With The Perrys - What We Wish We Knew About Sex

Episode Date: August 15, 2022

We clearly knew something about sex before getting married but sadly, most of our perspectives were toxic. Worldliness and unhealthy Christian frameworks about sexuality shaped our thinking as it probably has for many of us. So let's talk about it.  Subscribe to the Perrys' newsletter: https://withtheperrys.myflodesk.com/zhfus4jx1s Join Preston's discipleship community for men: https://www.patreon.com/PrestonPerry/membership To support the work of the Perrys, donate via PayPal: https://paypal.me/withtheperrys Shop BOLD Apparel: boldapparel.shop Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's the Saints and the Ains. It's the Saints and the Ains. Dirty of a Brotto. It's the Saints and the Ait. If you keep opening our podcast like that, people going to think. It's the Saints and the Ain't. It's not 30 minutes with the Perrys. How are you?

I'm doing good. How are you doing? I didn't have a comeback for that because I disagree. But I didn't have any language to talk about why. I disagree. How's your day going? it was going good i woke up with you and um came here to record podcast did you ever think that when you got married it would get like old to sleep with the same person in the same same bed every day

like what did you think that would be like to sleep in the same bed with the same person for the rest of your life well the first uh the first year we were married i was surprised that you slept with the window open in the winter time i was like she's in her her late 20s is she going to do menopause now we're already i just didn't starting with the disrespect i just didn't get it i was i thought she was trying to kill me so i i thought you know well i still don't understand because it's april right i came in the house last week from glory and you had the fireplace on that's what i don't understand is that it's springtime and you somehow still need fire that that doesn't that doesn't compute to me so what you're not telling the people is because what i think you need iron supplements

What you're not telling the people was it was cold last week, and you left the window in our closet open, and I didn't know. But this is where our room was freezing. This is where the tension is, is that the way you define cold is differently than the way I define cold. So you think 55, 56 deserves a fireplace. So no, the way I just deserves another blanket. The way I define cold is if it's, if it's snowing outside, it's April. The windows shouldn't be open. It's April.

But in Chicago. You used to have the windows open when it was snowing outside. Notice you didn't even answer my question. Deflecting. That's what I know how to do. So while we're here, today we're going to talk about sex. But more specifically, some of the, I guess, messages around sex in marriage or and the messages we don't or should be receiving before marriage. Is that a correct way to say it?

Yeah, the unhealthy expectations, I think our society and our culture kind of puts on people entering into marriage, making them think that, oh, my sex life is going to look like this, or it has to look like this. Or if I've done X, Y, Z, I should expect X, Y, Z in marriage. It just doesn't look like that. Is that your experience? I think it was my experience. I think nobody told me that me being a young Christian man who was fleeing lust, like every woman not named wife was made of flames, right? Is that a poem?

Yeah, yeah. Got it. It was a poem. Because you just busted out with it like it was just like a thing. Right. Like that when I entered into marriage, I had this idea that man, like, my sex life should and it was going to look like how I how I wanted to look it to look like.

Right. And it just doesn't work like that. Yeah, I think if anything, I think I assume the same thing. Because one, I didn't hear, I heard about sex and sexuality typically in two contexts, which is sex is to be avoided so that you, you know, you don't go to hell. Or you can have sex in marriage. marriage and it's going to be awesome. Yeah. Like, which is two extremes.

And so I think I avoided it, did all the things I could to be pure, quote unquote. And then when I got married and sex came with a bunch of baggage and work that I did not expect, it was just deeply discouraging, especially because if you don't hear people talking about the nuance that sex and marriage can be, then you think that you're the only one with the problem. Absolutely. You know what I'm saying? Like that what is uniquely happening between you as a married couple ain't happening to everybody else.

