Just say NO: You Don’t Have to Have Sex if You Don’t Want To Even if You are Married

One time when we hadn’t been married for long, I wasn’t in the mood for sex, but my husband was. This rarely happened, to be fair. I was ALWAYS in the mood when he wasn’t, but this particular time was an anomaly for us. I tried to grin and bear it and “just do it.” My sweet husband stopped me, “What is going on?” He was upset and I didn’t understand why.

He stopped me and we got dressed and he talked to me for a long time about consent and how important it was. Granted, this is stuff that we are always hearing every day in the media, but it was different to hear it coming from someone who loved me. He told me that if a man really loves a woman, he doesn’t want her to have sex when she doesn’t want to. He told me about how the woman’s body physically reacts differently to sex when she isn’t in the mood. He talked about how God believes in free will, and so He would never believe in a woman giving up her ownership over sex for someone else.

None of this had ever occurred to me. Even now sometimes I am shocked by the talk about how women need to “just do it,” and sometimes even just “for the man.” I know they don’t know they are doing it, but that is rape culture. They are teaching women that their body doesn’t belong to them, but to the men they are with.

THIS IS NOT TRUE!

Theology of the Body talks about how sex is the free gift of the body to the other person. It is not free if you do not have a choice.

Now, just to clarify, because we don’t want to just go Lysistrata on all the men out there, I’m not saying we shouldn’t try. I found out what never wanting sex was like after I had babies, and I know now how easy it would be to never have sex again for a woman sometimes. But we love our husbands; and that intimacy MEANS something. What I have started doing is if I am not in the mood, I will tell my husband, “Ok, but I need help getting in the mood.” Your husband May need help learning how to help you get in the mood but once you figure out what does it for you, your intimacy will change forever.