I have updated and moved this article to my new site dedicated exclusively to sexuality from a Biblical perspective. You can find updated article by clicking on this link – “Why God Wants You To Ravish Your Husband“.
Also I have released a podcast version of this series of articles on my podcast site, BGRLearning.com, where I go into the principles outlined in this article in much more detail. Click on the image below to go there and subscribe to listen to this podcast and hundreds of others on gender roles, marriage and sex.
Biblical Gender Roles 
@BGR Bravo! You get a standing “O” for this most needed correction in Christian culture.. Two thumbs up and a hearty “Amen”.
Tis a shame that teachings like this are not usually part of the older women teaching the younger women curriculum. Tis a greater shame that evangelicalism has taught wives to withhold sex for advantage and celibacy as sanctification. When a man must earn the marriage bed as Al Mohler has written it makes every wife a prostitute, exchanging sex as a form of commerce.
There is a better way, thanks for writing so clearly about that better way!
Thank you for this. Only comment I have is in referring to God you do not capitalize “Him” and “He”.
But your spiritual discernment is refreshing.
@ Belle
My copy of “The Christian Writers Handbook of Style” prefers the capital of exhalation when using pronouns referencing any of the persons of the Trinity.
Ever since I first read the Song of Songs, I’ve been amazed that Christians can deny that God meant for husbands and wives to take pleasure in each other’s bodies. Why do they think we’d have a whole book on the subject otherwise? Beyond that, doesn’t the design of a woman’s body show that sex isn’t meant to just be a quick get-in-get-off-get-out affair? While most women find it difficult to get lubricated enough to have comfortable sex without foreplay and to orgasm through penetration alone, they can get lots of arousing, lubricating, and orgasmic pleasure from foreplay and from continuing to touch and be touched sexually their husbands during the penetrative phase. Plus, women’s bodies are generally very sensitive to pleasure, especially in the places where man generally like touch and kiss them the most. For example, no one can doubt that men love playing with their wives’ breasts, but they should also remember how much sexual pleasure this brings women. Women weren’t just designed to be sexually pleasing to men–they were designed to get pleasure from having their husbands kiss, caress, and enjoy their bodies. And of course there’s the psychological pleasure that women can get from sexually pleasing their husbands as well as the emotional pleasure that they can experience from a true physical union with their husband and the many relational and personal benefits of hormones released during orgasm–particularly the female orgasm.
Anyway, I have a question about your description of the nympho wife. You make he point that her sexuality is more masculine in that she’s more physically oriented than relationally oriented. Is being a woman who views sex from a primarily physical perspective sinful in and of itself, or it simply an unusual perspective for a woman to have that she can put to good use for herself and her husband as long as she doesn’t become selfish? I’d think that just as men can be primarily physically oriented when it comes to sex and still care about their wives’ pleasure that women can have a masculine sexual nature and still care about their husbands’ pleasure.
Alex,
When we approach anything having to do with the genders, marriage and specifically sexual relations within marriage we must also start with this guiding principle as found in Genesis and then further expanded in I Corinthians:
So the Scriptures are clear that woman was made for man and everything about her design was meant to fulfill a need or a desire on his part.
God knew that man would need someone to bear his children and care for children and his home – so he made woman to fulfill this need. This is why he gave the women that extremely strong urge to have children – in fact a woman’s urge for children is often as strong as a man’s sex drive. He also gave women an extremely strong nesting instinct – to go and make a home and each woman makes her home in own special way.
God knew that man needed someone like him, unlike the animals, with him who he could talk and share the joys and troubles of his life and woman having this same human nature(taken from man) fulfilled this need.
God designed man to desire beauty just as God himself desires beauty – so he made woman beautiful to fulfill this desire of man.
God designed man to want to be a protector, to be the hero as God himself wants to be our protector and hero. So instead of making woman as tough as man – he made her the weaker vessel so that she would be dependent on man for her protection.