But it is happening to everybody else. They're just not talking about it. Yeah. And what I think we're not trying to do, we're not trying to paint the picture. Like everybody's going to have the same, you know, testimony, entering into marriage. But what I am saying is that I think that we should give people different perspectives

and prepare people for what they might experience. entering into a marriage so they won't be distraught or highly disappointed when your sex life doesn't look like how you think it should look like immediately. Okay, so for the male species, what are some of the most predominant assumptions about sex? Let's address. So here's the thing. I'd be really wanted to help my brothers, you know what I'm saying, when I see them online,

because I think purity culture is. in a lot of ways has affected a lot of people. And what is purity culture? Purity culture is this, well, I don't want to try to define purity culture and put it in a box. So let me do it for you. Okay, yeah, go. So purity culture was a moment in time, primarily within evangelical Christianity, where

there was all this messaging and, messaging and books like from Joshua Harris, I kiss dating goodbye. But basically this messaging around staying pure. for marriage. And so like they would have like, you know, purity balls where you go and dance with your dad and, and I guess commit to living a pure life. And then you get like the purity ring, which was a sign of your situation. And like when this was happening, this is like 90s primarily. So that's why I think it was a moment in time because we weren't necessarily Christian nor in evangelical culture during that. But I think the problem, one of the problems with purity culture is what it was kind of a version of a prosperity gospel which said if you are pure

then your marriage is going to be good and your sex life is going to be good out because you obey god all these years and that's just not a thing so go ahead and what what i see now um a lot of the times is i see these i see these rills and i see these videos of dudes on social media talking about what they want in a marriage and talking about when they come home, what they want to expect. And like they, and I get it. Like, we're not married. It's not all the way wrong to fantasize or to dream about the ideal marriage that we want. I think the problem comes in.

I try to tell a couple of brothers this in person. I think the problem comes in is when you speak about a woman that you haven't even met yet. a complicated being, right, a complex individual who probably God is going to connect you with or bring you together with who has her own set of problems, have our own trauma, has a, you know what I mean? And so like if you automatically think that your wife is just going, you know, out the gate, you know, not come in the marriage with her own set of problems or, you know, whatever, like you might set yourself up for failure. And I think a lot of dudes, when they get into marriage they'd be deeply disappointed

because yeah we're complex beings you know what's crazy though is that i think sometimes when people primarily guys when they you know fantasize about the idea woman i want her to you know rub my feet i want her to have sex with me every time i ask i want you know uh lingerie on thursday nights and friday nights like just just all of this stuff I don't think they also see that there's the potential that the way you imagine sex in marriage is also a function of trauma. Break that down. Because what if these men have dealt with all kinds of rejection from their mother? And so you really want a woman that will never reject you.

That's trauma. That's not Bible. That's why a lot of men watch porn. But that's my thing. Because that's the place where we're not rejected. You think that your ideals about sexuality are actually right and biblical when they're. they're actually not. Yeah.

So not only is she dealing with her own trauma, now she got to deal with yours. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I agree. And I think for me, entering into marriage, I just thought, man, like, not only was I entering into marriage with my own set of traumas, I had this idea in my head that, man, God is going to honor me because I honored him with my body. And so he's going to let me, you know, just, you know, have this wild and crazy sex life off-jump. You know what I'm saying? And it was like, no, like what God showed me eventually is that no, like,

I've called you to enter into a marriage with a person for you to grow and learn how to satisfy this person. And it's not just about what you want, you know what I'm saying? And what you need and what you desire. Yeah, it's about it's about growing and learning this person. And I think that's, I think that's one of the things that I feel like the church can do a better job at teaching us, no, this is a union, a marriage where you have your whole life to become comfortable with somebody. And that's another thing. It's like when we marry someone, we don't even know them like that for real, for real. No.

Right? We don't. I definitely didn't know you. Yeah. You know what I did. And so for somebody to like. You ain't even know you. Hello?

I didn't, yeah, I didn't even know me. And so like, you have to, yeah, I just feel like sometimes people just forget that it's a process of learning and growing with one another. Yeah. And I get it. I think it's taking time for me and it's going to continue to take time for me to understand the purpose of sex as it exists in a marriage, you know, because I think, especially when growing up in this like culture where pornography and pornographic images are so. easily accessible, it makes sex and sexuality a matter of comfort and convenience rather than a thing that exists between two people in a covenant relationship so as to bring them closer together and intimate, right? And so it's not this convenient medicine, if you will,

like this is to mimic the beauty and the intimacy and the long-suffering and patience and eternity of the gospel and God's love for us. And so like I think when you have that perspective, then you see, no, like in the same way that I'm getting to know your mind, getting to know your quirks, your personality, the same way I need to get to know your body and how your body functions and what it likes and what it doesn't like. And that takes time. And I even said on Instagram the other day on Twitter, I was like, even the fact that like if we're together 40, 50, 60 years, you will always be changing and maturing. You will become a different person. You will become a different Preston, not different in the sense of another Preston, but 50-year-old Preston is not going to be 36-year-old Preston, right?

