*DISCLAIMER* This episode is intended for adults

Micah 6:8 (NIV) "He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."

**Transcription Below**

Questions and Topics We Cover:

Will you share a few practical sexual education tips with us?
What are the best ways spouses can practice communicating well about sex and what are the potential benefits?
How does "desire tend to work differently for men and women"?

Dr. Michael Sytsma is a certified sex therapist, ordained minister, and co-founder of sexual wholeness. Dr. Mike has been working with couples in a variety of capacities since 1987. He currently works with Building Intimate Marriages in Atlanta, GA as he meets with clients, teaches, and speaks at various conferences. He and Karen have been married since 1985 and have two sons, Josiah and Caleb, and one daughter-in-law.

Secrets of Sex and Marriage Website

Building Intimate Marriages Website

Previous Episodes with Dr. Mike:

Ten Common Questions About Sex, Shared Through a Biblical Worldview with Dr. Michael Sytsma

Enjoying a God-Honoring, Healthy Sex Life with Your Spouse with Certified Sex Therapist and Ordained Minister, Dr. Michael Sytsma

Desire Discrepancy in Marriage with Dr. Michael Sytsma

Patreon 29 Remaining Sexually Engaged Through The Years with Dr. Michael Sytsma

Thank You to Our Sponsor: Leman Property Management Company

Connect with The Savvy Sauce on Facebook or Instagram or Our Website

Donate to Savvy Sauce Charities here!

Please help us out by sharing this episode with a friend, leaving a 5-star rating and review, and subscribing to this podcast!

Gospel Scripture: (all NIV)

Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”

Romans 3:24 “and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”

Romans 3:25 (a) “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.”

Hebrews 9:22 (b) “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.”

Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Romans 5:11 “Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Romans 10:9 “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

Luke 15:10 says “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

Romans 8:1 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”

Ephesians 1:13–14 “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession- to the praise of his glory.”

Ephesians 1:15–23 “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.”

Ephesians 2:8–10 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God‘s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.“

Ephesians 2:13 “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.“

Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

**Transcription**

Laura Dugger: Hey friends! This is our final episode of 2023 and I want to share some exciting news with you. It has been a dream to launch a non-profit to resource people so that they're inspired to grow in intimacy with God and others. Well, this dream officially became a new non-profit this year called Savvy Sauce Charities.

Beginning January 1st, The Savvy Sauce podcast will now be under the umbrella of Savvy Sauce Charities. And here are just a few changes to explain what that means.

First, we're no longer going to have a Patreon option. If you want to support the podcast and all the work that we're doing at Savvy Sauce Charities, I encourage you to still visit our website, thesavvysauce.com, and under the "More" drop-down tab, you're going to find the option to donate. It lists our official name and tax ID number so that you can make a donation that is now tax deductible. We are so grateful for your contribution.

And if this podcast has ever added any value to your life, I hope you consider sharing your finances with us so that we can continue sharing our resources with you. Your donations are now tax deductible and our team is so grateful for your consideration and contribution. So I look forward to meeting you back here on January 1st and until then, I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas.

[00:01:36] <music>

Laura Dugger: Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, where we have practical chats for intentional living. I'm your host, Laura Dugger, and I'm so glad you're here.

[00:01:53] <music>

Laura Dugger: Today's message is not intended for little ears. We'll be discussing some adult themes and I want you to be aware before you listen to this message.

Leman Property Management Company has the apartment you will be able to call home with over 1,700 apartment units available in Central Illinois. Visit them today at Lemanproperties.com or connect with them on Facebook.

Dr. Michael Sytsma is my returning guest today. His episodes are some of our most downloaded because he approaches the topic of sexual intimacy and marriage with such care, gentleness, and knowledge and today is no exception.

He recently co-authored the book, Secrets of Sex and Marriage, with Shaunti Feldhahn and now he's going to provide some insight into their research and findings from this beneficial resource. [00:02:54]

Here's our chat.

Welcome back to The Savvy Sauce, Dr. Mike.

Dr. Michael Sytsma: Well, thank you. It's such an honor to be with you. This is always so much fun.

Laura Dugger: I just want to begin by saying you are an excellent author. Why did you strive for much of your career to not do this type of work in book form?

Dr. Michael Sytsma: I think there are a lot of reasons for that, Laura. Part of it is it's a lot of work to write this way. I'm a slow writer too. Shaunti was great in keeping me focused and languaging a lot of it. We spent hours and hours and hours with me talking through the principles and then her distilling them and writing them. So much time.

