255. Making Sexual Communication More Comfortable

Welcome to the Female by Design Podcast, an honest space for female flourishing.

I'm Francie Winslow.

Together we'll explore sexuality and spirituality by God's design, healing our relationship

with pleasure, our bodies, and our identity as beloved image bearers.

So let's take a deep breath and step into God's invitation to live fully alive as women,

mind, body, and spirit.

I'm so glad you're here.

Hey everybody, it's Francie.

Thank you for joining me today on Female by Design Podcast.

I am coming to you from my closet and I'm inspired though by some questions that have

come my way through the experience of being with some moms in person, some women,

Christian wives.

I generally don't speak at a lot of in-person events because of the, honestly just the intensity

of our family life and the needs of my kids and our health issues that keep me pretty

locked down.

But that's actually the reason I started podcasting was the needs of my home became so much

that I couldn't go speak very often outside of my home and a friend was like, why don't

you podcast?

So anyway, a little bit of history, that was six years ago.

But I do every now and then get to say yes to some local moms groups, which is the joy

of my heart because I love being in person, especially with a group of women.

I'm finding that women are so hungry for this message.

I didn't start off trying to be a sex speaker, right?

I really love leading people to the heart of God.

I really love exploring the scriptures.

I really love teaching, but God has called me to this specific conversation for the unforeseeable

future.

And so when I get invited and it works out for my family and my schedule, I really love

being in person, but I was recently at a group and it was just so fun because the women

were so receptive and so open and so hungry for a reframe and a new narrative around female

sexuality that feels healing and that feels like it connects to the story of God and

our nervous systems and his redeeming plan, his redemptive plan for our sexuality and

our marriages, something that doesn't feel yucky and doesn't feel controlling, but feels

like the freedom that Christ died to give us.

And so it's really fun to have those conversations and usually at the end of my talk, I use some

time for Q&A.

And this most recent time, there were so many questions that it just got me thinking,

well, what a great opportunity.

We only got to a few of them in that session, but I had the leader send me the questions.

And so I am going to just sprinkle in the questions that I've received from this group

and other groups probably throughout the rest of this year when I don't have a guest

or when I don't have another burning topic that I really want to unpack with you.

So I'm just going to start plowing through questions that have come in from listeners

like you, dear friends, sisters, women on the journey, husbands, if you have questions,

feel free to send them in as well.

You can always send them to my Instagram, DMs or track me down email on my website.

But anyway, you could also send them, I guess, in the comment section of the podcast if

there's reviews, space for reviews, love to hear from you there as well.

Anyway, we're going to jump in today with a question about how do you make sexual communication

more comfortable, because it can be awkward to talk about sex, even if you've been married

to somebody for a while.

And we're going to talk a little bit about why I think that is.

And just a few tips to get you going and get you pointed in the right direction.

So as always, I love to center and start our time with a moment of prayer and bringing

our awareness to God who is in our midst, who is ever and always with us and who is present

even in our bodies.

So Lord, oh, I just love to take a deep breath in and remind myself that I'm kept by you.

I'm held by you.

I am known by you.

I'm loved by you.

I am led by you.

And that is true for my friends listening that you are leading us, keeping us, holding

us, sustaining us.

And I pray that we would each be drawn into a fresh awareness of you in our midst.

I just want to say, Lord, I want to want you more and more.

Life is full.

Life is busy and the things of intimacy with you and the things of intimacy in our marriage

just so easily get squished and pulled out of perspective and often put on the back burner.

Life is so full.

And instead of valuing my first love, I can so often just assume that that can wait.

And so Lord, I just want to acknowledge you as my first love and acknowledge this

call to intimacy and communion and communication with you primarily.

And also thank you for the gift of intimacy in marriage and the gift of communication there.

I thank you for the interwovenness of our stories, of our sexuality and our spirituality

being different notes in the same song.

And I thank you that you are writing a really beautiful,

redemptive hymn of grace and healing over our lives.

And she's the same thing.

Side note, I do feel myself craving prayer.

And I don't have a lot of words a lot lately.

Just sort of very personal note, like life is full and life is overwhelming.

