By Jim Stephens
I’m almost 65, but many tell me I look very young for my age. Probably the major reason for this is I have been blessed with a wonderful wife. She understood from the beginning that one of the basic emotional, mental, and physical needs of a man, husband, and father is regular sexual relations about three times a week. And we are still doing it.
I studied engineering in college and I like things that are practical and down to earth. I encountered the revelations of Rev. Sun Myung Moon when I was 24. Over the last 40 years, I’ve had profound spiritual insights and experiences with God. For five years, I co-led with my wife the Blessed Family Department and studied all about marriage enrichment and research. More recently, I became a certified practitioner of an energy healing technique.
Recently, three men revealed to me in brief conversations that they wanted more sex with their wives. Then the pieces began falling into place and a strong impression came over me to write on this topic. Brothers and sisters could be so much happier, joyful, and fulfilled in their marriages than they are. The understanding that God “downloaded” to me I’m calling “God’s Original Design for Sex: Three Times a Week.”
We know we are made in the image of God. Gen. 1:27 says, “So God created man in His own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them.”
God revealed to Rev. Moon about the fuller potential of the oneness with Him through the husband and wife relationship centered on God. It is designed to be a more complete “image of God” than any individual. It manifests God’s masculine and feminine natures in oneness and harmony. It inherits God’s greatest creativity. It can be “heaven on earth.”
After creating Adam and Eve, God said it was “very good” (Gen. 1:31). What happened? As we know, the world has tremendous problems related to sex, from sex trafficking and slavery of young girls, to sexually transmitted diseases, to issues between the vast majority of husbands and wives surrounding sex.
Unificationism says the biblical Adam and Eve were similar to immature teenagers having sex before they reached a spiritual oneness with God (“be fruitful”). God warned them not to “eat the fruit” until it was the right time when they could handle it. If they were not mature, a true family of love would not be created.
Look at what a dysfunctional “first family” we descended from. The first son, Cain killed his younger brother Abel. Is it any wonder we are all screwed up in male-female relationships and brother-brother relationships? This is not the Original Plan that was supposed to be “very good.”
Adam and Eve never grew to maturity individually, so their sexual relations were never “blessed” or approved by God. Only one man, Jesus Christ, fulfilled that original ideal. He was the only one qualified to be married in the eyes of God and have sex according to the original standard.
All throughout history there has been a huge disconnect, insecurity, and dysfunction in sexual relations. We all inherited this in our genes.
Jesus was able to forgive sins even while he was on the earth, but he did not get rid of the Original Sin. Romans 8:23 says, “Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies.”
After the Fall of Man, we were separated from God and not fully His children any more. How do we completely return to God’s side and achieve the original ideal? We need to be adopted back into God’s lineage. Original Sin needs to be forgiven so it is gone from the human race forever. This is the purpose for the Second Coming of Christ.
The Second Coming will be a physical man to replace Adam, but there must also be a physical woman “messiah” to replace Eve. The “Bride of Christ” will be a literal, physical bride and they will restore the original position of Adam and Eve, be blessed in marriage by God’s authority, and have physical children who are born sinless.
Their victorious restoration of the Fall makes the condition for God to give them authority to forgive the Original Sin on the earth. They can then use that authority to adopt the rest of us back into God’s lineage. This is the redemption of our bodies mentioned in Romans 8:23. For those marriages that receive this forgiveness, called the Blessing Ceremony, the husband and wife are forgiven of Original Sin and subsequently can bear children that do not inherit the Original Sin. Before God, those children are born sinless.
This is the restoration plan of God for “physical redemption.” Just as Jesus left baptism and Holy Communion for purification and joining the “body of Christ,” the Blessing Ceremony by Rev. and Mrs. Moon is authorized by God to free us from bondage to Original Sin. The Blessing grants us permission from God to have sex. No couples in history ever had this before. The Blessing has come to the earth and God’s permission can now be received.
This is the physical foundation that will eventually lead to the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.
The world is in tremendous confusion and upheaval regarding sex because it is being prepared for the dawning of heavenly sex. The so called “Sexual Revolution” and sexual liberation have not liberated us at all. Family and societal breakdown are at an all-time high. It has left people searching for “true” sex.
If husband and wife become the Image of God, what would a true sexual relationship look like? What is sexual intimacy for a husband and wife who have reached the level of maturity that Jesus did?
God’s original design must certainly have been a “win-win-win-win-win.” It would be joy and happiness for God, husbands, wives, children, and society in more ways than we can even imagine.
