Truth #4: For true marital
intimacy, the Holy Ghost needs to be involved.
It is simply not possible to have the kind of intimate
experiences outside of marriage that you can have within, because the Spirit
will not be present. Elder Parley P. Pratt taught that the Holy Ghost has the
ability to “…increase, enlarge, expand, and purify all the natural passions and
affections.”
Just imagine…He can purify your feelings! Therefore,
ANYTHING that invites the Spirit into your life and into the life of your
spouse and your marriage will increase your ability to experience marital
intimacy. It really is as simple, and as profound, as that.
On the other hand, anything that offends the Spirit will
decrease your ability to be one with your spouse. Things such as anger, lust,
unforgiveness, contention, immorality and unrepented sin will reduce your
attempt for marital intimacy to be something that’s nothing more than a sexual
experience.
What an
amazing insight and concept: we can literally be sanctified and more worthy to
have the Holy Ghost with us by having sex with our spouse – if we do it the right way. This turns
the world’s reasoning on its head, where the worldly peak of experience
involves having the ‘best’, most involved, non-vanilla physical experience
possible. The secular world doesn’t consider the spiritual aspect of our lives
at all, or even try to use the physical to access the spiritual. It can’t be
done that way.
But this
is what the gospel promises (and delivers on). Those who trade that promise
away for mere physical experience in the wrong context are only cheating
themselves. Those who focus strictly on the physical in marriage, or seek
worldly sources for learning without incorporating spiritual improvement, often
find themselves equally frustrated.
So to recap…
While worldly sex is under the influence of the world and
the Adversary, and involves carnal, sensual, and devilish passions, God
ordained marital intimacy as under the influence of the Spirit and involves
Spirit-enhanced and purified passions.
She makes
reference here to scriptures such as Moses 6:49 which says “Behold
Satan hath come among the children of men, and tempteth them to worship him;
and men have become carnal, sensual, and devilish, and are shut
out from the presence of God.”
The point to pay attention to here is “shut out of the presence of
God”. If you’re being sensual and physically intimate with your spouse and can
still feel the Spirit, you don’t fall into this category. You’re not shut out
of the presence of God and therefore are not being carnal, sensual or devilish
in the context the scriptures give.
There is
nothing carnal, sensual, or devilish about having sex with the person you’ve legally
and lawfully married, nor is that desire for the physical expression of love a
bad thing at all.
The truth is, the more pure you are, the more marvelous your
marital intimacy will be.
With worldly sex, anything goes. With marital intimacy,
exquisite care is taken to avoid anything and everything, from language to
music to movies, that offends the Spirit, your spirit, or your spouse’s.
I would make
a slight adjustment here for married people. I agree that we should exclude
anything that has been warned of explicitly by the General Authorities in
canonized talks and the scriptures. For example, there’s no need to reinvent
the wheel as far as profane erotica goes – it’s all bad. The warnings are clear
and plentiful.
However,
in the practice of sexuality, some trial and error will need to be undertaken
by each couple, as some things are more a matter of preference than
commandment. If we happen upon something as a couple that shouldn’t be part of
our marital intimacy, then we repent and move on, but someone else might be
able to do that same practice and all parties (both spouses and the Spirit) are
just fine with it. What works for one may not work for another, and that’s
okay. There’s lots of activities to choose from. Sexual practices are not
ordinances, nor are there doctrinal guidelines for what to do. So there’s some
‘spirit of the law’ wiggle room in here to allow us to make individual adaptation.
While worldly sex is lustful, and kills love, marital
intimacy generates more love.
A good
way of telling whether something should be in your repertoire as a couple is to
watch for the ‘fruits’ of that practice. If love starts to wane and die, that’s
a fruit of something we’re doing or experiencing. If love grows, that’s a fruit
too.
Worldly sex degrades men and women, and their bodies,
degrades the body as a plaything, while marital intimacy honors men and women,
and celebrates the body as one of the great prizes of mortal life.
The
“worldly sex” she is referring to here is sex outside of marriage. However, even
in marriage the law of chastity still applies. In the married context,
adultery, spouse swapping, sex in public places for the thrill of “we might get
caught”, public nudity, etc… is defiling the sacred. In marriage, our bodies and the sex act are
still sacred and should still be treated as such.
Think of
the temple. Just because we have a recommend and received our ordinances does
not make it okay to practice those ordinances outside of the temple. We still
have to keep them sacred and in the appropriate place.
With worldly sex, individuals can feel used, abused, and
ultimately, more lonely. With marital intimacy, spouses feel more united,
loved, nurtured, and understood.
This is
what leads me to believe that when she say’s “worldly sex” she means sex
outside of marriage. Just giving your sex away to someone who has not
covenanted with you to be your spouse leads to the feelings she mentioned.
However,
if we abuse our spouse or exercise unrighteous dominion[i]
(yes women can exercise unrighteous dominion too) it can also lead to these
feelings of despair. This in turn chases the spirit away and robs us of the
full intimate symphony we could be experiencing.
Worldly sex ravages and eventually ruins relationships.
