This took a while--but TB does it all for you, Burner readers.
After all the brouhaha, hubbub and hullabaloo of Real Marriage, it’s nice to read a nice book.
What? No crazy quotes to pull out?
It’s telling that the only boldface sentence in the book is “Everyone needs to know the truth behind God’s design for sex.”
Pastor Ed Young and his wife, Lisa, haven’t exactly been the kind of demure, private kind of ministerial couple that would write a “nice” marriage book. You could watch them last Friday on the roof of the church in a bed for 24 hours. That’s new. (BTW, The Burner’s money is it’s $15k Hypnos mattress under there. It seems the Youngs could afford it.) Kudos to them for taking on a subject that’s important for husbands and wives and giving it the attention they feel it deserves.
The book is full of nice, kind-of-cheesy plays on words: sucessexful, sexcellence, sexcuses, Lust Vegas, HNL (‘hole ‘nutha level), shun gun, and the section of each chapter called “The Yoke is not a Joke.” Witty the book is not. But it’s nice, friendly, easy-to-read book.
Basically, here is a mathematic equation of what the book recommends:
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Lasting Intimacy with Your Spouse.
No new ground broken here. It’s all been in the Bible for a while.
Knowing it and doing it are two different things, and at least the book gives an impetus to married couples to attempt to improve their bedroom life. Sex is important, sex is fun, the Church doesn’t talk a lot about a healthy sexual relationship between husband and wife, so taking the time to concentrate on having sex in the way that God intended can’t have any downsides, can it?
Well…
For all the talk in the book about how important, how fun, how wonderful sex is, sex can be really…difficult, draining, intimidating, infuriating and sometimes even debilitating depending on each spouse’s sexual experience, preference and proclivity. This is at least mentioned several times in the book, so the Youngs have considered it. But if there is a history of abuse, promiscuity, self-esteem issues, past grudges or hurts, or pornography use, then just getting in the bed and getting busy may not be the best idea.
This brings up the biggest critique in the book: What exactly are couples supposed to actually do every night for seven days? The book doesn’t really say:
This book is about sex, but not about sex techniques. It’s not a manual. This book is about understanding sex the way it is intended by God to be…The Sexperiment is about what sex is and what it isn’t. It’s about making a priority and about making love. By making sex a priority for seven days, it will challenge you to communicate about technique with your spouse and bring creativity into the bedroom. (9)
The biggest assumption is that every spouse knows the what, when, where, and how of lovemaking. Even after several years of marriage, baggage from living life can feel insurmountable in the face of seven days of sex.
Especially if the expectation of the completion of the the Seven Days of the Ardor (ba dum bum) is “life-changing” or really great ping pong as the Youngs promise.
Sex–even among spouses who love each other–is a lot bigger than something fun that needs to be done frequently while being openly communicative with each other. It’s simple, but it’s not as easy as the Youngs cheerily make it sound.
The Burner doesn’t know for sure. Who wants to try it out and report back?
A copy of this book was provided for review.
