The Act of Marriage: The Beauty of Sexual Love (26 page)

In all probability no man has ever really been too small, yet millions regularly
fear
that possibility. Therefore, it can be devastating for a wife to joke about her husband’s organ, for she could well negate his normal function. One husband was so humiliated that he could not express to his wife how her simple statement “Are you man enough to take me on tonight?” devastated him. Unhappily, she meant no ridicule, but was nervous herself in talking about lovemaking and never dreamed he would find it offensive. You can no doubt guess the effect on another husband when his wife, not aware that he was having his first sexual malfunction, said, “What’s the matter, big boy? Aren’t you the man you once were?” Ridicule is a weapon of children. When used by a wife, it is akin to murder.

5.
Guilt.
A subject that modern psychology overlooks today in its humanistic attempt to solve human problems independent of God is the reality of conscience. For that reason psychologists seldom if ever clarify that free love and promiscuity before or during marriage can produce severe guilt that results in impotence. It is well known that women frequently develop such strong guilt feelings after marriage, because of weak moral standards prior to marriage, that their ability to enjoy sex after marriage is severely diminished. The same thing can happen to men. One young man, reviewing his encounter with impotence the first year after the wedding, summed it up by saying, “I had more sex drive when we were living together than after she became my wife.” Another stated, “Ever since I had an affair with my best friend’s wife, I go limp each time I enter our bedroom.” A door-to-door salesman admitted to his first bout with impotence shortly after he was enticed into a housewife’s bed (he claimed) and was caught by her husband. The one thing these men all had in common was guilt.

The merits of virtue and chastity are many, the greatest being a clear conscience. One of the saddest cases that has come to our attention concerned a young minister who left his wife, his children, and the ministry for a woman he “loved so much he couldn’t give her up.” After ten years of feeling guilty he complained of impotence at age thirty-seven. Finally he admitted, “Every time I walk into the house and see my wife, I think of the first wife I left. Whenever I enter our bedroom, I am reminded of my unfaithfulness. Every time I pass a church, I think of the ministry I once enjoyed. Now on top of my guilt I am impotent. My lack of attention threatens my wife, she presses me for marital relations, and everything gets worse.”

The Bible warns, “The way of the unfaithful is hard” (Prov. 13:15). In addition, “A man reaps what he sows” (Gal. 6:7). Fortunately there is a remedy for a guilt complex—accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior and confessing your sins in His name. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Although our Lord forgives instantly, I find that it takes much longer for one to forgive oneself. For that reason, guilt-produced impotence will not vanish overnight.

6.
Unreasonable expectations.
It is important for a man to understand that God made him so that his sex drive will peak between eighteen and twenty-two years of age. During that time his reproductive organs will produce an unbelievable amount of testosterone, semen, and sperm cells. The reason is obvious: God intended man to marry and begin fathering children while he is young. During these years some men can experience from one to five ejaculations a day. As we have previously noted, that desire and proficiency tends to diminish shortly after twenty-two. When a man becomes aware of this lessening drive and intensity, he magnifies the problem by comparing his performance with his youthful capabilities. Most men fail to consider that God never intended him to compare his fifty-year-old potency with that of a twenty-two-year-old. We may likewise need to be reminded that a fifty-year-old man has a greater capacity for love, emotional expression, and sharing than an immature man. There is much more to lovemaking than the explosion of the glands, and most men eventually come to realize this fact; but some unfortunately let an occasional malfunction rob them of years of enjoyment. A mature husband is willing to sacrifice some quantity for well-appreciated quality.

Frankly, the man who accepts the fact that at certain times during his maturing process (quite different for each individual) he can experience a weekly quota of one to four or more meaningful experiences with his wife—depending on the pressure of circumstances, workload, rapport with his wife, and several other factors—will prepare himself mentally for hundreds of lovemaking experiences in the later years of life. The man who unrealistically demands that he retain the marathon capability of youth is kidding himself and invariably predisposing himself for impotence.