Marital intimacy strengthens marriages. It supports, heals, and hallows the
lives of spouses and their marriage.
Having
belief systems that don’t allow you to be happy is behind a lot of this
ravaging and ruining. We must be sure our beliefs are truly in line with the
gospel, which requires staying close to the Church and the gospel and studying
and learning the gospel of Jesus Christ.
The
purpose of marriage is to teach us to become more like Christ. How can we
possibly do that if we have no idea how he behaves, and how he expects us to
behave? That’s all built into the priesthood and the Relief Society, in the
Sacrament, in the Atonement. Are we forgiving each other as Christ forgives us?
Are we as worthy of each other when we partake of each other sexually as we
should be when we partake of the Sacrament? There’s a connection there: See my
article (“Sexless Marriage and the Sacrament”)
Worldly sex has been likened to the toot of a flute, while
marital intimacy has been likened to the grandeur of an entire orchestra.
The nice
thing about married sex is that it doesn’t have to be orchestra all the time
either. There’s nothing wrong with the toot of a flute – sometimes that’s okay.
Sexually sometimes, we may want a snack instead of a four-course meal. What
she’s saying is that, if you’re not married or not living your covenants or
engaging in activities that chase away the Spirit, you don’t get to the option
of a four course meal. All you get is the snack, all the time.
Michele
Weiner-Davis mentions this when she speaks of sexless marriages[ii]
– she makes the point that sexless marriage doesn’t necessarily mean no sex. It
means you’re not getting the kind of sex you need to be fulfilled as a whole
person. I believe that’s what Wendy’s saying here as well when she uses the
term ‘marital intimacy’ as a contrast to ‘sex’ – the gospel allows for the full
spectrum of human expression, while the world’s version can only ever be a
cheap physical knockoff.
Marital
intimacy is not just intercourse. It includes sex, but it’s not just sex. It’s
all the functional forms of love, operating together as part of that full
symphony of intimacy. Marital intimacy is the coming together of a man and
woman, sexually, physically, spiritually, emotionally, and mentally. United in
purpose and heart and mind and spirit.
Worldly sex becomes a total obsession, because it never
fulfills its promises. God-ordained marital intimacy is glorious, and will
continue eternally for covenant-keeping husbands and wives.
There’s
no way to replicate marital intimacy outside of marriage – you might be able to
wiggle in the temporal aspects of sexuality, but there are laws that must be
followed to get to the spiritual. There’s no guru for it. We can’t buy it. We
can’t get special training or take a special class. There’s no equivalent
temporal counterfeit.
The
secular world has lost almost all understanding of the spiritual. What the
world calls ‘spiritual’ may be a movement or manipulation of chakras or
energies, but even that is not equivalent to the Holy Ghost. I’m not knocking
such techniques as tantra – such things can add to our marital intimacy
symphony, but it can’t replace the Holy Ghost. For that, we either follow the
Lord’s law, or we don’t get that benefit.
Those who
follow the world’s dictates will always feel as though something is missing
from their experience, even if they can’t say exactly what it is, and always be
reaching and trying to reach that through various physical means or
experiences, and always end up chasing rainbows.
Notice
her very important point here – marital intimacy continues into eternity. Sex
doesn’t end in this life, but only those who marry in the Lord’s way and keep
their covenants will have that privilege for eternity. Marital intimacy is that
important to the Lord’s plan of salvation. Some popular Evangelical beliefs
would lead us to believe that there will be no need for sex after this life,
but that is untrue.[iii]
In short, marital intimacy is endorsed by the Spirit, is
blessed by the Lord, and is sanctifying.
Creating a strong, happy marriage is not easy. I can attest
to that. But it will bring you joy.
For our tenth wedding anniversary, I wondered what I could
give my husband to represent the joy our marriage has brought me. This is what
I gave him – a swing!
I
struggled a little with her representation of the swing as a symbol of her
marriage, and she didn’t enunciate on that metaphor. To me, it seems to
incorporate her joy with him, that incorporates all the forms of love from the
innocence of childhood onward, and is expressed in its fullness in their
marriage.
It was
something very simple, even innocent. It may not have done anything for her,
but it gave her pleasure to give him that moment of pleasure.
Since our
sexual gratification design is so different from each other as males and
females, that’s what marital intimacy often is in marriage – a selfless joy of
giving each other pleasure and getting pleasure from knowing you can help the
other spouse feel good.
My dear brothers and sisters, whom we love, if you will
intentionally implement these four truths, I’m confident that you can build a
happy marriage that will sustain and comfort you forever. A marriage that will
allow you to become more than you could ever be on your own. I testify that
marriage is one of the greatest privileges God gives to His children, that
marriage can be the source of unparalleled joy, and that personal purity is the
key to that joy.
In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
[i] Doctrine
and Covenants 121
[ii]
Weiner-Davis, Michelle. Sex Starved Marriage. Simon & Shuster. 2004.
Pg. 8.
[iii] Packer, Boyd K., The Plan of Happiness, April, 2015, General Conference. "The power of procreation is not an incidental part of the plan; it is the plan of happiness; it is the key to happiness."
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