God is not ashamed of sex, so you don’t have to be ashamed of sex. In the Bible, he talks openly about sex, sexual desire, and sexual acts—so you can too! Sex is a good gift from a perfectly pure God.
Is the sexual aspect of your relationship overwhelmingly new? Give each other permission to be inexperienced, naive, and unskilled at the art of love. And know that talking about sex is the most important habit to achieve the kind of sex you will both love.
Now let’s get into the not-dirty details with four biblical sex talks.
Sex Talk #1: Dissimilarity
For most couples, desire doesn’t line up neatly. You might be part of the majority where one partner is “higher desire” and the other “lower desire.” These differences in desire can frustrate your love life. But knowledge is power, and knowing your spouse’s desire level will bring power, passion, and patience into your intimacy.
This isn’t an issue of right or wrong but simply recognition. Expectations are everything, and if you expect your spouse to be like you sexually (or the instantly aroused actors and actresses from the media you consume), you are in trouble.
The goal is to communicate how you’re wired and how you feel and then to understand your spouse’s desire level as best you can. Your differences are no more problematic than an introvert marrying an extrovert, but they are a factor in how you approach the bedroom, so become a curious detective of your spouse’s body and brain.
Sex Talk #2: Frequency
There is no “right” answer to sexual frequency, but your expectations will shape your experiences. The Bible, after speaking of the goodness of sex, gives us general counsel in 1 Corinthians 7:2–5.
So when it comes to frequency, what’s a reasonable goal you both can agree upon? And if you want to increase the frequency, do everything in your power to make sex a positive experience. Here are some tried-and-true tactics:
Patience is a virtue: Sex that your spouse wants tomorrow is better than sex that they don’t want today.
Scheduled sex can be the best sex: Putting sex on the calendar is a great way to build anticipation, especially for spouses who need more time to get into the mood.
Stress and sex: Some spouses love sex as a way to relieve stress, while others struggle to get in the right mood when they are stressed. Talk about how sex fits into stress management.
PMS and sex: A wife’s hormones, depending on the day of the month, will be a blessing or a challenge to intimacy. Ladies, educate your husbands on how you tend to feel during the various days of your cycle.
Biology matters: Female bodies, due to their biology, require different kinds of sex for maximum pleasure. Educate yourselves on anatomy, and your love life will thank you.
Her (very) unique body: Not only is every woman’s body unique, but every sexual experience is too. What worked last time might not feel the same this time. So communicate!
Avoid judgment: You will have some sex that will make you crash in bed and want to coauthor Song of Songs the Sequel. And you will have some sex that is so status quo that you’ll be doing chores two minutes after it’s over. Don’t immediately judge sex like some color commentator.
Porn sex is not real sex: If you have had any exposure to pornography, you must remember that porn sex is not real sex. Rarely does porn depict patient, kind, selfless, realistic sex.
If you liked it, say it: It’s rewarding, healthy, and rather sexy to tell your spouse that they are a great lover. Pull them close and tell them what they did that you really liked. Build up positive memories of pleasure together.
Sex Talk #3: Variety
Sex presents us with the classic tension between novelty and familiarity.
Novelty can be exciting. Our brains release dopamine, the key chemical in experiencing pleasure, when we experience something new.
But novelty can also be scary, uncertain, and intimidating. That’s why we run back to the familiar, the known, the comfortable.
Sex in marriage puts you in the midst of this tension. And it’s different for every couple.
Once again, it comes down to communication. Ask each other:
- “What do we do that you really like?”
- “What have we tried that you really weren’t into?”
- “What are you curious about? What would you like to do together?”
Sex Talk #4: Mercy
One of the messiest parts of my life has been sex.
From my exposure to pornography as a kindergartener to my long journey through addiction to learning what good sex looks like in marriage, I write with some hard-won wisdom and a dump truck of regrets. And you might have your own sexual baggage that has complicated your marriage.
Which is why I love that the Bible tells us again and again about God’s love for sexual sinners, sexually broken people in the Bible whom God loved, reached out to, and saved.
So if you, like me, wish you could go back, rewind, redo so much of your sexual story, know that you have a God who bled and died so the shame could be erased and your guilt couldn’t get the last word.
“Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation” (Colossians 1:21–22).
I pray you can talk about sex—your dissimilarity, frequency, and variety—but, far more, I hope you come back night after night to the mercy of Jesus. That mercy will love you and, in time, teach you to be a better lover.
Excerpt taken from Newlywed: A Christian Guide for Loving Year One by Mike Novotny (© 2026 Time of Grace Ministry).
