This is Part II of my interview with J Parker of Hot, Holy & Humorous! Hear Part I of her interview DYM Episode 2: How Being Happy Saved Her Marriage.

J Parker has been married for 22 years and has two teenage sons. Her mission is to encourage sex & marriage by God’s design was inspired by her personal story and God’s beautiful nudging.

She shares about the key things she has learned through her many years of marriage. J also gives tips on sexual intimacy. J reveals the issues she sees most often with women on her blog and what they can do to feel great about sex!

What You’ll Discover:

  • What she wishes she understood about sex from the beginning of her marriage.
  • You don’t have to be a Calvin Klein model to have amazing intimacy
  • How to feel sexy regardless of how your body looks
  • Christian sex in marriage runs deeper than that
  • Take more risks and have fun.
  • Your husband will enjoy that you are willing to tell him what you like and he wants to see you enjoy yourself, actually that turns him on.
  • What she hears the most from husbands.
  • The biggest concerns from women and advice to get past them!

Recommended Books: (click picture to view)

Sex Saavy, a lovemaking guide for Christian wives. By J Parker


Intimacy Revealed, 52 Devotions to enhance sex in marriage. By J Parker


Sheet Music, Uncovering the Secrets of Sexual Intimacy in Marriage. By Kevin Leman

  

The Pursuit of Passion, Discovering True Intimacy in Your Marriage. By Jeffrey Murphy


The Goodgirl’s Guide to Great Sex, (And You Thought Bad Girls Have All the Fun!) By Sheila Wray Gregoire


The Five Love Languages, The Secret to Love that Lasts. By Gary Chapman

 


The 7 Principles for Making Marriage Work, A Practical Guide from the Country’s Foremost Relationship Expert. By John Gottman

Tweetables:

I wish I had known to take more risks and look a little silly in our intimacy tweet this

“What I hear from husbands the most…” check out the podcast tweet this

Start looking at our strengths not our weaknesses…we are worth it and deserve to have great sexual intimacy tweet this


Transcript

0:00
delight your marriage Episode Three.

0:04
Welcome to the delight your marriage podcast, the show where you hear from amazing and inspiring wives sharing their struggles, triumphs, and advice for this journey called marriage. Here’s your host, belah rose.

0:22
Hey there, and welcome. I’m belah. And I’m so glad you’re here. And I hope you’re having a really good day to day. It’s been kind of nice here. Well, it hasn’t been nice. I’m in New York City. And it’s been very cold. I think I looked at the weather this morning when I got outside and it was 10 degrees. So yes, freezing but Sunny, which is kind of nice. So I ended up getting to the gym this morning. And it was a good day so far. But anyway, I’m really glad you’re joining us. And I think you’re going to really love the second half of Jay Parker’s interview from hot, holy and humorous if you haven’t listened to the first one. It’s episode two. And this is the second half. And like I said, she really goes into the big three things that she finds her readers really are struggling with. And she gives some pretty phenomenal advice. So definitely listen in. And here she is.

1:17
I think we’ve got to take hold of this and do everything that the weekend. And I think some people will be surprised by the response they might get back when they start doing what they can do to be a success in their marriage.

1:35
Yes, I love that. It’s a pretty good segue into my next question, a tip about intimacy that you wish someone either let you in on earlier and and then I’d say an addendum to this question is what do you see as your your readers? What are some things that they really either have struggled with, and you would love to give them insight on

1:57
crate for finally to my favorite subject. To talk about this all the time. I guess when it comes to intimacy and intimacy is larger than sex. I know that but I I typically talk about sexual intimacy on my blog. And so what I wish that I had known earlier on is that it was okay to take some risks and look a little silly. And I know that sounds strange, but I wish I did more willing, in some ways. I think when I entered my marriage, I was more freed. And otherwise, I know that I was still so self conscious. I mean, I didn’t want my husband to see me in the full light of our bedroom. I didn’t really speak up or even gesture what I wanted. What would arouse me what would make me feel good. I was worried about looking odd or sounding weird, or just, you know how I came across? I was so worried about that. But no, as it turns out, how do you seem really pretty into all of that? They are quiet, okay? Would you coming in and saying hey, I like it when you do blah, blah, blah. Most hobbies are our, you know that the guy you married is in love with you. He wants you to enjoy yourself. And he wants you to show that you’re enjoying yourself. In fact that turns him on, it gives them an extra boost of pleasure. So I think that if I had just relaxed and put myself more into it from the get go. That would have been great. Now I’ve since learned that and I really feel like I could just be very free and very engaged is fully fully in that moment. And now sexual encounters are I mean, they’re just more exciting and more fulfilling. They’re more fun.

