Ejaculation

I am fully licensed for orgasm. I am faithfully, legally and heterosexually married and within the constraints of my wife’s consent, I am free to ejaculate at will with no guilt and no shame. What a privilege.  

I enjoy sexual climax. It is a great feeling. The aftermath is bliss. I can understand why people want this. I have been enjoying it for over 35 years. In addition to great pleasure it has brought me good children, children who now enjoy it to bring me grandchildren. 

Thanks be to God! It is good.

So I get it when people have sexual desire that is not requitable in the way mine is. I feel sorry for them. I can’t imagine their pain of desiring something they cannot have without a measure of psychic pain and guilt. Guilt and pleasure are not a good combination. I have relatives who undoubtedly had to give up intimate relations on the illness or disability of their spouse. It is difficult to contemplate that possibility. In some cases, I know that there were emotional issues as the capable spouse came to terms with the disability of the spouse--especially those who experienced the disability relatively early in their marriages. 

I see a lot of other members of the church, fully licensed for orgasm, mourning the sacrifice required of their single brothers and sisters who have been asked to forgo sexual pleasure. They express sympathy and solidarity in ways that frequently appear to be a rebellion against God’s requirements and defiance of His servants. Others express no sympathy at all. They are happy for their license. That’s just their blessing and the other’s tough luck. Their sexual pleasure is the just reward for the child rearing and fidelity.

Ouch!

Perhaps many of us have a wrong view of sexual climax. Maybe it isn’t the high sacrament of marital union that has been claimed for it[1]. Maybe in some ways, even within marriage, it could be a barrier to intimacy, with our spouse and with God. 

There is no doubt of its necessity. No children would be born without male orgasm with its accompanying ejaculation. But how many ejaculations are required to conceive a family? Two or three or more a week for 40-50 years? Is erotic bliss the fair wage for staying faithfully married? Perhaps there is a higher way, a richer purpose in our pleasurable response to sexual stimulation that can actually lead us closer to God and to our spouses. Perhaps this higher way could stand as a beacon to the single members of the church to bless them with a higher example of continence and self control.

What if the men of the church consecrated their orgasms to conception? 

“Outrageous!” one may exclaim. Perhaps. It certainly cannot be promulgated as doctrine. The scriptures say the marriage bed is honorable in all (Heb. 13:4). But Christ taught that there are some marriage doctrines that cannot be received by all (Matt. 19:11-12). He spoke of men who make themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of God’s sake. I don’t think he meant men who mutilate themselves. I don’t think that he meant going childless. After all, the kingdom is built and sustained through families. But might he have meant that there is a heaven building effect that can happen when we willingly forgo what we can lawfully enjoy? The Apostle Paul taught that there may be times for abstinence and fasting and prayer (1 Cor. 7:5). 

Forgoing orgasm is not an ascetic discipline to save oneself. There are no ascetic disciplines that save us (Col. 2:18-23). It is not some Eastern trick for personal transcendence or enlightenment. Its not a debauched exercise to develop prowess. Just as the fast is a discipline to teach us to relieve the poor (Isa. 58:6-9), abstaining from orgasms might be a way we can relieve the burdens of chastity and celibacy that we expect of the unmarried. It may better prepare us to minister to youth who are discovering their sexual urges and helping them learn to deal with them in godly ways. A wise philosopher describes the celibate as living witnesses that there is no sexual fatalism that would require people to satisfy drives in an animal manner[2]. His focus is the fully celibate but it may be even more challenging for married couples to live intimately without sexual climax as a witness to the ability to procreate without satisfying all the urges of the body.

For many this may be merely an ideal to inform their intimacy. If so, it should inform it in a positive way and without guilt. This is a discipline of good, better, and best. All such disciplines are practiced in full liberty. Necessity and guilt never rule them. This may be a discipline that comes with time and mutual devotion. I direct this mainly to men. I don’t have an authentic viewpoint on female sexual pleasure to extend it to women. If a woman and her husband agree then let them understand this for themselves. It may come sooner for one partner than the other. You notice that at no point did I suggest that couples give up sexual intimacy altogether[3]. But if it is to be practiced, husband and wife must define and agree on the metes and bounds of the discipline of intimacy. Is it always orgasm or can it be experienced without?

No one would stand up in any forum and announce this as an intention or even as a practice. This is a discipline that should be exercised within the sanctity of marriage. It is no more spoken of than we would speak of fasting or any other spiritual discipline and perhaps even less. There is no extending the fringes of our garments. There is no increased virtue available to extol. It remains undisclosed. 

Instead this inward discipline will radiate outwards in an unspoken integrity that will bless the children of a marriage, the youth of the church and the single who are striving for true chastity. It has the potential to bless us as resistance-free conduits to amplify the grace we magnify in our bodies.[4]

In no event should a man or woman put his or her marriage, chastity, or obedience at risk to practice this discipline. The fullness of such discipline may never be realized during the years of a couple’s full potency and normal adult desire. Each must prayerfully plan their path to realizing the measure of this discipline that they desire. For many it will be sexual intercourse without climax except for conception. In time the actual intercourse may be replaced with embraces and affectionate gestures. No couple should use this discipline as a measure to avoid childbearing altogether. 

Many may have questions about this. You must find your own answers exercising faith and seeking revelation. This is an area of spiritual practice that does not need new rules and new guidance from church leaders. There is no one answer and no one discipline. You must practice all spiritual disciplines without increasing the bounds of necessity. 

---

[1] Of Souls, Symbols and Sacraments Jeffrey R. Holland 1989 I possibly stretch his point a little here but I have heard people reflect his talk in this way. I do believe that there is a power in intimacy but I don’t necessarily believe that orgasm is an “every time”   requirement. 

[2] Fabrice Hadjadj Sexuality as Transcendence in Ethika Politika April 14, 2015

[3] The book Cupid’s Poisoned Arrow: From Habit to Harmony in Sexual Relationships Marnia Robinson, Douglas Wile informs some of my ideas but the book is decidedly secular and materialist in its tone. This book is based on ideas promulgated by Alice Stockham a 19^th century writer who coined the term karezza.

[4] Hebrews 13:3 enjoins us to remember those in bonds as though bound with them. Many are bound by obedience to forgo sexual pleasure. This is a discipline of remembrance.