I Plan on Objectifying my Wife. You Can’t Stop Me!
I recently wrote a Covenant Eyes article “What Christian Culture Has Gotten Wrong About Sexual Purity.” In it, I wrote:
Satan’s definition of sex is that it’s all about body parts and it’s all about consuming another person to satisfy myself. It breaks my heart how the Christian subculture has blindly accepted this definition when God has something so much deeper and truer for us.
In the comment section, some of what I wrote was met with confusion, which I hope to help clear up here. One commenter wrote:
As far as I am concerned, I plan on objectifying my wife until death do us part. And nobody on this blog or any other is going to make me feel one speck of guilt about it.
While not very helpful for interactive dialogue, it shows the anger and confusion some husbands feel about this subject. A more helpful question was posed by another commenter:
What is the difference between lusting after my wife and desiring her sexually or being turned on by her? Are all three the same? If I wasn’t turned on by her body, why would we have sex? What would cause me to become aroused and pursue sex with her?
These comments show the need to differentiate between objectification and attraction. Before I jump into that, I thought a comment from a wife on the same thread was incredibly helpful:
No woman, including your wife, is here on this earth to be an object to you. Many women tell me that their husbands use them for sex, and they know it. Their husbands aren’t emotionally invested in the relationship, don’t really care if their wife is interested in sex or not, apply pressure for sex, etc. This is using a woman for lust or objectification, rather than desiring her as a person.
The Difference Between Lust and Attraction
There are really three terms at play here: lust, objectification, and attraction. The Greek word used for “lust” in Matthew 5:28–”But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart”–means to desire. It’s translated elsewhere in the New Testament as longing, desire, covet, and want in any number of contexts including desiring food, death, and the Kingdom of God itself. Jesus is saying that lust is when a man looks at a woman who is not his wife with the desire to be with her sexually.
Lust and attraction are two different things. Attraction is when you think someone is pretty. It does not mean you are picturing them sexually or seeing yourself being in a sexual situation with them. A lot of Christians beat themselves up because they think a man or woman is attractive, even though they are not desiring to have sex with them or thinking about them in a sexually explicit way.
Related: How to Explain Lust to Your Children
You can be sexually attracted to someone without lusting over them. You lust when you take your natural sexual attraction to the next level of consciously entertaining and holding onto that thought. Savoring it or playing it over and over again in your mind. Picturing yourself with that person sexually. This is different than noticing someone as being attractive.
Where Does Objectification Fit In
Now, objectification. Objectification is when we take a human being and treat them like they are an object. This can happen in a workplace when a boss or owner doesn’t treat his or her employees with respect as dignified human beings. If the employees are a means to an end and are treated as such, they are no longer being treated as humans.
Slavery is the utmost example of objectification, but anyone with a boss who only cared about what they produced has also been objectified.
Objectification can happen in sports when we only care about the score or statistics and shout demeaning insults at players when they mess up. Coaches can objectify their players, just as military officers can objectify the privates at the bottom of the chain of command.
The point is: nobody likes to be treated as subhuman and we all know it is wrong when it is happening to us.
Related: License to Lust–How Porn Trains Objectification
How Objectification and Lust Relate
Lust and objectification are related but aren’t identical. Objectification is a mindset that is always present when lust is present, but objectification can also be present within a marriage, while lust cannot be.
Objectification is when we turn a person into a collection of body parts, which are objects. Forgive me for the gross example, but if you removed your hand and set it next to you on your desk, that hand would be an object. It is not you.
People are not collections of body parts, they are people.
Think of it like a six-string guitar. For a guitar to create the music it was made for, it must have all six strings attached and working. If you took off five of the strings and only had one remaining, you can strum that one string over and over again, but you wouldn’t be playing the guitar. You’d be creating noise, but not music. This is what our culture has done with sex.
Imagine each string of the guitar represents one of the essential ingredients of a God-designed marriage. There are several categories we could use here, but let’s name our strings Trust, Commitment, Loyalty, Sex, Respect, and Humility. When you play all six strings, you get the sound of love, God-designed love, which is only found in marriage.