4:00
And can I ask Jay is the reason that you feel more secure in these intimate encounters is it because you have the perfect body now and you’re you just look like a supermodel in your bedroom and that’s why you don’t

4:22
I did not have the body I had 20 years ago. I wish I had 20 years ago with my buddy that’s my husband doesn’t have his money together. Yep. In fact, it’s kind of funny because I could have thought about this how I actually you know, I don’t look as good as I used to and yet I’m more confident about the body that I have now. Because I feel I feel like a sexy woman because Cause I’ve experienced the pleasure of experience, I can give him pleasure, we’ve submitted intimates. Now, I do try to take care of my body, but it’s not going to be it’s going to change your the change in the course of your marriage. And it’s not about the great buys and sex of the people who have hetero sex lives. I mean, I’m thinking I can think of one lady I know who’s whispers the base to me, and I know that they, they have a really good sex life. And you would not look at them and think, you know, Calvin Klein models, he just wouldn’t, but I know that they are intimate, they adore each other. They’re having a great time, good for them. So don’t wait for the supermodel body. So, you know, you need to enjoy it. And the thing is two, you’re attracted to each other. And you marry each other, you love each other. And I think we need to realize that it’s more than just this physical attraction. The world wants to say that that’s what it’s about. But Christian sex and marriage runs deeper than that. It’s about making love to the whole person.

6:22
Yeah, that’s a wonderful I, I’m so grateful that you you didn’t share with us that suddenly you you became a supermodel. And that’s why all the confidence came because I just think that it’s it’s so easy for us as women to compare ourselves and compare ourselves to, to whomever and say, Oh, once I lose those 20 pounds, then I’ll feel confident, then I’ll, you know, approach my husband, or then I’ll instigate more and, and it’s just initiate more. And it’s just not it’s just not it’s false, that the truth is that you have to believe in your heart that God made you fearfully and wonderfully and beautiful to your husband’s eye, and that you are enough, and you can approach him. And you can and just, just like Jay said, I just so agree with every, every part of that is, is that you really can, it turns him on for you to be more engaged, more present more confident, more willing to, to do so much in the bedroom. So it’s so I just really appreciate that.

7:23
Oh, interesting. And that’s This is a key thing to probably hear from husbands and most is that they want more frequent sex. That’s true. But you know, almost even more than that, I hear men who say, I want my wife to be really into it, that even if they had sex all the time, but it would be grudgingly it would not be enjoyable or fulfilling to the husband. He wants his wife to be totally there with him.

7:51
Yes, yes. And I think that sometimes we as wives, we think that once, all of a sudden in the bedroom, you know, once we’re about to have sex are in that zone, our husband’s turning to someone completely different. No, he’s still that sensitive person that that that has feelings that has emotions that notices when you’re making a sickening face or when you’re grossed out or when you he didn’t turn into another person. He’s done grasping, he still sees and hears and senses all of your emotions. And when you can give yourself fully to him in the experience, it’s it’s just, it’s a boost to his ego and his confidence in his heart in ways that we probably as women won’t ever understand. You know, we might understand parts of it, but in terms of the male psyche, and how they receive love through sex, it’s just it’s just so much greater than a lot of times we can even understand. Yeah, I agree. When you hear from women, do you find that these are some of the larger issues that they’re dealing with? Or if you were to try to some, you know, one of the biggest issues that you hear in marriage that you just wish you could kind of insert into each wives mind.