Now we come to sex. Why did God design a woman to enjoy sex with her husband? Why did he give her a clitoris and make her breasts and other areas sexually sensitive? I would argue again this was not for her benefit – but for her husband’s benefit because God designed men to receive pleasure by knowing they are giving a woman pleasure during sex. This is why porn is enticing to men – it is not just the visual aspects of the woman’s body – but her enthusiasm and her displaying how much pleasure she is receiving from the man.
The point is that as a woman you must realize that every part of your nature, every part of your design was meant to please and benefit your husband. Your enjoyment of and desire for sex(which is good and healthy) was made for the benefit of your husband and you need to never forget that.
So there is nothing wrong with a woman enjoying sex from a physical perspective. However with the Nympho type woman she genuinely does not care about pleasing the man – his pleasure from her is only a by-product of her getting her desire for him pleasuring her met. So while the Nympho woman’s nature may come closer to that of a man’s – I would argue it is a distortion of man’s physical sexual nature as God designed it because God designed men to actually desire the woman they are having sex with to feel and display pleasure.
Alex,
Another comment on the Nympho wife. I do actually believe a woman should view it as a problem if she is not really relationally oriented. Remember that God made woman as man’s opposite. She is his counter balance. Women are supposed to be feminine and men are supposed to masculine. So when men are more feminine(soft,frail and dependent) and women are more masculine(hard, tough and independent) this breaks the model that God designed man and woman to portray.
Women need to cultivate a relational nature, emotional and empathetic nature that honors God, their gender and their role in God’s design. For instance I have had many people write me about their daughters that are manly, not empathetic and much more competitive like men. I have told them they need to help their daughters to downplay those masculine attributes and to encourage them to cultivate their feminine side which is usually buried deep within themselves.
The Bible says God “male and female created he them” Genesis 1:27 and we need to encourage masculinity in our men and femininity in our women. Again this does not mean women can’t enjoy or look forward to sex – I am all for that and I think it blesses their husbands when women understand how their own bodies work and try to actually enjoy and look forward to sex. I just think there are extremes when a woman becomes too much like a man and looses her femininity in the process.
BGR,
I agree entirely with your first post. I was trying to make the point that women are designed to get the most out of sex that’s more than just lying back and thinking of England BECAUSE it motivates them to be sexually pleasing and enthusiastic to their husbands. Plus, it’s another sign of women being made to complement men. I think that you could even compare man’s desire to give his wife pleasure to God’s desire to make things that please his creation’s senses.
And thanks for expanding on your point about the “nympho” wife. For myself, I’d say that my sex drive is primarily motivated by my desire to please my husband and then by my physical attraction to and desire for him. That’s not to say that there’s no relational component to it. Romance and emotional closeness are major turn-ons. There are also times when I seek it out for emotional comfort. But I’ll also admit that there are times where I want sex more than conversations or dates, that a lack of conversation or romance doesn’t generally diminish my desire to please and enjoy my husband because those things are important and enjoyable to me, and that my physical attraction to my husband often kickstarts my sex drive even when my mood isn’t great.
My husband would say that he doesn’t have any problems with that because it makes me pretty easy to please and he doesn’t have to worry about getting everything right every single time. Plus, he likes the enthusiasm that it leads to because it makes him both desired and skilled. (Which I’d say he is. Lol.) Is this problematic? I do still get a lot emotionally out of sex, and I’ve worked on cultivating that more over the years.
Again, many pastors do not teach things that might offend the women because these pastors are really hirelings who run their churches like a business. Therefore, the man having to earn sex with his wife by romancing her is what most women want to hear. After all, the paying customers of these churches are mainly women and these pastors don’t want to lose these paying customers.
Now we come to sex. Why did God design a woman to enjoy sex with her husband? Why did he give her a clitoris and make her breasts and other areas sexually sensitive? I would argue again this was not for her benefit – but for her husband’s benefit because God designed men to receive pleasure by knowing they are giving a woman pleasure during sex. This is why porn is enticing to men – it is not just the visual aspects of the woman’s body – but her enthusiasm and her displaying how much pleasure she is receiving from the man.
