In chapter 5 we read about the Beloved’s longing for her Lover, and we see her fantasize about his return. At the beginning of chapter 6 we hear the Chorus ask: where has your Lover gone?
Where has your beloved gone, O most beautiful among women? Where has your beloved turned, that we may seek him with you?
And the Beloved responds that her Lover has returned, using flowers again as a sexual metaphor. What is the Lover’s garden? Where is he grazing? I think you know.
My beloved has gone down to his garden to the beds of spices, to graze in the gardens and to gather lilies. I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine; he grazes among the lilies.
As a parallel to the Beloved’s praising of her Lover in chapter 5, we now see the Lover’s admiration for his Beloved.
You are beautiful as Tirzah, my love, lovely as Jerusalem, awesome as an army with banners. Turn away your eyes from me, for they overwhelm me— Your hair is like a flock of goats leaping down the slopes of Gilead. Your teeth are like a flock of ewes that have come up from the washing; all of them bear twins; not one among them has lost its young. Your cheeks are like halves of a pomegranate behind your veil. There are sixty queens and eighty concubines, and virgins without number. My dove, my perfect one, is the only one, the only one of her mother, pure to her who bore her. The young women saw her and called her blessed; the queens and concubines also, and they praised her. “Who is this who looks down like the dawn, beautiful as the moon, bright as the sun, awesome as an army with banners?”
The Lover is overwhelmed when he meets his the eyes of his Beloved! As beautiful as the Moon and as bright as the Sun, she is the only one for him. You’ll also notice a technique common in Hebrew poetry: the passage ends by repeating the same metaphor it began with — the Beloved is as awesome as an proud army flying its banners. Definitely an image drawn from the mind of a military man.
In response to this praise, the Beloved is stirred with passion and… goes down… to see if there’s any budding or blooming going on…
I went down to the nut orchard to look at the blossoms of the valley, to see whether the vines had budded, whether the pomegranates were in bloom. Before I was aware, my desire set me among the chariots of my kinsman, a prince.
And she is overcome by desire to ride the Lover’s chariot.
The chapter finishes with a reflection of its beginning — the Chorus is now asking, where is the Beloved?
Return, return, O Shulammite, return, return, that we may look upon you.
And the Lover responds:
Why should you look upon the Shulammite, as upon a dance before two armies?
Sorry Chorus, my Beloved is currently unavailable. Two armies are dancing.
The new year is fully upon us, so how about a round-up of our top sex posts from 2015? This list isn’t necessarily just the posts that have gotten the most hits, it also includes posts that received a lot of comments or shares. We’d love for you to share some of these links with your friends!
Yes, You Should Swallow — It shouldn’t be a surprise anyone that the most-read and most-discussed post on the site continues to be about oral sex and swallowing. This is also the topic that generates the most email for us, and it has led to follow-on posts that are also very popular: Q&A: How Do I Get My Wife to Swallow and Enjoy It? and “He was thrilled!” — Swallowing and Enjoying It. Wives, if you want to know what your husband wants more of sexually, if you want to do one thing to improve your sex life, I think it’s pretty clear from our traffic what you can do.
Sex in Song of Solomon series — Many people have enjoyed our look at the sexual imagery in Song of Solomon. Of course it’s a metaphor for the love Christ has for the church, but it’s also a love letter. And yes, I’ll finish the series eventually.
Sexy Adult Jenga — Our Jenga post has been number two on the site for a long time, though it hasn’t generated a lot of comments. Sexy Body Part Twister and the associated spinner are also high on the list. The whole sex games category is pretty popular, and there are a ton of ideas in there for having some playful fun with your spouse.
Bondage for Beginners: What, Why, and How — Our guide to getting started with bondage play is our most-pinned post on Pinterest. I think a lot of people are interested in bondage play but are embarrassed to bring it up with their spouses and don’t know how to get started. Perhaps Intro to Shibari, Japanese Rope Bondage will be the break-out hit of 2016?
Sex Adventure Generator and Naughty Story Generator — these generators get a lot of traffic, and I hope they get some use in the bedroom. They require a little imagination to apply, but we actually think that’s a benefit. They can both be loaded conveniently in your phone, so they’re easy to have on hand when you’re ready to play. Just reading them with your spouse can be fun foreplay!