9:12
Wow. Okay, well, there’s probably a few things that just keep coming up. One really is a body issue is believing in ourselves believing in our beauty and and not being so hard on ourselves? Now, I do sometimes hear from from wives who has let themselves go and I’m not encouraging that because I do think that we need to this is part of being that better person I talked about earlier and bringing your best self into your marriage. You should you should take care of yourself. But this is also realistic thing. Where you know, I’m a short person and always wanted to be tall. I’m not suddenly tomorrow going to be tall. So so we need to be realistic. You are not suddenly going to be an hourglass figure if you are not You know, if that’s not what you got this up the straw you drew. But you know what, you’re a beautiful person. And I think we need to start believing that and looking at our strength, stockbroking, our weaknesses, and believe that our husbands are attracted to us and married us and wanted us and we are desirable, and that we are worth it, that we deserve to have good sexual intimacy, and to feel good about ourselves. And in fact, I’ve actually kind of offered a challenge this year is to learn to feel beautiful this year to learn to take compliments, learn to feel good about yourself, to start talking more positively to yourself, about who you are and what you look like. And I just think that that kind of flips things around where we sometimes believe we’ll have to feel good about myself, and then I can have, you know, whatever, we’ve got it wrong we are, we can’t, we can’t wait for that when you do start feeling good about ourselves now, and start behaving like that. And then the good things will come toward us. So I just think we need to do that. And I think a practical step on that is live, put a little bit of light in your room, if you are used to only making love in the dark, I would just towns as wives to light a candle, put a lamp on, you know, put some just just a little bit light at first, to get to where you can let your husband see your body. Because he wants to see your body and your bodies beautiful. So that’s one thing that I would really want wives to do is just to feel good about themselves. Another thing that I find is women have we’ve compartmentalize sex a lot. And that takes all kinds of different. That covers a lot of different things. It’s those people who compartmentalize sex as being something outside of themselves, like, well, there’s my whole relationship with my husband, and then there’s the sex he wants. And that’s like, tucked away in this little box. Sometimes we compartmentalize sex as being something kind of outside what God wants. For us, it’s like this fleshly kind of dirty thing over there that we don’t talk about. Sometimes it’s the thing that we’ve compartmentalize down to, I’ve got to get everything else done in my day. And when I’ve got all of this taken care of, well, then I can go open that little box. And we just compartmentalize it to be just a side thing, instead of bringing the sexuality into our whole lives. And realizing that is a part of, of what that needs to be, we are sexual beings. And if we, if you’re married, God intends sex to be part of that. And so we need to start embracing that. Embracing right views, beliefs about that, and letting it be part of our whole being. Well, just the other thing I was gonna say is, thing I meet with this a lot of women who just don’t know what to do. And that’s been quite my most popular posts are probably my how to post on you know, how to how to orgasm. You know, if no one’s told you, and you’re not having one, how do you know how to get there. So it’s nice if someone would tell you. And I think sometimes we just, we lack information in the bedroom of you know, what to do what work how to approach this. And so I get some very practical advice on how humorous calm with that focus.

