“You’re putting women at risk of getting raped!” That’s what I often hear whenever I advise women to have sex with their husbands even if they don’t feel like it.
Giving. Serving. Putting a man’s needs above your own. Making love because your husband needs it, not because you feel like it. Letting men lead, talk, make decisions about the kids, about the house, about anything. This sends modern feminists into orbit, screeching about abuse.
“Everything has to be equal!” they cry. There’s no such thing, of course, so this retort really translates into “It has to be my way, or he’ll take advantage of me, and I’ll lose my independence, my sense of self, control over my body and my life! I’ll become a doormat instead of a free woman.”
I get this backlash so much that I decided to write to all my sisters out there who think every man who leads in the relationship will become an abuser. Here’s my first bit of advice: they won’t. In fact, the exact opposite will happen. If they love you, they will respond with gratitude and a desire to serve you.
That’s if you’re not married to a jerk, and from the reactions I get from women, I must conclude that most of them are dating or married to cruel men. But that doesn’t make sense, does it? We’re not talking about strangers on the street or men they’ve just met. We’re talking about men these women say they love. They love them so much they agreed to marry them, share their lives with them, trust them, and give themselves to them. One life. One love. One flesh.
This Worked While Dating—Why Not Now?
I find it fascinating how women who were willing to give themselves over to the desires of a man while dating suddenly think after they’re married he will become abusive if they respond to him same way they did in the past. First, I have to say, this does sometimes happen. There are abusers out there. But not many. Most relationships are not abusive. Most men are not cruel. If you have such a man in your life, this discussion isn’t for you. You need to get out of the relationship—fast.
I’m talking to all the rest of you—those who are married or in long-term relationships with non-abusers but afraid to serve. Or even those of you who aren’t dating but shun the idea of letting a man lead or giving yourself over to him to meet his needs after you’re married. If you have such a reaction to what I’m saying, then I have this challenge: You’re living a life of irrational fear based on false feminist messaging you’ve received from a culture that is hostile to men. You’re living a lie.
When I advise you to serve and love your husband even in the bedroom, I’m assuming you love that man. I’m assuming—since you married him—that you trust him more than any other man in your life. I’m assuming you care for him deeply and that you want him to be happy. I’m also assuming you think he’s a good person, not someone who will rape or abuse you.
If You Don’t Trust Him, Why Did You Marry Him?
What I find troubling about the gut reaction I’m hearing from women is the complete breakdown of that trust at an almost subconscious level. I’m sure if you asked these women whether they trust their husbands, they’d say yes, of course. But then, when you suggest that they serve them more, make love to them more, let them lead more, they recoil. Trust flies out the window.
One reason for this is the number of bad relationships a woman has experienced before marriage, and even if they’re not “bad,” they ended for some reason, leaving the woman alone and off to look for another man. This repetitive dating, especially if it involves a lot of sex with different partners, results in a hardening toward men, a lack of trust because so many have proved unworthy of long-term commitment.
The relationships are based on taking, not giving. The men have cheated on you, or you cheated on them. They grew tired of you, or you of them. They proved they really weren’t who you thought they were, or vice versa. The trust was never there because the commitment wasn’t. Women bring this mindset into their marriages (as do men), and the trust is broken before it has even been established.
For some women, lack of trust could be due to past personal abuse. Trust is hard for them, so they cling to control. I understand this all too well. I’ve seen the worst a man can do to a woman. But you can’t live in the past, and you can’t judge your husband—or any man, for that matter—by the worst of men. You can’t let that monster have power over you or rob you of trusting your husband. As hard as it is to get past the fear, the trauma of former abuse, we have to try to see every day as new and the man in our lives as independent of the cruel specters of our past.
The Fear You’re Feeling Is Based on Lies
Most women, however, have not experienced this kind of abuse. I’d say most of the “abuse” women have received is from the feminist culture. They’ve been programmed through education, pop culture, movies, music, advertising, and political campaigns to see men as a threat. Through messaging rooted in fear, they are urged to cast aside their own femininity and to dominate men. They’re told they must do this for their own good.
But it’s not for their own good. They’ve exchanged truth for a lie, gentleness for severity, service for domination, and love for power. They’ve lost the joy that comes from giving, sacrificing, and surrendering. To be truly happy, they need to rediscover the thrill of showing deference to the man they love.
Nothing makes me happier than to be able to say “yes” to my husband when he needs my love and attention. Sometimes I don’t feel like it. I’m tired, depressed, anxious about work, overwhelmed with care for my children, or just feeling haggard and physically unattractive.