The point is that as a woman you must realize that every part of your nature, every part of your design was meant to please and benefit your husband. Your enjoyment of and desire for sex(which is good and healthy) was made for the benefit of your husband and you need to never forget that.
This is so true! Wow! You have such a gift in the way you make it easy to understand what a wife’s role is.It seems like such a simple thing yet we must always be reminded that we were made for man and all the pleasure we receive is for their benefit. I think most women feel the same way but feminist brain washing keeps them from admitting it.
Alex,
Your Statement:
This is absolutely true – part of the pleasure God takes in his creation is making things that please us. God made the beauty of this entire world for his own pleasure as well as our pleasure which in turn gives him more pleasure!
This blog is awesome and I am glad that I found it (almost a year since I did).
When I decide to marry, I will definitely ask my future wife to go through this blog and tell me her thoughts and views. I think it will be a good way to find the ideal woman.
Thank you for writing such a great blog, BGR.
@Subin,
“When I decide to marry, I will definitely ask my future wife to go through this blog and tell me her thoughts and views. I think it will be a good way to find the ideal woman.”
That would be good.
But, a better approach is to use the information on this blog and others like deepstrength blog to prepare your own Bible Studies on these topics. Keep it short, no more than 10 minutes plus discussion. Discuss these topics as Bible Studies with a girl you are dating, gauge her response and her thoughts.
Start in Genesis 2 & 3 which is explained and amplified in 1 Corinthians 11.
@BGR,
So, is a man who doesn’t care about his wife’s pleasure and enjoyment of sex corrupting God’s design of sex as well?
Alex,
Your Statement:
Yes he is corrupting God’s design. God designed men to naturally enjoy giving their wife’s pleasure and seeing the display pleasure. A man who cares nothing about his wife’s sexual pleasure does not understand God’s design.
I have heard of cases where men have absolutely no care or concern for their wife’s sexual pleasure even though she tries to to show him what to do – he could care less. He just wants to hop and do his business and hop off. That is not what God intended for sex.
Now this concept can be taken to an extreme. For instance some women insist that every sexual encounter must be this long drawn out affair or else sex can’t happen at all. Their is no sin in a man sometimes wanting a quickie and women should not think badly of their husbands for that. If every encounter is a quickie – that is a problem. But if you have good times where he takes his time sprinkled with quickies here and there that should be acceptable to women.
In other cases a man may try and give his wife sexual pleasure but because of her psychological hang ups and her lack of understanding of her own body it may be next to impossible and even be frustrating for him. Other women only want sex one way and in one position and they restrict how their husband can give them pleasure as well. In that case the fault does not lie with him.
“For instance some women insist that every sexual encounter must be this long drawn out affair or else sex can’t happen at all. Their is no sin in a man sometimes wanting a quickie and women should not think badly of their husbands for that. If every encounter is a quickie – that is a problem. But if you have good times where he takes his time sprinkled with quickies here and there that should be acceptable to women.”
I’d agree with that. When you have a full schedule, sometimes it’s necessary to have quickies here and there. And occasionally wanting things to be very passionate but very quick is okay too.
“In other cases a man may try and give his wife sexual pleasure but because of her psychological hang ups and her lack of understanding of her own body it may be next to impossible and even be frustrating for him.”
Agreed again. I’d also say that this is very different from a man who doesn’t care about his wife. This is a man who’s doing the best that he can with the situation that he’s in.
“Other women only want sex one way and in one position and they restrict how their husband can give them pleasure as well. In that case the fault does not lie with him.”
There are few, if any, cases where I’d describe wanting more sexual variety as selfishness. There, you’re not refusing to do what your husband or wife likes. You’re asking for more than just that one thing.
Even “good Christian wives”, who aren’t snobby about sex, will stop short at actually trying to seduce their husbands or, for lack of a better term, act sexy. They may know how to BE sexy in dress and even in the sack, but to actually act sexy outside of the arena of the actual act is beyond them. Either they have been taught that doing so makes them a slutty woman or they are simply too lazy to engage in the activity. For those that have been raised to believe that women should not act in that manner it is nearly impossible for them to break, as it would require them to completely give up a core belief that has been pounded into them as a centerpiece of their Christianity. The lazy ones, well, they can sometimes be motivated with the proper carrots dangled in front of them, but that is just as sad a story.