The other thing is there's some great stuff out there. You know, Cliff and Joyce Penner's book on Married Guy's Guide to Great Sex, I just think is... I told them once, yeah, nobody can do better than that. Why would I even try? There's such good stuff out there. [00:03:52]

And then I think it took me listening to tens of thousands of hours of stories before I felt like I had the credibility to say something that wasn't already out there. So just a number of reasons. But it's been an amazing project.

Laura Dugger: And what would you say was the most enjoyable part of this project for you?

Dr. Michael Sytsma: Well, you know me, I'm a little bit of an academic nerd at times. Just the research, you know, to dig into the numbers and to see what people are saying that they don't know they're saying. We had 502 matched pair samples. So 502 couples where both the husband and wife answer anonymously, but we're able to pair them up to know who's married to who.

So I can ask, how often do you think your wife wants to have sex? And then I can ask the wife, how often do you actually want to have sex? And we can then compare to see how far apart they are. We're asking that of the wives, too: What do you think of your husband? [00:04:54]

And to see just how radically different couples are at times and how they misperceive each other, that's fascinating. And then the surprises. I've always taught that couples that have more kids have less frequent sex. And that is way not what the data told us. I even ran it three times. I went all the way back to the beginning and redid all of the calculations because I kept looking at it going, "This is wrong. This is not true."

But it was so dramatic to see the couples that are three or more kids, which I know you don't know anybody like that, you know, their frequency versus the couples that have no kids, a huge number of sexist couples in that category.

And when you come across those kind of surprises, that's the cool part of doing this type of work, I think, to be able to say, well, maybe things aren't what we've been saying. Maybe things aren't what we thought they were.

Laura Dugger: And I love that you are just a lifelong learner and an excellent teacher. [00:05:54] I know that there's a lot that we can cover when it comes to sexual education. But I think it would be helpful to have you share a few of the actionable ideas that you mentioned throughout your book. So will you just share a few of those practical tips with us now?

Dr. Michael Sytsma: I think the first one that comes to mind, Laura, is a big picture issue that the last couple of years I've been spending more and more time on just seeing the value of it. You know, great marriage, great sex happens not from our skills and our technique, but happens from our heart. And what kind of a heart that we have toward ourself, toward our spouse, toward our marriage.

I keep spending more and more time talking about the value of seduction. My assertion is that in dating, we present our best self, because we're trying to woo, trying to draw, trying to seduce the other into wanting to be with us, into liking to be with us. Getting hooked on us. [00:06:55] And so we're always showing up as our best. I like to talk about that as seduction.

Part of the principle of seduction is it has to be two-way. It doesn't matter how hard somebody tries to seduce another individual. If we're not receptive to it, we can't be seduced. So early in that dating, we're working to be our best to seduce the other. And then our future spouse receives that seduction and they warm up to it and they allow it to touch their heart.

Sometime shortly after the wedding, we tend to stop doing that. "Well, this is who I am. It's who you married. Deal with it." Or we close our heart to the other. What you're trying to do to touch my heart, I no longer let it touch my heart because I'm hurt or I'm wounded or I'm angry. I'm punishing you. I'm doing passive-aggressive stuff, whatever. I no longer let the things that used to touch me truly matter.

And so I spent time helping couples to think through how can you be seductive to each other and then how can you receive that seduction and allow this space between you to be a wooing space, a drawing space. [00:08:06]

So I think my first practical would be that heart issue of how do we not act seductively, but how do we live seductively? How do we make sure that everything we do from the moment we wake up to the moment we go to bed is presenting our best self, not a false self, but our best self towards our spouse?

Laura Dugger: Then I even think of the research that you've done on a chemical level. So will you share the chemical reasons why couples who engage less are going to desire it less? And if they engage in sexual activity with each other more, they're going to desire it more.

Dr. Michael Sytsma: Some of this is still in process in the biochemical field as we're looking at how does some of that play out. As we're talking about this, we're on early edge of stuff that down the road we might go, that's not quite exactly how we expected it to be. [00:09:05]

But we do tend to see that the law of thermodynamics... Dr. Rosenau used to talk about this. You put energy into something and it grows and you stop putting energy into it and it's going to die. I see so many times couples that intentionally actively work on growing any arena of their marriage, whether it's, you know, we're going to be better parents for a while, or we're going to really work on our finances and budget things or get a good savings going, or we're going to really work on our spiritual life. As we put energy into it, it grows. And it's no different with our sexual life.

