You Don’t Have a Right to Sex
“Easy for you to say. You’re married.”
I expect this response, but I hesitate. Do you really want to hear all my personal business? Is it even right for me to tell you?
I’ve been married since 2010. The husbeast and I were in a relationship for 6 ½ years before that. For most of our courtship, we were literally a thousand miles apart, passionately in love but unable to express it physically. The sexual frustration of waiting got pretty intense. It would have actually been easier to be single, and we nearly broke up twice for that reason.
It was after we got married that my husband’s mental illness finally began to peek above the surface. Several times already, he had been convinced he was dying: first of a burst appendix, then brain cancer, a heart attack, a tumor. His real enemy was anxiety and, finally, alcoholism. A week after we were married, I went to sleep alone, wondering why he would rather be out with his drinking buddies. Over the past five years, we’ve identified alcoholism, depression, anxiety, benign fasciculation syndrome, and some physical problems that are either a mystery illness, psychosomatic, or a combination of the two.
During these past several years, my husband has been great to me. He demonstrates his love daily. I am never, ever leaving him. But now, he’s usually not healthy enough for sex. We promised to take care of each other, so that’s what we do: He cooks, I clean, we pay each other’s bills, and we watch Batman. It isn’t the worst existence by a long shot, but I could have gotten the same deal as a Lutheran nun.
“Easy for you to say. You’re married.”
It’s true that my life is still pretty wonderful. My husband has it rougher than me by a long shot. He gets to miss sex and have terrible leg cramps, or numb feet, or twitching hands, or a powerful self-made assurance that he’s going to die of ALS. Or he’ll simply be too anxious or depressed for sex.
I could resent him for this, but he wouldn’t deserve it. I could resent God for this, but He wouldn’t deserve it.
The thing is, we were never promised an amazing sex life. Saving sex for marriage was not some kind of barter with God. He wasn’t impressed. He doesn’t owe us anything. All good things are gifts, not payment, and all good works are already owed God because God is spectacular. I am already in debt on that ledger. There are plenty of good works I’ve failed to do, or done completely wrong, or done with arrogance and self-righteousness, so God gave me another gift in the form of His Son’s redemptive blood. He does not owe me anything and never will. On the contrary, I owe Him my life.
I’m sorry if anyone implied that if you do everything right, then God will reward you with the spouse and the house and the normal son and daughter. Maybe that is His plan for you, but maybe God’s going to use your life to illustrate His love in other, tougher ways. Regardless, suffering (and death) eventually come to us all. There is absolutely no decision you can make to avoid that. With that in mind, Peter asks, isn’t it better to suffer doing the right thing?
It is a beautiful thing to make a new family, to make the daily decision to sacrifice your comfort for another person’s well-being. You can do that in other ways, with other types of love, and like those other, unique ways of loving someone, marriage is unique, too. I’m not dissing marriage. But it doesn’t exist for your comfort or convenience. Christian marriage vows are a veritable laying of oneself on the sacrificial altar. Sometimes it’s great! Sometimes it’s actually lonely. Pretty much always, it’s an obstacle course.
I know at least one person reading this is thinking, “If things got that bad, I’d be divorced. I wouldn’t be able to help it.”
That’s because you’ve been trained to think that way. Our consumerist culture has made a lot of money off of slogans like, “Obey Your Thirst.” I can’t even recall how many “inspiring” messages I’ve read that have consisted of, “If you have a desire, then you fulfill that desire, superstar! Follow your bliss! Follow your heart! Follow your dreams!” I can’t count how many sitcoms have implied that sex is expected of you after a certain number of dates. Because we have championed the message that a sexual urge you can’t help is therefore a sexual urge you must or will pursue, we now have people like NAMBLA fighting for “the child’s right to have sex.” We have ever-bolder political minorities arguing that pedophilia is a sexual orientation. “No it isn’t!” is the loudest argument I’ve heard against that one – an arbitrary argument. Even then, no one has the guts to say, “Maybe you shouldn’t have something just because you’re wired to want it.”
I work at a day care. The threes are my favorite. They’re all Pavlovian-trained to chant, “Ya get what ya get and ya don’t throw a fit!” or sing, “You can’t always get what you want!” These slogans are necessary for maintaining order in the classroom – and peace among my tiny friends. These slogans come up when there are grabby hands and screaming and competition. Our nature is ill-equipped for self-denial, even though it’s essential to life together. Self-denial must be learned.
When I say that God calls some of us to celibacy, I know exactly what I’m asking of you. I’m married, but I’ve lived it, and I continue to live it more with each passing year. You might not choose singleness. It might not be thrust upon you. But even in marriage, your spouse could get sick. Or end up in a coma. One of you might have to ship out to serve in the military. One of you might have to get work fishing off the coast of Alaska or laying an oil pipeline in North Dakota. Sex is not guaranteed to any of us – and no, NAMBLA, it is not a human right.
When you accept that, and put it behind you, it’s really okay. It’s when I obsess about sex and the fact that I want it that I get all dismal about it. On the other hand, the days where I can focus on doing my best to encourage my husband and those around me are the days when I’m most fulfilled. On those days, I’m not focused on myself.
Self-denial can lead to happiness, as well. It might not dazzle, but it also won’t fizzle.
“I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.” – Philippians 4:12,13
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