimate with us.

• Take too little time and too little effort. We can do as little as possible sexually. By exerting minimal effort, passion, or interest, we can be sure to discourage our spouses from seeking to be intimate with us frequently. People have explained this as a gross feeling, where their spouses simply lie there, looking away disinterested and disconnected, making them feel as if they are basically using their spouses’ bodies. Wives have explained this in terms of husbands who do not patiently take their time to prepare them for lovemaking, but instead lazily rush right into penetration, thereby causing their wives discomfort…

• Only have sex when we both feel like it at the same time. Can you imagine if everything in your marriage was governed by this same thinking, so that, for example, you only ate together or spoke together when you both felt like at the exact same time? Sadly, we have heard this illogic from even pastors and their wives. Servant lovers are willing to serve their spouses even when they are not in the mood, and know that on another occasion their servant lovers will do the same for them. Furthermore, humble servant lovers know that as they serve their spouses, God often awakens their desires, puts them in the mood, and blesses their obedience.

• Rarely initiate. In a contentious marriage one spouse is always on sexual offense and the other on sexual defense. This means that one person never initiates talk about sex or activities of sex and is continually on the defensive. The other spouse is then forced to always take the sexual initiative, which makes him or her feel controlled and manipulated in addition to neglected and unwanted, which is discouraging.

• Commit sexual sabotage. We can conveniently get out of the habit of going to bed at the same time. Or at bedtime we can pick a fight or present a displeasing attitude that makes it unlikely sex will ensue. If this happens often, you can probably assume it is not coincidence, but rather an intentional ploy to avoid sex.

• Make our spouses earn sex. We can control and manipulate our spouses with sex. If they do something we want, then we give them sex. If they do not do something we want, or do something we dislike, we punish them by withholding sex. This kind of sexual relationship is more akin to prostitution than marriage. In essence, our spouses have to earn sex and pay for it in some way.