And life is mysterious and I don't always know what to pray.

But I've been finding myself craving just I need space.

I needed a carve out space for God.

Time to literally be on my knees.

I find that posture of like a childhood prayer of like on your knees,

beside your bed and that that's actually a really comforting place for me to pray.

Because it's such a reminder of my need to stop and communion.

And communicate with God.

And I love that the analogy between our intimacy with God and intimacy and marriage

is so clear biblically.

And the root word of communication, as we're talking about prayer, is commune, right?

It's like communion, communing to be one with in union to be together in communing.

And when I think about, oh, how do you have sexual communication?

I want to just kind of reframe it away from like pressure to say the right things to

how do we be with one another vulnerably, intimately?

Like you would prayer, really?

Like you would open yourself up to prayer and say, God, here I am.

I want to have that same freedom in my marriage to say, okay, here I am.

This is where I am.

How do we connect?

How do we commune here around this topic?

Communication around sex can be tricky for a lot of reasons.

To pivot towards more practicality, it is not an easy conversation to have,

because it is so wrapped up with our story and with our soul and with our body.

And oftentimes, it feels prickly or awkward because we have pain around it,

that we've never learned how to talk about.

Also, just the pure silence that many of us culturally, whether you have religious baggage

and you feel a ton of shame around your body and the idea of sex and even should I want it,

should I talk about it, to our lack of training, to our lack of ability to understand what's

healthy and how to articulate healthy desire or healthy concern or just like, how do I grow?

I mean, some of the women I was just talking to last week at a church here in Northern Virginia,

were like, I don't want to be yucky in pursuing knowledge about sex.

I don't want to google this because I'm afraid of what I'll find,

but how do I actually learn about these things?

And so all of those questions are realities around communication,

because we were not communicated with and our moms were not communicated with and it is a

generational place of bondage and shame and shame is so crippling, shame shuts down communion.

If you think back to the garden, in the beginning God created us for communion with Him and with

each other and a big part of that was knowing and being known with no shame.

Do you think communication was easy or tricky then?

I think it was easy because there was no shame.

There was an openness, there was a sense of wonder and joy and intimacy and freedom,

but when shame comes into the picture and shame is so closely linked with silence,

when shame comes into the picture, it's like we become mute, it's like we don't have the ability

to access words that can bring us back into communion with one another.

So I given all of that little preface and this garden vision of our sexuality,

I do believe shame is at the root of so much of our dysfunction around communication.

And so the first question I want to ask you is do you believe that sex and pleasure

and your bodies are good or is there still a ton of shame?

Because if there is shame around the topic, it's so hard to talk about it.

I remember even just a few years ago, I started this podcast six years ago,

so probably even within the last five years, five or four years,

pleasure was a tricky thing for me to say.

You could ask Misty, my behind-the-scenes friend, who helps this podcast run and runs

all of the bits for me online.

I told her, I was like, I don't want to talk about pleasure.

I'm going to talk about theology and the biblical perspective,

but pleasure felt shameful to me, even then when I was in this ministry.

So don't think because somebody's just in the ministry of talking about sexuality,

that they also don't have shame.

They might be free, but they might not.

It might be a journey for all of us.

And so oftentimes shame is at the root of our lack of ability to communicate.

And this little litmus test, do I believe that sex is good?

Really, can I talk about it without shame?

Can I mention it to my kids and not feel awkward and trippy and confused

over what I should say, how I should say it?

If you can't communicate clearly about something with joy and clarity,

it probably has some tangles of shame around it.

And that's okay.

That's just, we need to name it for what it is.

Do you believe that sex is a good gift to your marriage?

And if not, just start there.

Be like, okay, I realize that I think I have a lot of shame still.

And I think it's like an onion, and God is patient with us.

And He is good, and His Spirit searches us with gentleness and compassion.

And I just want to say gentleness and compassion be so gentle with yourself.

If you realize I still have shame, there's no sense of added shame that you have shame.

It's just an acknowledgement.

So start there with a conversation of, wow, I realize that I still have shame.

And the opposite of shame is vulnerability, which is communication.

