The Day My Kid Took My Vibrator to Preschool
And other true stories
I have hesitated to write this post for one simple reason. Not because I am embarrassed. Not because I am nervous to talk about sex toys. Not because I have shame lurking around my bedroom.
I have hesitated to write this post for one simple reason. I am a pastor. And I am picturing my congregants’ faces reading this, as they lovingly roll their eyes at me always oversharing. I can see them laughing. “Geez, Pastor Kelly. TMI!” Too much information? Maybe. Necessary to talk about? In my humble and pastoral opinion, Absolutely.
Sexual dissatisfaction is an epidemic plaguing Christian marriages and I am here to address it.
I have interacted with many Christians, men and women, over the years who have expressed sexual dissatisfaction.
Sexual dissatisfaction is not just a problem for men.
Sexual dissatisfaction is not just about the frequency of sex.
Sexual dissatisfaction is not (always) that partners are unwilling to try new things.
Sexual dissatisfaction is never only about sex.
People who experience sexual dissatisfaction instead, have at least one additional factor that is also true:
They never learned to listen to their bodies so they never learned what they like sexually. This is mostly true of women but can also apply to men. After 10, 15, 20, or 30 years of existing as a body to please someone else, they get tired of this and finally admit it.
They have shame around the experience of sexual pleasure so they cannot allow themselves to truly experience it. This is especially true for people raised in purity culture.
They have unprocessed trauma and that prevents them from being present in their sexual experiences.
They have lying beliefs, oftentimes from purity culture, permeating their imagination about what it means to be a “good wife” or a “good husband” and so they do not communicate what they want or need. “I can’t make him feel like less than a man” kind of garbage.
These four things I have listed above are not only about sex.
They are about issues of the soul…. embodiment, shame, trauma, and the deconstruction of entire belief systems.
Sexual issues can gently expose these soul issues.
I am writing a whole book that makes the case for the integration between body and soul. In short, our sexual dissatisfaction can be inviting us to attend to a soul dissatisfaction.
So hear me gently and pastorally whisper to you: if you are dissatisfied with your sex life, maybe it’s not just about the sex.
Now, to my vibrator story.
After I had my third baby, all my hormones went crazy out of whack. I felt like a foreigner in my own body. Sex began to feel like a chore. In my early marriage, I came blazing out of purity culture so I was not about to go back to that nonsense. My husband and I had pretty good communication in sex up to this point. But now, what I previously enjoyed in sex, I no longer enjoyed. To be honest, I didn’t know what I enjoyed now. Maybe my body was ruined forever because of the pregnancies, breastfeeding, and the C-section. I reached out to a Christian friend/mentor a few years down the road ahead of me and I told her all about the struggles I was having. She told me two things I will never forget.
1. “Talk to your husband. He loves you. He wants to know how you are feeling. He wants to please you.”
2. “Get a vibrator. It is unlikely, at your age and stage (and based on what you are telling me) that you are going to orgasm through intercourse alone. Try this and this and this, (and she gave me specific instructions).”
I left that conversation and did both of those things. And they worked great. Like a charm! It also opened up new lines of communication in our marriage, which we have continued to this day.
One day, many years ago, I couldn’t find the vibrator that I usually keep tucked away inside my bedside table. I didn’t think much of it until I was going through my kid’s backpack getting his water bottle out to refill it and I found it. I was mortified! I figured he thought it was a toy and took it for show and tell! I am sure that the preschool teacher is still talking about the time that kid brought the vibrator to school. We still laugh about this story to this day.
If you are struggling with sexual dissatisfaction try this:
1. Reach out to a trusted friend or mentor and tell them your story. about my sexual dissatisfaction.
2. Investigate issues related to embodiment, lying beliefs of purity culture, shame or pleasure.
3. Seek professional guidance. Call a therapist, pastor, or spiritual director.
4. Embrace that you are a work in progress!
Addressing sexual dissatisfaction, (whether seasonal or ever-present), within marriage is a wholistic, comprehensive, lifelong work to be done in a community with safe people.
Do you have other tips?
You’re right that sexual problems are rarely about sex! And “low libido” is rarely the problem too. What you call “lying beliefs” from purity culture is what I call the myths of purity culture, which I cover in my book, Recovering from Purity culture. I think you’d like it!
This is amazing Kelly! You're absolutely right about sexual dissatisfaction never being only about sex. We also find it helpful to ask folks what sexual satisfaction might involve. It's really common, both inside and outside of sexual health, to observe and name the problems within sexuality. But that reinforces the taboo around sexuality. Thanks for sharing your story and the feedback your friend shared.
Also, Julia and I are bracing ourselves for a story like this from the teachers of our future children, who will be *lucky* to have two sex therapists as parents.