I sometimes more so there because as a guy engages in sexual activity, not only is that often prompted by or fueled by our testosterone level, but then it increases our testosterone level. And we believe that there's very likely a cyclical loop that goes on, that the more we're engaging in it, the more it's produced in our system, and the more we desire it, so the more energy we have for it. [00:10:09]

It doesn't always work quite that cleanly for women. There tends to be another cycle that's often engaged. We think that much the same process works there though, that as we get into the habit, as it were, that it begins to be self-fueling, self-fulfilling, easy for both of those to get disrupted and to fall back. And we have to intentionally put energy back into it again. But if we ignore it for a while, it tends to spin down. And the more we ignore it, the more energy it takes to get it spun back up.

And couples come into my office who have neglected or because of wounding have stepped away from it, or there's been reasons that they haven't been pouring energy into the sexual part of the relationship. It takes so much energy to get it started back up. But once it gets started, it tends to run without very much energy and it doesn't take too much to even spin it up a little bit more. [00:11:07]

So yeah, we think there is some biochemical aspect that's going on there as well as just the relationship and the thought process. And maybe some spiritual energy that's coming into it as well.

Laura Dugger: That's good. It makes me think my husband loves to play golf and he will talk about improving his golf swing would be with a swing thought. So just clearing everything and thinking of one thing. So it's making me think of swing thoughts that you've taught me for when I was preparing to see my own clients.

And you and Dr. Doug and Deborah Taylor would all kind of summarize that as a swing thought to remember where you say a sex life in motion stays in motion and a sex life at rest stays at rest.

Dr. Michael Sytsma: Dies. Yes. That is very true. The example that you just gave, as he is focusing in on one aspect of this far broader, larger game that he's thinking, you know, if I could improve this one aspect, it's going to spill into other areas. [00:12:15]

And doing the same thing with couples. What's an arena that they just don't do real well with? And can they spend a month just attending to it? You know, my favorite is to help couples attend to what I call the reflection stage, you know, that post climax as they hopefully lay there together and connect. That is an easy one for couples to neglect. And to invite them to take an entire month just to drink that in, to figure out what they like during that.

It may be five minutes, it may be 30 minutes. I've had one wife say it needs to be 24 hours, but whatever they agree to, to how do we enrich this part of our connecting, so it's not just this abrupt end? Okay, we've hit the climax and now I'll roll over and go to sleep and you go back to whatever you were doing. But we drink and we bask in that moment.

Laura Dugger: I'd love to read one of your quotes. [00:13:15] You write, "We must take it seriously that a spouse who is unhappy about how often they have sex is 10 times more likely to also be unhappy in marriage."

Dr. Michael Sytsma: That's huge impact there, isn't it? We found several places that the numbers were just massive like that. Now, of course, we can't tell a couple if you go have sex more often then you're going to have a better marriage. No more than we can say, you know, if you have a better marriage, nobody's going to be dissatisfied with the sexual frequency.

It may be that there's a tertiary issue going on that's causing both of those. But to see them that highly linked gives us at least some clues. If your spouse isn't happy with the frequency, then they're probably not going to be happy with the marriage. So that's one arena that we could work on the swing to help the overall game of the marriage. [00:14:18]

Laura Dugger: Sometimes I understand as a counselor being hesitant to write certain things because I know your heart is to make this a safe conversation. And so I don't want to get you in trouble with this next quote, but I love how you just clearly state "for multiple reasons, I encourage most couples to try to keep their engagement at once a week or more."

Dr. Michael Sytsma: Yeah, exactly what you're saying. You wrestle with how to say because there are so many reasons why that might not fit for a couple. And we say in the beginning, I write that early preface that says, if this isn't for you, please don't be wounded by it.

But that comes out of my clinical experience, Laura, as I watch couples, couples that tend to be intentional and make sure that this arena of their marriage is important, about once a week tends to keep a fairly healthy balance moving forward. When they drop to every 10 days, it's pretty easy for them to drop to every other week. [00:15:20] And once they drop to every other week, they start losing track. And then it drops to once a month. And once it hits once a month, now we're down to once every three months. And now we're into a sexless marriage and feelings get hurt and it's tough to talk about it. We blow up every time it's addressed. So couples just ignore the subject and then it dies.

If I see them having a weekly engagement, that tends to keep it at a minimal level of satisfaction, especially if there's... I work with several couples where one is an entrepreneur and they're in the midst of starting a new project. And it just is all consuming for a period of time. But if they are still intentional and connecting weekly, it seems like it draws the couple back together.

