Improve Your Sex Life!

Tuesday, 27 March 2012

Does Bible Say I Have to Stay In Sexless Marriage?

QUESTION: Where does it say in scripture that I am required to stay in a marriage WITHOUT sex. If my spouse is not physically disabled, not grossly obese, not cheating on me but just NOT interested in having sex and REFUSES to go to counselling unless I agree to breast augmentation. What ARE my choices?? Where does God command a wife or a husband for that matter to stay in an actual sexless marriage. Not sex one time a month or 4 times a year, which is sexless nonetheless, but NEVER. Please give me a straight honest answer…………..Thank you.

ANSWER: Rather than go through all the passages in the Bible that speak to marriage, I believe we can answer your question by looking at just one. It’s found in 1 Corinthians 7:2-5.
“Because there is so much sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman should have her own husband. The husband should fulfill his wife’s sexual needs, and the wife should fulfill her husband’s needs. The wife gives authority over her body to her husband, and the husband gives authority over his body to his wife. Do not deprive each other of sexual relations, unless you both agree to refrain from sexual intimacy for a limited time so you can give yourselves more completely to prayer. Afterward, you should come together again so that Satan won’t be able to tempt you because of your lack of self-control.” (New Living Translation)
Quite simply, your husband is sinning. Though he apparently attempts to, he cannot rightfully justify his sin by blaming it on you because you do not have breast implants. Paul gives no criteria that one mate has to meet in order for the other mate to be obligated to fulfill him or her sexually. That means your husband cannot require you to have breast implants before fulfilling you sexually.
My understanding of the word adultery is a violation of the marriage contract. By withholding sexual interaction with you he is committing adultery of a sexual nature. The church would not tolerate his committing adultery by having sex with someone other than you. Why should it tolerate his adultery of refusing to have sex with you? Yes, it’s that serious. Notice that in the passage Paul says that we are not to deprive each other. The renowned theologian Gordon Fee writes about that word: “The use of the verb ‘deprive’ is especially striking. This is the same verb used in [chapter 6] for the man who had defrauded another. It is a pejorative word for taking away what rightfully belongs to another…” (1)
Your husband is taking away what rightfully belongs to you.
I like what Bob Deffinbaugh wrote about the 1 Corinthians 7 passage on Bible.org. “Paul does not stress the submission of the wife to her husband here, as though it is his role to get pleasure from his wife, and her role to give pleasure to her husband. There is mutual submission here, so that both the husband and the wife are to subordinate their interest (pleasure in sex) to the interest of their mate. Consider the guiding principles for what we might call ‘Spirit-filled marital sex.’
“The norm is that Christians will marry and that as a Christian couple, the husband and wife will enjoy regular sexual relations…
“A healthy sex life is a preventative for immorality…
“Both husband and wife should eagerly engage in the sexual act as their duty, both to God and to their mate…
“Both husband and wife should not only give themselves for sex, but each should seek to produce the ultimate pleasure for their partner. Reaching the ultimate pleasure in the sexual union is what best insures against immorality…
“Neither the husband nor the wife has the authority to deprive their mate sexually…
“Those Christians who have been forcibly making a celibate of their mate by withholding sex are commanded to stop sinning in this fashion…
Sexual abstinence is to be a rare and temporary exception to the norm of regular sexual union.”
Therefore, in answer to your question, I know of no passage in scripture that says you are to stay in a marriage in which one mate refuses to have sex with the other. In fact, my understanding of the 1 Corinthians 7 passage is that you spouse is violating the marriage covenant and if he refuses to reprint and fulfill that obligation, you have no obligation to stay with him.
(1) Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, The New International Commentary, F. F. Bruce, General Editor, (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1987 [reprint, 1993]),

No comments:

Post a Comment