We are fortunate to live in a time of increasing knowledge about the human body. Research has confirmed that male and female bodies are governed by totally different neurotransmitters: testosterone for men and oxytocin for women. We know that testosterone levels rise in men every 2-3 days, pushing them to seek out their wives for physical intimacy. This is by design so “that they may become one flesh” (Mark 10:8) and implies a oneness that is the Image of God.
Again imagine a woman married to Jesus. What would their untainted sexual relations be like? Wouldn’t the essence and beauty of true womanhood as designed by God be embodied here.
Through deeply studying conception, I realized why God created men to be fertile every 2-3 days. He had to. If it was more of a monthly fertility cycle, then conception would be much more difficult because the male and female fertility periods would not synchronize. Not only that, but this driving energy is for building the oneness to reflect God. The role of female energy is complementary. It nurtures and sustains.
Personal relationship counselor, Dr. John Gray, author of the bestselling Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus: The Classic Guide to Understanding the Opposite Sex, discusses “Why Mars and Venus Collide.”
Research is now discovering the benefits to women of frequent sex within a loving marriage. Semen carries ingredients that improve the physical health and immune systems of women. This is no accident. God’s original plan was beneficial for all.
There are other known benefits from frequent sex. For example, here are “20 Reasons To Have Sex When You Don’t Feel Like It.”
The book, The Act of Marriage: The Beauty of Sexual Love, by a Christian couple, shares some profound concepts related to our hearts and souls.
A man doesn’t want sex three times a week because he is fallen. It’s the way his body was made by God. The Fall of Man messed up everything about our relationship with God and every other person, but it didn’t change the way our bodies were designed.
Now that the Blessing Ceremony has come, we can be granted permission from God to freely enjoy sex with our spouse shamelessly and joyfully. And God is happy about it. The sexual organs become the new “Holy of Holies” where we meet God.
For any couples wanting to experience this but needing some help in this area, I highly recommend a new book called The Bead Method: Creating a Generous Marriage.
Think again about Jesus if he were a literal husband and father married to a female messiah. What kind of family environment did God have in mind for their children? What kind of neighborhoods would exist with families like that? What would our cities and countries be like? All your aunts and uncles, the businessmen, the politicians, the artists, and the media people would all be filled with the love of God and expressing it in their own unique way.
Sounds like the Heavenly Kingdom to me.♦
Jim Stephens (UTS Class of 1977) and his wife, Hiromi, were blessed among the 2,075 Couples in 1982, and have five children. He has written and spoken extensively in the American Movement about men and women, families, matching, marriage, and the Blessing, having served with Hiromi for five years as Co-Director of the Blessed Family Department.
Applied Unificationism 
Jim, you are a fortunate man. Three times a week at your age is a great feat. I have to commend your couple even though I don’t know you. You’re writing so openly on this intimate subject.
Obviously, writing from a man’s viewpoint, you are expressing a man’s desire and need for sexual intimacy with his wife even as the couple gets older. There are barriers to this level of intimacy as a couple gets older, like health, physical energy, sexual energy, desire from both sides, etc. I reckon the ideal is to be as intimate as the couple together are happy with. I guess most men at a certain age would be happy if their wives were willing to have sexual relations even once a week (speaking for myself, anyway). Even in our prime that would have been a good compromise.
I would like to hear your wife’s perspective on what you have written. But as you say, she is a wonderful wife and you are united in this shared vision of the importance of continuing and reinvigorating this aspect of your life. As you write, many couples have no relations or have given up completely…there are many painful issues for couples at any age.
Jim,
You bring up many very good and valid points. But John, the first commenter, asked about your wife’s viewpoint. Here at least are a few thoughts from a woman’s perspective.
One point of agreement I have with you is the overall benefit of a blessed couple working toward and maintaining an active sexual life. To elaborate on another good reason is that just as illicit sex transmits evil spiritual elements between partners, so “absolute sex,” as Father calls it, transmits good spiritual elements between husband and wife.
An amazing similar example of this mysterious interchange is the give and take between a nursing mother and her infant. A baby can have a cold germ which can get passed to the mother through breastfeeding. But the mother’s antibodies go to work to defeat that germ. Those antibodies then get passed back to the baby during the next feeding thereby helping protect the baby.
I believe the unseen spiritual interaction that goes on between a couple is that the spiritual elements, including strengths and weaknesses of each of the partners, is passed to their spouse each time they make love. I believe Rev. Moon chose spouses so different from one another so they can complement and strengthen each other. Rev. Moon himself encouraged couples to have sex often and suggested they sleep naked. Why? Because it would create more intimacy and encourage more sexual contact.