But I love him. He loves me. He needs me, and sometimes that requires me to give even when I don’t feel like it. I don’t always do it. I’m as selfish as the next woman. But I want to be happy, and I want him to be happy. So the solution is easy if I really let that sink in. I’m happy by making him happy!
“But what about the man? What about reciprocity?” the feminists wail. Once again, I have to ask, “Why is the man in your life such a jerk?” Do you love him or not? Does he love you or not? Are you committed to each other, or are you only out for yourselves, for your equal share in the marriage contract? Or are you willing to go with the ebb and flow of giving and taking? If not, then you’re not loving your man.
Choosing to Serve Someone Else Is Freedom
It’s not my intention to talk to the men right now. Others can do that, or I might another time. For now, I’m talking to you women, to those of you who have allowed a false notion of equality to rob your marriage of freedom and love. Yes, there is little freedom in your marriage if you think for one second that your marriage is “completely equal” all the time and in every way. It’s not. If it is, you’re both in bondage to a false idea and living inauthentically. You’re living as automatons and not as human beings.
How can I make such a bold claim? Because men and women are verifiably different. They’re not the same. They are not “equal.” Men can’t bear children. Men are physically stronger. Men have inherently different ways of processing. If a man is trying to be equal to a woman, he is giving up part of who he is as a man.
The same is true of a woman. If she is trying to be equal to a man, she isn’t being true to herself as a woman—at least some of the time. If two people are doing this, they’re not free to be themselves.
You might be thinking I’m contradicting myself. How can I advise women to serve men yet talk about freedom? Isn’t that driving women back into servitude, barefoot and pregnant? Not at all. Service is a choice. A free choice. A dignified choice. It’s not servility, which is rooted in low self-worth—the true doormat. Serving out of love in order to make another person happy is the most free choice, the most noble choice, you can make.
Not meaning to be cliché, but the comparison works: was Mother Teresa a doormat? Was she in bondage to all the people she served? No one in her right mind would make that claim. How then is it that a woman who says “yes” to her husband—whom she loves—is a slave to him? Why do women today think they will lose their sense of self-worth if they let a man lead, if they lie down with him when he needs her, if they give him space when he comes home from work? Why are so many women always demanding but rarely giving?
Stop Judging Your Man Like He’s A Woman
Besides lack of trust, another reason might be because women think they “do everything.” Service is the last thing on their minds when they already do so much. While they’re right in thinking they do a lot, they’re dead wrong in thinking they do everything. They just do things differently than a man.
I’d also bet that they’re doing a lot more than they need to do, or even than a man wants them to do, simply because they want to be in control of everything. So they’re not really “doing everything” while men are somehow not contributing. Women are really just trying to “control everything.” Yes, that’s exhausting and can cause women to resent their husbands.
Given that mindset, the last thing women will want to do is have sex with their husbands when they don’t feel like it. Doing that would be like rewarding him for doing nothing, right? Wrong. What a sad, twisted way of thinking—and it’s robbing women of happiness and men of the intimacy they need. And, ladies, they need it!
Do you know why? Because we’re not the same. We’re not equal! Men have different needs, just as women do. Men crave sex, and we need to give it to them. It’s when we understand and respect our different needs that we show love to each other.
We can’t do that, however, if we don’t trust each other. If we believe the messaging of the culture—that men are abusive predators—then we will look at the man we say we love with suspicion and resentment even before he has done anything wrong. We’ll read into every move he makes a dark motive or threat. Our guard will go up, our legs will stay closed, and our marriages will suffer.
Start Saying ‘Yes’ Again
How about we make a change? Let’s stop assuming the men in our lives are jerks. Let’s assume they’re the wonderful men we fell in love with. Remember that first kiss? You wanted to give it to him, to make him feel loved and adored. Remember the first time you made love? You would have done anything for him, to excite him, to make him tremble at your touch. The thought of saying “no” was the farthest thing from your mind. All you wanted to say then was “yes.” Say it again now. Say it every day.
When your husband comes home, or when you come home to him, ask him what he wants, and give it to him. You love him, right? He’s not a bad person. Don’t let society label him a jerk. Don’t misjudge him. Love him, the individual, the man standing right before you. Don’t do him the dishonor of defining him by “the group,” stained by the failings of other men.
That is especially true if you have experienced abuse from someone in the past. The man you love isn’t that man; he isn’t all the men you dated before you married him. Trust him. Reach out and kiss him with the passion you felt for him the first time you made love to him. Break free from the chains of a feminized culture that denigrates the man you love. Be free to give to him, body and soul. You’ll be happier, and so will he.