Research indicates that many men have engaged in lovemaking all their married lives—not so frequently in their eighties as in their seventies, of course, but hundred-year-old men have fathered children. After one Family Life Seminar a seventy-four-year-old woman asked, “How old does a man have to be before he stops wanting sex? My husband is after me every day.” Her husband was eighty-one.

Research in this area has revealed that couples who are lifetime lovers have only one thing in common: not the size or shape, good looks or apparent virility of a partner, but a positive mental attitude. The man who starts making love to his wife expects to see it through to completion; one who anticipates failure will invariably confront it. Someone has said, “There are two kinds of people, those who think they can and those who think they can’t—and they are both right.” This is particularly true of male potency.

7.
Obesity.
There is nothing glamorous about obesity, either to others or to the overweight man himself. Rolls of fat do nothing to stimulate self-confidence, which is essential for potency. When a man lets himself get severely overweight, he loses self-respect, is embarrassed to see himself undressed, and even more important, is usually ashamed to let his wife see him that way. The more he rejects his appearance, the more he assumes that his wife finds him repugnant. Instead of calling her “honey” or “sweetheart,” he begins to use such epithets as “mamma” or “mother,” and lovemaking drops to zero.

Spencer, a fifty-five-year-old man thirty pounds over his normal weight, complained of a “lack of sex drive.” Besides showing him the need for more discipline in his spiritual life (more faithful church attendance, regular Bible study, walking in the Spirit, and learning to share his faith in Christ), I recommended that he visit his family doctor and commence a weight-reduction program. When he came in two weeks later, he brought his wife. Already he showed improvement. He had lost seven pounds and proudly told of “taking his belt up one notch,” but he still had not tried lovemaking. During that session I quickly detected that he called his wife “mother”; they had raised three sons and Spencer explained that he had just “gotten into the habit.”

Most people underestimate the importance of words. Scientists tell us that language establishes mental images that affect the subconscious mind. The word
mother
in our culture conveys dignity, respect, honor, purity, and many wholesome thoughts. However, it almost never is sexually stimulating. In my opinion one of the worst habits a middle-aged man can initiate is to call his wife “mother.” In marriage it does nothing to ignite either the wife or the husband. Although it may be the result of a subconscious habit of many years standing, it nevertheless puts the husband in the role of son instead of head, leader, provider. I am convinced that if a man calls his wife “mother” long enough, eventually he will subconsciously begin to think of her in that role—and she will come to envision herself that way. I always recommend that a husband return to the use of those endearing titles for his wife that he used during courtship days. It frequently returns an excitement to what has developed into a “comfortable relationship.”

By the third interview Spencer reported “a miracle in our marriage. We have made love twice!” Obviously it wasn’t a world record, but after almost five years of “nothing,” it was a good start. Do not rush things when seeking to overcome impotency. Like other organs or muscles of the body, the sexual organs build up a capability to work in proportion to repeated and effective exercise. It is better to enjoy one fulfilling experience per week at first, since one success leads to another. One accomplishment out of two attempts may be improvement, but it doesn’t do nearly so much for the subconscious mind as a string of weekly successes. Besides, a week’s anticipation after a successful ejaculation helps make it easier to achieve the next time.

The last time I talked to him about his love life, Spencer (now in his sixties) not only has lost most of his extra weight, but admitted, “I feel great, and our love life is better now than it has been in fifteen or twenty years.” When I asked if he had suffered any recurrences of impotence, he replied, “Once in a while, but now I realize it is just one of those things that happen, so I don’t become discouraged. I just try to concentrate better the next time.” A psychiatrist couldn’t have said it better.

Any man fifteen pounds or more overweight ought to see his doctor and inaugurate a weight-reducing program. When he realizes that excessive weight could (though it doesn’t always) interfere with his potency, he will be more motivated to stay on a diet. Obesity lowers all vital energies and is hazardous to the health, so normally it will reduce a man’s natural sex drive.