This 30-second commercial for Enjoli perfume illustrates the conflicting, overwhelming demands that the world puts on women. Husband, don’t try to make your wife into the woman in this commercial! If you expect her to have the energy to “kiss you and give you the shivers” then make sure she isn’t overloaded with burdens the world says she has to carry, but are of little eternal value.
My wife and I have been reading your blog for a couple months and we are fans of your style. My wife and I recently introduced mutual masturbation into our relationship. We both enjoyed it but felt a bit out of our comfort zone. We were wondering what you and Sexy Corte’s take on mutual masturbation is, both from a Biblical and enjoyability standpoint.
At the risk of being overly graphic: We recently introduced masturbating to orgasm together, in front of one another. It was actually not something we planned, we were engaging in foreplay and she began touching herself and asked if I liked what I saw. I did and decided to go along with her idea and we both ended up finishing together. We were discussing afterword and we both agreed we enjoyed it, but she expressed some awkwardness about having me finish on her (rather than inside as usual).
I think I would enjoy working this “into the rotation”, but it certainly isn’t a replacement for sex. I don’t know how I feel if she’s not comfortable being finished on. I told her I would find it extremely fun to finish on her breasts but she seems uneasy. This confuses me because we both regularly engage in oral sex and she has been finishing me in her mouth for some time.
I suppose why we are really reaching out is how to handle the awkwardness and issues with where to finish, as I don’t think I’d be totally game for kleenex/towel/shirt etc.
There are at least two topics here, so let’s take them one at a time!
First: mutual masturbation, is it wrong? We think the answer is clearly no, there’s nothing wrong with you and your spouse masturbating together as long as the activity is consensual, mutually satisfying, and done in faith. Sexy Corte and I recommend that you don’t let mutual masturbation dominate your sex life with your spouse — there’s nothing wrong with putting it “in the rotation” but we think it’s still important to frequently engage in intercourse.
Second: where to finish? Semen is a very powerful symbol and we completely understand your reluctance to ejaculate into a towel. If your wife enjoys oral, then one obvious suggestion is to finish in her mouth and ask her to show it to you on her tongue before she swallows. However, if the visual aesthetics of finishing on her body is specifically important to you, then there are a few ways you might relieve her anxiety.
Do it right before she’s planning to shower anyway.
Give her a washcloth to hold before you get started.
Ensure she’s in a position that feels “safe” — laying on her back might be more comfortable than kneeling in front of you.
Promise that you won’t get it on her face, hair, eyes, or wherever she’s sensitive about.
As for enjoyment, your mileage may vary. Until we received your question, Sexy Corte and I had never experimented with me ejaculating on her body — so thanks for bringing it up! Because of your question we decided to try it, but honestly it wasn’t a huge turn-on for either of us; it’s more pleasurable for both of us when I ejaculate inside her. The sight of her ready and willing to receive my semen was very sexy, but ultimately the experience was nothing special. Still, husbands are visual creatures and your wife should be the pinnacle of sexuality in your eyes, so it isn’t surprising that many husbands find it intensely erotic to ejaculate on their wives. There’s nothing wrong with that! We applaud you and your wife for experimenting outside your comfort zone.
Please use the contact pages for Sexy Corte and El Fury to send us your questions. We will only share your question if you give us permission, and we’ll never reveal your name or any other identifying information. You can ask questions anonymously, or use a free anonymous email server like Mailinator.
Are there any sexual limits or boundaries in a Christian marriage? Long-time readers of our blog may not be surprised at the short answer: no! But, of course, there are a few caveats worth discussing. In general, God has given us a wide field of freedom that is fenced with a few rules for our protection. Some rules are precise and explicit (example: “do not commit adultery”) while others require discretion (example: “love your neighbor as yourself”), but we think the principles are pretty easy to apply to sex in marriage.
Sex in marriage must involve only the married couple. The only holy sex is sex between a married husband and wife. Spouses cannot agree between themselves to bring other people into their sexual relationship. Any sexual practices that involve anyone other than the husband and the wife are sinful. There are numerous passages in the Bible that command strict monogamy; consider this post about Proverbs 5, “be intoxicated always in her love”, Hebrews 13:4, and Proverbs 7.