That being said, couples that have sex slightly over two times a week tend to be a lot happier in their marriage. But that often gets more difficult for couples to pull off, even in an intentional way and it starts to move into duty and responsibility and have-tos, which can kill a sex life very quickly too. [00:16:32] Where it seems like about once a week people can do and feel good about and not feel onerous. And that is a goal.

Laura Dugger: Let's take a quick break to hear a message from our sponsor.

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Laura Dugger: Differences in desired frequency is a common topic that couples can experience some frustration over in marriage. But what leads to both individuals in the marriage being happy with their frequency of sex?

Dr. Michael Sytsma: I want to go back to your question. Not only is it frequent, but more than half of the couples, this is an area of intense conflict. In my dissertation, this was the topic of my doctoral dissertation, and half of the couples experience clinical level of distress because of the desired discrepancy. So to say this is common, it is extremely common and very painful for a lot of couples.

My major professor in the child development courses in my PhD used to assert that the best parents were radically divergent. The best parents had very different ideas of parenting. [00:19:36] One was going to be very nurturing and the other one was going to be very…. almost authoritarian. And he said, "But it's not the difference that is powerful. It's that they accept influence from each other. And when they approach it from a radically different perspective, and then they accept influence from each other," he said, "what comes out of that is really powerful for the child." And I love that imagery.

And much of the time, it's the same thing, that a higher drive spouse steps in and they pour energy into it. They're thinking about it. They're wanting it to happen. They enjoy it. The lower energy spouse don't have as much energy, but if they can accept the influence of the higher drive, higher desire, initiating desire individual, it helps to add the energy up.

The receptive desire or the lower desire person, those aren't always the same, but as two different categories, they're often pointing out there's a couple of things that need to happen for the physical connection to be rich, to be good. [00:20:41] "I need you to touch my heart more. I need to feel like you care for me, not just for my body. I need you to stop screaming and being critical outside of the bedroom so I feel like I want to connect with you." They're often asking for another really critical part of the sexual connection.

If the initiating and/or the more higher desire drive spouse can accept the influence that, yeah, I need to do a better job of laying the foundation or creating a setting that is rich for our sex life, it's going to do better. I think when couples come in with a differing perspective, it can actually be very good for the couple. If they talk about it, if they're curious and open to each other, if they work on being seductive with each other, if they accept influence from each other's perspective, they can find a middle ground that is rich for both of them.

Laura Dugger: Isn't that interesting? Because at the core of that, it sounds like a character piece that each person is responsible for, whether that's self-control or character piece of coachability and humility. That is really interesting. [00:21:53]

Dr. Michael Sytsma: It is. Sometimes it's setting myself aside for the priority of the we for the us. You know, the reason I went into sex therapy is I tell couples that even the couples that I'm working with, I don't care if you have a good sex life or not. That's not my goal. To have a great sex life requires some transformation of things that are internal to who we are. And as we learn to have a great sex life, it changes who we are. Our character does grow and develop if it's going to be healthy. So yeah, you just pointed out a core part of the whole process to me. It is about discipleship.

Laura Dugger: Even following up with... you explain so many factors in the book to elaborate as well on how couples can be happier with their frequency of sex in marriage. But there's one that you mentioned that I want to have you elaborate on when you write that it's when partners can communicate well about sex. [00:22:54] So what are the best ways that spouses can practice communicating well about sex and what are the potential benefits?

Dr. Michael Sytsma: Let me go backwards on that. Let's start with the benefits. The benefits are just huge. This was another area where the impact was so great. My memory, without the numbers being in front of me, it was 6.4 times. Couples who were effectively communicating about sex in their marriage had dramatically increased frequency. They had dramatically increased satisfaction around frequency. They were far happier couples in general. Just the impact is so high.

Now, it is possible that couples that are happy with each other are more open to talking as well. So it can go both ways. But to see that huge impact.

Learning to communicate with each other is a skill that can be developed. We don't have to just have the innate ability.[00:23:56] We can practice it. We can learn how. So it is a very tangible way that we can create change very quickly in our sex life and in our overall marriage.

Part of the design for the book is to address the question you just asked, because I wrote it continually saying, This is a book that I want couples to sit down with and read it out loud to each other, not with the goal of getting to the end of the book. Though, every time I say that, I cringe inside because I think chapter 10 is some of the richest stuff in there. So I want them to get to that. But it's not to get to the end of the book. It's to pause every couple of sentences and to talk about it.