And so coming vulnerability to God, then coming vulnerability to your spouse,

and saying, hey, I realize that I have some shame here.

And I want to confess it, and I want to bring it into the light.

I don't always think my body is good.

I think I'm afraid of my capacity for pleasure.

I think I'm afraid of letting go.

I think I have shame of losing control or having a sensation

that might make me feel pleasure, because I've been told for so long that pleasure is bad.

So if you have a hard time feeling comfortable with sexual communication,

start there and begin thanking God in your private time with Him, in your prayer time,

while you're taking a shower, thank you God for this good body.

Thank you for this good body.

Thank you for my entire body.

Thank you for my ability to feel.

Thank you for sensation.

Thank you for, and name each of your body parts.

Thank you for my breast.

Thank you for my arms.

Thank you for my stomach.

Bless your body consciously with a sense of like awareness.

Not just saying it, but like really feel, God, my body is good.

And I just have to say, your body is good.

If you're wondering that, if you're wondering if you're beautiful, you are beautiful.

I'm not saying that just to be like a hype girl.

I'm saying that because that is fat.

Women carry the beauty of God.

There is beauty on you and in you and through you fact.

And so if you believe anything less than that, that's a lie.

And that's another place to say, hey, I believe in a lie.

I don't care how much weight anybody carries.

I don't know how, care how much height they have.

I don't care what color they are.

How old they are, women carry beauty.

And that is one of the most incredible things about being a woman is that we reveal the beauty of God.

And I love that.

Men can be beautiful too.

But I think women primarily have this gift of beauty.

And when we embody it and when we really believe it,

there's even more beauty expressed.

And that's a very powerful, God-glorifying thing.

Lean into the gift of pleasure.

Lean into the fact that your body, head to toe, can experience more pleasure than a man could

ever even fathom in a second.

Women have erogenous stones head to toe.

They have capacity for multiple orgasms.

They have more than double the nerve endings on their clitoris

than a man does on his penis.

And so just know there is space for you to explore and communicate and discover

without shame about your good body.

So start with acknowledging my body is good.

Sometimes I have a hard time believing it and activate that sense of communication

with gratitude.

Thank you, God, for my good body.

And connect with your husband on that.

Hey, I realize, I don't believe my body is that good.

I'm scared of pleasure.

That is a powerful conversation to start becoming more comfortable

around talking about your sexuality.

If talking about sex is awkward, here's another practical.

Use books.

Any of the penner's books, they are really cool,

80-year-old sex therapist.

They've been doing sex therapy since the 80s.

Any of their books, there are a lot of practical books.

One of them is called enjoy.

It's about sexual pleasure for women.

I have it somewhere around here.

But I know this one I have right on my shelf.

Have fun, fantastic sex.

It's super 80s and so cute,

but I can't recommend it enough.

52 ways to have fun, fantastic sex,

a guidebook for married couples.

This is by Cliff and Joyce Penner.

So any book that they have is a great opportunity for you to use their words.

And say, hey babe, did you read this?

What do you think about this?

And let it be a what do you think about?

Rather than I have to have the right language,

or I have to have it figured out,

use the language of authors that you feel comfortable with

and let them be your conversation starters.

Another tip is to have a date where you talk about

which parts of sex make you excited, nervous, overwhelmed,

give you a sense of anticipation and arousal.

Have a date where you just talk about this and say, hey,

this is going to be awkward.

We're just going to rip the bandaid off.

And you can even set the timer for like 15, 20 minutes and say,

hey, let's just talk about sex for this time and grow your capacity

to have conversations about sex just like you would have

about the budget or the kids or sports.

Talk about the topic of your sexual intimacy on purpose.

One more tip is develop a secret language of your own.

Some code words where you can talk about sex

through text message or in front of the kids

where you have a little wink, wink,

hey, you want to go have a meeting later tonight

and you too know what you're saying,

but nobody else in the room does.

That's a way to keep it fun and playful

and stay engaged because that sense of playfulness

is a really beautiful tool and tip for engaging

in sexual conversation with your spouse

in a way that makes you feel comfortable.