Sex in marriage must be consensual. The Bible is pretty heavy on love and humility, and there’s no place for non-consensual sexual activity in a loving relationship between humble spouses. You’re free to play at non-consensual sex if both spouses desire it, as long as it’s play that is founded on real consent. Power exchanges, like bondageplay, can be quite fun, as long as it’s play. Consider Philippians 2:3 and 1 Corinthians 13:4-8.
Sex in marriage must lead to satisfaction for both spouses. Sex in your marriage must satisfy your sexual needs and your spouse’s. One aspect of satisfaction is frequency — sex needs to be as frequent as is required for each spouse to avoid temptation into sexual immorality. When one spouse is feeling angsty, the other spouse must satisfy that need (to the extent possible, given health, distance, etc.). Each spouse must also make a good-faith effort to satisfy the other’s specific sexual desires, as long as those desires don’t violate one of the other bullet points in this post. This point doesn’t mean that every single sexual activity must lead to an orgasm for both spouses, but rather than your sex life as a whole should be mutually satisfying. 1 Corinthians 7:3-5 says:
The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife. Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.
Sex in marriage must be done in faith. It’s beyond the scope of this post to explore the topic exhaustively, but consider Paul’s teaching about eating food offered to idols in 1 Corinthians 8. Some of the Corinthians believed it was a sin to eat such food, while others knew that the idols had no spiritual power and that therefore the food offered to the idols was no different from any other food. Paul instructs each person to follow his conscience with regards to such food, but to be careful that the strong do not cause the weak to stumble. Applying this principle to sex: as long as you don’t violate an explicit command as described in the points above, you can have sex however you want in your marriage — but don’t push your freedom on others and thereby cause them to stumble. See also 1 John 3:18-21 and Titus 1:15.
1 Corinthians 8:8-9 — However, not all possess this knowledge. But some, through former association with idols, eat food as really offered to an idol, and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. Food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. But take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak.
We get a lot of emails asking, “can we do X, Y, and Z?” The purpose of this post is to give couples a framework they can use to decide that for themselves. As long as the activity is only between spouses, is consensual, meets both spouses’ needs, and is done in faith, then the answer is yes, you can do it! In fact, our prayer is that as your marriage matures spiritually you will agree with each other to push back your boundaries and enjoy the full breadth of sexual freedom that God has given you in your marriage. God’s plan is for you and your spouse to have an amazing sex life together!
If you were intrigued by our bondage for beginners post then you’re in for a treat! Shibari is an artistic, beautiful, and intimate style of rope bondage that spouses can enjoy when they have a significant amount of time available to invest in a sexual encounter. A quick warning, which may be obvious: if you Google many of the terms in this post you’re likely to see images with nudity. However, it is possible to learn about shibari without seeing all that, and I’m going to link to a few resources that I found to be safe.
(Sexy Corte and I debated over whether or not showing nude mannequins and drawings is acceptable, and we decided yes. Educational resources frequently use drawings or icons to convey sexual information while avoiding naked human flesh, and we think it’s approriate. Shibari is a very visual art, and it would be impossible to describe without any images. If the images bother you, we apologize.)
First of all, I should point out that I’m not an expert on shibari. I’m going to attempt to use the correct terminology and give some tips for how Sexy Corte and I got started, but this is all pretty new to us. Second, make sure you read about basic bondage safety — I can’t cover all that here.
So, why would you want to try Japanese rope bondage?
Beautiful body art. Creating a work of art on you or your spouse’s body is great fun and very empowering. Your bodies are “fearfully and wonderfully made” by God, and shibari gives you a new way to enjoy their beauty and sexuality.
Intimate. Performing the ties takes time, close attention to detail, cooperation, communication, and lots of touching. The spouse being tied doesn’t just stand immobile — the whole process requires (naked!) collaboration. A shibari session can hit every love language: plenty of physical touch, an investment of quality time, service through tying and being tied, words affirming beauty and skill, and even giving of gifts in the form of materials. You and your spouse can emphasize whatever aspects best fit your languages.
Simple. Ok, some of the art pieces you may see online are not simple, but the basic techniques are easy to learn and build from. The materials you need to get started (see below) are inexpensive and easily available.
