Sexuality is a rather complex subject. I've written numerous posts about various sexual issues or aspects of sexuality by this point! Thankfully the complexity of something does not mean it is incapable of being understood or applied, though. To initiate this series on marital sexuality as revealed by rationalism and Christianity, I will elaborate on a highly important issue: mutuality. This is not a point the Bible is unclear on. Although some think the Bible teaches a one-sided concern for male sexuality, it rather obviously elevates and demands mutuality in marriage and sexual behaviors, denying stereotypes, opposing unilateral sexual teachings that favor one gender over the other, and condemning all sexual abuse ranging from rape (to be discussed here) to a woman assaulting a man's genitals in a fight (Deuteronomy 25:11-12). In this post I will be analyzing some things which follow from a specific passage of the New Testament:
1 Corinthians 7:3-5--"The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife's body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband's body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife. Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time . . ."
This passage is clearly egalitarian and explicitly non-complementarian; it does not demand that either the man or woman unilaterally submits to the other as if either did not have his or her own autonomy, will, and ownership of his or her own body. Instead it obviously teaches a mutual submission in the realm of marital sexuality, one where husbands and wives act according to "mutual consent" and both own each other's bodies in addition to their own, but not in a degrading or violating way: "The wife's body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband's body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife." There are no sexual roles, as men and women alike can initiate or decline sex--and there is absolutely nothing about being male or female that means one has a specific attitude towards sexuality.
Having a type of "possession" of a spouse's body does not in any way mean that one spouse has the right to coerce, manipulate, or spite the other into having sex. This possession of another's body exists purely alongside the mutual consent that Paul speaks of. In Mosaic Law the penalty for rape is execution (Deuteronomy 22:25-27), with the act of rape described in such a way as that the Bible says it is as if a rapist has murdered his or her victim. Nonconsensual sex is never morally right--not as a punishment, not as something a person believes he or she has a right to. Deuteronomy is not ambiguous when it fastens capital punishment to all acts of rape. God condemns all rape, whether rape of a stranger or of inmates in a prison or of one's spouse. Sex is not something to be forced on one spouse by the other (and people who think women can't or don't rape men are either unintelligent or uneducated) or to be withheld in order to hurt the other party.
The objective obligation to mutual consent means that as long as a couple collectively agrees to a sex act and as long as it is not an act that violates other revealed moral obligations (no adultery, for example, regardless of spousal consent) they have the moral right to express and explore their sexualities and desires however they want. Oral sex, frequent sex, public sex, consensual BDSM--none of these things are objectively wrong and thus there are no grounds for opposing them in themselves. There are several ramifications of this in a particular area that I want to save for a future post, but I certainly want to present them later.
Of course, marital sexuality can be far more enjoyable once people stop assuming that women aren't just as sexual as men. I've already explained this multiple times, so I'll mostly save that information for a link [1]. Logic, Scripture, and experience all testify to the utter falseness of this asinine belief. Women should not be shamed about their sex drives or have their sexual desires ignored by an evangelical and social world that still somewhat operates as a patriarchy. Women can and do initiate sex, fantasize about sex, and crave it, and there is nothing unnatural or sinful about this. Why this is so difficult for some to realize, I don't know! Complementarian beliefs combined with frustrating social conditioning have promoted the untrue idea that women are not sexual beings in the way that men are and that men are far more explicitly sexual beings than they really are. Reason, mutuality, communication, and awareness of Scripture all serve as acids that erode these bullshit construct beliefs.
Despite the importance of the topic, there are other aspects to marital sexuality than just mutuality. Other topics I plan on addressing in this series include variety, how to handle mismatched sex drives, and the proper stance on a particular controversial issue. I hope to continue this series soon, as the desire strikes me. Until then, stay logical and do not distort the contents of Scripture!
[1]. See here:
A. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/04/women-are-visual.html
B. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/05/on-alleged-differences-between-men-and.html
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