Latest Posts & Podcast Episodes

Are There Sex Toys for Men?

Let’s face it, the women won out in the sex toy department.  If you look for toys for men, it’s a pretty slim selection, and half of them (like vibrating rings) are really for both.  Women have multiple categories and subcategories of toys to choose from.

And to be honest – most of the time we men aren’t really looking for a toy for us, and I’m the same way.  I did not go shopping for a toy for men.  Instead, Lovense reached out to me and asked if I’d like to review their new toy for men.  I actually tried to get them to switch to a different toy (one to use on my wife), but they were pretty insistent.

I told them that I’m more of a giver than a receiver, and I actually prefer buying toys to use on her.  They wanted me to try it anyway.

I said that I don’t tend to get a lot of pleasure out of stimulation like this – I don’t even orgasm from manual or oral sex, so this isn’t likely to have a very positive outcome.  Still, they insisted.

Now, I’m not one to turn down a free toy, even if it doesn’t work for me – I was more worried they’d be annoyed about the review, but they were very clear – they’d rather have an honest review than a positive one, and even if it doesn’t work for me, the truth is, I think it would probably work for a lot of men.

So, here’s my honest experience with it – the good, and the underwhelming, plus all the caveats that go with my experience so you can try to make an informed decision yourself about whether it’s something you want to try.

Are most marriages struggling with their sex life?

If you’ve spent any time on this site, you might start to wonder if anyone actually has a good sex life.

Problem after problem. Struggle after struggle. Mismatched drives, painful sex, dead bedrooms, porn addiction, resentment. It’s enough to make you wonder why you’d bother getting married at all.

But it’s not just people reading marriage blogs who feel this way. Many couples hits a version of this question at some point; either before marriage, or in the quiet after another disappointing night. “Is this normal? Is everyone else struggling like we are? Are we the only ones?”

Someone submitted this to our Anonymous Have A Question page a while back, and it captured that fear pretty well:

I (m, 32) am in my first (and new) relationship (f, 28), we are both committed to wait for intimacy until marriage. I have a past of premarital sex until about 28 or so. I freed myself from that behaviour (sex outside marriage, porn, masturbation, etc.) with external help and I am now ‘clean’. 4 years after I am now trying to find out whether this relationship could ultimately turn into marriage. As for most men – I suppose – sex is quite a key component for me in a relationship. Having read quite some articles on your page, I have come to wonder:

1. Are most marriages struggling with their sex life? I basically only stumble across articles describing how it is a problem and all the stuff that is going wrong in it. Doesn’t sound like a very motivating outlook to me tbh.

2. What advice would you give me today, helping to provide for the best foundation possible such that I can enjoy a fulfilling sex-life with my future wife (whoever that might be)?

Why Don’t We Ever Talk About What We Actually Want in Bed?

Survey data from over 1,000 married Christians reveals the same pattern across every sexual activity we measured: couples who talk openly about sex are dramatically more satisfied than those who don’t. If you’ve been sitting on something unsaid, the silence is almost certainly part of the problem.

Do All Husbands Want More Oral Sex

A couple holds hands while looking at two charts showing oral sex satisfaction data — husbands skewing dissatisfied on the left, wives skewing satisfied on the right. Text reads: Do All Husbands Want More Oral Sex? What 1,000+ Married Couples Revealed.

The short answer is no, however the numbers are striking enough that it’s worth digging into. Because if you’re a wife who feels like your husband is never quite satisfied with your sex life, or a husband who has never quite figured out how to say what he actually wants, this data is going to feel familiar.

We surveyed over 1,000 married Protestant Christians and asked them, among many other things, how satisfied they are with the role oral sex plays in their marriage. What we found was one of the starkest gender gaps in the entire dataset.

Does Masturbation Help or Hurt Your Marriage? Here’s What the Data Says

Illustration of a married couple holding hands while looking at two charts comparing solo behavior decreasing and shared intimacy increasing, with the headline “Does Masturbation Help or Hurt Your Marriage? Here’s What the Data Says.”

Nearly a year ago someone suggested I redo my 2014 survey on mutual masturbation. I did, and I expanded it considerably. What I got back from 1,043 married Christians was more interesting than I expected. Some of it confirmed what I thought going in. Some of it didn’t. And one pattern in particular showed up so consistently across so many different cuts of the data that I had a hard time writing around it.
That pattern is what this post is about.

The Mirror Game – A Simple 4-Step Communication Skill That Can Transform Your Marriage

You know the cycle. Something happens, a tone of voice, a forgotten commitment, a moment that stings, and suddenly you’re both defending your corners instead of actually connecting. You talk at each other. You wait for your turn to explain yourself – maybe you don’t do very well at waiting.  Maybe you interrupt and talk over each other a lot. As a result, after the “conversation” ends, you both feel more alone than before.

What if there was a simple framework that could break that cycle? Not a magic fix, but a real, learnable skill that draws you toward each other instead of apart?

It’s called the Mirror Game.  It’s easy to explain and simple to implement – the hard part is remembering to do it.

Are you actually upset about what happened, or just hungry, angry, lonely or tired?

Often the fights we have as couples aren’t about what we think they are.  Because while we think we’re fighting about respect, sex, tone, in-laws, money, kids or anything else under the sun, often the real issue is far less dramatic.

Sometimes it’s just physiology.  Before a disagreement turns into an argument (or whenever you “wake up” enough to think “how did this become a fight?!”), there’s a simple checklist worth running first:

HALT.

Hungry
Angry
Lonely
Tired

SWM 158 – Solo Masturbation – When You Remove the Other Person From Sex

Today we’re continuing with our Sex as Worship series, and in this post, we’re going to be talking about masturbation, which is a highly contested argument in Christianity. Is it okay, is it sinful, it is helpful or harmful?

And before I say anything else, I want to share that I didn’t always believe the viewpoint I’m going to share. Also, I don’t really want to talk about it. It’s still an embarrassing topic, and I know I’m going to get a lot of flak for it. People will unsubscribe. Sometimes I get messages saying they hope to see me in hell.

But, I don’t think I can skip it. This is a topic I see damaging so many marriages, so how do I leave it alone?

SWM 157 – Why Sex Gets Derailed Right Before It Starts

When intimacy keeps getting derailed by oddly timed comments about hygiene, illness, or unrelated problems, it’s easy to wonder if you’re losing your mind or being subtly shut down. This question comes up far more often than people realize, and the answer is almost never “you’re crazy” or “your spouse is malicious.” What’s actually happening lives in the brain, and once you see it, the pattern makes a lot more sense.

New Survey on Mental Health and how it affects Marriage!

Let's Go!
X