Should Couples Use Role-Play in the Bedroom?
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | From the first year of this podcast,
00:00:05.860 | we decided to address mature topics and awkward questions.
00:00:09.940 | No apologies about that.
00:00:12.020 | If you're comfortable asking us, we'll address it.
00:00:14.780 | So needless to say, today's question is a mature one
00:00:17.300 | for married couples.
00:00:19.100 | The question arrives from men and from women.
00:00:20.880 | Here are three representative emails I've picked out.
00:00:23.940 | First, an anonymous wife writes in,
00:00:25.740 | "Pastor John, I have a question.
00:00:26.900 | "It's embarrassing, but here it is.
00:00:28.080 | "My husband likes to use role-playing in the bedroom
00:00:31.120 | "and various levels of bondage and dominance.
00:00:33.080 | "He wants me to say things like, 'I am your slave.'
00:00:36.120 | "He wants me to wear certain colors around my neck.
00:00:38.000 | "To the far extreme, he likes to fantasize
00:00:39.940 | "that he is raping me.
00:00:41.760 | "But he's a very nice person outside of the bedroom.
00:00:43.380 | "He only asks if he can play out the fantasy in bed.
00:00:45.920 | "What should I do?"
00:00:47.560 | Second, another anonymous wife writes in,
00:00:49.340 | "Dear Pastor John, thank you for the podcast.
00:00:51.040 | "I have been married for 20 years.
00:00:53.280 | "Before we got married, my husband told me
00:00:54.720 | "he had struggled with porn.
00:00:56.340 | "After we were married, he asked me to try some
00:00:58.120 | "of the things he saw in the porn he had watched.
00:00:59.820 | "I consented.
00:01:01.020 | "Our premarital counselor told us that anything
00:01:03.180 | "was okay in the marriage bed with mutual consent,
00:01:06.000 | "and I wanted to please my husband.
00:01:07.420 | "But this has had a detrimental effect on our marriage.
00:01:10.000 | "I'm now to the point where I don't want
00:01:11.540 | "any physical intimacy, and he doesn't feel loved.
00:01:14.320 | "Was it okay for us to do those things
00:01:15.760 | "since we agreed at the time?
00:01:16.860 | "I think dominance in the bedroom
00:01:18.240 | "is completely anti-biblical.
00:01:20.240 | "My husband continues to think it's fine
00:01:21.840 | "with mutual consent."
00:01:23.280 | And third and finally, the question also arises
00:01:25.200 | from a husband.
00:01:26.480 | "Pastor John, my wife recently told me
00:01:27.760 | "she was unfaithful to me and hasn't had
00:01:29.800 | "an emotional connection with me in sex
00:01:31.580 | "or in general since we got married three years ago.
00:01:34.280 | "She wants to engage in domineering sexual acts
00:01:36.420 | "that I see as sinful.
00:01:38.040 | "She thinks I'm too boring in bed.
00:01:39.560 | "She now wishes to leave me so I can find a new wife
00:01:41.780 | "and so that she can engage in sexual experiences
00:01:44.520 | "with other men.
00:01:45.500 | "How do I respond?"
00:01:46.440 | Pastor John, how would you respond to all three?
00:01:49.000 | - Here are five perspectives on sexuality
00:01:53.000 | that I hope will help couples get their bearings
00:01:58.000 | if they are willing to seriously seek God's will
00:02:00.840 | for their sexual lives.
00:02:02.120 | And I do promise that God's will for your sexual lives
00:02:07.120 | is the most satisfying way of life.
00:02:11.600 | Number one, fantasizing sin is sin.
00:02:16.600 | Playing out a situation or behavior in your mind
00:02:20.560 | because of its pleasure, which would be sinful,
00:02:24.560 | a sinful situation or sinful behavior
00:02:27.360 | if you did it outwardly, is sin in your mind.
00:02:32.080 | And if this is true for fantasies,
00:02:35.320 | then it is all the more true that play-acting sin is sin.
00:02:40.320 | Pretending to do something which,
00:02:44.580 | if you did it when not pretending is sin,
00:02:47.680 | that pretending is sin.
