The Act of Marriage: The Beauty of Sexual Love (27 page)

12.
Drugs and alcohol.
Since the 1950s the use of drugs has risen at an alarming rate. Somehow people have the misconception that anything can be solved by chemistry. What few realize is that while they treat one symptom, another problem often arises. It is no accident that impotence and drug use have increased during the same period. Only recently have researchers been willing to face the fact that they can be related. “Uppers” or “downers,” appetite-control pills, marijuana, and heroin may make a person feel better for a time or even be a help to him in one area of life, but they can also have an adverse effect on the sex drive. The problem may not surface in youth, but several middle-aged men have indicated that their first sexual malfunction occurred when they were taking drugs. A frequent problem stems from overuse of diet pills or tranquilizers prescribed by a doctor.

The harder drugs produce even harsher results. Some Vietnam veterans who had been heroin addicts remained completely impotent long after withdrawal from the drug. Psychiatrists indicate, however, that after a reasonable time the problem is more psychological than physical. The impotence of drug users among the young has been well publicized, and thousands of men in their twenties are needlessly impotent. The wife of a converted drug addict in his mid-forties, freed from drugs for several years, indicated that her husband had made love to her only “a handful of times in the last eight years, and he hasn’t touched me in the last five.” It is difficult for those who enjoy lovemaking to understand why a person would sacrifice the ecstasy of the act of marriage for a trip on drugs. That alone would make it “a bitter pill to swallow.”

A great deal of confusion exists concerning the effects of alcohol on a person’s sex drive. Some consider it a stimulant, because it removes inhibitions and moral restraints. My view from the counseling room suggests that this is more true in women than in men. However, alcohol chemically is always a sedative, never a stimulant. It may increase a man’s desire for sex but decrease or destroy his ability to maintain an erection. Two other factors are involved: the amount of alcohol consumed and the variety of its effects on the individual. Some people react one way, others quite another. It seems to me that heavy drinking frequently leads to impotence. I have yet to deal with a male alcoholic with a normal sex drive.

Several years ago I was pleading with a successful young banker to accept Christ, but he refused. His beautiful wife was a dedicated Christian and did her best to win him, but she lost the battle to the bottle. As he rose in influence at the bank, he was exposed to more and more social drinking; today he is a regional vice president at fifty years of age and a thorough-going alcoholic. His wife confided, “At his request we sleep in separate bedrooms. We have not had relations for more than ten years.” His love for alcohol has made him a loser in this life and ostensibly in the life to come.

An attractive woman who attended my Bible study class in Washington, D.C., confided that her husband, who owned his own auto body shop, had not made love to her in eight years. Now at fifty-eight he is completely addicted to the bottle. It is really humiliating for a woman to realize that her husband finds alcohol more appealing than she. Her experience is not rare today as more people are losing the battle to alcohol and drugs, which are definitely sexual demotivators, particularly in men fifty and over.

Sometimes certain medications prescribed by a doctor will produce impotence as a side effect. When a man’s first problem with impotence has been preceded by a newly prescribed medication, he should consult his physician.

As men grow older it is not uncommon for their blood pressure to go up. Their doctor will usually prescribe an appropriate medication for this. Unfortunately, however, one of the side effects of the most common blood-pressure medicine is a lessening of men’s sex drive. This usually comes at a time in life when their sex drive may already be getting tentative, and in some cases they may begin having trouble maintaining an erection. (And one thing absolutely necessary for good sexual relations is a rigid penis.) Unless the blood pressure is dangerously high, it might be better for men over fifty (when this malady becomes most common) to be honest with their doctor about the side effects and urge him to prescribe a weight-reduction program if necessary. He should also begin an exercise program (with his doctor’s approval) and consult some of the many nutritional aids that are available in health-food stores. Often, when middle-aged men notice the first signs of impotence, they are motivated to begin a drive to improve their general good health. I have seen men who never maintained any semblance of self-discipline in their lives do so for the first time when they are motivated by the desire to lengthen their years of enjoyable sex.

