“Paul teaches that those who are not married and who have sexual needs must exercise self-control and refrain from fornication. But he knows this is hard, very hard, and so urges those who burn to marry.”

I don’t understand all men. I understand few women. (OK, maybe none.) My understanding of psychologists? “And I perceived that this also is but a striving after wind.”

Recently I came across a Christian psychologist’s Blog addressing the question: “Do men need sex?” My response to the question was, “Du-u-h!” But the psychologist disagrees. The full title of his Blog post is: “Do men need sex? Wants vs. needs and the making of weak men”.

To be fair to our psychologist he wrote out of concern about some of the Duggar craziness that urges wives to be sexually available to their husbands pretty much any time the husband expresses interest. Men need sex really bad. Women have a duty to meet meet the need.

He believes that the “Duggar view” has a wrong assumption:

That advice, in my opinion, makes men out to need sex to such a degree that the lack of it will lead to bad things like porn and adultery. Sex is treated as the glue that holds fragile men in the marriage and the lack of it kills the marriage because men can’t function without it.

With the Duggars and others of their ilk as a foil the psychologist labors to establish the thesis that sex is not a need but a want. He seems to confine the category of need to things you will die without – like water. So…

It seems that some have  bought into this little formula: SEXUAL DESIRE = NEED. UNMET NEED = DANGER that will lead to  temptation, straying, or some such pathology.

What is the root of this wrong understanding of sex?

I think our troubles begin this way: We often baptize desires as needs, expect needs to be fulfilled, are angry when they are not, make demands of others to fulfill our wants and excuse ourselves when we use illicit means to get what we want (either by outright force, manipulation, or secrecy).

What alternative does he propose?

Consider for a minute how we might respond to these two different equations:

Sex as basic need + unmet need = ???
Sex as powerful want + unmet want = ???

How would you conclude these two equations? The first is more likely to focus on ensuring the spouse is not selfishly withholding such a basic need. The second is more likely to be concluded by addressing the one who has the want and how they plan to address that want.

Eventually he appeals to spiritual reasons:

Maybe this is a more accurate equation: Sex as a powerful want + partially unmet wants + brokenness (bodies, relationships, desires) = grief over losses + opportunity to rely on Holy Spirit + pursuit of loving our spouses more than ourselves. This equation better acknowledges wants, sadness the happens when wants are not met, the reality of broken wants and broken bodies but also points to a better goal of reliance on God and the focus of love more than getting something.

The conclusion of the matter:

It is painful to have unmet wants/desires. Those desires do not have to be wrong (though we are never fully right either). But our wants are always given to God and made secondary to our command to love the other well. Yes, part of loving the other may be talking about desires and hurts. But surely let us get rid of the idea that failing to have sex leaves men or women in some greater danger than those who have sex as much as they want.

The psychologist’s concern about the Duggars is well-founded. He is right that marriage and sex within marriage does not inoculate people against sexual sins. Those, especially men, who think lust will be destroyed by having a marriage partner are in for disillusionment. He is right to point out the priority of love and concern for the other which will require self-discipline. But his attempt to distinguish desire from need seems forced and, as we will see, his view is in conflict with St. Paul.

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