That said, it’s not enough to tell couples that 3 times a week is optimum no matter how many good reasons you give. If couples aren’t having sex, there are more important issues that need to be discussed.
The tone of your article comes across as if only men want good sexual relations and women have to be “educated” or guilted as to why it’s a good idea for them as if they are somehow against it.
A woman is not a cold, undersexed creature who needs to be persuaded into having sex with her husband. Women are the mirror image of men. Men are like the spirit looking for the physical expression of love through sex, while women are looking for the emotional or spiritual love coming from men that then inspires them to want to come together.
The basic principle is subject gives love, object responds with beauty. Instead of using psychology, Bible quotes, Father’s quotes, or medical data to try and persuade or guilt a wife into having sex 3 times a week, why not tell men to try being true, honest, deep, compassionate, and loving.
There are women out there having obligatory sex with their spouses, denying their own physical and emotional needs for cultural, religious or other reasons, but ultimately there’s a huge price paid. If a woman does not receive emotional and sexual fulfillment during sex, she is actually being “trained” to shut down both sexually and emotionally. To open one’s heart and be sexually aroused and then left unfulfilled is so torturous that it can lead a woman to close off and just go through the motions so as not to be aroused or emotionally vulnerable. This kind of repeated, unfulfilled sex ultimately kills a woman’s drive, passion and spirit. Long-term this can lead to resentment, withdrawal, depression, and illness. A woman may try to be a faithful, loving partner because of her sense of duty or moral and religious sense but is killing her heart worth the price of a life of “quickies?”
The best way to increase the frequency of sex is to increase the desire for intimacy. Women want intimacy, which means being the most important beloved person in the world to their spouse receiving all the love that man is supposed to embody.
If a man seeking more sex with his spouse would study the words related to intimacy like affinity, commitment, devotedness, affection, fondness, love, constancy, faithfulness, fidelity, friendship, etc., and seek to embody them by practicing them, he would likely find the intimacy he is looking for.
A woman often mirrors her husband in a way he may not be willing to face. If a man embodies aloofness, coldness, coolness, remoteness, and is reserved, how can he expect anything different in return?
The logical question for a man to ask instead of being critical of his wife for not wanting sex as much as he does is, “Am I as a man giving my wife the kind of love that would make her want to respond the way I’m expecting her to?”
Every woman wants to receive love. When she does, she cannot help but respond. It’s that simple!
Many men approach sex in a taking manner and if they try to give, it can seem mechanical or calculated. Men sometimes try and do the right things but get rebuffed, but it is hard to change ingrained patterns as we get older.
My suggestion to couples who are distant is don’t give up. Keep giving, keep trying. As Father said so many times, “True love gives with no thought of receiving anything in return.”
A woman was created in a way that she cannot help but respond to receiving true love. But giving a woman true love is much more than figuring out sexual technique.
Some men fail to understand a woman’s holistic needs in terms of security, atmosphere, financial stability, emotional fulfillment, etc. — things a woman needs as part of her home and marriage. Men can sometimes find women too complicated, so they may ignore all these aspects of their married life and then can’t understand why their wife is not responding to his romantic advances. Women may seem too complicated to understand and love, but true love is worth the effort and good sex may be the ultimate reward.
If men look deep within themselves to see if they are capable of truly giving love to their wives, and if they are truly honest with themselves, they will find the key to unlocking their wife’s passion.
One of the best statements I’ve ever read.
Kim,
This is stunningly thoughtful and well said, and unmistakably rings true to Father’s teaching. Definitely speaks to me. Thank you!
Jim,
This is a very important part of Father’s teaching, so I’m glad that you raised this important issue and brought it out to the open. The other comments are valuable as well. I think if both husband and wife try to be generous to each other, sexually and otherwise, the marriage will be happier. If something is blocking us from giving, then it’s important to find out why that is.
No one who knows you and Hiromi can deny that the two of you positively glow, and you have raised an exceptional family. As Richard says, thanks for bringing this up and giving it such a rich treatment with all your references. There are many reasons why couples have little sex or physical affection, and they may not be easily resolved, but it is good to be reminded that God made sex to be a great blessing for both spouses, not just an obligation, and the reasons not to give up on it.
A flawless treatment of a vital topic. Well done, Jim. We need more folks like you in the BFA.