One of my close friends is among the nation’s leading specialists on physical fitness. He agrees that far too many men, because of poor nutrition and lack of physical fitness, accept impotence long before necessary. After long conversations with him on the ski slopes and talks with other doctor friends, I am convinced that the human body is a living, breathing machine. If you put junk into it and neglect to exercise it properly, you will experience an early decline in many of its important functions.

Recently I had my annual physical exam at the Aerobics Center in Dallas, Texas. When I came out to my car, I noticed someone’s bumper sticker that read, “Joggers do it longer.” Maybe that’s why so many men are jogging these days. If so, it’s worth the effort!

13.
Masturbation.
One of the first questions I ask when a man consults me about the problem of impotence is whether or not he masturbates. Not surprisingly, many who rarely make love to their wives use this infantile method of sexual gratification, and a great deal of literature in recent years condones this psychologically damaging habit. I can understand why humanistically oriented psychologists and psychiatrists may endorse it, but it is difficult to comprehend why some Christian counselors are willing to regard it as a blessing instead of a potentially psychologically harmful habit actuated by sinful thought processes.

Until about forty years ago, masturbation was regarded as harmful to one’s health. Young boys had nightmares over the suggested evils that would befall them for indulging in this practice. Now that medical science has proved that it is not harmful physically, popular opinion tends to accept it as a legitimate sexual function. But this does not take into account either the guilt that almost always follows it or the fact that a husband is defrauding his wife contrary to the Scripture (1 Cor. 7:5). Moreover, the Bible says, “It is better to marry than to burn with passion” (v. 9), not “It is better to masturbate than to burn with passion.” Masturbation is a thief of love. A married man should never cheat his wife and himself out of the mutual blessing of sexual union because of masturbation. This is particularly true for the man having problems with sexual malfunction; he requires all the help he can get to recover his sexual confidence. The last thing such a man needs is to drain off his sex drive with this childish method of self-gratification.

Any man who can successfully masturbate is not impotent. The fact that he can masturbate at least proves his capability. True, he won’t fear rejection, and it may be easier to bring himself to orgasm because he knows his most sensitive erotic areas—but it is still wrong. Actually, it is a cop-out, an action of selfishness. A woman needs to be assured of her husband’s love. If he showers his attention on himself, it is always at the expense of his wife. Instead of demonstrating his love for his wife in the God-ordained act of marriage, he shows his love for himself through masturbation.

Through the years I have counseled couples in which the unfulfilled wife has openly accused her husband of masturbating instead of making love to her. In several instances it was a too forceful wife and a too sensitive husband who could point to times he did approach her only to be rebuffed or rejected. Most men find it difficult to accept sexual rejection, and some resort to bitterness and some to masturbation. It has been my policy to excuse the wife at that point and explain to the husband that as he grows older his reproductive system slows down. When he was younger, masturbating an hour or so before having sex may have been beneficial in solving his premature ejaculation problem, but after fifty he should save all his sex drive for his wife.

Then I ask for a private chat with the wife and urge her to be more sensitive to her husband’s needs and try to be more seductive in the bedroom. I suggest to her things a loving Christian wife can do in the sanctity of their own love life that her husband will find sexually exciting, so that together they can work on the problem. Now it is possible for you to learn many of those suggestions from this book.

14.
A sagging vagina.
In the previous chapter we dealt at length with the problem of an excessively relaxed vagina. Any woman who has given birth to children could have this problem. The muscles around the vagina that keep it firm and sensitive begin to sag and relax around the midpoint in life, just as do other muscles in the body. Instead of being firm and sensitive against the glans penis during lovemaking, the sagging or weakened vagina does not maintain sufficient contact to provide stimulation to produce ejaculation—and often at the stage in life when the husband needs more friction instead of less. This problem explains why some men can masturbate who cannot ejaculate during lovemaking.

There are two basic remedies for this problem—the exercises recommended in the previous chapter and a relatively new form of minor surgery that is becoming increasingly popular. In either case, when a couple suspects that a sagging or weakened vagina has created a problem in their love life, the wife should see a gynecologist for an examination. However, it is advisable to try the Kegel exercises diligently for at least three months before consenting to surgery.

