Friends, this post is a huge part of why I wanted to start this series in the first place – the topic here is universal and it is also secret. My guest is a woman who rocks my world with her powerful writing, friendship, teaching, and hilarity. Enjoy this next post in our Love and Making It Series!
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I flinch when my husband touches my boobs. I don’t know how else to tell you that except for just outright. So there it is. I flinch when my husband touches my boobs. Even when I am enjoying it (yes, I just went there and you don’t even know my name!) Now, that we know where this is headed, let’s back it up a little bit.
My name is Abby Norman, I am the mother of two hilarious girls and the wife of one great man. We met during my freshman year of college when I was not looking for a man. When my grandpa asked me if I was dating anyone, I told him no. I was dating everyone. I don’t think he had ever been prouder of me. I was not going to date seriously until I was a junior.
God had different plans. I was engaged a year after that conversation with my grandfather and married a year after that. I wasn’t dating anyone my junior year. I was married to him. That was almost nine years ago. And still, when my husband touches my boobs, the automatic response from my brain is “no-touching!” Perhaps I need to back up even further.
My parents never shied away from the sex talk. I knew that sex was for married people before I even knew what sex was. Anytime those semi-awkward “making out in bed then cut to black” scenes showed up on the tv when we were in the room my mom would tell us. That is sex. It is good. It is for married people.
In the third grade, sitting in the Target parking lot, I learned that sex was for making babies. I mentioned that I was excited that my teacher said we were going to learn about that. My mom saw no reason to wait, and the birds and the bees were explained next to the red cart corral. No blushing, just the facts.
In middle school I remember my dad mentioning that married sex was about as much fun as you could possibly have this side of heaven. When I was engaged and my mom and I were on our way to Victoria’s Secret to pick out a white teddy for the first night. We had this conversation:
Mom: Do you know where your clitoris is?
Me: Yes.
Mom: Good. After you know that you can figure the rest out.
I say all this to say, I was raised in a pretty body positive environment.
I was encouraged to save sex for marriage, and I did. I saved a lot more than just sex. In high school I invented “the bathing suit rule.” If it was covered up by a bikini on me or mens swim trunks on him, we shouldn’t be touching it until we were married. Kissing was about as far as I wanted to go. This rule wasn’t perfect and I wasn’t perfect at following it. But for the most part it worked for me and thus getting to the wedding night with my husband having never touched or seen my boobs before.
I didn’t date a million guys, but I did date a few in high school. I don’t know how else to say this but they all wanted to touch my boobs. Though we would talk about “the rules” prior to becoming officially boyfriend/girlfriend apparently that wasn’t what either of us were thinking about while making out in someones basement. I learned to have a healthy defense. The hand went to far up the shirt…my elbow came down pretty hard. Problem solved. I learned to have automatic defense mechanisms and they worked for me. And I want to take the time to say, I was grateful for these rules and the frank conversations I had about them. They kept me out of a lot of places I didn’t want to go. And those were firmly my decisions, not something someone else just decided for me. I think it saved me a lot of heartache and frankly spared me a lot of jerks who were not interested in dating someone who wouldn’t take her pants off for them. I am glad I had the rules and made the choices I did regarding my sexual choices.
But now, how do I turn off the rules? It has been nine years and two babies. You would think they would have turned themselves off by now. But they haven’t, when I get turned on. So does the track in my head. “DEFENSE! DEFENSE!” Only, there isn’t any need for a defense. There is nothing to protect me from. My husband is loving and caring and respectful. There has never been a moment where has he has done anything I have ever been uncomfortable with. And yet…I flinch when he touches my boobs. I have to remind myself that it is allowed.
I don’t bring this up very often but I have found a few friends who have the same problem. Why is no one talking about this? I was given solid and practical advice from the church when it came to keeping my pants on, but no practical advice when it came to taking them off. While I appreciated the soundtrack when it was necessary, how do I turn it off now?
Pray it away is the only advice I have ever been given. (Which is sort of lame considering the church promised me a perfect sex life if I just waited.) Sometimes prayer cuts it. Sometimes it doesn’t. I have noticed a direct correlation between how I feel about my body and how likely I am to bat a hand away. I am aware of the connection between the emotional connection I have felt for the past few days and the reaction I have to my husbands touch at night. I can work on those things too, but we both have jobs and two toddlers. As far as exercise routines and romantic getaways are concerned, we are already doing the best we can. Still, the flinching.
