The mind is our most powerful sex organ.
Our minds can overpower our bodies, squashing our sexual desire. During the difficult years in our marriage, I can think of many times when I was feeling desire and had every intention of having sex with my husband—yet a disagreement between us or harsh words to me or our children would completely eradicate whatever desire I’d felt.
Mental goings-on can also aid in our sexual desire. It is common for women to fantasize during sex to help them feel more aroused or have an orgasm. In fact, it is even possible for those thoughts alone to result in an orgasm, even without physical stimulation.
God gave us the ability to imagine. It is up to us to use that ability in a way that honors God.
When we are daydreaming about making love with our husbands, we our using our imagination to prime our bodies and minds for loving. When we close our eyes during sex and let our thoughts drift to other memories from our marriage bed, we use past intimacy with our husbands to reinforce our current intimacy.
When we fill our minds with thoughts of our God-ordained sexual intimacy with our husbands, we are honoring God with our minds.
But what can we do when our minds gravitate to thoughts and imagination that aren’t so good?
Where Do Fantasies Come From?
I’ve written about whether it is okay to use fantasy or role-playing in the marriage bed. In Is Fantasy Okay in a Christian Marriage? I encourage you to ask yourself whether the fantasy is sinful or, if not, if there is a reason it might not be wise in your marriage.
In that post, I make some suggestions for moving past a fantasy that you and your husband determine is unwise or sinful.
One of those suggestions is to reflect on what emotional need your fantasy might feed into. Sometimes the specifics of a fantasy relate to an unmet need. For instance, a fantasy about having sex in the presence of others might indicate a need to feel valued and worth the attention of others. A fantasy about being completely dominated might relate to feelings of shame about sexuality and being able to put the “blame” on someone else.
Sometimes, however, a fantasy has a much simpler explanation. Past arousal feeds into our fantasies, just as our emotional needs do.
A fantasy may come to mind simply because your body’s arousal brings to mind something that caused you to feel aroused in the past. For example, if you have ever watched porn and found yourself feeling aroused, thinking about others having sex might still be very arousing—even if you watched porn only one time twenty years ago and have regretted it ever since. If you ever had sex in a place where you might have been caught, you might find yourself with thoughts about having sex in public or where there is a chance of being caught.
If you find your mind drifting to help you feel aroused or have an orgasm, you might not be able to pinpoint why you have that fantasy. Whether you understand the reason behind your fantasy or not, if it is one that you don’t want, you have a problem to solve.
It’s a particularly frustrating problem if that fantasy is the one thing that helps you have an orgasm.
Let’s face it. Orgasm is a great feeling. It’s awesome. It’s hard to think about giving up something that helps you experience one.
That doesn’t mean you’re stuck having to choose either unwanted/sinful thoughts or orgasms. Instead, you can work to eliminate the fantasy.
How to Purge the Fantasy
Getting rid of an unwanted fantasy requires intention and time—but it can be done.
Here are some things that can help.
Replace the fantasy images with you and your husband. If your fantasy involves people other than just you and your husband, as soon as the images come into your mind, imagine any men as having your husband’s face and body and any women as you. This will help your thoughts to begin to shift away from what is unwanted and toward the intimacy between you and your husband.
Use your physical senses to conquer what is happening in your mind. As you experience arousal—and especially as you begin to orgasm, open your eyes and look at your husband. Let your mind be filled with the sight of him. When you find that your mind begins to drift, add physical touch to what is going on at the moment. Touch yourself or ask your husband to add more touch. Light scented candles that you use only during sex, or play sexy music. Ask your husband to speak sexy words to you. Overwhelm your senses. Your physical sensations will draw your attention toward what is happening with your body and provide some distraction from what is going on in your mind. Over time, your mind will associate these new images and sensations with arousal, just as it had learned to do with the fantasy images or scenarios.
