I love seeing people talk about how affectionate and loving Barack and Michelle Obama are. It was mentioned on Oprah last week, as well as on The View:

Whoopi said: “You know what I think is really exciting is that there’s gonna be some action in the White House. These are not two people who move in separate lanes…I think there’s gonna be a whole lot of whoopee going on.”

Sheri agreed: “I thought President Obama was gonna pop her on the rear-end…he loves his wife!”

What I think is so interesting is that people are making these assumptions based on how they see the Obama’s interact. John Gottman is famous for studying what makes couples tick (or not), but I think on some level we can all sense when people are truly happy with each other, truly connected emotionally and spiritually.

I hope the Obamas will continue to enjoy a healthy and fulfilling sex life, even with all the pressures of being President and First Lady. I hope that it might inspire all of America’s couples to find comfort, connection and pleasure with the one they love!

Are we really surprised that this contest has had zero, ZERO, entries? In another complete waste of tax dollars, an Atlanta abstinence promoter is sponsoring a contest in which engaged couples can win an assortment of prizes and $10,000 cash —- if they give up sex before the ceremony.

The article goes on to say:

The giveaway is among a host of events with a sex-can-wait gospel. Faust, who goes by “Miss Flip,” visits schools throughout the year with a program pressing abstinence as well as teaching conflict resolution and financial management skills.

In 2006, her program, implemented through Rockdale Medical Center, was awarded a federal grant of $455,510 annually for five years (a total of $2.27 million). The wedding prize involves some of those federal funds.

In the past, Faust, a former labor and delivery nurse, has orchestrated mock weddings, contrasting one featuring young moms, money woes and sexually transmitted diseases with another that has a smiling bride walking down the aisle in a flowing white gown.

There are so many problems with her approach and agenda that I don’t even know where to start. But one thing I do want people to know is that plenty (PLENTY!!) of couples who wait to have sex before their “I do’s” have marriage trouble, including sexual problems of all varieties. In fact, my sister just told me about a couple last night that is getting divorced after 12 years of marriage. He was a virgin when they got married, but now his wife is leaving him because he’s not a good enough lover. There’s no “chemistry” she says.

I also know of couples who do have pre-marital sex and actually do make their marriage work for the long haul.

There are virtues to abstinence, of course, but it is not divorce insurance. It does not ensure a great sex life or wedded bliss. To say that it does, creates false hope, frustration and ignorance about the realities of marriage and healthy sexuality.

The marriage-bed is the center of happiness,
a point from which all things ripple outward,
a nest from which all things learn to fly.
It is the sign of return, part of the great rhythm
of the seasons and of the years.
It is the dream of return, the strength and faith
that sing of home.
It is the wren’s nest woven of twigs and string,
the swallow’s nest of saliva and mud.
It is what we return to, as migratory birds
passing over marshes and fields
dream of the end of the journey.
It is what frightens night-devils away,
even in winter.
It is the tree that grows through the house,
the hollow of the tree that has never known death.
It is the crystal of all feeling, the flower of all
understanding, the small containing the large.
It is the nautilus growing its many chambers of love.
It is the sudden outburst of one who has long been silent.
It is the idea that a calla lily can be shaped
like a wineglass on a long green stem.
It is the heart-stone.
It is the name of all names
that thinks it is a star and a rose.
It is a conch-shell rough on the outside,
pearly in its intimacy.
It is a snail rolling over and over
building a staircase.
It is an animal, an almond, a repose.
It is an oyster opening in the full of the moon.
It is a mouth telling a secret.
It is a kiln where clay battles fire.
It is the simple happiness of sleeping on a boat.
These are the walls we’ve pressed back into a circle
in the shape of our merged bodies
And it will take a long time for the waves
spreading from the center of our intimacy
to reach the ends of the world.

From the Writer’s Almanac:

WEDNESDAY, 1 NOVEMBER, 2006
Listen (RealAudio) | How to listen

Poem: “The Marriage-Bed” by Michael Simms, from The Happiness of Animals. © Monkey Sea Editions.

Yep, you read that right, conservatives are calling for more sex on TV – more *married* sex, that is.

In a study out this month called Happily Never After: How Hollywood Favors Adultery and Promiscuity Over Marital Intimacy on Prime Time Broadcast Television, the Parents Television Council states that “broadcast networks depict sex in the context of marriage as either nonexistent or burdensome.”

