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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.

Three Weeks Until Valentine’s Day: Workouts That Make You Better at Sex

Valentine’s Day is three weeks away.

That is not enough time to radically transform your body. Believe me. I have been working on getting fit and losing weight for about a year now, and I am about halfway to where I want to be. I have made a lot of progress (down almost 50 lbs and doubled my strength), but it is a slow road depending on how much work there is to be done.

That said, three weeks is enough time to noticeably improve your stamina, control, confidence, and presence during sex. With dedication, you can see massive improvements in those areas in just weeks.

Don’t believe me? Try it. Prove me wrong.

SWM 155 – Hookup Culture – When You Take Relationship Out of Sex

We live in a world that has learned to separate what God never divided.

Hookup culture is the next stage of sex stripped of meaning – where bodies meet, but no one truly connects.

I’m continuing this series exploring how, when we remove aspects of God’s intent for sex, we end up with all the examples of sexual immorality we see in our world.

Last time, I tackled what removing covenant from sex gets you: sex before marriage, and the fallout from that choice.

Today, we’re going to push that even further and look at hookup culture. At first glance it might seem like sex before marriage taken to the next level – but that expansion comes with new problems.

This isn’t just the removal of covenant – it’s the removal of the relationship itself.

SWM 154 – Sex Before Marriage – When You Remove Covenant from Intimacy

In my last post, I wrote about how sex is an act of worship because having sex, the way God intended, gives worth to Him. It honours what He created by using it as He intended.

However, our society is doing its best to invert that by taking away elements of God’s plan so as to distort sex. To make it not something that’s worship and creative, but rather destructive to ourselves, to each other, and to society as a whole.

So, today we’re going to explore sex outside of marriage, or what happens when you remove the covenant from sexual intimacy.

And to be clear, the legal status of the relationship is not the big problem here. It’s the intentional lifelong monogamous commitment to each other. Arguably, many marriages in the Bible are considered marriages simply because they had sex. However, sex is meant to seal a covenant, not substitute for one.

SWM 153 – Sex as an Act of Worship

The other night, after my wife and I had sex, we were lying there in that sweaty, happy pile you end up in when the oxytocin kicks in. As I often do, I asked her what she was thinking about. She’ll tell you I probably ask that too often, because I’m endlessly curious about what’s going on in her head.
Her answer surprised me. She said, “Sex is an act of worship.”
I asked her to explain, and she said, “Well, everything we do should be for God. And since you’re the head of the household, just as Christ is the head of the church, then giving myself to you, serving you in this way, is like serving Christ.”
That surprised me. I mean, I’ve taught before that sex is about more than physical release – that it’s for procreation, for bonding, for comfort, for recreation, even for warding off temptation. But I don’t think I’ve ever described it quite this way: as an act of worship.
So let’s unpack that. What does it mean that sex – sweaty, messy, joyful sex – could actually be worship of the God who created it?

SWM 152 – AQ – Unsexy nightclothes, husbands who won’t initiate, scent and partner selection and more

Answering Anonymous Questions about Married Sex

Topics include:

My wife’s nightclothes are killing my attraction
Is using a vibrator wrong?
How do I get my husband to initiate sex?
Need something to spice up our sex life
How does scent factor into spouse selection
Recovery after pregnancy
Is using classical conditioning on your spouse wrong?
How do I keep myself from becoming distant from my husband?
How can I talk to my husband about oral sex?