Recruit your husband. At the very least, let your husband know that you are trying to release your mind from reliance on a fantasy. In addition to asking him to help you with your physical senses, you might ask him about other ways to help you refocus during sex. For instance, he could remind you during sex that he is your husband and that being together is a gift from God. Also, consider asking him to ask you once a month how you’re doing with the fantasy. If you are aware of things that make it easier or harder for you to avoid the fantasy, this would be a chance to share that with him.
Don’t allow the fantasy to steal your joy in having an orgasm with your husband. This is a bit tricky, especially if you believe the fantasy is a sinful one to have. I am not suggesting that you enjoy something you view as sinful. The thoughts may be sinful, but the orgasm is not. Don’t flood your marriage bed with feelings of shame upon your orgasm. If you have an orgasm with your husband, allow yourself to feel that glorious connection that God has designed you to experience. Repent of the sin AND enjoy your sexual connection with your husband.
The mind is the most powerful sex organ. Even if it takes some time and effort, you can use it to honor God as you enjoy sexual intimacy with your husband.
Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Philippians 4:8
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Your last point, don’t let it interfere with enjoying orgasm with your husband is much more difficult than it sounds like it should be.
Perhaps a post on that would be good!
That’s a difficult one to tackle. It’s hard to say “don’t beat yourself up about it if your mind goes there” without implying “it’s okay to enjoy sinning.” If I can figure out how to articulate that distinction better, I will definitely do a post about it. What you see here is itself the result of a lot of back and forth about how to word it. I almost left it out for now.
Personally, I think sex may not be as *physically* pleasurable while you are trying to reprogram your brain. Take away that artificial arousal from fantasy and your arousal levels will change. BUT. Sex becomes more intimate when you are present. I chose to focus more on intimacy than pleasure while I reprogram my brain, if that makes sense. I still strive for pleasure, don’t get me wrong, but orgasm is *very* hard to come by right now without the short cut of fantasy. To me it helps to know that this is a normal part of the process and it is temporary. The only way out is through. Practice makes perfect!
Focusing on the intimacy is such a wise approach. The pleasure will return, better and more intimate than before.
Chris,
I agree, this was a hard post to how to word it right. But you did an amazing job. As a born & bred Baptist, it’s usually only the men who get preached at about their thought…but women are just as susceptible to the wrong thoughts especially in the areas of fantasy.
I appreciated the point of replacing your thoughts (if wrong) with your husband, and then use my senses to direct me back to my husband. His special scent, how he feels under my fingers, his incredibly good looks (yeah, I’m rather partial! LOL). I think that most women don’t realize that changing a strong thought pattern takes time. The endorphin release that happens during orgasm is a powerful memory maker, and when done with the wrong thoughts, that is what has been set in stone. But over time, remaking that memory with your husband’s image, his touch and presence is so important.
Because just as you concluded, “The thoughts may be sinful, but the orgasm is not.” —YES!!!! THIS!!! Love this!!! Take care of the sin and enjoy the beautiful gift of love, sex, AND orgasm that God has blessed your marriage with!
Thanks so much for your comment. You’re so right about orgasm being a powerful memory maker. Fortunately, we can use that to bring our thoughts back where they belong.
For a longer look at many sides on this whole issue, I highly suggest the book “The Fantasy Fallacy” by Shannon Ethridge.
Yes, that is a very helpful book, especially for someone trying to better understand the “why” behind a particular fantasy.
Yes! That book helped me so much because I was struggling with what were basically rape fantasies and I was horrified when I finally stopped to think about it. That book helped me realize that fantasy was actually rooted in past trauma, and I wasn’t weird for being the aggressor in the fantasy, because it was my brain’s way of trying to reclaim the control that had been taken from me in the past.
I still think the fantasies were sinful though, don’t get me wrong. But the “why” behind them helped to strip them of some of their power.
I had a sinful fantasy that was rooted in some lifelong self-esteem issues. Understanding why the fantasy appealed to me emotionally helped me find a solution.