And so I'm actually going to have to change in a way, like, I'm going to have to, like, know what you need and what you expect and what you want as a 50-year-old. I can't keep giving you the same thing that you expect as 36-year-old. I don't think that made any sense. Yeah. No, it did make sense because we always are growing. Because if I can think about myself and just be honest, the way I thought about sex was. such a narrow-minded, empty view of it entering, enter marriage, because I didn't think about how, no, logic will tell you that the sex life that you want in year one, you're probably

going to have in year eight or year nine, right? Because I've had the opportunity to learn what this person wants, to learn what this person, you know, desires, to learn. To learn what this person, you know, desires to learn how to woo this person, to learn what triggers this person, to learn that this person needs to feel like they have the autonomy to choose at times. So what you're saying is, is that sex and marriage takes work. It does. And we don't like that. Because our culture, our culture does not teach us that work and sex should go hand to hand.

So let me ask you this. It teaches us that we should get it at the drop of a dime or whatever we feel the urge. So I know you talk to it because you'll come home and talk to me about it. there's a lot of men that you talk to who are married now and one of their primary frustrations in their marriage is that they have to work yeah right like what is when you counsel them what do you say i i tell them so and one thing i think we should talk about in this podcast is women who have been traumatized and men who uh because that's you know i think you kind of gave some some statistics about women you know being traumatized i think it's one and four

Women, I have to confirm that. One and four have been sexually abused. Yeah. And so, just a lot. I, you know, after, you know, we got married, I started to meet other men who had been with women who had been sexually abused. And it's kind of like this, oh, I get it, but, you know, I love her.

Give up the draws. Trust God. Yeah. Obey. Yes. Submit. And, and so I had to, about the. grace of God and I think God and his sovereignty sent me in my way for me to help them and to and to and to like

share my experience with him you know I'm saying because uh what was your question again I completely forgot so when it comes to the dynamic of having a work for your intimacy that's frustrating for a lot of men yeah yeah I do think it's frustrating because because let's just be honest arousal is a thing and so I think when someone is aroused they want it right then and there You know, a man when he comes home and he sees his beautiful wife, it's like, man, like, I think a lot of times the urge is I want to engage her physically, right? But I think one thing that God has taught me is that I have to really search for a lot of humility. I have to really search for a lot of patience.

And I have to look to him to say, man, like, it's not always about what I want when I want it. and the reason why is because you are complex, nuance, individual. And so for me to have this expectation that you're going to want to have sex exactly when I wanted, when you have your own set of trauma that you dealt with before you even met me, it's just not a realistic expectation. And so what I had to do is I had to, people know that you have experienced, you know, trauma and you've been abused, you know, sexually through your testimony or whatever. And so one of the things that I had to do as a man is say, man, how can I humble myself, right?

And not always think about my needs when I want them, but to make my wife feel like she has an autonomy to choose when we come together. Which is major. It's huge because when someone is sexually abused, the fundamental thing that was taken from them is their rights. Absolutely. you know like you someone took my body and did with it whatever they pleased right and so when you get into a marriage where a man feels like he has dominion over your body and you don't have any autonomy or freedom to say yes or no if it it it i think it makes whatever trauma you have worse and god forbid you start to see your spouse through the lens of your abuser you know what i'm

And so I think it's huge for a man to be humble enough and for the conversations around the fact that like I need to have the freedom to say no without consequence. Yeah. Right? Because there's some women who will say no, not right now. And the man, you know, you had seasons of this where he'll say okay, but his whole body is dejected. And he got attitude. You told my mind because it was me. He's not talking no more.