As a couple, my husband and I have talked about this recording in my head, and we work through it when we need to. But I wish we could join in on larger conversations already happening. The church is the place where I was taught to think like this. Now, can they please help me stop?
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Abby Norman lives and loves in the city of Atlanta. She has two hilarious children and a husband that doubles as her copy editor and biggest fan. If two in diapers and a full time job teaching English at a local high school don’t keep her busy, you can find her blogging at accidentaldevotional.com. When Abby grows up she hopes to see her words on a bookshelf somewhere. She is finally working toward her dreams.
Faith + Art + Hope + Connections 
I think you hit the nail on the head here – “I was given solid and practical advice from the church when it came to keeping my pants on, but no practical advice when it came to taking them off.” Yes.
Great post!
sha-BAM!
woman, this is awesome. this is just awesome. I absolutely feel you on all of this. I grew up in a sex-positive house. my mom’s mantra, “no sex before marriage, lots of sex after.” But there was no instruction as to how to go from no sex at all to lots of sex all the time. They left that part out. My husband and I struggled with guilt over our lust for one another, and shame in being naked/sexual together.
Thank you for this. This is AWESOME.
Abby,
I doubt there are any easy solutions. The only thing I know that helps is to continue to discuss it and continue to do so. I do not think the church is going to help here. Sex does not become great just because you are married. I think sex can be great when you have two people willing to share their souls one with another and when you do that it is easier to share your bodies. Regardless sex or friendship or any relationship that is worth it requires work and a willingness to not give up when things are hard. If you trust your love to do that it makes it easier for you to do so as well.
I hear what you are saying, and ultimately it is going to be something worked out between the two of us. But the way the church stays silent on all of this isn’t helping anyone.
I guess my thought is that they will not be willing to either. The churches I’ve been involved in will not go there and that is disappointing.
Hmm. I’ve been in some very frank discussions amongst church women about these matters, but getting real help and input from “the church” depends deeply upon where you to go church/which conventions you attend/who your church’s counselor is/knowing older married women who have worked through this versus those who are experiencing it with you (who, true, can still be helpful, but still, have not resolved the issues yet). And I think many, many Christian women struggle with this today.
Perhaps at least some of the problem is not our ingrained “no-touchee” adolescent rules, years later, but our emotional state and desire to be touched when we’re exhausted, pulled and tugged at daily by your kids, and perhaps not feeling emotionally connected (which, for most women, precedes the desire to physically connect)?
I’m not projecting my own experiences onto you or anything… being the mother of two, a former high school English teacher (stressful to the max!), and a Christian who also saved herself for marriage. 🙂
If I’m stressed enough, I twitch away involuntarily when he touches ANY part of me. It was like that for a while as our life in full-time ministry was going badly and then dissolving. And I agree, it is really sad and hard and guilt-inducing when you can hardly stop the twitch even if you’re trying.
Yes. This is why we started this whole series. We need to connect to all the different reasons sex is complex for us – specifically women. We need to be able to talk about it safely.
One thing: I am fascinated by how we are thrilled to get a massage or a pedicure when we are exhausted but we are not as excited to have sex with our husbands when we are exhausted. We flinch when we are tired. We correlate having sex with HAVING to do something else for someone else, while men seem to think of it more as something they GET to do WITH us.
Nothing is that simple, of course, but it is a pattern of thinking I have noticed in myself and am trying to retrain in my brain.
-Nicole
Wouldn’t it be great to go to a Christian conference for engaged women that focused on the joys of married sex? You think you were/are conflicted? Imagine what it was like 40 years ago.
That’s actually been on my mind a lot. I think it would be a huge gift to a lot of women to be as led and cared for in how to have great sex after marriage as they are in how NOT to have sex before marriage. 🙂
The church my husband and I attended & worked in the student ministry after we got married had a *fabulous* group of ladies who just adored the high school and college age girls. In addition to attending extra-curricular events, making goody boxes, and hosting game nights, these fine ladies of the church hosted The Dinner. They would take brides-to-be out to dinner, put them on the inside seat of a booth, give them The Basket, and go around the table sharing stories and giving advice about the delights of marital sex. Several girls who came through the student ministry with us got to experience The Dinner, and shared some about the discussions (though I never heard the full contents of The Basket). Rather than it being an embarrassment, this tradition became a rite of passage both humorous and freeing. The women who hosted had been married from 15-30 years, and each shared honestly about The Wedding Night and The Days (and Years) That Followed. Brides heard from women who genuinely cared about them and their marriages; they also were heard by these women who’d experienced the same questions, excitements, and nerves they felt.
