November 8, 2021
Sexuality is very personal, private, and unique and there are a myriad of ways it can be expressed. That means for any given person, sexuality will be experienced differently with different partners. Therefore some people will be more sexually compatible with some partners than they are with others, and that’s okay.
This is a problem when it comes to the Church. According to them, sex outside of marriage is a sin. That means people who adhere to being chaste and are “saving themselves for marriage” don’t really explore their sexuality before committing to a long-term marriage with someone.
The Church can easily brush this away by saying that since God created the couple side-by-side and planned for them to be together then of course they’re going to be sexually compatible. But we all know the reality—this is often not the case. Christian couples endure sexual issues all the time—often because of not being sexually compatible.
There are many other aspects of a relationship that will determine whether it’ll last a long time or go down in flames, and sexual compatibility is only one of them. But it’s a big one. And due to doctrine and dogma, people in the Church just don’t get the space to consider this very important aspect before committing to a lifetime of marriage with someone.
Here are three reasons why sexual compatibility matters in a relationship:
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Sex Drive
The first thing that comes to mind—at least for me—in terms of sexual compatibility is sex drive and sexual frequency.
When it comes to your sex drive and the amount of sex you desire, there is no right or wrong answer. If you need sex four times a week, great. If you need it once a month, awesome. What’s important here is to roughly have some sort of matching sex drive with your partner.
If you and your partner’s sex drives are very different, then there’s going to be some problems, drama, and arguments. And since someone’s sex drive isn’t inherently wrong—regardless of whether it’s high or low—you’re kind of at a stalemate. It would be difficult to ask either person in the couple to change and force themselves to have more or less sex than they actually want.
Most fundamentalist Christians don’t explore their sex drives before they get married because having sex before marriage is a sin. Therefore, it stands to reason that they don’t really know how much sex they realistically need. They then get married and hope that their sex drives match, and when they don’t, they end up in counseling where one or both partners have to work really hard to “compromise.”
If each of these people in the couple had had the freedom to explore their sexuality before getting married, then they would’ve had a better idea of whether they were sexually compatible or not.
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Kinks and Fantasies
Another area of sexual compatibility has to do with kinks and fantasies. Most people have them and depending on what it is, many would like to at least experiment with them, if not outright completely explore them.
But what happens if the person you married has no interest?
Your spouse or partner has every right to decline to participate in your kink or fantasy. So what does that mean in a monogamous marriage? Well, it means that kink or fetish never gets to be experienced. And while there may be many more pressing issues in the life of a couple, that nagging little suppressed desire will always be there. I’ve written before about what happens when sexual energy gets repressed, and it isn’t good.
Of course it isn’t necessary to find a partner or spouse who is into all the same things as you sexually, but it is helpful to find a partner who is at least willing to indulge this with you every once in a while. And if they are, hopefully you’re willing to return the favor.
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Your “Type”
There’s also the discussion of your “type” when it comes to a partner. When I was a Christian, I thought this kind of thinking was shallow, terrible, and wrong. And maybe it is. But if you get really honest with yourself, most people can admit they have a “type” and that’s okay. In my opinion, that’s not something you can really control. It’s something primal inside of you that likely formed when you were very young.
Should you only enter relationships with people who are your type? Well, that depends on who you ask. I personally know some people absolutely refuse to date someone who isn’t their type. I also know others who admit they have a type but don’t necessarily restrict themselves to dating only within this narrow range (I happen to fall into this category).
I’m not here to tell you who to date or sleep with, but I will say it’s okay to not feel guilty about pursuing your type (most people are already subconsciously doing it anyway). If you want to increase the odds of sexual compatibility, then it may be helpful to enter into a relationship with someone who’s your type, and ideally you are theirs.
But Christians don’t get to do this. Even if they are attracted to a completely different type of person, they’re low-key forced to only consider other Christian men or women as their “type.”