Yes, it is reasonably normal. Up to 30% of women suffer from female orgasmic disorder which is the second most common sexual problem for women. Often it just takes learning how to let go into that next stage of release and abandonment. I recommend a book called Becoming Orgasmic...a sexual and Personal Growth Programme for Women by Julia R Heiman and Joseph LoPiccolo (Piatkus) which aims to help women feel comfortable with themselves and their ideas about sex.
It will be good for your wife to give herself permission to be and feel ‘sexy’. She should focus her mind during foreplay on what turns her on. You may be able to help her too by experimenting with different types of touch and learning more about what she likes. Touch that builds anticipation and teases a little can help to heighten stimulation. Touch around and on the clitoris is what will ultimately release the orgasm. Give plenty of time to enjoying foreplay, rather than focusing on penetration.
However, don’t let this become the Holy Grail, as pressure makes most things become more elusive. Focus on the pleasure and abandonment and let the body find its own rhythm as orgasm is not the be all and end all for either gender.
My husband has recently introduced another woman to the marital bed. He says it is biblical – what do you think?
I think he is deceived and deceiving, which makes him very dangerous. This is absolutely wrong and contravenes everything essential to biblical marriage. In Matthew 19:5, Jesus describes marriage as: ‘a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.’ The text is clearly singular: one man united to one woman.
Similarly, if you turn to 1 Timothy 3:2 it describes what we would look for in the lifestyle of someone who would be respected by scripture and Church. Among other things it specifically lists that such a man should be ‘the husband of but one wife’. This draws a clear line against shared sexual practices.
Since your husband has allowed his judgement of scripture to be twisted by his own broken sexuality, he is unlikely to see it on a biblical or rational basis. Call his bluff by asking him if he would be prepared for the third person to be a man instead of a woman, and see how he responds! Biblical leadership and headship is about servanthood, not domination: a husband must love his wife ‘as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her’ (Ephesians 5:25).
Marriage is not bondage, to trap us into losing our freedom to assert our own beliefs and preferences. You are, and must stay, free to say ‘no’. If he doesn’t like this answer, it’s tough. Tell him to get some therapy. You answer to a higher authority than your husband’s: you answer to Christ and your own conscience.
Without having sex, can I sleep with my girlfriend in the same bed?
This is one of those many questions for which we cannot say that the Bible gives us any clear directives of right and wrong. As with many things in life, God expects us to apply some wisdom and biblical principles. While I cannot say that sleeping in the same bed is wrong, I would be pondering on the line in the Lord’s Prayer which says, ‘lead us not into temptation’ as I know if I was in your shoes/pyjamas, I’m pretty confident that I would end up giving in to temptation if I was in bed with the one I love.
I also find myself pondering how much we want to treasure marriage and ‘keep the marriage bed pure’ (see Hebrews 13:4). Is the sexual bonding of marriage just the act of intercourse, or is there something exclusive and beautiful about sharing a bed in the vulnerability and raw state of your sleepy slumber?
