The Act of Marriage: The Beauty of Sexual Love
by Beverly LaHaye, Tim LaHaye

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Book Reviews of The Act of Marriage: The Beauty of Sexual Love

Book Review: Plus on Practical, Negative on Gender Stereotyping
Summary: 3 Stars

However, this book in my opinion reinforces unhealthy and untrue gender stereotypes. In Tim's pastoral experience counseling women, they all seem to have blushed at the word sex. I wonder if he did all his counseling in the 50s. Men are portrayed as having been designed by God to experience sex primarily as a physical experience, while for women it is not very much a physical act but is an emotional act. My husband experiences it just as much as an emotional and relational act as he does a physical act, as I believe God intended for men, as I also believe he intended for women. I as a woman experience it as a physical act as much as I do an emotional/relational act. I have plenty of friends who are the same way. So much for the gender stereotypes.

The propagation of these old school views on gender angered me so much in fact that I ripped the book into pieces (literally) and threw it away. There are other good Christian books that frankly deal with the topic without pigeon-holing the genders or reinforcing an attitude that has excused men from being disconnected from their emotions and their wives hearts in the most intimate act invented by God. It is an attitude that has encouraged women to be available to meet her husband's physical "needs," as if he needs sex to live, or as if her sexual drive is tiny by comparison (which I believe after the Sexual Revolution society has begun to realize is not the case).

A minor issue but a point of annoyance for me: Tim reminds women to look their best when their husband comes home from work, while the the authors feel no need to say the same to men. This assumes that a) men are the breadwinners while women stay at home to do the domestic deeds (umm, I think times they are a'changin') and that b) women need to be reminded to spend time making themselves look good. Um, 'scuse me, but which gender tends to be more obcessed with their looks, and which gender is the one that tends to look sloppier and could use the reminding. ;-)

For all my criticism, I admit I came to the book with anger-at-men issues, so the presence of some of these issues really lit my fuse; the book is valuable to those that can recognize and overlook the unhealthy gender stereotyping. It does contain much practical, helpful information about the physicality of sex, a topic which Christians, oddly, too often seem unable to talk about amongst ourselves. If the above topics bother you too, though, read The Gift of Sex by Penner and Penner.

Summary of The Act of Marriage: The Beauty of Sexual Love

Christian Living Books

• Subjects > Christian Books & Bibles > Christian Living
• Health, Fitness & Dieting > Relationships > Marriage
• Sex
• Religion & Spirituality