I have noticed this myself, though I watch very little television. What I have seen, however, is that sitcoms like “Everybody Loves Raymond” or “King of Queens” consistently show married sex as a chore or as a tool for manipulation. I am hard-pressed to think of more than two or three happily married TV couples that actually enjoy a healthy sexual relationship.

I disagree, however, with the PTC’s assertion that it constitutes a deliberate Hollywood conspiracy to “undermine marriage by consistently showing it in a negative manner.” Instead I think it reflects

• the difficulty people have in being honest about what healthy sexuality looks like
• the reality that a lot of marriages are suffering from sexual boredom and neglect
• that it is easier to laugh at people’s misfortune (ie. a “frigid” wife) than to honestly examine the challenge in keeping monogamy exciting and enjoyable

Marriage as a spiritual ordeal begins when, disillusioned of romance, two ego-bound, flawed, individuals co-promise. We promise to end our tentativeness; to stop withdrawing; to remove the conditions we have previously set for bestowing the “reward” of our love; to be ego-enemies and soul-friends; to pursue the solitary journey together.
– Sam Keen, Hymns to an Unknown God

Therapist Esther Perel, author of Mating in Captivity: Reconciling the Erotic and the Domestic, recently said:

The way I see it is that I meet many couples in my practice who may be sexually faithful and are betraying each other in so many other ways. Neglect, indifference, contempt, lack of respect, stonewalling, disqualifying, devaluing, ridiculing, lying, deceit and so on. There are so many ways that people let each other down, betray each other, tear the trust, demean each other, all the while they are sexually faithful. So why is it that we think sexual betrayal is the mother of them all?

I’m finishing up my reading for my Master’s of Human Sexuality and today one of the pieces was the following. It’s so ridiculous, I can’t believe it’s authentic, but apparently it is. How terrible that this used to be the view on married sexuality!

INSTRUCTION AND ADVICE FOR THE YOUNG BRIDE
On the Conduct and Procedure of the Intimate and Personal Relationship of the Marriage State for the Greater Spiritual Sanctity of this Blessed Sacrament and the Glory of God, by Ruth Smythers, beloved wife of The Reverend L.D. Smythers, Pastor of the Arcadian Methodist Church of the Eastern Regional Conference.

Published in the year of our Lord 1894, Spiritual Guidance Press, New York City

To the sensitive young woman who has had the benefits of proper upbringing, the wedding day is, ironically, both the happiest and most terrifying day of her life. On the positive side, there is the wedding itself, in which the bride is the central attraction in a beautiful and inspiring ceremony, symbolizing her triumph in securing a male to provide for all her needs for the rest of her life. On the negative side, there is the wedding night, during which the bride must pay the piper, so to speak, by facing for the first time the terrible experience of sex.

At this point, dear reader, let me concede one shocking truth. Some young women actually anticipate the wedding night ordeal with curiosity and pleasure! Beware such an attitude! A selfish and sensual husband can easily take advantage of such a bride. One cardinal rule of marriage should never be forgotten: GIVE LITTLE, GIVE SELDOM, AND ABOVE ALL, GIVE GRUDGINGLY. Otherwise what could have been a proper marriage could become an orgy of sexual lust.
Read more…

From the Slate article:Don’t Ask the Sexperts: Dan Savage, Dr. Ruth, and others on what still mystifies them.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, the author of Kosher Sex, Kosher Adultery, and Shalom in the Home says:

What I don’t understand about sex is the fundamental contradiction it poses to love. While love deepens with time and shared experience, sex is stifled by relationship and routine. It seems to thrive most through novelty rather than intimacy, through new flesh rather than old love. Sex is the quintessential expression of love. We even call it lovemaking. So, why are so many couples who are so deeply in love with each other, after so many years of being together, utterly sexless? Why must couples choose between being lovers and being best friends, between being passionate and being intimate? King Solomon proclaims in his famous Song that there is a love like fire and a love like water, and it seems that one cancels the other out. The fiery love of sex and erotic passion becomes more and more muted through the more watery love of marital routine, familial patterns, and an increasing number of anniversaries celebrated. Why can’t sex and love go absolutely hand in hand, as they should?

“Marriage is not supposed to make you happy. It is supposed to make you married, and once you are safely and totally married, then you have a structure of security and support from which you are free to make yourself happy, rather than wasting your adulthood to look for a structure.”

From Grow Up! by Dr. Frank Pittman