Power dynamic. As with most bondage, the dynamic of domination and submission can be as big or small an element as you desire, both during the tying and after. The basic shibari ties (see below) don’t necessarily restrain the movement of the spouse being tied, but they can form the foundation for restraining ties if desired.
Creative. The image at the top of the post comes from 18Seiben’s Deviant Art gallery, and he has tons of other safe images to inspire you. There’s really no limit to the designs and patterns you can create, even with very simple techniques. Once you grasp the basics, it isn’t hard to look at a single image and consider how you might create something similar.
The materials required to get started are minimal. First, of course, is rope.
“Shibari rope”. You can find “shibari rope” online that’s extremely expensive and unnecessary; don’t buy it. You can get great rope at your local home improvement store for only a few dollars. Shibari purists seem to prefer natural hemp rope, but we’ve gotten along fine with nylon and MFP (cheaper and less scratchy).
Default length and thickness. To get started, buy a few pieces of rope that are 1/4-inch thick and 25 feet long. Length and thickness will eventually depend on the ties you plan to do.
Longer. We also have a 50-foot rope — longer ropes can be useful for some designs, but are harder to work with because you have to pull all that length through, over and over.
Thicker. Some 3/8-inch thick rope can also be useful for ties that actually bear weight (greater width means the rope doesn’t bite into skin as much), but it’s harder to knot.
Additional supplies:
Safety scissors. Just in case you need to cut free immediately. Medical safety scissors have blunt tips that make it easy to cut rope without poking skin.
Relaxing music. Unlike most of your sex music, shibari really lends itself to a peaceful soundtrack. Think classical. Maybe Sexy Corte can offer some suggestions later.
Ok, so you’ve got your supplies and you’re ready to get started! Now what? The first tie we did is a simple breast harness called a shinju, which means “binding the pearls”. The term can refer to many different styles of breast bindings, which generally turn out something like this.
Here’s a three-minute video that will walk you through a simple shinju.
The shinju is a lot of fun and really highlights the wife’s breasts! Once you’ve completed the tie, we recommend progressing to a face-to-face sexual position with the wife upright so as to best enjoy her breasts, such as cowgirl or sex on a chair. The shinju can also serve as the foundation for a variety of arm restraints, like this.
After the shinju, you can move on to a full body harness called a karada, which means “binding the body”. As with the shinju, there are many ways to create a karada, and 18Seiben’s gallery will give you a taste. Here’s video that shows one simple karada.
And here’s an image of a karada that illustrates the process (click for full-size).
These two ties are about as far as we’ve gotten ourselves, but we’ve got a million ideas we’d still like to try. For example, both the shinju and karada can be worn secretly under winter clothes! Once you know the basics it’s easy to visualize how to create more intricate ties, and working through the trial-and-error of achieving your vision is extremely intimate. Our next “advanced” project will be a rope corset.
Finally, some resources:
The Duchy has rope bondage guides that show no skin or sexual content
BDSMGeek’s YouTube playlist of safe shibari tutorials, also with no nudity
If you’ve ever done any rope bondage with your spouse, or are interested in trying, leave a comment!
What thoughts (feelings, emotions, etc.) have gone through your mind when you and El Fury have had sex in a “public” place?
The thought of something like that sounds so exciting and exhilarating to me, but my wife has zero interest. The idea came to me when reading a book where the author wrote about overhearing his children discussing their favorite “public” places to get it on.
Any advice on how to turn something like that into something enjoyable for my wife?
That’s a great question!
The first time we did it in “public” I was honestly terrified. There was a big part of me that was hoping El Fury would call my bluff. I was so worried someone would catch us in the act, or we would get in trouble or something. But then once we got into it, it was incredibly sexy and fun. There was so much desire, it felt like we simply had to have each other right then and there. It was also a great bonding moment. I had no idea either of us were that adventurous! Here is my post about our first public place: an ancient beehive hut. One of the best parts of this experience is that it wasn’t contrived, it just happened. It’s one of my favorite memories. We’ve had other “public” sex, and they have all been fun, but to me the best ones are when we aren’t planning it and we just get lost in the moment. Like I said in my post, it’s important to make sexual memories. Doing it in public is definitely memorable! Just don’t get caught!
