This updated and expanded edition gives a fresh informative edge to an already definitive book. New sections discuss "sex after sixty" and five reasons why God created sex, all supported by the very latest findings in the fields of medicine and sociology. For engaged couples and newlyweds who want to make lovemaking a joy from the start . . . For couples who have been married for years and want to maintain the flame or rekindle the embers . . . for every husband or wife who wants to be a better lover -- here are the insights into each other's bodies, psychosexual makeup, and need for tender, unselfish affection that can help you achieve your goal. With over 2.5 million copies in print, The Act of Marriage has helped thousands of Christian couples maximize their joy in sexual union and saved countless marriages. Pastors, doctors, and psychologists alike have endorsed the frank, practical insights.
400 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1976
Book details & editions Loading interface. Loading interface.
Timothy "Tim" F. LaHaye was an American evangelical Christian minister, author, and speaker, best known for the Left Behind series of apocalyptic fiction, which he co-wrote with Jerry B. Jenkins.
He has written over 50 books, both fiction and non-fiction.
As advice this book is utter shit. As comedy it's fucking priceless. Did you want worksheets for keeping track of your Kegel exercises? How about rants on why French kissing is bad? Complaints about birth control leading to Satanism? Then this is the book for you!
If you love traditional/backwards gender roles and antiquated (and wrong) views on contraception this book is for you! While I praise the authors for focusing on the fact that women can and should orgasm, I really REALLY couldn't get past the submission that is only required of women, and the contradictory views on facts/science.
I could not get through this book it was so horrifying. Full of inaccurate, outdated and harmful information. Unless it has been significantly updated, this book should no longer be in print. For more helpful Christian resources on sex check out Sheila Wray Gregoire.
31 reviews 6 followersThis is the best book I have ever read (or browsed, or seen) on sex in marriage. It is very tastefully done with the emphasis on family and our relationship with God. The author is a Catholic and I find his views to be almost entirely in line with my own, as an Latter Day Saint. As a scientist I was pleased with a solid biological explanation of the anatomy and physiology of male and female genitalia as well as the emotional impacts of both orgasm and sexual relationships. He takes time to answer dozens of questions in the back that probably apply to more of the general public than we would admit. He also takes several chapters and explains techniques, as well as why God would want both the man and the woman to be happy and fulfilled by partaking in sex. For a while I gave this book to roommates who were getting married and to a few relatives. but surprisingly it never stopped feeling awkward. Though I still believe it's the best advice on the subject any bride or groom could get. and that it should wait until after they are married or perhaps just a day before - and won't see each other much until they are married. It's too specific to not be a temptation prior to marriage. (I've read this book a number of times, and recommended it to a few friends who express difficulty in their marriage.)
9 books 42 followers
A book about sex written by an evangelical minister made famous for writing a series on apocalyptic fiction. What’s there not to like? Probably would have liked it better if it had been a book about a fictional minister that had evangelically famous apocalyptic sex, but we can’t have everything in life can we?
There were only a handful of things in this book that my husband and I found helpful, but even then they were things we already knew. Neither one of us likes this book and we found ourselves becoming more frustrated with it more than anything. Throughout the book, the author gives examples of situations he has encountered as a pre-marriage counselor and pastor, where couples have come forward with problems involving their sex life. Every single answer the pastor gave them can be summed up in a few short words, it is your wife's fault. Pretty much every problem that came up in the book, the author blamed on the wife not being there for he husband, she needed to do better at paying attention to her husband, be more supportive and if their sex life sucked it was her fault. Seriously? Oh and if you are having problems in your marriage, just have sex. There was no mention of communication that should be going on between husband and wife to have a successful, loving, and open sex life. The only thing this book did do was mention that God should be at the center of your marriage, including your sex life.
1 book 9 followers
I was curious to read what the evangelical church thought about sex in the 70's. This book was originally written in 1976 by Tim LaHaye (and his wife - although her voice is never really in the book so I hesitate to call her an equal co-author), the co-author of the Left Behind series as well as many other prominent books in the Christian sphere. This book was on the list of harmful books to women that Sheila Wray Gregoire had on her "The Great Sex Rescue" book so I wanted to take a look for myself.
Let's start off with some of the quotes that were concerning, perplexing, and/or straight up terribly/awkwardly worded. This is just a taste of how odd and sexist this book read.
- “Women are incurably romantic and men should cooperate with this romantic need.”
