The Reality of Sex & Why You May Not Enjoy It!

Many people view sex only to be a means of reproduction and physical satisfaction. Few look to the heart or even brain to see what sex really does to our minds & bodies. Many men & women end up in sexless marriages because of there past experiences. You may think that if you had sex with a few people prior to your husband or wife, all will be washed away when you are bonded in marriage. This is not true. The brain stores EVERYTHING from sexual relationships that you ever experienced whether you are consciously aware of it or not.

Scientific study proves that the biggest sex organ is in fact, the brain. Scientists have discovered that we will release chemicals & hormones during sexual arousal & release that create a bond. The chemicals that are release give us a feeling of pleasure. Much like the effects of a cigarette, that pleasure release in our brain makes us want it again & again. The hormone known as “oxytocin” is released which is designed specifically to bond us to our partner. You can think of it as a special glue a man and a woman share. Oxytocin is released only three times in a human. When a woman is giving birth, when she is breast feeding her baby, and in both men & women during sexual release &/or arousal. Men also release vasopressin which also helps with the bonding process.

When we save sex for marriage, there will be only one person we are bonding with, our spouses. As the marriage progresses, the bond gets stronger each time we are having sex. It gets stronger, deeper and wider and causes us to love our significant other with a more deepened & mature love. In the bible we read in Genesis 2:24 - “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” I believe this is referring to the oxytocin hormone. Cleave literally means glued together.

In matters of sex outside of marriage, with multiple partners, sexual abuse, ect. preliminary science shows that if we have past negative sexual relationships, we can inhibit our production of oxytocin over time. In other words, every time you have a relationship that involves sex with someone, then break up and start a new relationship, oxytocin is decreased in every relationship. Women are more strongly effected by this in earlier years them men, while men will often have ED in as early as their 40's because of it.

So you have sex with a few different partners then you get married. Many believe marriage to work like a giant eraser that cleans all the past away... WELL IT DOES'NT! Instead, we bring all of our past sexual bonds into our marriage. This in turn can keep us from releasing oxytocin and preventing us to be exclusively bonded with our spouses. Over time, if a married couple is not bonding well enough sexually, the relationship will experience sexual withdrawal. This means sex can become less enjoyable, less intimate & less desirable by one or both partners. It is often the case, you hear of women, shortly after marriage, losing their interest in sex.. This is why : Bonding in previous relationships with people of your past keeps us attached to past partners. This can cause us to compare our spouse's ability to please us. This can be felt consciously and even not consciously. It causes the mind to wonder and with every struggle, doubt is knocking at the back door saying “Maybe I should have married someone else...”. If we bond with past sexual partners, will will not be able to bond well in marriage and if we can not bond well, it can greatly decrease sexual desire & even enjoyment in marriage.

There are 5 recognized levels of emotion intimacy that we all experience as we progress through out relationships with the opposite sex. They all have various names but to keep it simple, lets just call them lowest, low, medium, high, & highest. With each level, we share more of ourselves as a whole, placing an increasing risk of vulnerability & a greater risk of becoming hurt or rejected. To become truly intimate we not only have to progress through each level slowly, but at the same exact pace. Women find it to be more comfortable relating emotionally & therefore can move through the levels quicker where men more often, but not always, relate with less emotions therefore moving through each level at a slower pace. Couples who start having sex outside of marriage generally are at the medium level of communication, which is sharing opinions, beliefs, & thoughts. Feelings can be shared here but most of the time its only when conflicts arise. When this happens, we will retreat to a safe zone or the level where we were communicating the most. Once we start having sex though, we are releasing those bonding chemicals and are in the process of bonding. We begin to feel more close and attached to each other, more like one, then two. Sex makes us feel closer than we actually really are. This becomes a false sense of intimacy and the relationship will start to focus on the physical aspect (sex) of the relationship. We will then begin to communicate love and even resolve conflict through sex. Sex outside of marriage, no matter where or how it begins, bonding will be stalled because working through bigger conflicts and issues requires us to move to the higher levels. We will start to avoid vulnerability that may threaten the relationship. We will end up being stuck on the medium level of the relationship which ultimately means, bonding will stop. Marriage usually happens right before this are right after. The newness of the relationship will begin to wear off and the reality of life starts to set in. We sill start to realize that we don't know each other as well as we thought, we are not communicating much at all and the relationship as a whole begins to crumble. We keep doing the same communication patterns we had before into marriage and will continue to avoid conflicts in fear that is may threaten the relationship. Many couples will live in this emotional distance from one another in their marriage. This will cause a bittering relationship between the two, or may even lead to cheating & even divorce.

When it comes to sex, women are about being emotionally connected. The close she feels emotionally to her partner the greater desire she has for sex. Women feel emotionally connected through communication & when we are connected emotionally, we feel heard & yes, loved. When it comes to men, they feel emotionally connected through sex and once they feel connected, they are more open to communication. To sum this up, if you want your man to communicate/talk with you, have sex with him and if you want your woman to have sex, talk to her. If we are not connected emotionally to each other, it can greatly inhibit the desire & even enjoyment of sex.

Women in particular hold onto sexual wounds worse then men. This can be from sexual abuse or being promiscuous (having many sexual partners) by choice. All of these carry emotional damage with them; things like shame, regret, self-blame, self-hate, pain, brokenness, unworthiness, despair, and distrust. This baggage gets carried into every relationship in a woman's future. The emotional pains of each relationship stack up and accumulate over time. We would like to believe we leave this stuff behind when we have moved on from one relationship to the next, but we simply don't and are not wired that way. Instead, all of it gets buried deep within us and resurfaces in future relationships. Without true healing, it will be an ongoing pattern, getting worse and deeper. These emotions we women bury can greatly effect our sexual desire in marriage. Once we are committed to one man, our bonding is suppose to grow, but instead gets depleted .When we have sex in marriage it triggers these emotions from our past relationships making it harder each time to get sexual satisfied. The brain is our biggest sex organ and will recall past incidence, whether we want them or are even conscious of them or not. We will become emotionally & physically withdrawn from our spouse & become resentful. Whether our past sexual encounters are from abuse, trauma or by our own choice, the shame we felt will resurface when we begin to feel aroused. All the negative associations we had with sex from our past will resurface and cause all the same feelings in our marriage. Women often feel unworthy, dirty & shameful & don't understand why. As time passes in the marriage, sex becomes less enjoyable & more of a chore & since men use sex for emotional bonding, they begin to feel neglected and broken as well.

There is good news in all of this. God can and even WANTS to heal you from your past to restore you for your husband & yes, even for sex! God can break all the bonds you had with past relationships and restore your heart, mind & brain. Even science is now proving that with healing, our brains heal as well. When we begin to heal, we will begin to release oxytocin again, more and more. The emotional walls will come down, and the baggage will be lifted. You will find yourself a more loving person to your spouse & yourself. You will be able to fully receive love. It may take time & bring up bad memories but it is well worth it. If you long for healing, speak to God. Surrender your past to Him, grieve your sorrows to Him. Pray. He wants to heal you, he is just waiting for you to ask :)