I was talking with a couple recently, they said, "We took your challenge on." They said, "We actually do this for books on an ongoing basis. So it's pretty common for us to read a book out loud to each other and to talk about it." He said, "But usually we will read an entire section of the book and then pause and talk about it for a few minutes before we move on." He said, "There's so much in this book." He said, "We would read two sentences and we'd have a 10-minute conversation. So then we'd read the rest of the paragraph and we'd be off for another 15-minute conversation." [00:25:08] And he said, "We have learned so much about each other and thinking out loud and wrestling with it." And I love that. That's what it's about.

For couples that don't know how to talk at all, I use lovetakeslearning.com. There are other materials out there that can teach them just basic listening skills. They may need to go back to that. But then it's just sitting down and practicing it, staying at the table, leaning in.

When your feelings get hurt, taking a deep breath and calming yourself down. "I believe in my spouse mostly. And so we can do this, I think." And just staying present with it until they figure out how to have the experience of talking well to each other.

Laura Dugger: I love that so much because there are just endless benefits. If you can grow and becoming comfortable with talking about this, I feel like the possibilities are endless after that.

Dr. Michael Sytsma: They are. So much opens up for the couple. [00:26:09] At one level, what we're talking about just sounds so simple, Laura. But because sex is so central to our hearts, because of how society, whether that be the larger society or the society we grew up with, our family, our church community, or whatever we grew up, has a lot of messages about sex that are potentially wounding or restrictive or too unboundaried, whatever it was, we bring that into it. It's easy to get hurt, to get wounded. It's easy to get offended. And yet, if we can stay at the table and we can continually, calmly talk through it, we can find a way to really develop a rich intimacy with each other.

Laura Dugger: I hope that that offers a lot of hope to anyone listening. Dr. Mike, where are we likely to attribute incorrect motives to our spouse? And how does that negatively impact our sex lives? [00:27:12]

Dr. Michael Sytsma: I think we do it in every stage of the sex life. I've got a model. They can find it intimacymodel.com. But I've got a model that I walk couples through that gives different stages of the sexual act. I will research each of those stages.

Couples do misattribution at every stage. Desire is a huge arena for... where I'll ask a wife, if it were totally up to you, how often would you like to engage in sex? And I'll ask the husband, how often do you think your wife wants to engage in sex? And they will be so far apart. The most common answer I get from wives is one to two times a week. And if the couple's in distress, the husband will answer never. And I point to him and say, "There's a big difference between her not ever wanting to have sex, which is what you think, and her saying she'd like to have it one to two times a week. Why do you think you guys are so far apart?" And it's because they're not talking about it. They're not communicating again. [00:28:10]

Another one we looked at in this research, in the marital intimacy project, is we looked at orgasms and the importance of orgasms and how often a husband, what he identifies as the importance of orgasm for himself, for his wife, or how important he thinks his wife feels it is for him to have an orgasm, for her to have her own. So we've got these cross-questions going all over the place.

Honestly, wives have men fairly well figured out in some of this, but in some of this, guys are way off in what they think their wives are thinking. And oral sex, the same thing. We looked at a lot of the questions there and what spouses think about the other and what they want and what they enjoy, often they are way off from each other.

Of course, the more distressed the marriage, the further away they're going to be, the more poor attributions there are. Couples that are pretty happy and are communicating more, obviously we see much less misattribution. [00:29:12] But it shows up in every area, especially if a couple's not talking.

Laura Dugger: I love how you point out how understanding one another is going to be so beneficial. So when we look at men and women, there are differences. So how does desire tend to work differently for men and women?

Dr. Michael Sytsma: It does get tricky, Laura, because this is on a spectrum, and we do see... the numbers tell us that there are stereotypical differences between men and women. But I work with a huge number of couples that walk in and are the flip of the stereotype.

So I'm always cautious every time we start talking about it to know that a quarter to a third of the audience is going to go, wait, that's not me. But if we start talking stereotypes, more commonly women are going to experience a receptive type of desire, especially a couple of years into marriage or after the first child. [00:30:12]

Men will tend to experience more of the initiating type of desire, where they are thinking about sex more frequently and they're pursuing it more, where she's going to likely be, "I haven't thought about it in a couple of days, but if you seduce me in the right way, I'd be open to it. And once I'm open to it and I start to engage and I begin to get aroused and I am aware of the arousal and I view the arousal as positive, then the desire kicks in." And we tend to see that a bit more stereotypical for women.

But that being said, we see a lot of older men, 55 years and older saying, No, that's me now. I sound like that today. That's how I work. So it changes sometimes with whether we want to have kids, how stressed we are in life, how fulfilled we feel in life. It may change with where we are physically. That I am in really good shape and I'm sleeping well and I'm eating healthy versus I'm under a lot of pressure and stress and I'm just not sleeping well and my diet is really poor. [00:31:21] All of those things can make a difference too.

