God wired a man to feel connected to his wife through sex. The physical act of sex opens his feelings and allows him to become more vulnerable. Sex gives him a sense of closeness and intimacy. He is better able to concentrate on such things as his emotions. God wired a woman to feel connected to her husband by experiencing emotional connection. Emotional connection gives her a sense of safety. She is better able to give herself to physical sex. 

God made husbands and wives to complement each other: A husband invites his wife into intimacy through sex, and a wife invites her husband into intimacy through emotional connection. Together, they make a satisfying whole.

Ultimately, through sexual intimacy – emotionally and physically connecting – God calls us to be vulnerable and to serve each other. He calls on men to connect emotionally with their wives in order to have their physical needs met; he calls on women to connect physically with their husbands in order to have their emotional needs met. It involves tension, to be sure. But it’s also exciting!

The exciting reality about sexual intimacy is that God made us different to spice things up! And ultimately, those differences teach us about serving the other person. When we give our spouses what they need – not what we think they want or need – then we fulfill God’s design for sexual intimacy. And the reward is that together we experience true intimacy.

What we have to realize is that our different ways of approaching sexual intimacy are okay – and normal – because God made us different… on purpose. And that’s a good thing. We waste so much time and energy trying to shape our spouses into sexual clones of ourselves. Then we wonder why we’re frustrated and disappointed with our sex lives! So rather than growing frustrated and upset, taking it out on each other, walking away, and pouting, take those opportunities to accept that our approaches to intimacy are going to be different.

The reality is that we often want the same things. Our deepest desire, whether we’re male or female, is ultimately to become one. He wants intercourse; she wants intercourse. He may want physical intercourse more than she does, and she may want emotional intercourse more than he does, but when a couple can meld physical and emotional intercourse, they will find the pathway to greater intimacy.

[i]  Michael Gurian, What Could He Be Thinking?: How a Man’s Mind Really Works (St. Martin’s Press, 2004): 109. Mark Leyner and Billy Goldberg, Why Do Men Fall Asleep After Sex? (Three Rivers Press, a division of Random House, Inc, 2006) http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=bizarre&id=4641863