And it's just like to know that my no has a consequence doesn't feel like I actually. have freedom in saying no. I want to say no and still be loved. But from the man's perspective, and I think for the men who are listening to this, I want to encourage them because I think what it can feel like, and this is just from my own experience and talking to other men,

right? It can feel like that no is going to be for the remainder of your marriage. But it's like, no. It feels like an eternal no? I think what giving someone who has experienced trauma, the autonomy, the autonomy,

me to say no or to say well maybe Tuesday right give makes makes in the in the in the past even now I realized that it made you feel more comfortable yeah uh felt safe it felt safer where it didn't have to be like that all the time yeah like we as we grew together and you in your trust grew for me and your and your love grew for me and and the more you was able to disassociate me with the people who did traumatize you in the past, it gets better. You know what I'm saying? And so I think that, yeah, our society, it doesn't paint this picture that work and sex should go hand-to-hand. Like, we have sex at the tip of our fingertips. Like, you know what I'm saying? Like porn is instant. You know what I'm saying? Even when we was in a world, sometimes being around promiscuous

people, sex was instant. And it's like, no, like God's probably calling you to somebody who is going to sanctify you in a way that you never thought. Got a question. I can hear somebody listening to this podcast like, okay, that's doing too much. Like, if I got to do all that, then I'm actually, I need to be more picky about the kind of people. I'm a date and I'm a marry, you know, because I can see how that doesn't sound fun or beautiful or good.

And so why is working for intimacy even a good thing? Because I don't think it's our job to picking shoes. God chooses to sanctify us. And what I mean is, I think, as Christians, we say we want to be sanctified. We say we want to, you know, we want to grow and we want to grow as men of God. And we, you know, but a lot of times God uses the things that we want the most to be hard to help sanctify us and to grow us. Like as a man and as a husband, I have so much more patience dealing with the things that

we've dealt with in our marriage. I have so much more knowledge and I have so much more wisdom to give to other men, you know what I'm saying, who experienced the same type of thing. For something, like, the thing, the thing that I realize now is that most of the beautiful things that we experience in this world comes with work. Yes. You know what I'm saying? Like, if it's hard, if God is bringing you through something that's hard, we have to believe that on the other side it's beauty. Is your day, be it,

Kishy. You know what I'm saying? And so, like, I love my marriage now. In year three, I do. Wow.

In year three, it was tough. That's a good thing. In year eight, it's way better. It's better. And so, yeah,

like, you have a lifetime, you know, to learn and to grow with somebody. And so to experience, to want to experience. Now, I'm saying,

I'm not saying that, you know, in year one, your sex life ain't going to be bombed from jump because people have their testimony. Yeah. But I just don't want people to have an expectation that it's going to be that way. Yeah, I mean, I think there are some couples I know who, you know, starting off, they did not have a problem with their sex life.

And they had problems with their, you know, money or communication. But I always knew it was coming. It's going to come. One, because we got a real devil. two because everything else that happens in the marriage affects the bedroom and so if there's problems with communication it's going to affect the bedroom if there's problems with trust it's going to affect the bedroom so when them butterflies go away at the end of the day some going happen where now we have to work and pray and fight to get to know one another in a way that's

trying so one of the things that we talked about is men how that unhealthy expectations that men have what does some unhealthy expectations women have you feel like in this in this area or y'all just don't have them i'm sure we do i just don't know what they are it might be the same you know with purity culture no that's what i'm saying i'm saying i think it's the same in a unique way i don't think the woman has this dominion ethic where you know i'll be able to have sex whenever i want whenever i pursue my wife she's going to respond If anything, it may be I will want to have sex all the time and that I will enjoy it. When statistically, only 65, I think, percent of women climax, right?

And so there's a lot of men who, yeah, when the woman says, yes, they get their rocks off while the woman is sitting there with her legs still. So I think of anything, yeah, there are a lot of women who had the expectation that they would have consistent. and see and being pleased and they're not and they're fearful of sharing it with their spouse because they don't want him to feel you know rejected and all of that type of stuff so it's like man that's a bummer yeah yeah um which is a part of the work like to have a better sex life you have to actually text you you have to have a conversation about what's bad so it could be better yeah you know and so stop faking all that noise and just tell this man Hey, bro, it ain't working for us.

So, so let me know. Working out. So have you ever talk to women? I'd rather watch TV. Who said they fake? Yeah. Like, really? Well, yeah.