Even sadder still is that many women have men in their minds that could easily convert them to “slut mode” (just being used as a term here, not necessarily a reflection of the woman) with little to no effort. A Christian wife who would NEVER be that way with her husband would easily drool over and become VERY sexually forward if she ran into The Rock. Red pill sites have proven this over and over again.
I think this is another case of “if it takes effort, forget it, but if it just happens, well that’s fine”.
I think that it’s generally true that a wife should subduce her husband but it can sometimes cause more stress in your marriage. I no longer try to initiate sex because most of the time my husband can’t achieve arousal. This makes him stressed out and depressed so I wait until he is interested like the submissive wife.
@Rachael,
Your reasoning makes sense. But I will add that you should encourage your husband to seek medical treatment if he’s experiencing frequent erectile dysfunction. It’s good that you’re being patient and refraining from shaming him or causing him more stress–shame and stress can only worsen his problem. But that doesn’t mean that you need to stay silent. Don’t make him feel guilty in the moment when he has trouble getting elect, but don’t keep yourself from having a conversation with him outside of sex about going to the doctor. It’s not good for you or your marriage if you two aren’t able to be as intimate as you (and probably he) would like due to a physiological problem of his.
Rachael,
You are doing the right thing in your situation. Remember I said some Biblical commands like the command to be fruitful and multiply and the command for a man to drink water from his well(have sex with his wife) and satisfy(drink his fill) himself with his wife’s body as well as him be ravished(intoxicated) by her sexual love for him requires full participation on both the part of the wife and husband.
Think about if you were trying to have a baby. What if you were not getting pregnant after having sex for several months? What would the next step be? It would be to go to the doctor and you each get tested – it might be you, it might be him or might be both of you. But what if you went and got tested and proved it was not you and he refused to get tested? Is that your fault? No. Again the command requires the full participation of both the husband and wife.
In the same way if you husband has ED issues it is his job to go to the doctor and determine if it is a psychological issue or physical issue and get help. There are all kinds of help for ED today. And I agree with Alex – never shame a man for his ED issues in the moments when you were trying to have sex. Give it some space between that time and later at some other point gently bring up the issue and the fact that their his help for this condition. A lot of men are embarrassed to talk to doctors about ED because for a man so much of his self esteem is based is based in his ability to get an erection and please a woman sexually. When he feels he cannot do this, or is not sure he can, he may withdraw from sex from longer periods of time. It is not right and he needs encouragement though to get help.
Wow BGR!!! I’ve done a few posts on this exact topic, but I love how you used biblical verses to back it all up! I even did one a year or two ago called “The Good Seductress” lol!!!! That’s one of your types of wives you describe!
Anyway, great post, love this and love seducing my husband ❤ !!!!
Oh yea and I did an entire post on that relevant magazine article teaching young unmarried Christians that they shouldn’t expect to have great sex. Yuck!!!!! I was so disturbed by that article and knew MANY young unmarried friends who read it (grrrrr). So yea, wrote an article post in defense of Christians having amazing sex (and this being God’s desire for them).
Stephanie,
I honestly did not read that post from you on the “Good Seductress” and here I thought I was being original…LOL.
Even if I had known I probably still would have used it as it is a logical title – great minds think a like.
It’s fine! LOL And the only reason I wrote that one was because multiple Christian women (crazy women) were trying to argue with me and other commenters on my blog that “seducing” your husband was morally wrong! One even brought up something about men being raped (?!?) as if that had anything to do with what the topic was about. Just crazy!
Stephanie,
I think the same people who believe it is wrong for a Christian woman to seduce her husbands are the ones that tell Christian husbands it is wrong to lust after their own wives. I have seen the same craziness. I think words are important and we need to distinguish between the original Hebrew and Greek words and how our various words are English translations use to translate them.