00:02:50.920 | I say this because of Matthew 5, 27,
00:02:54.200 | "You have heard that it was said
00:02:55.600 | "you shall not commit adultery,
00:02:57.860 | "but I say to you that everyone who looks upon a woman
00:03:00.460 | "with lustful intent has already committed adultery
00:03:03.500 | "with her in his heart.
00:03:05.600 | "If your right eye causes you to sin,
00:03:07.360 | "tear it out and throw it away,
00:03:08.940 | "for it is better that you lose one of your members
00:03:11.220 | "than that your whole body be thrown into hell."
00:03:14.240 | In other words, Jesus' standard of holiness
00:03:18.040 | is not merely a standard of bodily deeds,
00:03:20.900 | but also of mental delights.
00:03:24.120 | If you pursue a pleasure in your mind
00:03:28.220 | which is unlawful for your body, you are sinning.
00:03:32.800 | What is sin?
00:03:33.680 | Think of it.
00:03:34.680 | Sin is the heart's preference
00:03:37.880 | for anything above God and his ways.
00:03:41.440 | Sin is not primarily the movement of the muscles
00:03:44.280 | or the body.
00:03:45.560 | It is primarily and fundamentally the movement of the soul,
00:03:49.520 | the movement in pursuit of pleasure
00:03:52.800 | in a way that God has forbidden.
00:03:55.920 | It's the failure to pursue pleasure
00:03:58.160 | in God himself above all else.
00:04:01.220 | So it was an overstatement or a misstatement,
00:04:04.880 | I'm not sure which the counselor would admit to,
00:04:09.760 | it was an overstatement when the premarital counselor said
00:04:14.240 | that anything you mutually agree on
00:04:16.760 | in the marriage bed is permitted.
00:04:19.480 | If you mutually agree to play act a rape, it is sin.
00:04:24.480 | If you mutually agree to pretend
00:04:28.160 | you are having sex in Times Square
00:04:30.080 | with a thousand people watching, it is sin.
00:04:33.520 | If you mutually agree to pretend
00:04:35.960 | that you are two strangers
00:04:37.280 | who happened upon each other in the woods
00:04:39.400 | and have sex, you are sinning.
00:04:42.560 | Fantasized sin is sin,
00:04:45.760 | no matter how many people agree on it.
00:04:48.040 | Play acted sin is sin, Matthew 5, 27 to 28.
00:04:53.040 | Number two, demanding or coercing unnatural
00:04:58.200 | and bizarre sexual acts
00:05:00.800 | when they displease the partner is sin.
00:05:04.540 | Romans 12.10 says, "Outdo one another in showing honor."
00:05:08.840 | Philippians 2.3 says, "Do nothing from selfish ambition
00:05:12.440 | or conceit, but in humility count others like the wife
00:05:16.400 | more significant than yourselves."
00:05:19.320 | 1 Corinthians 6.19 says, "You are not your own.
00:05:23.360 | You were bought with a price, so glorify God in your body."
00:05:27.280 | All of that leads to the conclusion
00:05:29.280 | that in the marriage bed,
00:05:30.920 | the other person's desires and delights
00:05:33.680 | and disapprovals and displeasures
00:05:36.520 | are as important as our own, indeed more so.
00:05:41.520 | To press for your own private bodily satisfaction
00:05:46.880 | at the cost of the spouse's displeasure
00:05:49.920 | is a failure to honor,
00:05:51.840 | a failure to count the other more significant,
00:05:54.380 | a failure to glorify God with your body,
00:05:57.720 | a failure to show you are not your own,
00:06:01.800 | but bought with a price belonging to Jesus.
00:06:06.160 | If you need ever more kinky sex,
00:06:09.840 | ever more bizarre, unconventional sexual acts
00:06:14.040 | at the expense of your spouse's enjoyment,
00:06:17.960 | you are elevating your appetite above his or her delights.
00:06:22.960 | That's not the way of Christ.
00:06:26.960 | Number three, if you pursue a sexual act
00:06:31.520 | or an imagined sexual situation
00:06:34.880 | because it is more stimulating, scintillating, pleasurable,
00:06:39.820 | because it is forbidden,
00:06:41.720 | then you are living out the way of the fool
00:06:45.560 | and you are embodying the principle of bondage.
