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I’ve been engaged in an on going discussion about marriage, faith, sexuality, and the use of financial terminology when it comes to relationships. Some of that conversation is here in my thread called, “Earning Rights in Marriage.”

Night Wind helped to shed some more light on the issue in a post called, The Red Pills and Sexual Politics. Hat tip for the excellent photo too, Valentino, I believe. Quite charming.

First let me say, I do NOT subscribe to the red pill concepts of sexual market place and value and other assorted foolishness around assigning financial value, scoring,  to people and relationships. In fact, I find that somewhat repulsive and superficial. I think it soon leads to assigning monetary worth and value to human beings, based on their cost effectiveness and productivity ratios. It is the complete opposite of what I perceive Christian values to be, which designate all humans beings as having been created in His image, and turning human hierarchies on their head, declaring the last shall go first, blessed be the meek, and what you do for the least of these you do for me.

It’s a shame that in the Western world we have been so inundated with prosperity ministers that the moment you use certain terminology to denote spiritual matters, people relate it to money. So “prosper, redeemed, ransomed, indebted,” these words are all quickly translated and reduced to literal financial terms. As far as I know when Jesus Christ ransomed me on the cross it was far more than a simple economic exchange. We aren’t speaking of simply writing a check here.

That’s kind of how I perceive relationships and marriage, too. Forget the financial aspects, “debts” are about commitment, “owing” someone is about having a responsibility towards them.

Many people remain unconvinced, in fact OkRickety still objects in a comment on my thread in which he says, “Christian men do not object to the idea of loving their wives, but strongly object to the notion of earning sex (or owing anything to their wife to get sex) as unscriptural.”

With all good humor, I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to just double down here. If “Christian men” do strongly object to notion of “earning sex (or owing anything to their wife to get sex) as unscriptural,” then Christian men be flat out wrong. There is not only natural law at play here, but there is also basic biology, and healthy human sexuality.

You flat out owe your wife a healthy, romantic, sex life that she desires and enjoys as much as you do.  You owe her that. 

Now, human relationships are complex, women can be emotionally damaged, sexuality can be a charged issue, there can be physical and psychological issues going on, all things that must be sorted out. I am not assigning blame here or saying that it is easy, just that the attitude must be right, that surely it must include the idea that you actually owe your wife a healthy, romantic, sex life.

So when Dr. Albert Mohler, President of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary,  specifically says,  “Consider the fact that a woman has every right to expect that her husband will earn access to the marriage bed.… Therefore, when I say that a husband must regularly “earn” privileged access to the marital bed, I mean that a husband owes his wife the confidence, affection and emotional support that would lead her to freely give herself to her husband in the act of sex,” and Christian men actually object to that idea, it’s enough to make me wail in despair.

In order to truly love your wife, you simply have to lead her to freely give herself to her husband in the act of sex. To believe that that is somehow not your responsibility, not your job, you don’t owe her that, is just unthinkable to me.