Egalitarianism In The Bedroom

“Let his left hand be under my head and his right hand embrace me.” – Song 8:3

Obviously… this post addresses adult topics.

Our culture somehow has successfully pulled off two contradicting lies simultaneously – that married women do not enjoy sexual intimacy, and that unmarried women are happiest when they are have a whole list of hot guys to sleep with. Both are lies, and when viewed simultaneously they are also hilariously self-contradictory.

I just listened to an episode of the Bare Marriage podcast. The topic was whether or not they, as apologists for “Christian egalitarianism,” are contending that women do not “have to have sex” with their husbands.

Now, if you don’t know my views on “Christian egalitarianism,” I believe that it is a rotten toxic poison-acid from hell. And that is not hyperbole.

And yet, I agreed with about 90% of this podcast.

One of the things that is so devastating to our ability to grow as Christians is the impulse to decamp into whatever echo chamber most closely aligns with myself. I am a Calvinist… And so is he. So he must be right. I am a complementarian… And so is she, so she must be right. I am a Republican… And so is he, so he must be right. The list goes on.

But this is not how Scripture would lead us to do our analysis. “He who gives an answer before he hears, it is folly and shame to him.” “The first to plead his case seems just, until another comes and examines him.” “The heart of the prudent acquires knowledge.” “Quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger.”

Even people who are very wrong in a lot of areas can be accurate in pointing out an area where I am wrong. In fact, it may be that they have gone off the deep end on their side of the ditch because they are reacting to actual problems on my side of the road. We would be wise to consider, and not simply to reject out of hand.

So back to the topic at hand. Anyone who believes that women cannot, or should not, or normally do not enjoy – and I mean dramatically and overwhelmingly and thrillingly enjoy – sexual intimacy has not read the Song of Solomon. In the podcast, these ladies are correct in pointing out a rot that has sunk deep into the bones of our culture – the idea that sex within marriage is just for men. That it is normal for women to be sexually apathetic. Even within the church, this is accepted as normative, and the solution presented is for the wife to “serve her husband” sexually. Now, is there ever a time to “serve” our spouse? Of course! Husband and wife should both be living with love and self-sacrifice towards one another. However, the idea that sex is simply a one-sided arrangement that gives pleasure to the husband and is a chore for the wife is not only unbiblical, but also really, really sad.

So no, we should not normalize within the church the idea that the wife just gives herself to her husband sexually as an act of raw willpower. As they bring out in this podcast, where that is happening, it is usually symptomatic of other underlying causes.

And here is the really important part. Well, actually, the above stuff is also very important and really needs to be said more. In fact, I’m going to say it again. Wives – Christian wives – women with Christian husbands – should be the most sexually satisfied women on the planet. Sex should be absolutely incredible to them. Amazing. Overpowering. Delightful. There are other words that I could use but I’m trying not to get too explicit. What I’m trying to say is that they should have the maximum physical enjoyment possible.

And so should the husband, by the way. It’s supposed to be an amazing experience for both people. Again, read Song of Solomon.

But the idea that it is something on the to-do list – for either spouse – should be indicative of a problem that needs to be identified and rectified, so that the sex life can be restored to what it is supposed to be – a physical and spiritual paradise of pleasure and unity and delight in one another. Delight both in giving and in receiving. Delight in physical pleasure and in spiritual oneness.

It should be a really, really good time.

Anyway, the other important part here is this – we really need to pay attention to how errors give birth to more errors. We really need to see this coming. These ladies are spot-on on a lot of their analysis here. They are also completely unhinged from Scripture – and yes, I have listened to some of the arguments, they are very poor arguments – they are completely unhinged from Scripture when it comes to male headship in marriage, male authority in the church and civil realms. They have completely left behind God’s basic template for the relationship between the sexes.

Coincidence?

Probably not. They clearly have been researching abuses and pain and sorrow and sexual brokenness for a long time. They have probably seen a lot of terrible things. And the simple reality is that when the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And when the only philosophy you have is patriarchy, everything looks like feminism. And when the only thing you care about is protecting victims, everything looks like abuse.

The real abuses of patriarchy give birth to feminism and egalitarianism. And feminism and egalitarianism give birth to red pill and black pill men who will use up women and then discard them.

Here, as elsewhere, we see the pendulum… Real problems, which need to be addressed, are being addressed by rejection of Biblical patterns and commands, as if it were the Biblical pattern that caused the problem. But it was not. It was not patriarchy that caused the problem. It was wicked patriarchs, and rebellious wives, and strategic Marxist cultural engineers, who did their best to destroy the nuclear family with pornography and birth control and media… There’s a war on, guys. We should expect casualties. We should expect ideologies to be leveled against us, and we should expect to have to correct ourselves constantly to get back to Scripture. But that is the point. Get back to Scripture. Where else shall we go? He has the words of life. Overcorrecting into another form of humanism will only bring about another form of judgment. It does little good to move the house off of one foundation of sand, only to put it onto another foundation of sand. The end result will be much the same.

We must stop decamping. We must be quick to hear and slow to speak. We would be wise not to so readily reject or condemn or judge what people have to say simply because we think we know what they are saying.

Week after week, I become more convinced that social media will be the death of us all, as one Twitter hurricane after another blows in and blows by, leaving more and more hasty assumptions and harsh accusations in their wake. Two things can be true at once. A young woman who gets tattoos and goes into debt and sleeps around with a bunch of men is far less likely to be attractive to a good marriage candidate – even after coming to Christ. That is true… Without at all detracting from the truth that she can be forgiven and holy in Jesus, and be an amazing wife for some godly man someday. It is true that it is good for wives to be homemakers and wear pretty dresses and make sourdough bread… And also that the tradwife movement lacks grounding in the truth of God’s Word. It is true that Christ is King, and also that jerks online like to co-opt true phrases to serve their wicked ends. It is true that Christians should be involved in politics, and that Christ is the Lord of kings and nations, and also that individuals need to repent and believe and find personal salvation in Jesus Christ. And it is true that wives should submit to their husbands- and also that husbands should make sure that their wives have a great time in the bedroom.

This stuff can all be true at once, guys. It really worries me to see the bride of Christ so readily torn apart by so many issues because we cannot listen, pray, think, and then speak.

#TheBedroom #Complementarianism #Patriarchy #Manhood #Marriage #Egalitarianism #Womanhood