What our culture has done is removed the five strings of Trust, Commitment, Loyalty, Respect, and Humility and claims that love can be “made” with the playing of only one string, Sex.
Can a Husband Objectify His Wife?
So while a husband can’t technically lust over his wife, he certainly can objectify her. He objectifies her when he sees his marriage as a one-string marriage. When he thinks his wife’s purpose for existing is to have sex with him. He has made her subhuman and an object for him to consume, use, and then discard until the next use is needed.
This guitar metaphor is also quick to show that the Sex string is just as important in a marriage as anything else is. This is not a divisive either/or fight. You can’t make God-designed music on the guitar with only five strings either. Song of Solomon or Proverbs 5:18-19 all testify to this. It’s good and God-honoring for a man to be sexually attracted to his wife, and for a wife to be sexually attracted to her husband. But that desire is in the context of a six-stringed, one flesh marriage. When two have become one in every area, not just in one (sex).
So husbands, yes, you can enjoy your wife, including her body parts, so long as you remember you married your wife, not her body parts. Can you imagine the vows in that marriage ceremony!? I trust that no husband made marriage vows only to his wife’s body parts, therefore no wife should be seen as just body parts.
Do you love your wife because she’s the one you get to have sex with, or do you love having sex with her because you love your wife? A simpler and blunter way to ask this is: Which do you love more, sex or your wife?
God designed you to be attracted to a woman, a her, not to body parts, a that.
I havebt read all comments and I like the article. Whether it’s absolutely correct or not, I think it evokes thoughts of change. To be a better man, husband, father, etc. A good article of introspection.
However, I do agree with some comments. Mens rights are in the toilet in today’s time. A woman can “clean them out” for the smallest wrong the man does.
So many men will say after this article… “Damned if u do. Damned if u don’t”.
I love good sex with my wife. No matter what u say, the body parts and how u use those parts will determine if a man is connected to her sexually or not. My wife for one knows just how to keep me enticed and visa versa.
U talk of objectification, but how am I supposed to have mind blowing sex if I don’t objectifynyer parts. Alot of the time it’s what makes us both want one another.
There are just too many problems with men in the eyes of many.
I’m happy with my marriage and with my wife.
My wife has a mouth and a brain and the confidence. If she isn’t happy or feels that the marriage is this that or the other. Then she should communicate that to me. Otherwise, it can’t be my fault as a man when things isn’t the way the marriage or relationship or the sex is supposed to be.
But still a good article. It was nice to read and then reply and chat about it
It feels awful to be objectified sexually (or any other way) in a relationship. I struggle as an objectified wife every day. I’m not opposed to sex at all but when 99% of what comes out of my husband’s mouth or through text, has a sexual innuendo regardless of the situation, it makes me feel less valued as a person. Society’s objectification of women DOES NOT help, but to see your spouse like that is a choice, and I don’t understand it myself.
Years ago, I fell in love with a man who I thought loved me as a person. Now, I feel as only a sexual object to him. I do not deny him sex and do try to accommodate his requests but IT IS NEVER ENOUGH. Is it normal to need constant sexy pictures/videos of your spouse daily? Is it normal to want to “talk dirty” daily? Is it normal for daily sex to not be enough? These were things that weren’t part of the relationship when it started and I’m not into it now. And how, knowing that your partner “isn’t enjoying it”, can you even fathom continuing it…day after day?
We have children together and I stay to keep the family together. I keep asking myself how this even happened, were there red flags and I didn’t see them? I need an emotional connection, I want to be loved as a person and not just used to fulfill sexual need. I want sex to be a connection, not just an act.
I think you’re expressing exactly what happens in many relationships: the wife becomes a sexual object and nothing more. Sex becomes something you’re required to participate in even if you don’t enjoy it, you’re supposed to be “on” for sex at all times, just like women in porn.
Sex like this is not consensual. You are not consenting to it, you are being pressured into it. It is a form of rape.
You are not responsible because you didn’t “see the red flags”–this is just a very common pattern that men begin to enact what they are absorbing from the porn that they watch.
Obviously, this is not okay with you. It is good, healthy, and right to say no to things that are not okay with us.
