The Final Frontier

Let’s talk about sex, baby!

If that line made you blush, this might not be the post for you. (Or maybe you’re just not a fan of Salt ’n’Pepa?) Tune in next week for a more mundane topic. But this week—and this summer, actually—I’m talking about sex. Married, Christian sex. And ladies, we’ve got issues.

We’re just not talking about them.

Women talk about everything. We share the intricate details of spats with our husbands, our childbirth horror stories, and the consistency of our kid’s poop. But our sex lives? Huh-uh. That’s sacred, taboo territory, especially for good Christian girls who were raised to keep that hush-hush. But what I’m finding, as I’ve gotten brave enough to broach the subject, is that many, many of us—especially us good Christian girls—are suffering in silence. Whether they’re physical, emotional, or psychological, we’ve got problems. And we think we’re alone. Surely no one else has these embarrassing kinds of problems—certainly not the Desperate Housewives or the women we read about in books. And my neighbor across the street—the one with six children? If that isn’t a sign of a perfect sex life, what is?

It’s fiction, that’s what it is. We’re not alone. Time and time again I talk to women whose sex lives are one of the biggest struggles of their married lives. They’ve been married five, ten, twenty years, have beautiful families and healthy marriages, yet this is their secret sadness.

This summer, a friend and I have pulled together a group of these women to begin talking. We have no magic formula, but we know there is hope and strength in bringing your secret pain and disappointments into the light. (No, it’s nothing like that scene in Fried Green Tomatoes if that’s what you’re thinking.) We talk about things that would shock our mothers and sometimes shock us. But we’ve found that when you provide a safe, comfortable environment and share your own struggles, women will talk. They’ll purge the most intimate, hidden details of their lives in a way that’s constructive and honoring to God. We don’t allow gossip, crudeness, or sex-bashing. We remember that what we’re talking about is a gift from God, whether we’re experiencing it that way or not.

Some are further along than others, and with that comes hope. Some bring years of counseling with them, and that brings new insight. And the Bible—which has a lot to say about sex—brings God’s voice into a subject that most Christian women would rather avoid talking about.

It can be intimidating, awkward, and down-right scary initially. One woman joining us for the first time walked up my friend’s long driveway feeling shakier and sicker by the step. She says it was the power of God and sheer obedience that got her to ring the doorbell, and there were times later in the evening when I thought we might have to heave her jaw up off the carpet. But like the rest of us, she walked away feeling more hopeful and less alone. My friend and I dream of Christian women all over the city getting together in groups like this. Please e-mail me if you’d like some ideas about starting your own group.

This is our final frontier, ladies. Let’s get talking.