And some of it is I have to fake it so you can stop. Wow. So let me just like make this noise so you think you doing something, which makes you excited so you can get up off me. Wow. And the sad, that's how you know it's bad. because he doesn't even he's not even able to read your body language to know the difference between when it's real and when it's faith and that's a problem and that's another thing i think i think

we need you might as well do it to a man i think we need to start having real conversations in churches yeah you know and saying man you probably think bro you you you better than what you think you are yeah and and god forbid like your wife don't want to have sex just because it's it's You're bad. You're bad at it. And so, like, man, like, I don't think, I think that we need to start teaching men to learn how to pay attention to a woman's body. Yeah. Like, if you're doing something, don't try to get creative.

Keep doing that. Why did you shimmy? I'm just saying, keep doing that same thing you was doing because she seemed like she was liking it. You know what I'm saying? I've had to have conversations with dudes. we know people that you know was like yo can Preston can you help and I'm like yo if she

learn how to pay attention it's so hilarious how we're trying to keep this PG I'm just saying when you like it's a lot of read between the lines happening go ahead I'm saying if if you know I'm saying like so I think a lot of men pride and our ego don't want to admit that like no like we have

we have to grow like You can become good if you humble yourself and say, you know what, I'm not right now. Yeah. And that's the, I think, the beauty of marriage. Because in the tweet that I made, I said that I really dislike the idea of people trying it before they buy it, you know, feeling like you have to have sex before marriage so that you know what you're getting yourself into. When that's literally the antithesis of what marriage is for. Marriage, again, is for us to learn one another. And so, like, even if you have experience with.

sex and sexuality outside of your spouse, that doesn't mean that that will actually please your spouse. Like, your spouse is their own person. So you have to learn this individual, and that takes humility, and it takes courage. But it actually ends up working out in the long run. But also, but I like, so I say this, in our marriage, like, I didn't have a lot of room to be bad at things because you are extremely honest. person.

Yeah. And so when you don't like something, you're going to know. I'm going to know. You know what I'm saying, which I kind of feel like, you know, yeah, whatever. But. Thank you for tempering your tongue. Yeah. You saw that?

I did. But can you speak to the women who are afraid to communicate to the husband? I don't like this. I mean, I did. Just sit them down and share it respectfully and make it a wee. conversation because I always think it's it's it's that kind of truth is harder to receive when all of the blame is placed on the individual instead of instead of it being you are bad do this do that say how can we work together to make sure that we are both pleased right so it

becomes a team conversation yeah you got just like a blame conversation you got to rub his ego you can't just slap his ego no you can't because that's that's just you know men are very fragile. We're all fragile. We are, but y'all are particularly fragile because you refuse to identify and own that you're fragile. So it makes your fragility that much worse, actually. Y'all don't even want to cry in front of people. That tells you how fragile you must be. But that's another conversation for another day. Oh, whatever. So, we can't be attacking the dudes like this, you know what I'm saying? I'm not. I'm just trying to help. This, this sex conversation has to be more common because it's a part of humanity and I hate that the world is always the one leading the way

in this conversation when they should not be it really should be the church because we serve the god that created sex yeah and sex is great you know what I'm saying um sex is something that God is given us to enjoy you know and I think I hear Christians all the time saying um the world shouldn't enjoy sex, you know, as much as Christians or that world shouldn't be the only ones is enjoying sex and not Christians. And I think it's some truth to that, but I think the problem comes in when we, when we don't teach Christians, that it has some level of work into it. Like, you have to put some work into it. You know what I'm saying? It's not going to be this instant gratification all of all of time. Because that is straight up pornography culture. Yeah.

That logic is pornographic. Absolutely. You know what I'm saying? And pornography, it's, it's fake, you know what I'm saying? Here we go. It's not real, you know what I mean? And even when you out in the world and you're being promiscuous, really, you're just having sex with a whole bunch of broken people who don't even know themselves, you know what I'm saying? And if they ever became whole, they probably have issues with sex too. You know what I'm saying?

And so, yeah, like when two whole people come together and they're aware of their emotional trauma and they're aware of their, their, their, their. their spiritual sinfulness. Yeah, some issues are going to come up. But as time goes on, it gets better, I promise. Yeah, we're going to be 72, barely making it. Getting it in. But doing it anyway. Right, knocking each other hips out of place.

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