Quick Summary: Sexperiment encourages married couples to have sex seven days in a row. The challenge is a gateway to couples rediscovering intimacy, serving one another and the importance of making time for each other. The book is easy to read, engaging, and exciting. The book doesn’t fail to address hard or sensitive topics. It is Christ-centered and full of Scripture and biblical wisdom about sex and intimacy. At the end of each chapter are discussion questions, wisdom to engaged couples (Before You Do), and wisdom to singles (The Yoke is Not a Joke).
Authors: Ed Young is Pastor of the very large Fellowship Church in Grapevine, Texas. He and his wife Lisa have authored several books separately and together.
Wow! Seven Days of Sex
Q: What do you think of this challenge, without even reading the book?
- “Awesome! I’ve been wanting to have more sex with my spouse!”
- “Oh, no! This is the last thing I want!”
- “This book must be written by a man… they want sex all the time!”
- “The idea of this scares me to death!”
- “How can seven days of sex change my marriage?”
I heard all of these voices before I read this book.
The Sexperiment challenge a jump-start to intimacy, not a fix-all. The authors make that clear in the first chapter. They believe the Sexperiment will force married couples to carve time for each other, talk about issues, listen to each other, serve each other, and play together (priorities often lost in marriages).
The Biggest Hurdle for Me with This Book
The way this challenge is packaged is careless.
The initial impression is: “Having Sex for seven days in a row will revolutionize my marriage.” It seems no different from an infomercial that advertises magic weight loss pills, 10 easy steps to making a million dollars, or 90 days to looking like a men’s magazine fitness model.
That’s not what the book is about. Even though the authors dismiss this thought train in the first chapter, it took me several chapters to flush the “infomercial filter” out of my mind.
The thesis of the book should be more clearly defined: “Having sex for seven days in a row can be a useful tool to help you rediscover true intimacy in your marriage.”
There are actually two hurdles you have to jump over before you get to the meat of this book:
- Our per-conceived ideas of what we think this book is about
- The need to better define the purpose of the challenge
Gimmie the Guts
I think the guts of this book are great. It is easy to read and interesting. The authors are good communicators. There is a lot of sound biblical advice about marriage, intimacy and sex.
Sexperiment is really a marriage book with a sex emphasis.
The authors help the reader understand that intimacy is not just physical. True intimacy happens on emotional, relational, and spiritual levels too. This seven-day project of focusing on sexual intimacy is intended to be a catalyst for the other types of intimacy.
Readers of this book are also reminded:
- Intimacy takes work and commitment.
- Kids, work, and our personal interests can take us over marriage. We have to put our marriage back on the top of the priority list.
- Barriers to intimacy (pornography, lust, masturbation, infidelity, unforgiveness, abuse) need to be removed.
- True intimacy is the oneness and nakedness talked about in Genesis. We are working to get back there.
Three Helpful Features at the End of Each Chapter
- Discussion questions – This is a good book to read with your spouse and go slowly through. Note – The book is not a seven-day devotional for couples going through this challenge. It is a regular book on marriage with discussion questions.
- Before You Do – Special words to engaged couples. Brilliant!
- The Yoke is Not a Joke – Special instructions to singles. Brilliant x2!
Jeff’s Last Thoughts
I hate that I have to struggle through “what I think the book is about” before I start liking the book. I’m five years into my recovery from sexual addiction. I’m sure that has something to do with it. But my wife felt the same way about the title of the book. Members of my support group did too. We thought it was going to be a shallow book with a gimmicky seven-day challenge. I’m glad we were wrong.
I think you’ll have an easier time, picking up the book and using it as a tool for marital and sexual intimacy. I believe this book will point your marriage in the right direction.
Q: Did my wife and I take the Seven-Day Sexperiment Challenge?
A: None of your business.
This book sounds great! I wish my husband would read it. Sounds funny, but for the last 5 years of our marriage I feel like I’ve been the one nagging for more. I recently discovered my husband’s porn addiction and I’ve been going through a rollercoaster of emotions. Only 6 months after we married I could tell my husband had lost interest in our sex life but he never fessed up as to why; but that was not the way our marriage began. The pressures and stresses of life have taken their toll over the last few years and our marriage has nearly become sexless except at my initiation (I’ve been turned down so many times.) and rarely at his. It grieves my heart. Will my husband ever want me again? Have any other wives experienced this? How do I deal with this?
Many other women have experienced this. You might be interested in this free e-book written by four women on this subject. It’s called Hope After Porn.
Yes, you just explained EXACTLY me (& alot of my reason for todays browsing here). Currently my husband is in sobriety (from porn, online dating, craigslist, etc) but he wont take the next steps of getting accountability software & so forth still. Every night I get my hopes up that maybe, just maybe he’ll want to have some enjoyment with me, but every night (almost) I cry after hes fallen asleep. I’ve tried not to have hopes about it, but as awful as the disappointment feels, it possibly even makes me more gut-wrenchingly empty and down & depressed to not have anything to hope for. Either way the breathtaking hole in my stomach feeling is near (but not quite) as bad as finding out what he was doing in the first place. It hurts so bad that for him not to have sexual relations with me very often. Words cant even explain.
Jeff,
Great closing line:
Q: Did my wife and I take the Seven-Day Sexperiment Challenge?
A: None of your business.
ROFL!!!
we are members of a not so “churchy”….. well…. church. :) my husband and i are leaders in the marriage ministry there. i have come across this book several times when looking for new bible studies and activities for our church couples. if i’m not mistaken, i believe there is a bible study on this as well. not sure how a group bible study would work on this subject, but what are your thoughts? we believe that sex is a God given gift for marriages and not something we should be ashamed of. with that said, we also don’t thing God wants us to share our intimate moments with the world either. if we did a study on this book in a group setting, do you think couples would get the whole idea and meaning behind this or shut down because of such a taboo subject in a church setting?
Hey Nicole, I think you raise some great questions here! I’m a counselor and I’m used to hearing the nitty gritty from people, but that’s in a very private, confidential setting. The reality is, sex is a very intimate and private thing, and it needs to be treated with respect and dignity. I think that’s one of the things that gets lost in our pornified culture–and even sometimes churches follow suit in an attempt to be relevant. I personally would rather just talk about this with my husband! But of course I’m oldish :)