The Gift of Sex- A Guide to Sexual Fulfillment

Answer

The Gift of Sex- A Guide to Sexual Fulfillment

 A critical analysis of the book by Penner and Penner (2003) reveals that the text is suitable for persons who intend to marry, the newly married ones, and those who have been married for years.  Clifford and Penner contend that sex is a gift from God and should be treated with the utmost respect. According to these authors, people should dispel the necessary information surrounding sex that is not biblically oriented. They listed sources of information including family, society, and school and claimed that these sources only confuse people on issues related to sex. This paper offers a critique of the book The Gift of Sex: A Guide to Sexual Fulfillment based on this background information.

The Physical Dimension

Marriage entails uniting two souls to a single entity that functions as a unit. Besides, married people are considered a single flesh joined together through sexual intercourse (Harvey, 2016). It explains the reason behind Christian’s view that sex is only meant for couples. Besides, through physical dimension, married couples tend to behave, think, act or even look alike after years of staying together. Clifford and Joy Penner purport that the physical dimension is reinforced and catalyzed by the sex indulgence by the couples (Horrocks, 2017).

The notion of physical dimension has been a great controversy among scientists and theologians because they have never conceptualized how couples interpenetrate each other’s independent lives to become one body and flesh (Penner & Penner, 2003). Therefore, Clifford and Joy Penner could have succeeded in unraveling the mystery by arguing that sexual intercourse and intimacy among couples play a pivotal role in creating physical dimensions among married individuals. Therefore, couples tend to form a special bond between them after spending years together, making them one heart, spirit, and mind (Harvey, 2016).

In their book, Clifford and Joy Penner identified three factors that influence the behaviors of human beings. These factors include childhood encounters, verbal feedback associated with a significant individual, and comparison of one’s self with others (Penner & Penner, 2003). Based on these factors, the authors argued that the positive experiences of couples tend to complement one another resulting in the development of physical dimensions that unite them into a single flesh (Penner & Penner, 2003). Moreover, the authors posited that sex plays a vital role in creating physical dimensions. They claim that humans are sexually right from the time of birth. They also highlighted four phases linked to human sexual intercourse. The first phase according to Penner and Penner (2003) encompasses the excitement stage associated with arousal, followed by the plateau phase, where the couples indulge in penetration.  Other phases include the orgasmic phase, where couples experience intense pleasure within a very short time, as well as, the resolution phase, where the couple’s loss tension and the body return to a normal state (Penner & Penner, 2003).

Despite attempts made by Clifford and Joy to link physical dimension with sex, their arguments are quite unconvincing. Arguably, sex alone cannot play a major role in making couples become one flesh, spirit, and body (Cosby, 2014). As a fact, many factors come into play when it comes to family dynamics. Moreover, their claim of linking physical dimension with sexuality lacks scientific backing and this makes it less authentic. One aspect to keep in mind is that the physical dimension is a complex phenomenon that expands beyond sexuality and sexual fulfillment (Penner & Penner, 2003). Besides, it has been established that friendship without any sexuality can achieve similar success as that purported by Clifford and Joy Penner witnessed regarding physical dimension (Harvey, 2016). Therefore, Clifford and Joy Penner have failed to provide credible evidence to support their claim that sexuality can help develop physical dimensions among couples.

Total Experience

Couples use different modes of communication in intimate relationships. However, out of these modes, touch remains essential (Pedersen, 2013). Several relationships either get destroyed or built based on physical touch. Touch as a mode of communication is felt rather than heard. Similarly, love and affection in a relationship are mostly felt and normally gauged from feelings derived from the partner's reaction. Therefore, it can be argued that touch is a powerful communication tool among the married couples. Furthermore, the idea of touch as a powerful communication tool is also supported by Clifford and Joy Penner in their book (Penner & Penner, 2003).