Laura Dugger: You articulate that all so well. I'm just going to keep sprinkling in these quotes, but I love this one. You write, "In general, for men, desire leads to sex, while for women, sex leads to desire."

Dr. Michael Sytsma: You know, to get something into a book like this, you have to be almost oversimplifying. And I really wrestled with that because it's not fully accurate, but yet it's correct. What we're thinking right now in the field, at least what many of us are thinking, is that desire follows arousal for everybody, that something turns on in our body.

Maybe it's, you know, his wife walked by getting out of the shower and he saw an image that just sparks a release of testosterone in his system. So now he's aroused and he is aware of the arousal, so he experiences the desire. [00:32:26] And so now he wants.

We've seen that for many women they're not as aware of those micro-arousals. They're not as aware of what it feels like to wake up in the morning and have their body already be in kind of a slight arousal state, or they're not aware that that smell or that voice prompts some level of arousal in my body. So then if they're not aware of it, they're not evaluating it positively, and they're not allowing it to shift into desire.

So the thinking is he experiences these micro states of arousal, assesses that the desire turns on very quickly. Then he begins to pursue sexual activity, and now the arousal truly kicks in. So it seems like he experiences desire, pursues the activity, and then has arousal.

Because she's not as aware of it, it seems like the arousal has to come first, that she's like, Yeah, I haven't thought about it in 10 days, but we could do that. As long as I get the laundry switched over and the dishes done, and, you know, the kids in bed, then we can. [00:33:34] And she begins to engage physically, and maybe her mind's not fully there yet. But as her body starts to engage and she becomes aware of it, oh, this does feel kind of, I like his attention on me. Now she's aware of the arousal and she's assessing it positively. Then we see the desire kick in.

So for her, it seems like there needs to be some sense of arousal before the desire happens. It's not as clean as that, but that's the experience of it. And so that's why the quote is the way it is, that it almost seems to be on opposite ends for the stereotypical male and female. But some of it is the awareness of what's happening in our bodies, too.

Laura Dugger: I want to take a moment to say thank you. You are the reason our team gets to delight in this work, and we appreciate each of you so very much. If you're benefiting from the lessons learned and applied from The Savvy Sauce, would you take a minute to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts?[00:34:37]

Five-star ratings and reviews help us reach more people around the globe, and that promotes our goal of sharing joy. So join us in that endeavor with your valuable feedback. Thanks again for being here with us.

I don't want to miss this topic as well, because this conversation has been a time of addressing healthy marriages and not destructive ones. But you also write about couples. You say, "often they have heard teaching on divorce that isn't truly biblical and I walk them through what Scripture actually says, for example, to help them see that tolerating sin is sin."

Dr. Michael Sytsma: Correct.

Laura Dugger: Dr. Mike, what are other examples of what Scripture does actually have to say on this topic?

Dr. Michael Sytsma: That almost moves into a whole other podcast as we unpack some of Scripture. I think what I'm addressing there is the couples that come in, and there's a sense of demanding, a sense of "I'm owed. I deserve something. You promised something," and it is turned into a sinful degrading of the other, where we are saying, because you are doing it wrong, you are sinning, and you just need to do what I want. [00:35:55]

I tell people, pressure rarely is seductive, as opposed to, I see Christ continually inviting. You know, of anybody who had the right to demand from us, we see Him regularly inviting people around Him. And then when somebody doesn't go along, we don't see Him demanding, we don't see Him ridiculing them. We see Him like He told His disciples to do, brush the sand off your feet and move on.

It gets tricky when we move into marriage because He does challenge us to make a lifelong commitment and hold to that no matter what. And in doing so, if we make that commitment critical, we have to surrender aspects of us that are unhealthy and unholy.

But if our spouse is unwilling to surrender those and moves into doing harm, now there's already sin in the marriage. And we see things like, you know, in the Old Testament, He said, "If there's not protection, provision, and having sex, even the slave women could leave." [00:36:59]

It seems like there are some rights to marriage that He acknowledges, that if there is trauma and abuse, that is not a healthy marriage. And to demand that somebody stay a part of it, to demand that somebody do what I want because you are my spouse and you have to do it that way, that's not reflective of the heart of Christ. It's not reflective of the heart of God.

