sex, sex, & sex!

Before he died, Stanley was a faithful fixture at our church. Stella, his wife, drove him every week to work on the bulletins, and he worked inches from the computer screen because he was legally blind from years of diabetes. His glasses were thick, his hair white, his decrepitude increased daily.

One day, at a "Family Seminar" in the church gym, the speaker asked, "What are the top three needs of a husband?"

Stanley loudly declared, "Sex, sex, & sex!"

Why is it funny to think that an old man still wants sex? Why do we think that sex is something only the young & attractive do when they are somehow being bad? Why is "sex" the additive that sells everything from cars to toothpaste? And why, if you are a married woman, is sex so easily turned into a chore?

It was a revelation to me to read the Bible & find all those references to sex. I had no idea that God was the one who came up with it...I'd been indoctrinated by my culture (late 60's) to think that the further you divorced the physical act from the emotions the freer your spirit would be. What a lie!

Recently I watched an interview with two couples who have published books on their experiences committing to have sex every day for a year or something similar. It was interesting. The comment that really caught my attention was one wife saying that there was a difference between "romantic sex with candles & everything" and "real sex with bad breath & sweaty bodies".

I have never regretted our marriage bed or been sorry I responded to my husband. Even if I "didn't feel like it" in the beginning, sex was a bond between us. I am blessed by my husband's purity in the past, his virginity at marriage & years of saying "no" to pornography although he struggled. I regret that I can't say I had the same past, but forgiveness is real. I had way more baggage in bed with us than he did.

The tragedy is that for so many, the baggage we bring to bed with us poisons our lives.