Would you have sex with your spouse in the presence of another married couple also engaging in sex?
This question was poised to me recently…
“How do you feel about married couples watching each other have sex? No swapping or swinging. More like live porn. Do you feel like that goes against God’s design?”
Honestly, I think the idea is great. I think it may be much more odd actually doing it in real life rather than fantasying about doing it however. This could be more subjective. Someone may be comfortable doing this, and maybe when I was younger and felt a little more confident…idk…but I think I’d feel super self-conscious now in my 40’s…just from a basis of actually thinking about doing this with another couple (leaving aside the more Biblical side for just a moment), how would you feel about actually doing this dear readers?
On a purely fantastical version of this, it seems wildly thrilling. I wonder if most, if not all, have thought about this at some time. As a married man however, the thought of seeing a friend eying my naked wife, would be a no go for me. I’m not super jealous, but I am protective. I’d feel a knee jerk reaction to protect the most important part of my world. I would be hypocritical however, because of course I would enjoy seeing my hypothetical friend’s wife’s naked body.
I think for me, even before I turn to whether it would be right or wrong from a Biblical worldview, I would have to allocate this to pure fantasy as it seems filled with too many emotional landmines. Much like the article that I wrote about voyeurism/exhibitionism a while back.
How about you?
Now going back to the question about whether I feel that this would be against God’s design…I would have to say that there is no Biblical prohibition against this act (unless I’m missing something). This blog is based on the premise that you can enjoy watching nudity and heterosexual couples enjoying sex and masturbating with no Biblical prohibitions against these things. The Bible does clearly condemn lust, which is imagining committing a sexual act with someone whom you are not married. However, although the Bible doesn’t go into extreme details about every nook and cranny of our sexual desires, it does advise us repeatedly to use wisdom in our lives.
On that note, I would have to label this act in the same basic category as one of my last posts on nudism, as “not sin, but not wise”.
If you were worked up sexually and in such close proximity to another couple also sexually revved…I think sin would be but a hairbreadth away.
If our desire is to please God, I do believe we need to do our best to keep a few “steps” distance between ourselves and the actual sin…especially since sexual sin is very seductive (and even more so when we are aroused). Sorta like it might not be wrong to give someone a million dollars of your money in cash to deliver to the bank for you… You’re literally giving another human being who is just as fallen as yourself (as we all have a sinful nature), and giving them a huge temptation. Even if the person is extremely honest…Wow…it seems foolish to trust anyone with such a precious thing to you. In this case, it would be closer to each person giving a million dollars in cash to each other person in the group and asking each of them to deliver that valuable amount of money to the bank for you the next day, and they you.
Having a sexual encounter with four worked up people, all with built in fallen natures…and hoping things don’t go very wrong…seems much too much like playing Russian Roulette with your relationship with God, your spouse, your marriage, possibly your families future…that’s a lot riding on whether or not you all end up riding each other or each other’s spouses…
After I graduated from Bible College, I began questioning all my beliefs as a fundamental Christian.
I had been taught to base my worldview upon the clear teachings of the Bible, but some important doctrines (teachings or beliefs) seemed difficult to find resolution. Many people “use” the Bible to justify whatever they choose to believe. But a true biblical worldview is when we change our beliefs to fit what the Bible actually does and doesn’t say.
I am an American and in America drinking alcohol of any kind has been strongly forbidden by most all of the fundamental Protestant Churches. One of the first cracks in my worldview came during a class that the topic of alcohol came up. A fellow student who came from France voiced that in Europe, many Christians and Churches didn’t view drinking alcohol as a sin as the Churches and Christians in America did so adamantly.
Even though now, it’s much clearer for me to see that the Bible is very favorable to the idea of drinking alcohol… at the time it was a very difficult subject. It’s very difficult to stand against the established church on a particular doctrine, especially ones that are so dearly argued as the doctrine of drinking wine, beer or strong drinks is here in America. It’s very difficult to even question such strongly held doctrines, much less to see things differently than the vast majority of your peers and elders.
However, as I listened to my fellow student and realized that the doctrine against imbibing alcohol wasn’t the same in every country or even continent, it got me thinking.
I slowly began searching the scriptures about alcohol.
At the time, this crack in my worldview, led me to start questioning a few other strongly held doctrines.
Honestly, I didn’t have a great desire to try alcohol, so I didn’t start devouring the Scriptures in search of a resolution to the question of the doctrine of whether drinking alcohol is a sin or not. I did however, have a strong sexual desire as any person, men especially, to enjoy masturbation. I had sat through many accountability groups where men confessed their struggles dealing with masturbation, and like ever man who was trying to serve God, I had struggled with masturbating since I hit puberty. I didn’t even struggle with actual lust at the time (imagining myself and a woman committing any kind of sexual act). I did struggle with lust when I first hit puberty, but I had prayed through and repented and God had helped me to stop sinning. However, I struggled very much still with the simple but pleasurable act of masturbation.