That's a bigger discussion, but I think we can argue that that is not at all scriptural marriage. Scripture gives... I see plenty of options for those couples to get out. Not that I'm giving permission to get out. My goal is to give permission for either of them to say, "This is not healthy. Stop demanding that I behave in the way that you want. Let's communicate, let's accept influence from each other. Let's lean in to find a middle balance that is Christ reflective, that is about the spirit and of the body, that is about pursuing oneness, not about demanding for self." [00:38:04]

Laura Dugger: Oh, that's good. You're making me remember, there was a listener who wrote in and had the viewpoint that she wanted to make her marriage work. And she believes God's ideal is that they were designed to be in marriage forever in covenant.

But she also wrote that after studying the scriptures, she shared how God is a God of compassionate exceptions. And she said, such as healing on the Sabbath. And that helped her recognize that God was actually leading her to separation from her abusive husband because she said, God cares more about the individual than the institution.

Dr. Michael Sytsma: Oh, you know, God's heart is always first for the person. Lots of stories, but one of my favorites is they throw this woman at Christ's feet, who's been caught in a sin where he wrote the law that says she has to be stoned. [00:39:05] You know, the irony here is just rich.

He wrote the law and they throw her at his feet and say, what should we do with her? Well, he already wrote it down for them. Then he turns and looks at them and he says, "Well, who has the right to condemn her? Who is without sin? Obviously, we all know the story. Nobody is without sin. So nobody had the right to condemn her. He's the only one that does.

His word had already said what is to happen. That is the law. But look at his response to her. His response is one that cares for her in her heart. As He looks at her and says, "I don't condemn you." And He extends profound grace to her. And then a short time later, He hangs on the cross to pay the debt of her sin. He took it upon himself.

We tend to look at somebody and say, yeah, "That sin, you can't do that. You're going to experience all kinds of punishment because you chose divorce." [00:40:05] I don't see that happening as Christ interacts with people that are caught in a life that is outside of His ideal. And many times I work with couples and I think, There is no way I would allow my child to be married to your spouse. Your wife is just way too unhealthy, too critical, too destructive. Your husband is way too abusive, way too selfish, and demanding. I would not want my child to be married to them. I cannot imagine that God who cares so deeply for a child, us, would demand that we stay into something that is destructive to us.

Now, sometimes He invites us to stay because He knows what He's going to be doing with it. And transformation is very real. And I watch couples stay longer than what I would personally choose for them and I watch God do amazing things in the marriage. You know, scripture says, Let each one know what is right before the Lord, to seek that out with fear and trembling. [00:41:11]

So I don't think there are good, hard, and fast rules. But I totally agree with you. The people are what's most important to God in the heart of grace. And His compassion for us, even when we step outside of His ideal will, is profound.

Laura Dugger: Well, you also encourage us to have a higher image of God's good gift of sex and marriage, and even say sex is a divine object lesson. So will you elaborate on this idea?

Dr. Michael Sytsma: You know, Dr. Rosenau, who, you know, had huge impact on all of us in the Christian sex field. When I started working with him 30 years ago, he would say that every scripture verse talks about sex. And I was like, yeah, you're a little over-focused there, Doug. But the more I read, the more I listen to people, the more I study, you know, I can't go as far as he did. But, you know, some of it was to push people.

God is continually revealing Himself through His creation. [00:42:10] And He desires us to know Him. And I do agree. Doug used to say, when we get to heaven, we're going to realize that God is a sexual creature. Not like we think of sex, but we'll go, Oh, I get it. That's what you're trying to teach us. That what it takes for a husband and wife to engage truly in an honoring, rich sexual intimacy, it requires the heart of God. It requires a Christlike attitude and spirit. And He regularly teaches us that over and over and over again.

My favorite example of that, I write about in chapter 10, of Him being incarnate, meaning that Christ is fully God and fully man. And if we remove any of the spirit nature of Him or any of the physical nature of Him, we have something that's warped, something that's heretical, something that's disincarnate.

I watched so many couples remove either the heart of it, the spirit of it, the care, the love, the compassion, the tenderness, the fighting for the oneness connection with each other. [00:43:15] Either they remove that or they remove the body of it. Well, I know you need it, so I'll just be a presence here. No, that's not okay. Anytime we overemphasize or deemphasize one side or the other, we do damage and it's no longer Christ-reflective.

And I think He keeps trying to teach us what it's like to be Him and what it takes to be in relationship with Him. I can say I love God, but if I don't put action to that, do I really love God? It's about both the spirit and the body. And it flows all the way through the process, right down into the techniques that we use in sex have to be incarnate, have to be both spirit and body for them to be rich. And I think He just keeps telling us over and over again, do you not get My heart yet? I keep trying to share it with you. And I love how sex does that on such a rich, profound level.

