When “I Love My High Drive Sisters,” published there was positive reaction from my high drive readers.  Why would a low-libido blog have high drive readers?  High drive wives have a tough time finding their virtual community, so they land here in desperation because I deal with libido.  Although, my focus is the lower end of the spectrum, I do not want to marginalize our high drive sister’s struggle.

I’ve asked a willing high drive friend to write to you all.  Anne Atwell’s voice is here to encourage my high drive readers, and to allow low-libido wives direct insight.  I think it’s very important that the sisterhood of Christian women support each other.  We do that by understanding we are all different and yet we are all the same.

Anne Atwell writes this for you.  She’s a high sex-drive wife who has agreed to share insight with other ladies who may quietly struggle with being the higher drive spouse.  To read Anne’s other posts, see:  “I’m Not Supposed To Love Sex, Right?”, and “When Your Sexuality Seems Out of Control,” and “Being the Ardent Lover.”

Let’s read what Anne has to say.

For the next few posts, I’d like to focus on how to keep our marriages holy. Step one in keeping our marriage holy is considering lust.

Lust.

Doesn’t the word sound like a strange creepy ghost whisper? Okay maybe that’s just me.

Lust by definition is: noun: A very strong sexual desire. Verb: have a very strong sexual desire for someone.

“I promised myself never to stare with desire at a young woman,” Job 31 (CEV).

“I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a young woman,” Job 31 (NIV).

I think, when the bible talks about lust, it’s HOW you look at other people not just the attraction or feelings that occur. Do you look at others with sexual interest or intent? Do you look at others see if they are attracted to you or to measure how good looking they are?

I am not here to condemn. I’m here to bring attention to something we might not notice about ourselves or our way of thinking. We, in the USA, live in a culture that has taught us to look at men and women in a sexual light.

“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’  But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart,” Matthew 5:27 (NKJ).

In college, I had to take a drawing class where I sketched semi-nude people. When I found out I had to take this class I was terrified. At that time, I felt especially rabid in my sexuality. Ashamed, I went to talk to the professor to let him know that I didn’t think I could, in good conscious, be in a room for three hours staring at people in skimpy bathing suits.

It was a Christian college and the professor was very kind and understanding. He told me just to give it a try and that he’d heard other tell him the same thing and that in the end they were glad they took the class. I didn’t think he understood but I agreed.

I showed up and over the course of the class I came to understand what the professor had been talking about. We weren’t viewing the body in a sexual manner. We were admiring a work of art. We were looking at light and shadow and form, how the muscle connected to bone and how fat and tissue sat over all of it. We were recording what we saw with the eyes of an artist, the body became a beautiful thing. I felt sexual healing in that class, as though my former way of seeing people were evaporating from my body.

Safe to say, it changed the way I looked at others. If, while out and about, I was looking at others with a lustful eye, I could sink into my artist mindset. It was a new, wonderful “tool” to use as the Lord’s ally to fight against that old self that wants to rise from the dead.

It’s all in HOW you look at someone. Job didn’t stop looking at women all together, that would be nigh impossible. How he’s looking at women has changed, at least from how I read the different versions of this verse.

That verse also points to “staring” or dwelling on feelings of desire. We might feel attraction if we were to meet the most gorgeous, kind, or attentive man on the earth, or have some other interaction.

Don’t dwell on it.

Acknowledge it happened and that you’re having strong feelings, then move on. Sexual feelings or attraction are very powerful and trigger chemicals released in your brain which are good and healthy for our bodies.

So, it’s something our body wants a repeat of and that’s not bad. We just have to be aware of what triggers those feelings because the Lord has instructed us not to activate them with people other than our husbands.

The thing is, it’s sometimes subtle, right? Your body could be actively seeking out others while your mind is sort of clueless. In the next post, I’ll go into how to become more aware of our bodies as ladies with high libidos (or any libido if this is a struggle for you).

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Mrs. Atwell is a high drive wife living all over with her military husband and two little explorers.  Her favorite hobby is reading.  If you would like to connect with Anne, she can be reached at Anne5@mail.com.

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