For instance in our English language we have tree words “desire”, “covet” and “lust” and these words are all used to translate various Hebrew and Greek words for desire. Sometimes the desire is bad and other times it is good and acceptable. In English “lust” is always seen as a bad desire. In fact while lust used to refer to all types of bad desires(not just sexual) today in modern English it refers pretty much to wrong sexual desires. So when we are discussing sexual desires – to be clear to our English speaking audience “lust” cannot refer to a man’s normal heterosexual desires or his desires for his wife. It can only apply to illicit sexual desires and the only way it could ever apply to his wife is if he wanted to do something like sharing his wife sexually with another man.
On the Seducing – again we often think of this in a negative sense but I do think we can redeem the word positive use. A Christian woman seducing her husband is basically the same thing as her ravishing her husband. She is intoxicating him by drawing him to her sexually. Proverbs 5:19 makes it clear this is not only a good thing that God honors – but it is actually a requirement in marriage and husbands and wives need to make a team effort together to fulfill this command.
Yea I’ve heard the lust argument, too… probably here even!
On a serious note though, it’s sad that Christians can be “stunted” in such a critical way regarding their married sex lives 😥 And I’ve always been taught that the more promiscuous a woman is before marriage, the worse she’ll be when having sex with her husband later on (for a lot of reasons but most of it comes down to her view of sex being completely wrong from the get go). This goes against our culture that says you need to have experience for everything and especially before marrying something (kind of like test-driving a car). 😦 It just doesn’t work that way. Although there are virgin women who like Snapper said, were taught that being sexy for their husbands was dirty or degrading.
We knew a couple that got married right around the time we did, and for her lingerie shower she pointedly asked on the invites to not be given anything “too sexy,” or with “leopard print” or “racy!” Those were the words she used!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Really strange that women can feel that way about their own sexuality and in a marriage bed! We both felt sorry for her husband.
@Stephanie
I suppose that it’s possible that she didn’t feel comfortable enough with her own body to start with anything too…er…racy. But it’s more likely that she had been too conditioned into false notions of modesty to abandon those principles even in the privacy of her own home with her own husband.
But more importantly, what was her issue with leopard print? Was she afraid that it was promoting bestiality?
Alex and BGR,
Thanks for your reply guys. I did get my husband to go to the doctor some months ago but his t count is fine and their not sure what’s causing his ED. I’ve managed to talk my husband into taking some supplements and hopefully that will help. My husband has always had a fairly low sex drive (at least in comparison to other men that I read about) even before the ED started but we want to start a family soon and I am afraid once a week won’t be enough.
I hope that things get better for you both soon. ED can be a complex issue, and it may take some time to get to the bottom of it. But it is good that he’s making an effort to improve things, going to the doctor and taking supplements, and that you’re able to be patient and empathetic. His problem might be more psychological. You say that he had a low libido on his. Maybe he’s psyching himself out about being able to respond to your efforts to turn him on and then turning his performance anxiety into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Alex, it was nothing like that. Looking back when I remembered it today, I had a strong inclination that her mom was probably enforcing a semi-sexless if not totally sexless marriage for her father. I’d never realized that before, but if she taught her daughter to feel that way about even sexy underwear (which the whole point is to be sexy), then it probably passed down from their marriage.
Really sad 😦 he was a pastor, too, so that means another pastor suffering in silence with a more-than-likely sexless marriage.
And just FYI for all the men who read here.
It’s the mom’s primary duty (job?) to teach your daughters all about sex – how to think about it, feel about it, and what to expect when she’s married. My mom did a great job of this for me and I’m planning on doing that for our daughter (excited!!). I think a father can do a great job of it too if the mother isn’t available or if she’s a bad enough example that he can show the daughter where her mom made serious mistakes and messed up her own life. That’s critical for kids development… to understand the mistakes their parents made (especially the same-sex parent because it’s like a pattern for them to follow or avoid if they know how). Normally it’d be good for the mom to explain to the daughter herself what she did wrong. But many wives are still living out the bad choices they made without ever having self-knowledge enough to understand that they are even RESPONSIBLE for their bad choices.