It doesn't always have to be explicit

or it doesn't have to be really intense or deep,

but it can be a space of playfulness and code words

as you text or chat maybe even in front of like,

you know, if you're at home and you don't want to be super obvious

but you want to still share some sparks

and share some excitement together.

Code words are a really fun way to do this.

Last idea is continue to educate yourselves

on each other's body and anatomy.

I cannot say that enough.

Husbands, if you're listening,

you must be the master knowledgeable,

most amazing whiz of your wife's body.

Like you need to know it backwards and forwards

like you are getting tested on it.

Like you are the expert on it.

You need to know her anatomy.

You need to know the parts of your body that feel good.

You need to understand how her body works,

how her cycle works because you got on your knee.

You proposed to her.

You basically took this posture saying,

I want to serve you.

I want, will you marry me?

And now it's your job to continue that heart of service

to get to know your wife

to know her like an expert and celebrate her.

Like she's the most beloved thing of your life, which she is.

So get to know each other's bodies.

Wives, get to know your husband's bodies.

Sometimes women are a little insecure about anatomy.

And maybe they've been raised with a little bit of shyness

around a man's body.

Your husband's body is good.

Get to know it, understand what feels good to him,

what kind of touch, what kind of kiss,

what type of space he feels most comfortable

in sharing his love with you.

And as you get to know each other's bodies

and preferences, you can communicate and say,

hey, I love that.

I want more of that.

And it becomes so much easier to connect,

especially when you know each other's anatomy.

And you can affirm each other, explore each other

with a sense of joy.

Those are a few ideas that I wanted to get you started with.

If this is a conversation that you're like,

hey, I need more of this.

I have a whole course, master class course on my website.

All about sexual communication.

It is such an important part of the journey

being able to not just have sex,

but to actually have great sex and to have meaningful sex

and to have nourishing intimacy that brings connection

and that brings true intimacy.

And the way to do that is you have to learn how to talk about it.

And it is so common that couples struggle with talking about it.

I mean, most couples have a hard time with this.

Like I said at the beginning, because of a culture of silence

and lack of true discipleship as it comes to how you do this,

you would never send someone to the gym

and be like, okay, become a professional weight lifter

and not have someone explicitly teach you how to lift weights

so that it goes well for you.

Well, when it comes to sex, we kind of do that.

We say, good luck getting married, you'll figure it out.

But there are ways that we can learn and grow

to really become wonderful lovers to each other

and do it in a safe and honoring way.

And so I hope that my courses can be that for you

where you feel comfortable, you feel like it's accessible,

you feel like it is allowing you to find some practicals

in a way that feels great to your marriage

and feels presented in a way that is doable and a blessing.

So anyway, if you want more of this,

check out my website, the Sexual Communications course.

It would be so fun to join with you there

and have you a part, more a part of our community

that we have.

In addition, I do lead the Circle group mentorship

and that is also a place where the more you communicate

about this topic, the more comfortable you are,

the more normalized it becomes.

So if you want a community of women to walk alongside

this journey with, you are welcome and wanted

in that group, it would be so fun to have you.

Let me close this out with a prayer and yeah, well,

let's pray God, thank you so much for the gift of communion

and communication and being one with you

and the gift of marriage where we are one.

And I pray God for joy and connection

in the marriages of the people listening.

I pray that you would ignite passion

and a sense of connection and anticipation

and that communication would grow

and that there would be a sense of desire to learn

in these couples, in these precious friends of mine

who are listening, that we would grow in intimacy

in our marriages that our families would be blessed

and the ripple effect of that would go out

to our children and our communities and our churches

as our marriages are strengthened.

I believe even our country is strengthened

and the kingdom of God is brought nearer.

So Lord, thank you for your provision.

Thank you for leading us into truth and freedom

in Jesus' name, Amen.

Thanks for listening to this week's episode.

Be sure to head over to franceywinslow.com

to find more ways to plug in and go deeper.

We're adding new resources for you all the time,

including brand new topical courses

to help you really dig in beyond what I can share here

through the podcast teaching.

My heart is to see you connect to the truth

and wisdom of God.

So head over to franceywinslow.com today.

We'll see you in the next episode.

Bye.