15.
Passive wife.
Practically every man has dreamed of having a sexually aggressive wife. No matter how lofty his ideals of womanhood, a husband often fantasizes his wife as a sexual ball of fire in bed. Unfortunately most women maintain a mental image of their role as passive. One wife said, “I’ve always thought he would lose respect for me if I did anything sexually aggressive.” To be truthful, a man finds it ecstatically stimulating when his wife approaches him. It makes him think she wants and needs his lovemaking. That helps to inflate his male ego, whereas passivity leads to boredom, and boredom to impotence.

Few sexually vigorous wives have impotent husbands. The only exceptions I have found are those who became aggressive only after their husbands began to encounter impotence problems. The fact that they cannot have normal intercourse may increase their aggression, but this tends to create resentment in the husband, who vividly recalls the many times he approached his wife earlier in marriage only to find that she either rejected him or was so passive that he felt she was “just going along with the wifely ritual.” Most of the time men enjoy being the aggressor in love, but no man wants to make love to a “cadaver,” and at times he likes to know that his wife enjoys it as much as he does.

16.
Nagging.
Nothing turns a man off faster than nagging! That overworked art does nothing for a relationship—except destroy masculinity and sex drive. It absolutely must be avoided! Some women have to guard against this habit more than others. Those who reflect a melancholic temperament doubtless have to watch their tongues, because melancholic people are perfectionists and naturally find it easy to criticize the actions of others. A man’s passionate emotions can be turned to ice in a moment through nagging and criticism.

A doctor friend once reviewed an extreme case of nagging. The husband he counseled was impotent at the age of thirty-six. The only clue he could find was the wife’s habit of chattering during lovemaking. She had little difficulty reaching an orgasm, after which she would start talking—usually making some minor critical observation, something that would distract him—and he would lose his erection. Fear of another failure made it more likely that he would malfunction. All it took to solve their problem was for her to be aware of his needs at that moment.

17.
Feminine dominance.
Next to nagging, nothing is less pleasing to a husband than a domineering wife. (It turns children off too.) There is just nothing feminine about a domineering woman. Choleric women (who often marry phlegmatic men) particularly need to beware of this problem. They frequently mistake the husband’s quiet acquiescence for agreement; if he is slow of speech, he will usually give in rather than fight or argue. This creates resentment, and we have already traced the results of that response. Any wife with a problem of this kind needs to pursue a Bible study on Ephesians 5:17–24 and 1 Peter 3:1–7, then ask God to give her submissive grace.

The next two problems are not, strictly speaking, forms of impotence. But they are often dealt with in relation to impotence problems, and it seems best to include them in a discussion of the subject.

18.
Premature ejaculation.
Described as the inability to withhold ejaculation long enough to bring one’s wife to climax 50 percent of the time, this difficulty plagues young men more than the middle-aged. Simply stated, it involves ejaculating too soon. Men afflicted with this problem are poor lovers and usually have unsatisfied wives. They tend to ejaculate with the slightest friction of the glans penis either before or just after entering the vagina. This form of impotence can often be traced to heavy petting as a teenager, which may end in ejaculation with clothes on or may culminate in hurried intercourse in a by-the-hour motel or in a parked car where there is fear of interruption. (See also pages 141–3.)

The Cure for Premature Ejaculation

The most common remedy for premature ejaculation is for the husband to avoid any unnecessary friction on the glans penis immediately after entrance. This of course takes great self-discipline, because at that high point of excitement his instincts motivate him to a deep thrusting action. This instinctive movement is nature’s method of depositing the male sperm deep into the vagina where the possibility of its fertilizing the female egg is greatest. Actually that seemingly universal instinct is not the best method of producing female satisfaction, for recent studies seem to indicate that it actually works against it. That is, a woman tends to respond more to very gentle movements than to deep thrusting. Some women, for example, find that their tension buildup drops off after their husband’s thrusting action starts, but again begins to build when he slows down and moves from side to side. In fact, if she develops her P.C. muscles, she can actually bring herself to orgasm by contracting these muscles several times on his motionless penis.