Clifford and Penner argued that touch is like a love language that couples can reap intimate benefits without many expectations.  Further, they purported that couples who use touch as a means of communication tend to have healthier relationships (Penner & Penner, 2003). Moreover, sex among married people starts from a simple touch then transcends to a more complicated and intense act. Therefore, according to the authors, touches improve communication among couples and make sexual intercourse among couples both better and more intense (Penner & Penner, 2003). This implies that couples explore different modes of communication at all times, including touch as a way of improving their sexuality and communication (Mbuwayesango, 2015). Consequently, it is recommended that couples spend more time together and engage in open and healthy communication while exploring different communication modes. Simultaneously, Clifford and Joy Penner stressed the need for couples to spend more time together with very little interruption as one of the ways of building total experience between themselves. The authors believe that couples who spend more time together tend to improve their sexuality (Penner & Penner, 2003).

 Similarly, the authors purported that the more time the couples spend together, the more they develop connections because they enhance the total experiences needed for healthy sexuality (Penner & Penner, 2003). Additionally, couples need to have proper listening skills and be ready to accommodate different faults associated with their partners. It implies that good communication skills that include delivering and acquiring the message are important for a marriage's fruitful relationship. Moreover, couples that have better communication skills always experience better sexuality (Harvey, 2016).

Just like the case of the church, God created humans with the ability to experience pleasure. However, it is difficult for couples to experience sexual pleasure without proper communication between them. Therefore, Clifford and Penner recommended that couples should communicate with their spouses on their likes and dislikes as far as sex is concerned (Penner & Penner, 2003). The authors revealed that marriage partners could only identify the likes and dislikes of their partners only if they feel free and communicate them to their spouses. Therefore, sexual pleasure can only be achieved if the partners are aware of the sexual experiences and the likes and dislikes of the partner (Mbuwayesango, 2015).

Clifford and Penner have also emphasized the need of the husband to understand the wife’s invitation and desire for penetration. They identified that timing the penetration point is one of the most important stages of engaging in a pleasurable sexual encounter (Penner & Penner, 2003). Furthermore, the sole responsibility of the husband should be to understand the signals depicted by wife in order to know the point when the wife is ready for penetration during sexual intercourse (Cosby, 2014). This means that any wrong timing that the husband makes during sexual intercourse makes the sexual experience less pleasurable. Similarly, the husband should desist from forceful penetration during sexual intercourse (Harvey, 2016). As a fact, he should be able to understand when the wife is ready before engaging in sexual intercourse or wait to be invited by the wife. Clifford and Penner claim that sex is a God-given gift that should be enjoyed by both parties (Penner & Penner, 2003). They linked sexual intercourse with the church by citing Ephesian 5, where Jesus claims that the church should first invite him as opposed to attempting to gain forceful entry (Pedersen, 2013).

Essentially, the claim postulated by Clifford and Penner that sexual experience is needed for the couples to realize a pleasurable and fulfilling sexual experience is impractical.  Undoubtedly, couples cannot experience sexual pleasure every time they engage in sexual intercourse. Even with the right timing, women’s sexual pleasure is dynamic and keeps on changing. One factor about women's sexuality is that they are chemical rather than physical. Besides, men and women experience orgasms differently. Men orgasmic response being external is quite obvious to detect. However, women's orgasmic response is internal and thus cannot be detected or achieved easily.  Therefore, even with proper communication and touch, a woman can still fail to enjoy sex (Harvey, 2016). This implies that various aspects come into play that should be considered by communication and the right timing.

 Clifford and Penner only based sexual pleasure on women by claiming that it is the responsibility of a man to know the right time to penetrate the woman (Cosby, 2014). However, this might not work every time because for a pleasurable sexual experience to take place, every partner should communicate his or her needs clearly and openly (Penner & Penner, 2003). Therefore, man should have the responsibility of ensuring his pleasurable sexual experience and that of a woman as well. Clearly, from this argument, it is evident that Clifford and Penner failed to acknowledge the important role that women play in ensuring that sexual encounter is pleasurable and memorable (Penner & Penner, 2003).

When Sex Is Not Working

According to Clifford and Penner, sex in marriage was meant to fulfill, spice, and delight marriage. However, most couples have claimed that it is not the case currently (Penner & Penner, 2003). The reasoning is that experiencing sexual pleasure every time engage in sexual intercourse is nearly impossible since very many aspects come into play. Besides, couples tend to be misinformed with many ideas of sex that are available in the media and social places that negatively affect sexual experience (Mbuwayesango, 2015). Moreover, unrealistic expectations of sex by the partner, especially the newly married couples, can play a pivotal role in making sexual encounters less effective (Gil, 2010). Therefore, for a sexual encounter to work for the couples, they should understand the need of each partner such as the physical responses, and accept each other’s flaws without victimizing one another.