Kids can ONLY know how to avoid the same mistakes their mom (or dad) made if you tell them and point out a different way or what you did wrong and most importantly, WHY you made that choice.
Stephanie,
It is very sad that some mothers have a negative view of sex and pass that onto their daughters so that their sons-in-laws have a huge battle ahead of them, even if they start out as men willing to learn to be good lovers to their wives. Their wives start outviewing sex as a dirty and unenjoyable chore, at best, and they expect that their husbands will be pleased with anything they get while they themselves will never enjoy sex.
I agree that men have to be upfront with their sons and women with their daughters on how to be good spouses and how to avoid repeating their parents’ mistakes. I also think that as children approach adulthood and marriage, they need to look at their parents’ honestly. They need to see where their parents gave them a good example, but also where Mom and Dad messed up.
The passage on “be fruitful and multiply” was a command given by God directly to both men and women, so obviously both men and women have a responsibility to participate and play active roles in this. The preceding statement literarily says, “God blessed them and said to ‘them’…”. On the other hand, Proverbs 5:19 was a command only given to husbands. It means that the husband is to find ways to be satisfied and “intoxicated” with his wife’s body and her love, and not chase whores. If he’s horny, he is to seek his wife and in the times that they have sex or sexual activities, he is to indulge fully and be satisfied with her body and with their sexual activities, such that he keeps coming back for more (like an alcoholic repeatedly coming back to get drunk). Alcohol does not pursue or actively seduce a person, in the same way that the Holy Spirit does not pursue us in order for us to become intoxicated (in reference to the Ephesians 5:18 passage you mentioned). So, I don’t think that if a woman doesn’t initiate sex or take an active role in seducing or pursuing sex with her husband, that she’s sinning against God. The wife that acts more like the ‘submissive wife’ in your 6 different types of wives scenario, would not be punished because she has never initiated sex with her husband. If whenever her husband wishes to have sex with her, she accommodates him and pays attention to his preferences and tries to please him sexually, as he tries to please her during their sexual encounter, such a wife is doing her duty and her husband becomes satisfied and ‘ravished’ in their erotic love.
It would be nice, and I bet a lot of husbands would like it if their wives initiated sex and seduced them, but just like romancing your wife, neither of these activities are actual requirements by God. Besides, for a lot of women, a major part of sexual enjoyment is the act of being pursued sexually. Even in the main act of sex, the man usually takes an active role (doing the penetration) while the woman takes a more passive/receptive role (being penetrated and receiving the ejaculate). Other sexual activities might obviously play out a little differently, but the main act is generally like that. This dynamic works well, not just in the act of sex, but in the events leading up to it too.
As a new believer who is desperately trying to pull myself out of the pit of feminism, I find myself becoming depressed reading some of the articles and comments on biblicalgenderroles.com. I had bought into all the lies about marriage being an equal partnership. The whole “we are a team” as opposed to the master/ servant relationship it really is. I completely understand that everything (including men and women) is made for God’s pleasure.
I struggle with the knowledge that everything I am is made for my husband’s pleasure. Kinda makes one feel worthless as a person. I feel like I am not allowed to have my own tastes or preferences in anything. Should I even bother having an opinion or should I ask my husband what my opinion is?
It also kind of makes me feel like God hates women. After all, there are no women in heaven, and probably never will be. The Godhead is male, the angels are male and from what I understand there will be no marriage or children in heaven/eternity so there will be no need for gender. The pastors I have talked to about this tell me either:
1. all women will be turned into men at the final judgement.
2. women have no souls/ no need for salvation and when we die we just cease to exist like the animals.
They said God only created us as women b/c He had to for reproductive purposes not b/c He wanted to. This all hurts and I have no idea what is biblical or not. I just started reading the bible and have not made it past exodus yet. How do I find joy in my role as a woman if I feel like I am nothing to God or anyone else?
Adrienne,
Thanks for your comment. I wrote an article to answer your concerns and I hope it will help other Christian women have your concerns as well.
https://biblicalgenderroles.com/2017/10/27/why-does-the-bible-make-me-feel-worthless-as-a-woman/