00:06:49.080 | Proverbs 9.17 says, "To him who lacks sense,
00:06:54.080 | folly says, 'Stolen water is sweet.'"
00:06:59.240 | If you pursue forbidden water
00:07:03.160 | because its prohibition makes it sweeter, you're a fool.
00:07:08.160 | Paul got at the principle like this.
00:07:12.040 | He said in Romans 7, "If it had not been for the law,
00:07:16.280 | I would have not known sin,
00:07:18.360 | for I would not have known what it is to covet
00:07:20.920 | if the law had not said, 'You shall not covet.'
00:07:23.960 | But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment,
00:07:29.680 | through the prohibition,
00:07:32.160 | produced in me all kinds of covetousness."
00:07:35.360 | In other words, when you see a child
00:07:38.200 | have no interest in a toy until it is forbidden,
00:07:42.960 | you are watching bondage to a sinful nature.
00:07:46.780 | So in the marriage bed,
00:07:50.160 | to the degree that you pursue some act
00:07:53.580 | as more pleasurable because it is illicit,
00:07:57.360 | you are in a fool's bondage to a sinful impulse.
00:08:02.040 | Number four, if sexual desire has become so prominent
00:08:07.040 | in the way you pursue satisfaction in life
00:08:10.320 | that you must push the limits of sexual conventions
00:08:13.420 | in order to be a joyful and contented person,
00:08:17.000 | your God and your purpose for living have become too small.
00:08:22.800 | Bodily appetites become God's when God diminishes.
00:08:27.800 | Sexual urges become too big
00:08:33.880 | when we lose big purposes for our lives.
00:08:37.720 | Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3:18, "Beholding the glory."
00:08:43.720 | Now that's an infinitely beautiful thing
00:08:46.120 | he's just mentioned.
00:08:47.280 | "Beholding the glory of the Lord,
00:08:51.160 | we are being changed into his image
00:08:54.640 | from one degree of glory to the next."
00:08:57.480 | In other words, we need a big, beautiful, glorious,
00:09:02.480 | transcendent, majestic vision of God
00:09:06.920 | and his purpose for our lives
00:09:10.160 | if sex is to stay in its pleasurable small place.
00:09:15.160 | Number five, finally, I would say to men,
00:09:21.000 | especially, if you hope to have a thrilling, joyful,
00:09:26.000 | mutually satisfying sexual relationship with your wife
00:09:31.800 | for the next 50 years,
00:09:36.040 | you absolutely will not have it
00:09:40.380 | by demanding or expecting ever more bizarre exploits.
00:09:46.600 | Rather, you will have it by devoting 99% of your effort
00:09:51.600 | to love your wife well outside the bedroom
00:09:57.080 | so that she finds you somebody she really desires.
00:10:02.080 | I don't promise paradise.
00:10:04.600 | There's too much brokenness in the world,
00:10:07.360 | but I do promise you,
00:10:10.440 | you will not find 50 years of mutual pleasure
00:10:15.120 | on the path of play-acted perversion.
00:10:19.040 | - Wow, that ends with a punch.
00:10:20.600 | Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for joining us today.
00:10:23.000 | You can ask questions, even sensitive ones like these.
00:10:25.640 | Send them anonymously if you wish.
00:10:27.400 | Just mention that you want it
00:10:29.120 | to remain anonymous in the emails,
00:10:31.360 | and you can send those to us from the link
00:10:33.560 | at our online home at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.
00:10:37.640 | Well, after a quarter of a century
00:10:41.080 | at Bethlehem Baptist Church,
00:10:42.520 | Pastor John looked back and reflected
00:10:44.480 | on one of the most troubling trends
00:10:45.880 | he followed in Christianity.
00:10:47.920 | It was the trend of self-esteem and self-love,
00:10:50.680 | and he drew some conclusions about what it means for us
00:10:52.760 | in our love to others, and it's worth sharing.
00:10:55.480 | Pastor John will explain that next time.
00:10:57.400 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:10:58.280 | We'll see you back here on Wednesday.
00:10:59.980 | Thanks for listening.
00:11:01.040 | (upbeat music)
00:11:03.620 | (upbeat music)
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