Marriage Actually - An honest look at marriage

My Rebuttal to “Transactional Marriage”

by Marye Audet on September 1st, 2008

Tony Woodlief began a series August 26 called the Transactional Marriage.  he has three  parts done so far.

I don’t even know where to start with this except to say that I whole heartedly disagree. Sometimes things can sound very spiritual without being necessarily biblical.

Now, y’all have figured out by now that I am a pretty radical Christian, right? Good.

Anyway, I disagree because I think he is missing the point…His basic premise, over and over again is that women should not have to be good in bed.  They shouldn’t worry about whether or not they have  a good technique..and if your wife is not sharing her body with you, guys, then you just need to suck it up and put on your big boy underoos.Take a cold shower first.

He believes that the end all, beat all is not, should not be, whether you have sex or not..and then he says..”I don’t think a wife should concern herself at all with whether she is good in bed. The very concept is pagan. Nowhere in the Bible will you find a woman after God’s heart being instructed to improve her technique.”

Ooops. I disagree with that. Has he never read Esther?

Tony, Tony, Tony…exactly what do you think Esther was learning in the Harem all those months?  Do you think she went in to the King and pleased him because of how brilliant a conversationalist she was? Umm..I don’t think so. She was cleansed, went through beauty treatments, and…then… It was all about technique…walk, talk, and kegels. She wore what the eunich told her to wear because she needed to look HOT.  I guarantee she did not walk into the Kings bedroom in sweatpants and curlers.ANd we know she did not walk in empty handed.  She fully intended to have sex with the King and to have the best technique in the castle.  We don’t know what she took in except that she took what the eunich told her to..but he knew the king, h e was in charge of the harem, he heard the gossip..he knew what the king was partial to.  Maybe he sent her in in a french maid outfit? Who knows…it worked and that is all that matters.

One of the problems with Christian marriages today is exactly that sex has been torn from the sacred and stuffed into a box marked “Flesh, unholy but neccessary”.  Somehow we have decided that God puts His hands over His eyes and says, “O.k… I know you are gonna do it eventually..get it over with I will come back when you are finished”.  We have bought the lie that Christian sex is something that women, NICE women don’t enjoy, and they just do because it gets them what they want from their husbands.And nice Christian men enjoy it but only because it is part of their animal nature.

Uh..no..Done right it is pretty much the best thing this side of Heaven.  I like it.

Here is more of what he says…

“Men, what your wives give you in the bedroom is more than good enough, and if you aren’t happy with it then the problem is in you, in your soul. No amount of Victoria’s Secret on her part is going to fix that. You are after a physical experience in which she is playing a supporting role. My deepest regret and heartache is that I didn’t learn that sooner in my own marriage.”

HELLO? Does anyone else see the women put up with it men are beasts  mentality in that statement? What your wives give you?

I like to seduce my husband, I like to wear items that will make his eyes bug out.  It is one of the blessings that God has given couples in marriage..to enjoy it.  At the same time I like him to wear stuff that will make my eyes bug out.  Boring, unimaginative sex does not make me feel loved..it makes me feel serviced.

I am not playing a supporting role…Marc is not after a physical experience…You cannot separate the physical and spiritual experience of sex without creating something God never meant it to be.  It is an equal role for each of us…doing it by yourself is not nearly so much fun…and it is the melding of the physical, spiritual, and emotional that creates great married sex.

God knew that we need emotional connection, that we need physcial release, that we need a spiritual bonding.  That is why it says in scripture not to withhold from one another except for an agreed upon time.

I do not think that lack of good, imaginative sex should make a spouse get involved in infidelity.  I do think that infidelity is an shared issue because we become one when we get married…and having had to deal with periods of celibacy in my marriage I can tell you that it definitely causes me to stumble when that happens.  If I fall I fall on my own..but I believe that Marc is as responsible as I am for my stumbles.

Whether you are the husband or the wife, you are the only sexual partner your spouse is allowed to have.  It is the one thing that is not available anywhere else.  Tony talks about sacrificial love as being willing to accept whatever  lukewarm sexual act a spouse throws at you but that goes two ways..sometimes sacrificial love means to give of yourself, sacrificially, whether you really feel like it or not.  Sometimes it means stepping out of your comfortable box.

Lights out, shades drawn, 10 point list of what is o.k. and what is not….Friday nights after 10 p.m. only and only for 23 minutes, no more.

The truth is that marriage takes two people each giving all they have and not holding anything back.

To say that marriage should not be transactional sounds very spiritual however it is not.  Any relationship has foundational responsibilities attached.  Even our relationship with Christ is not without responsibilities.  We cannot just give Him what we feel like.  I believe He states in Revelations just how much being lukewarm disgusts Him? Why would it be any different in marriage?

No, we do not love based on what we expect to get back, but just as faith without works is dead, love without works is also not really love at all.  It is convenience.

Image:Morguefile

Share This

POSTED IN: Take Action