8.
Poor physical fitness.
God told Adam, “By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food” (Gen. 3:19). In Western countries today life is often too sedentary. As people become more experienced and skilled at their jobs, their work becomes less physical and more mental. Consequently sweating is not so common as it once was, and people do not get the physical exercise they need. When a man loses his muscle tone, he forfeits vital energies and self-confidence. We have already seen how that produces a loss in sex drive. Every healthy man should stay fit, but that takes discipline—and discipline demands motivation. Many men have reported that regular jogging, exercise, or other forms of physical conditioning have improved their sex drive. Just that possibility ought to motivate a man.

9.
Heavy smoking.
Some years ago an issue of
Reader’s Digest
carried an article entitled, “Is Your Sex Life Going Up in Smoke?” According to Dr. Alton Ochsner, senior consultant to the Ochsner Foundation Hospital in New Orleans, who is quoted in the article, “It is estimated that tobacco use kills about 360,000 people a year in this country.” Some German doctors discovered that smoking lowered the level of testosterone production, making fertilization more difficult. In fact, childless men have fathered children after giving up smoking. The article further quotes Dr. Ochsner:

“I’ve had literally dozens of patients tell me, almost as an afterthought, that after they quit smoking, their sex lives improved.” He likes to tell about a 73-year-old man, a heavy smoker for 45 years, who had a lung abscess removed. “I told him he had to stop smoking, so he did. Two months later, the lung had healed completely. Before he stopped smoking, he told me, he’s had sexual relations once every four to six months. Now it’s three to four times a week.”

Joel Fort, M.D., director of San Francisco’s Center for Solving Special Social and Health Problems, which helps people both to overcome the cigarette habit and to deal with sexual maladjustments, automatically counsels smokers who complain of impotence to enroll in the center’s stop-smoking clinic. The overwhelming majority of men who do so, says Dr. Fort, report their sex lives markedly improved. He gives the same advice to women who complain of lack of interest in sex.

Dr. Fort theorizes that smoking impairs sexual performance in two primary ways: the carbon-monoxide intake reduces the blood oxygen level and impairs hormone production; the nicotine intake constricts the blood vessels, the swelling of which is the central mechanism of sexual excitement and erection. Dr. Fort also cites secondary effects of heavy smoking: lung capacity is reduced, cutting back on stamina and the ability to “last” during intercourse; nicotine discolors the teeth and taints the breath, reducing the smoker’s sexual attractiveness.
¹

In conclusion, the article makes another statement by Dr. Ochsner.

“The ironic thing is that many men don’t recognize they have a libido problem until after they quit smoking, and then they realize what they’ve been missing. It just seems sad to wait until you’re 73 to make this discovery.”
²

10.
Mental pressure.
Many men are single-minded. Their brains seem capable of only one job or interest at a time. For that reason, thinking of the mental pressures at work can interrupt their concentration at a crucial moment, causing the penis to go limp. If the truth were known, we would probably find that just such a break in concentration at a time of fatigue is the primary cause of that first bad experience with impotence. From then on, all it takes to wipe out a man is fear that it will recur.

A Spirit-controlled Christian should not have this problem. He learns to “cast all his anxieties” on the Lord, not take them to his marriage bed. God intends for His children to “lie down… in peace” (Ps. 4:8). A relaxed mind is far more conducive to lovemaking than one filled with the anxieties and cares of the world. This accounts for the fact that many an impotent man has performed nobly by just taking his wife to a motel for a weekend vacation.

11.
Depression.
Counselors agree that depression is the emotional epidemic of our times. One writer has labeled the seventies “the Decade of Depression.” In my book
How to Win Over Depression,
³
I noted that one of the symptoms of depression is a loss of sex drive. A man who encounters frequent periods of depression should read carefully through that book, for I am convinced no one need succumb to depression. Once he is rid of depression, his normal sex drive will return.