I would encourage you to consider your boundaries: here, here, and here are some articles. Find a therapist who can help you sort through this and support you in healthy boundaries. Check out the online resources at Bloom for Women.
Is he willing to take any responsibility for himself in this? If he is, he needs to see a Certified Sex Addiction Therapist.
Of course you need an emotional connection. Of course you do.
Peace,
Kay
I’ve read over this and agree that woman are more objectified in this world we live in. Magazines, pictures, half-dressed and non-modest women do not help those of us women who are of the weaker sex as the Bible says. Our culture today makes women look so “sexy” that it seems to violate us. I can’t put into words exactly what I mean, but I am a christian woman who dresses very modestly and plainly and I do not wear heavy make-up or short dresses. I do not want to attract attention to myself and I would never want another man to look upon me with any kind of desire. It is such a tough world to live in anymore. My heart goes out especially to the little children who look to us as examples.
So, question, what do you do when your wife realizes she’s frigid and refuses to have sex at all? You can’t “cheat” but you also can’t have sex with her. You’re kind of stuck. Isn’t that a sin? And is is a one-time sin or is it a sin for every day the marriage stays cold and lonely?
“a one-time sin or is it a sin for every day the marriage stays cold and lonely?”
Just like porn addiction, it is a single stronghold of sin that encompasses many individual sinful acts.
This is true, just as men are people, not vending machines to be loved only when dispensing product, but kicked or left if they no longer do, even momentarily.
I struggle as being seen as an object by my husband. He was raised around porn and Playboy magazines as a teen, and it has infiltrated our marriage. He demands anal sex and I hate it. It is his fetish. I feel like I will never be able to live up to his standards in the bedroom. Everything else feels like “going through the motions” according to him and he can’t get off without anal. It’s an addiction and it has been a part of our 19 yr marriage. I don’t know how much longer I can go on bc it’s broken me down over the years. As a Christian, I’ve prayed about this for years. I don’t want to leave a legacy of divorce to our children. I would love for my husband’s eyes to be opened.
Leigh, if you are pressured into performing sex acts that are degrading to you, that is marital rape. God never, never requires you to be degraded in any way.
A legacy of objectification and sexual abuse is not somehow superior to a legacy of divorce.
Here’s an article called A High View of Marriage Includes Divorce. I hope it might be helpful to you.
I would also recommend a personal therapist, just for you, someone who can help you cope with the trauma and set healthy boundaries. The online resources at Bloom for Women might also be helpful to you.
It would be great if your husband would change, but the only person you can help is yourself. I hope with all my heart that you will help yourself. You deserve a life without abuse.
Peace,
Kay
As a wife of a recovering porn addict I can say that I knew when I was being objectified vs. loved as a whole person. Also, as a result of the betrayal I felt, it has been difficult to see sex as an ‘us’ thing, it really feels like a ‘him’ thing. I often feel like the actual human extension of the virtual fantasies and it’s hard to feel like a partner instead of an object. This is not based on how my husband currently treats me, but on his past and my emotions regarding his dishonesty and moral struggle.
Women have been taught to desire to be objectified through advertising, movies and out culture of pornography. Our society is so confused it calls objectification empowerment. ‘If I can get a man to want me, I’ll have power over him.’ No, if you can get a man to respect you, you will have influence and relationship. That should be the goal. Lust is more likely to lead to abuse, but respect to relationship.
Beautifully said, Ally.
Covenant Eyes own Luke Gilkerson does not say porn is adultery but allows for divorce under very specific circumstances rather than the broad terms you specify.
https://www.covenanteyes.com/2015/10/08/porn-use-as-grounds-for-divorce-how-my-opinion-changed/).
https://www.focusonthefamily.com/family-q-and-a/relationships-and-marriage/pornography-as-grounds-for-divorce
https://www.purelifeministries.org/blog/is-his-pornography-use-grounds-for-divorce
Each site is very cautious about giving wives a get-out-of-marriage-free card when their husbands look at porn. You, on the other hand, actually encourage wives to divorce for almost any level of porn use, which is unconscionable.