As for making your wife comfortable, she’s probably just nervous. When you want to try it, you might want to make sure that it is a secure enough public place that she feels comfortable that you won’t get caught. We have had sex on hiking trails where we are far enough away from the main trail that we can see if anyone is approaching. Also, let her determine what state of undress she wants to get in. We typically keep all of our clothes on and only expose the necessary bits so that we can cover up fast if we need to.
Please use the contact pages for Sexy Corte and El Fury to send us your questions. We will only share your question if you give us permission, and we’ll never reveal your name or any other identifying information. You can ask questions anonymously, or use a free anonymous email server like Mailinator.
Intimacy after losing a loved one. This is something I’ve thought about in the past. I want to know your thoughts about this. Do you think it’s taboo to engage in sex soon after losing one’s mother, father, brother, ect., or would you say it’s all right? I would think the comfort from married intimacy in the wake of loss would work wonders, but then, I haven’t found myself in that situation. What do you think?
This is a hard question for me to answer: neither Sexy Corte nor I have been in this position yet. Everyone eventually faces grief in life, so your question is universal.
It would seem to me that the intimacy of sex with your spouse would be very comforting in a time of grief. Far from being taboo, sexual intimacy can be a powerful healing force when one spouse is hurting. However, everyone is different, so I’d follow the cues of the grieving spouse. If Sexy Corte were grieving, I would provide all the comfort I could, and be available for sexual intimacy if she desired it.
Sometimes it’s hard for a grieving person to accept comfort of any kind, and that’s normal. However, as the immediacy and intensity of the grief dulls, it becomes easier to both talk about the loss and to welcome another person into the intimacy of the experience. If your spouse is grieving, I recommend that you make yourself available for whatever kind of comfort she desires, whether that’s listening, conversation, distraction, or sexual intimacy.
If any readers would like to share their experiences with this situation, please do so in the comments.
Update: An anonymous commenter points to a verse I should have thought of: 2 Samuel 12:24. After the illness and eventual death of King David and Bathsheba’s first child, conceived in adultery and murder, the parents are grief-stricken. They find comfort in repentance (Psalm 51) and each other.
Then David comforted his wife, Bathsheba, and went in to her and lay with her, and she bore a son, and he called his name Solomon.
Please use the contact pages for Sexy Corte and El Fury to send us your questions. We will only share your question if you give us permission, and we’ll never reveal your name or any other identifying information. You can ask questions anonymously, or use a free anonymous email server like Mailinator.
I thought it would be interesting to share my perspective on Choreplay after El Fury’s post. I have been thinking on this concept a while and have a few thoughts:
1. I agree that the idea of trading sex for chores seems like borderline prostitution. However, I also agree with our readers that if this is done in a lighthearted way, it can be fun. If you know that Acts of Service is your spouse’s love language, and can spice up doing dishes while being sexy, go for it! I do think it is dangerous to toy with using sex for manipulation, especially if you imply sex is on the table and don’t deliver it.
2. El Fury and I assume the more traditional gender chores naturally simply because I stay at home with our pre-schoolers. So, I am happy to take care of the majority of the chores while El Fury works. I can remember when I did work full time after our first baby was born. It was so hard to balance taking care of the baby, household chores, and spending time with our family. At that time of my life, I greatly appreciated any help El Fury would give with chores. It helped to ease the burden, and relieved some of my stress. I’m sure this did help to keep my libido intact, although I don’t recall looking at El Fury with a load of laundry and thinking, “ah yeah”. But, as one of our readers commented, less stress is better for sex, so it was probably indirectly related. I will say though, there is something very sexy about El Fury using his drill while wearing a plain white shirt. Rawr. So maybe the studies are right and women find man-chores sexy!
3. I think the studies El Fury cites are interesting. The study says that couples had sex 1.6 times more a month when couples assumed traditional gender chores. I am curious of what the base average amount of sex for those couples is. For us, having sex 1.6 times more a month isn’t really a lot! But, if you are a couple that isn’t having a lot of sex, that could be a lot more sex.
4. What I think is the most important part of this whole idea of choreplay is to find out what your spouse finds sexy, and do that. You are the ONLY person that can fulfill your spouse sexually. That is a big responsibility. Be interested, and be interesting to your spouse. I have heard before that you should be a student of your spouse. You love each other, so be sexy for each other.