I’ve never forgotten that, and have tried to allow the discipleship relationships I’m a part of to be a safe place for that kind of discussion as well. As with any intimate area – whether spiritual, relational, emotional, physical, mental, or all of the above – often the best place in a community of faith to lay open our questions is among those who are already pouring grace into our lives.. And often the best gift we can give our community of faith is to encourage others to lay open their questions as well. Share stories. Swap ideas. Puzzle. Laugh. Pray. Encourage. We all need a Paul, and we all need a Timothy. Discipleship isn’t just deciphering verses; it’s doing life in community. We can — and should — talk sex in discipleship.
Though we were already married and I missed The Dinner and The Basket, those same ladies poured their grace – and their sparkle – into my life as well. When we’d been married for about 3 months, we helped take students to the annual youth camp. One of those fabulous casserole-slinging ladies walked up to me in the dining hall and handed me her car keys. Puzzled, I asked her if she needed me to run an errand. She said, “No, darling! You haven’t been married long enough to make it a whole week! We brought the van and there’s extra sheets in the back. You all help yourselves this week!”
I love your honesty, Abby! Praying God continues to use your voice!
SO GOOD. Such an issue!! A good friend of mine is a Christian Sex counselor. Her and her husband are passionate (wink) about igniting believers in the bedroom. She preaches how God created such amazing intimacy to be explored and celebrated, yet believers are so hesistant and NO ONE is talking about this.
http://www.amazon.com/Amazing-Intimacy-Spectacular-Marriage-Bedroom/dp/0989070042
Love this post!!
This is an issue me and my non-believer friends talk about A LOT more than me and my friends who are believers. It’s refreshing to see it being talked about. I still believe a lot of times the church is too vague, too hesitant, too shy to talk about sex. Either in marriage, OR out of it. I had been one of those girls who saved herself for marriage, although my then husband hadn’t. I was thrilled at the idea that this one man was the one I’d share my body with forever, but then reality sank in. A lot of the reason I am now divorced lies in his sexual secrets, and as a result, I live with doubt, guilt, and regret about my sex life. After I divorced, I did explore other sexual partners and felt a striking, painful guilt for sharing my body with them. So now, I’m abstinent once again, but filled with guilt at being “impure” or “used goods” all because of the church’s preaching that sex is saved for marriage; but what happens if that marriage ends? Women out here are struggling to stay pure, and to release guilt and pain from sexual insecurities, and I think every church should have a group that supports this kind of discussion and gives the opportunity for healing. Many women like myself and others struggle with this part of our lives because no one talks about it. It’s either bad, or it’s great, but no one talks about the details, or how men treat the subject. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a lot of sexual secrets or abuses going on in the church because women don’t have venues to talk about this. So, let’s TALK.
Great post Abby and very thoughtful comments everyone. Some things that come to my mind as I brain storm would be a lot along the same lines that you are all talking about. Breasts are our nurturing organs and in order to share them I feel we too need to be nurtured ourselves. Forgiveness of negative attitudes about the sexuality of our breasts and bodies may do a lot to free oneself from rejecting sexual contact Breasts are also inherently a highly feminine body part, so accepting and embracing our womanhood would help in recapturing our full sexual potential. Also, many many of us have had traumatic sexual experiences, even if intellectually we don’t reflect on it “as a big deal”; however it is so important that we process those experience(s) and feel validated on how that effected us so that we can finally heal and reclaim an abundant life.
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Denise,
I hear you. I have been there. I was single again for 4 years after divorce. After years of married sex, celibacy was agony. I grew so much as a person during that season. I want to talk about it, write about it. I feel scared to talk about such an indescribable vulnerability. Talking about how I learned to be both godly and sexual while single feels as vulnerable as giving my bone marrow for transplant to a room full of strangers.
Stories like yours still move me and make me want to speak.
Robin
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Hey everyone! Just an update:
After the response to the initial series of blog posts, we are starting an eCourse and online group to discuss these things confidentially. We want to be more free, more beautiful, less scared, more alive in bed and with our spouses. Check out http://www.1000strands.com for how to join us!
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