But I guess if revenge is the motive, then divorce is a necessary threatpoint to keep the sinning husband in line. The problem is, when this weapon is deployed, the children are the biggest casualties.
Here’s a wonderful article called A High View of Marriage Includes Divorce.
The women I work with who finally seek divorce are not doing it out of revenge, but out of broken hearts and broken lives where sexual and emotional abuse has run rampant.
Bible verses should never be used as weapon to trap women in abusive situations. And the use of porn very quickly becomes abusive.
Let’s be honest, while there are wives here genuinely hurting, there are other wives who extort total compliance from their husbands in return for “letting” them have sex with them.
The trauma caused by a spouse’s porn use is hard to put into words. The betrayal is profound and the stress it causes oftentimes leads to long-term health issues. Believe me, a spouse who decides to leave because of persistent porn use isn’t getting out of marriage free. He or she is leaving with deep wounds that can take years to heal. Like any drug, porn use causes changes to the user’s brain that disrupts executive functioning. You can find the evidence based research for this online, if you are interested. For those who have been married to porn users, they experience this first hand. It is difficult for porn users to understand the effects it has on their own brains let alone the effects it has on their spouses. Although manifesting in some different ways, the stress of porn use on the family is as harmful as any drug. Again, porn users are unable to see this because of the damage to their brains. Thankfully, there is hope and healing for a porn user who seeks recovery.
Is it possible not to objectify your asexual wife if you are sexual? I see that abstenance is required to avoid marital rape, but I still fantisize about her.
The bible speaks of being a eunuch in Matthew 19:12. Some are born while others become physically or spiritually. My wife is my best friend. She didn’t realize she was asexual the first year. Honestly, I read books upon books realizing that I didn’t know what I was doing. We grew up christians and chose abstinence before marriage. Alas, she expressed that I cannot please her. She finds me beautiful as a person but is seriously turned off by my private area.
She identifies as asexual and today I realize after 22 years my objectification of her. She doesn’t feel she can change in front of me because I see things that I want. She can tell whats in my head/heart. While she has her own room, she keeps her clothes in the master bedroom, so on weekends it can be an issue. Weekdays I go to work early.
If objectifying my wife is wrong, I might need to forego sleeping in on the weekends. Please, more actual scripture references.
The bible says absolutely nothing about objectification in marriage. You might as well accuse wives who appreciate their husbands as providers of objectifying them as nothing more than human bank accounts. Objectification is a bogus made up term used by radical feminists who believe all sex is rape and the “male gaze” is a form of patriarchal oppression. These are the angry women who gripe about “manspreading” and “mansplaining”.
I think Noah Filipiak is borrowing feminist terminology to try to de-legitimize the way some Christian men act about sex towards their wives. He needs to read Chris Taylor’s story on the Forgiven Wife blog. She also believed her husband didn’t really love her and only wanted to use her body because he was objectifying her. But it was just her own paranoia and the devil whispering it into her ears. It wasn’t real. But the result of this paranoia about her husband’s motives drove her to refuse sex to him for years.
Noah is pandering to women like this trying to convince them that the devil’s voice is really speaking truth and that their terrible husbands are up to no good when they just want some time together in the bedroom. By attacking the legitimate desire that men have towards their wives and making such poorly conceived and poorly explained distinctions between “attraction” and “lust” and “objectification”, Noah is adding to a climate of distrust between husbands and wives.
It was in this spirit of disgust that I sarcastically wrote my original response that Noah is reacting to in this blog posting. I am a loving and supportive husband and father who has said and done many things requiring forgiveness from my wife. But I am also a husband who has had to forgive just as many if not more offenses given by my wife.
Criminalizing masculine sexuality is what the culture is currently trying to do. If Noah wants me to believe he genuinely supports the legitimate and God-given sex drive that a man expresses towards his wife then he can spend more time promoting the wonders of Godly manhood and the amazing gift of masculine sexuality. And after establishing his credentials in that area, maybe his discussion of “objectification” might not sound so much like pandering to angry or paranoid wives. Sadly, his work so far suggests he is going in the opposite direction.
Paul, you got an incredibly raw deal. I’m sorry, but hang in there.