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After reading my post from yesterday on perfectionism, a friend of mine dared me to write my next post using stream of consciousness, no editing, fragments and all.  As soon as I read her dare, the title of a book called Naked and Not Ashamed came to mind.  I feel naked not taking the time to reread and edit my writing, but here I am, not naked, literally, but naked in the fact that I am writing what this dare brings to mind.

I do own the book, Naked and Not Ashamed, and it sits, yet to be read,  in the bottom drawer of my nightstand next to another book called Intimate Issues.  This book, I did read as  a part of a study with a small group of ladies at my church. And, I can honestly say that it’s message is one that I come back to regularly.  Growing-up, the topic of sex was a bit “taboo” in our home.  Other than the understanding that sex is to be reserved for marriage, we just didn’t spend much time discussing the implications that sex has on a healthy marriage.  I’m guessing that this subject is not a comfortable topic of conversation in a lot of homes.  At the same time,  I found, in the intimacy of our small group, that we as women, all struggled with issues such as tiredness, varying levels of libido, etc.  We needed a safe forum in which we could work through our  roadblocks.

Before being a part of this group, I had read the Mars and Venus books explaining how differently men and women operate in the realm of sexuality – Men need intimacy to feel close to their spouse and women need to feel close to their spouse to feel like being intimate.  Even though this explanation made sense to me, I still struggled to find the motivation when I am tired and preoccupied with other things.  So, I come back to the heart of our intimate issues study.  After 10-weeks of reading and discussing the issue of sex in our marriages, I discovered sex really is a gift from God, not something that we do out of “duty” for our spouses, but something we are to enjoy together.  In reframing  sex in this context, I found the ability to shift my attitude from one of resentfulness (Yes, I hate to admit it!) to one of thankfulness for this tool that God has given us to connect with each other.

Now, in regards to my dare to write “naked,” I have to admit that I did do just a tiny bit of editing, but the dare enabled me to write about a topic that I wouldn’t ordinarily touch with a ten foot pole!  Naked writing can be kind of fun!

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