Laura Dugger: Well, Dr. Mike, you explain things so well, and I'm going to have to link to our previous episodes together. But you still have so much more you could share and teach. So where would you like to direct us all to be able to follow up after this conversation? [00:44:26]

Dr. Michael Sytsma: You know, there's two websites that people can go to. Secretsofsexandmarriage.com, the book website has a lot of resources there, including, you know, for those that experience pain, trauma, where to find additional help if they're struggling in this area. We've got articles on that website there.

That will also link over to my primary website, IntimateMarriage.org, where some of the teaching is available. They can get some of my streaming courses there. The blog posts that link to various podcasts and stuff that we've written is all on IntimateMarriage.org.

Laura Dugger: Well, perfect. I will add links to all of those places in the show notes for today's episode. And you're very familiar we're called The Savvy Sauce because "savvy" is synonymous with practical knowledge. And so as my final question for you today, Dr. Mike, what is your savvy sauce?

Dr. Michael Sytsma: I would go all the way back to the beginning of that seduction. And if I could give one key ingredient to that sauce, it would be, stay curious. [00:45:29] Curiosity, you know, we did an entire chapter on it. Curiosity is so profound in its ability to change and to help couples to communicate well. So in being seductive, if they can work on being curious about each other rather than demanding or critical of, it really adds rich flavor.

Laura Dugger: I love that. Dr. Mike, I'm so grateful. I've known you for well over a decade now, and I've been able to witness you lead and teach with humility. And your humility is even apparent from the intro of this debut book of yours. And it was, again, apparent throughout our conversation today. So thank you for handling this topic with care and in a posture that exudes the fruit of the spirit. Thank you very much for being my guest.

Dr. Michael Sytsma: You're so very kind. I love what you're doing. Always happy to be a part. You're a really good interviewer too, Laura. [00:46:29]

Laura Dugger: Aw, thank you. That means so much.

One more thing before you go. Have you heard the term "gospel" before? It simply means good news. And I want to share the best news with you. But it starts with the bad news. Every single one of us were born sinners, but Christ desires to rescue us from our sin, which is something we cannot do for ourselves.

This means there is absolutely no chance we can make it to heaven on our own. So, for you and for me, it means we deserve death and we can never pay back the sacrifice we owe to be saved. We need a Savior.

But God loved us so much, He made a way for His only Son to willingly die in our place as the perfect substitute. This gives us hope of life forever in right relationship with Him. That is good news.

Jesus lived the perfect life we could never live and died in our place for our sin. [00:47:31] This was God's plan to make a way to reconcile with us so that God can look at us and see Jesus. We can be covered and justified through the work Jesus finished if we choose to receive what He has done for us.

Romans 10:9 says that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.

So would you pray with me now? Heavenly Father, thank You for sending Jesus to take our place. I pray someone today right now is touched and chooses to turn their life over to You. Will You clearly guide them and help them take their next step in faith to declare You as Lord of their life? We trust You to work and change lives now for eternity. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

If you prayed that prayer, you are declaring Him for me, so me for Him. You get the opportunity to live your life for Him. [00:48:31]

And at this podcast, we're called The Savvy Sauce for a reason. We want to give you practical tools to implement the knowledge you have learned. So you ready to get started?

First, tell someone. Say it out loud. Get a Bible. The first day I made this decision, my parents took me to Barnes & Noble and let me choose my own Bible. I selected the Quest NIV Bible, and I love it. You can start by reading the Book of John.

Also, get connected locally, which just means tell someone who's a part of a church in your community that you made a decision to follow Christ. I'm assuming they will be thrilled to talk with you about further steps, such as going to church and getting connected to other believers to encourage you.

We want to celebrate with you too, so feel free to leave a comment for us here if you did make a decision to follow Christ. We also have show notes included where you can read Scripture that describes this process.

Finally, be encouraged. Luke 15:10 says, "In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." [00:49:34] The heavens are praising with you for your decision today.

If you've already received this good news, I pray that you have someone else to share it with today. You are loved and I look forward to meeting you here next time.

Welcome to The Savvy Sauce

Practical chats for intentional living

A faith-based podcast and resources to help you grow closer to Jesus and others. Expect encouragement, surprises, and hope here. Each episode offers lively interviews with fascinating guests such as therapists, authors, non-profit founders, and business leaders.

They share their best practices and savvy tips we can replicate to make our daily life and relationships more enjoyable!