The second approach is found at the website of Husband and Wife. Here, a store operating in American Fork, looking to sell franchises, offers a variety of lingerie and marital aids to help husband and wife achieve orgasm. It is like they took a pornography shop, got rid of the videos, and doilied it up. This bizarre cross between sexual advice and scrapbooking is supposed to take the shame out of orgasming by making it as twee an experience as possible, I guess. Nonetheless, the emphasis is still on the big O.
So, here we are. With a minimal amount of alternative information offered by the church, we've tried to figure it out on our own, which meant turning (a little bit) toward what pornography and sexology teach us, which is probably fine. But I feel like, to quote Elder Holland, we are chopping at the branches, without striking at the root. If lust is the problem, then how should we proceed? Not by making the gratification of lust our focus, I think.
Instead, I'd recommend a return to Elder Holland's emphasis on the centrality of the marriage relationship and the way in which lust can eat at it. The reason pornography is effective is because it allows one to achieve orgasm without working for it, by which I mean without creating a relationship in which that particular orgasm has meaning. Married, we cannot count on our spouse's rhythms matching ours at all times. Of course we should do what we can to accommodate one another (even Paul says that), but our emphasis should be on finding a way that is comfortable for both partners, a way that supports and enhances the relationship.
A marriage dominated by lust can easily break up if and when the sex fails to meet expectations. One or both partners start looking elsewhere because their partner no longer satisfies. Bringing third parties in, having elaborate fantasies, all these things are evidence of some personal or relational lack. This lack is the point of attack for those concerned with failing marriages. Lust is almost never the root of the problem; loneliness almost always is.
Pornography encourages loneliness and isolation. It is frequently used solo and, even when in the presence of others, it turns the sex act into an elaborate set up for self-gratification. Sex for its own sake is mutual masturbation, within or without marriage. Our unions won't be sacramental in Elder Holland's sense until the satisfaction of our own desires is superseded by a desire to love the one we're united with. Sex is meant to draw us together not drive us apart.
This long thing shouldn't be read as a cry for the church to become more sexually permissive (Heaven forbid!). Rather it's a call for the church to more effectively counter the world's approach to sex. We need families, knit together by sex, yes, but also by genuine care and love, the sort that comes by the grace of God. This power can enable our sexual relationships to be genuinely better than those the world offers. I believe that this is, to some degree, what Pres. Monson and Elder Holland are going on about.
John C. blogs at ByCommonConsent.com.
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