Moreover, couples can experience quilt that can negatively influence their sexual life. Clifford and Penner identified two types of guilt that normally influence couples’ sexual life real guilt and false guilt (Penner & Penner, 2003). False guilt occurs when one partner has been misinformed concerning the Christian approach to sex (Gil, 2010). Notably, some Christians view sex as sinful, and they tend to avoid it at all costs. Therefore, they tend to extend the same guilt to the marriage life, which negatively affects their marriage (Gil, 2010). It explains why a partner can detest from engaging in sex even after being married because they view it as a sinful event. Similarly, real guilt happens when a partner knowingly violates cardinal rules that govern marriage life (Gil, 2010). In most cases, this type of guilt happens when one of the partners engages in either extramarital sex or sex before marriage. Therefore, the concerned partner will develop a sense of self unworthiness because of letting the partner down. Besides, it is sinful for Christians to engage in premarital sex or extramarital sex (Cosby, 2014). Therefore, any couple with a history of either extramarital or premarital sex can develop real guilt that negatively influences their marital life (Harvey, 2016).

Apart from engaging in sinful sexual encounters, another aspect that can make sex fail in marriage is anger (Harvey, 2016). People are social beings that tend to associate with each other all the time. Besides, most of the people have dark pasts that did not go well. Therefore, one source of anger that can negatively affect marital sex is a past relationship that did not go as planned. Clifford and Penner purport that past relationships will always come back to haunt couples, especially when the relationship failed to live as expected (Penner & Penner, 2003). Some of the partners may have been sexually abused by the ex-partner or mishandled (Cosby, 2014). Therefore, the affected partner can curry the anger from the past to their marriage that can negatively affect their sex life.

Lack of self-worth by any of the partners can make sex fail to work in marriage (Harvey, 2016). This can result from any of the partners developing a feeling of being unattractive because of their physical appearance. One aspect of sex is that physical appearance matters a lot in developing a sense of worthiness. Therefore, anyone who develops a sense of unworthiness because of their physical appearance always becomes mentally and emotionally affected. It means that such individuals will have marital problems when it comes to sexuality. Consequently, such individuals will tend to experience problems regarding sexuality (Pedersen, 2013). Clifford and Penner were right in recommending professional help for such individuals.

Enhancing Sexual Experience

Clifford and Penner claim that every couple has the right to enjoy sex. They further asserted that the only way to enhance sexual experience is to invite God into their sexual endeavors (Penner & Penner, 2003). They contend that sex is not only for pleasure but also for procreation. Therefore, inviting God to the bedroom matters is a sure way of enhancing sexual experience in marriage. These authors further posited that building intimacy and passion through a positive relationship with themselves and God is an important step in ensuring a memorable sexual experience (Cosby, 2014). On the same note, couples should not only engage in sex for the sake of it but should find purpose and reason for engaging in sex (Penner & Penner, 2003). Sexual intercourse, for the sake of it, only makes it an uneventful and boring venture. Besides, couples should make the bedroom their sacred place where they only accept God's presence (Penner & Penner, 2003). Any destructive aspect that can negatively affect their sexual experience should at all-time be kept outside their bedroom. It means that the couples should find an alternative place to discuss their issues, particularly those about sexual problems other than the bedroom. Clifford and Penner recommended professional help for individuals facing sexual problems in their marriage (Penner & Penner, 2003).

In conclusion, Clifford and Penner have clearly stated that sex is a wonderful thing that God gifted humans. Therefore, every spouse has the right to experience sexual fulfillment. However, sexual fulfillment cannot be achieved without the presence of God. Moreover, the authors have reminded us that sex is a source of pleasure and procreation where God pass His role of being a creator to humans. Therefore, humans should accord sex the respect it deserves. The authors identified physical dimension, total experience, when sex is not working, and enhancing sexual experience to act as a guide to help people experience sexual fulfillment. However, it can be argued that not every aspect as covered in the book is effective in ensuring sexual fulfillment among couples.