So, in light of almost ten years of struggling not to masturbate by the time that I had finished Bible school, I finally decided after hearing the French student question a beloved doctrine, that I would actually look what the scriptures said about masturbation. I had struggled with this “sin” for almost ten years and had heard many fellow Christian men who were very much trying to live the Christian life in a way that pleased God by following the clear teachings of Scripture, also confess to struggling with this same act.
Also, around the same time, I had read the Christian book, “The Sexual Man”, and in the closing chapters the author, Dr. Archibald Hart, either openly praised the act of masturbation or he at the very least didn’t condemn it (though I do think he endorsed it). This also gave me some hope that maybe the act of pleasuring yourself sexually wasn’t actually a sin. I do like to thoroughly base my worldview on the clear teachings of the Bible. The Bible is the glorious and wonderful instructions of God…indeed the very Word of God. Despite what some may say, there is no basis that you can be a Christian yet choose not to live your life according to the precious Word of God. The Bible is the very thing that we build the Christian worldview upon!
So from some perspective from a fellow student that all “taught” doctrines might not actually line up with the clear teachings of Scripture, and from a well known Christian author(not Christian in name but not in deed, but to my knowledge, an actual Christian or follower of Jesus)…it set my heart on a search to see what the Bible actually says about what to me at the time, was the terrible and shameful sin of masturbation.
It took me a few months to a year to really come to the firm conviction that masturbation is definitely not a sin. (For the time being, we’ll leave out the other teachings or doctrine against nudity and pornography.). I’m talking about flat out simply masturbation, without even imagining a naked woman. Just the simple pleasurable act of masturbation.
How did I come to so clearly and definitely changing my doctrine?
The Bible doesn’t even mention, much less condemn, the act of masturbation! There isn’t even a mention! Nothing! How do millions of people past and present come to the conclusion that the Bible, which is the foundation or the source of the 100% absolute Truth, and the very foundation of the Biblical or Christian worldview, come to such an adamant stance about something that the Bible doesn’t even mention?
I have absolute no idea where this idea began, except in my opinion as a tool for the devil to make Christianity seem stricter than it actually is, and thus turn away men and women seeking the truth by making living the Christian life much harder than it actually is!
Now I have heard from a very small and simple story, ominously called “The Sin of Onan” that is found in the book of Genesis, chapter 39, a very twisted attempt (looking back) at misconstruing an act that God designed for our joy and pleasure.
Different cultures have different ways of life. In Onan’s culture, it was a custom, that if you’re brother died and was married but didn’t have children, that you would be obligated to marry your widowed Sister-in-Law and have children by her who would take your deceased brother’s name and thus legacy.
Polygamy was very common at that time as well, that’s another reason that a brother could take a deceased brother’s wife and raise children in his brother’s name, even if you were married already to another woman, so that those children could continue your brother’s legacy and name but also so that they could help take care of their mother (your widowed Sister in Law turned wife) as she older. Women were taken care of by their husbands, or father, father-in-law, or male children back then. So this kept a lasting legacy to your brother’s name and memory but also provided for the woman. God’s way’s always love, honor and protect.
Anyway, Onan, wanted to have his fun but not perform his obligation (to God, to his deceased brother, or to his Sister-in-Law turned wife). He married and had sex with his new bride, but he tried the “pull out” method of birth control. Today, we know that that is not a great option for birth control, but God was looking at Onan’s heart. He, for whatever reason, wanted to have sex with his new wife but not do right by her or by God. God punished Onan. That’s a whole different discussion for why God punished Onan so strongly, but the simple version is that Onan was the son of Judah, who was Jacob’s ( or otherwise known as Israel) son. Jesus, the Messiah and Saviour of the World was born through the bloodline of Judah. That’s why Jesus is called the Lion of the tribe of Judah. So the short version was that I believe that God punished Onan so severely because Onan’s selfishness and wicked heart was actually messing with the bloodline of Jesus Christ.
The Bible says that Onan basically “pulled out” and spilled his seed or his semen on the ground.
There’s absolutely nothing to do with masturbation in this very short story. Onan was rebellious and wicked. He didn’t want to honor God, his own dead brother or his new wife. The Bible doesn’t say that if anyone “spills their semen” or seed on the ground or the sheets or wherever!…that he has commited any sin whatsoever.
This story in my life of how I came to start questioning each of my beliefs and holding them up against what the Bible actually does and doesn’t say, is how I started down this road to creating this blog. Have you had a similar experience? What were you taught in a Godly Christian home or a Godly Bible based church about masturbation? I would love to hear from you.
To my faithful blog followers, thanks for your patience. My life has been down a very dark road for the last several years, starting really almost ten years ago, but culminating in the last year or two in much heart ache. I went through one of those time when you question if God is really there or if He really cares and your faith and heart are sorely tested. But God is faithful, even though life isn’t fair. It’s been a long dark road but He’s bringing me back out into the light and sunshine again. For anyone who’s prayed for me during this dark time…all I can say is…Thank You with all my heart. As Christians we must stand together and care about each other. I care about each of you who take the time to comment and talk about the Bible and Sexuality. Anyways, thanks again for your patience for everyone who’s still following.
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