- “The honeymoon is the culmination of a girl’s lifetime dream.”
- “During her emotional cycle”
- "Even the most reluctant penis can hardly ignore wifely stroking."
- The use of vibrators "might prove dangerous in overstimulating and establishing an appetite for a level of stimulation their partner could not provide naturally."
- Do women get turned on by the sight of a man's body? "Not many. Women must cultivate the problem of visual lust."
This book was so poorly backed up by "science" and "research" that I hesitated to believe any number this man quoted because most were either from biased, under sampled studies that he himself undertook or they were outdated studies from the 50's that were one-off small sample size studies as well. And those are only the numbers he actually backed up. The rest of the numbers (over half) were numbers he pulled out of thin air from his "experience" as a pastor and counselor, strictly anecdotally among conservative evangelicals he knows. It was wild to me how overconfident and arrogant he was in literally being the expert on science, faith, theology, relationships, marriage, and women.
He states more than once that based on his surveys (to exclusively Christians that took his family life seminars) Christians experience greater sexual fulfillment than non-Christians, which is a wildly bold thing to state even if backed up by actually scientific and unbiased research/data. That kind of fits the bill with this book though: he is convinced that Christians do everything better and that sex in marriage is the greatest thing a human can experience on earth. As a Christian myself, I think this claim is also ridiculously bold because did Jesus, the most perfect human being to walk the earth experience sex or marriage? And what does that kind of message and tone send to those who remain single their entire lives? Are they missing out on the literal highest form of pleasure and fulfillment?
As a woman, I found this book incredibly demeaning to women.
- In 95% of sex issues in marriage it came down to the woman's fault. Either the woman had deeply repressed daddy issues and needed to repent of her unforgiveness towards her abusive father (Freudian much??) or she needed to be more submissive to her husband or she is selfish and that's why she isn't willing to have sex. The list could go on and on, because literally every chapter had little stories here and there that indicated that women were the main ones to blame when it came to a lack of sexual fulfillment in the bedroom.
- He assumes that all doctors are male and says that if a woman is looking into birth control options she should see her doctor (a he) with her husband (why does the husband have to accompany the woman to her doctor's appointment?). Again, I'm guessing this was the norm in the 70's but it still shocked me nonetheless.
- He quotes some bizarre stat that men need to ejaculate every 72 hours because that's when their semen grow back to full numbers, so he guilt trips women into feeling obligated to selflessly satisfy her husband every 3 days.
- According to LaHaye, women still very much enjoy the intimacy of sex with their husbands even if they never experience an orgasm! At least he agrees that she should try to get to orgasm but the fact that he emphasizes this made me think that he did it just for the men to get a cop out into not actually being responsible for pleasing their wives. That's the thing though, he never really openly shames or guilt trips the husbands into giving their wives orgasms. He has infinite grace for them. But the number of times he tells women that their sex life isn't good because of some hidden sin they need to repent of is just crazy sexist.
- Whenever he said negative things, it was always pointed at the woman. She was overly emotional, selfish, greedy, tired, demanding, unsubmissive, and passive. The root of most things subtly and not-so-subtly came down to the woman's fault. Women are also apparently the only ones who are insecure about their bodies and who feel shame coming into the bedroom (which is definitely not a one-gendered issue).
- It was definitely clear that LaHaye idolized woman's virginity over men's through his stories of young girls who engage in premarital sex and whose marriages are ruined as a result of it (okay this is a huge, damaging, traumatic outcome of the Christian purity movement because the shame is greater than the grace or the love).
- He misinterprets 1 Corinthians 7 as that the woman or man can never deny their spouse sex because they own each other's bodies (which is an extreme interpretation of something that really removes consent from married sex!).
I could go on and on with the homophobic paragraphs he sneaks in or with the male fragility comments (expected in an evangelical book from the 70's) or even the assumption that the woman is staying home and raising 4-6 kids because it's the Christian thing to have lots of kids. But honestly you'll have to read it for yourself if you want to see just how cringe his (essentially) erotica is when he actually describes how sex works. If you do read this yourself, be prepared for 400 pages of unsolicited advice on literally every topic imaginable from politics to sex to science to psychology, to personality types, vital energies, recommended vitamins, and more! I was honestly shocked at how this book on "sex" became an all-encompassing advice book filled with pseudoscience and fear-mongering. It made me super thankful that I did not grow up in the 1970's and that the rest of society has progressed (at least a little bit) beyond the ideals espoused in this book.