13:49
Yeah. Yeah, I love that. And I kind of want to circle back to the, even the first part that you mentioned about feeling good about yourself. And, you know, the, when the disciples asked Jesus, what the most important commandments were, the first one was to love the Lord your God with your whole heart, whole soul, all your mind and strength. And the second is like it to love your neighbor as yourself. And I want to focus in on the second part of that, which Love your neighbor as yourself. We can’t really love someone else. If we’re not loving ourselves, you know, in I think in marriage, it’s very prevalent when we are hard on ourselves when we’re criticizing ourselves, and we’re, you know, speaking poisonous words over ourselves, how is that not going to, you know, flowed over into our relationship with our husband. And so part of loving your husband is also recognizing the goodness that God has put in you and the gift that you are that God has designed you to be. And so loving yourself is also a part of loving your husband. And so, I think that’s very, very key. And I was also just going to about the second part of the compartmentalize sex, I just completely agree with that. And I always find it funny that, that one of the first commandments, you know, we will the first commandment that God gave Adam and Eve was to be fruitful and multiply. And I think about that I think about the process of having a child. And, you know, it’s not like, if you need vitamin C, you eat an orange, and then all of a sudden, you’ve got vitamin C in your body, and voila, you’ve got, you’ve got what you needed. It’s not like that with making a baby, it is a process, you’ve got to worry about the time of the month, you’ve got to worry about the temperature of the of the woman, I mean, there’s just there’s so many, you know, her mood, how things are going, there’s just so much to it. And yet, even if everything is perfect, you might not get pregnant the first time you have sex in order to get pregnant. So it’s hysterical to me that sex is such a integral piece of God’s plan for the world, you know, and we and like you said, we think it’s, we think it’s something that God doesn’t even realize it’s happening. And we, you know, he, in fact, is not part of the bedroom experience at all, and really shouldn’t be. And, you know, I think that’s sin coming into the world. And I think that’s a lot of what we’ve seen of sex prior to it being in the right context. For example, maybe our first exposure to sex was with pornography or in you know, R rated movies. And yes, that is out of the right context. Yes, that is sin. But when it’s in the right context, when it’s in your marriage, that is the right context. And that is exactly where you should be indulging in all the, you know, wonderful aspects of this beautiful experience. And then, lastly, I love that you end on the on the information piece that it’s very important for us as wives. I mean, so frequently. I know, I don’t know about you, Jay. But you know, I grew up in a in a family that really never talked about it. And I didn’t learn about what I didn’t learn that a penis was anything more than a urine dispenser until I was about middle school. And, and, and this popular boy that was assigned to sit next to me decided he should humiliate me in front of a good amount of people. So it was, it was not a fun experience. I was very mad at my mom. But

17:25
Did anyone have a good Junior High experience anywhere? Really, everyone’s stories? Well, my worst story was from junior high anyway, sorry.

17:38
It’s true. Well, that’s when the hormones are happening. That’s when we don’t know what to do with ourselves. Very true.

17:48
Um, yeah. Okay, so I’d love to, to move on to the last section. That’s really thoughtful takeaways. So is there a book or a resource that you would specifically recommend that, you know, wives can can learn about some of these really important, important pieces?

18:08
Yeah, of course. Of course, I recommend my own books. Thank you, for all those kind of how to things and a lot of that good information. And it’s everything from how to write a love letter to how to orgasm, and it just kind of goes through all kinds of things. That book is sex savvy, a love making guide for Christian wives. And it’s available ebook or print. So, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, I think it’s still in Smashwords. But then, I just recently came out with something kind of different. It’s intimacy revealed 52 Devotions to enhance sex and marriage. And it’s got a weekly devotional, and these are stories pride him in five to 10 minutes. But as I say, it’s a weekly devotional, because there are 52 of them. But I suppose you could do it daily and shorten that the time that you want to do it in. But they’re a biblical passage, and some are related directly to sex, and some are more principles that can still be applied to the marital bedroom. And so there’s the passage, and that was just kind of some thoughts on that some questions and prayer. And I just think that’s a really good way to get our mind set in the right way about what God designed sex to be in marriage. And once again, that’s intimacy revealed. And it’s also available ebook and print Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Other books. I really recommend it. I really like Dr. Lehman’s, that Dr. Kevin Lehman wrote sheet music. And then there’s another book by Jeffrey Murphy and Julie Seibert called the pursuit of passion. Those are both very different couples to read through on sexual intimacy. And specifically for wives. I just love Sheila Greg Wars book The Good Girls Guide to great sex And that really also deals with many of us wives who maybe intermarriage with poor messages about sex, and how to kind of turn that around. And so if you wanted some general marriage books, I think I mentioned the five love languages that made a difference for us. And the other one, which is not a Christian good, but I still recommend it because it’s built on a lots of great research is the Seven Principles for Making marriage work by John Gottman. He has a Gottman marriage Institute. And he’s just done a lot of study in this area, and come up with kind of the things that can help make your marriage work. And also the things that that if they’re present will make your marriage very difficult, like contempt. So you kind of get a big overview and a research based view on that.

20:50
That’s great. And I’ll have each of these resources linked up in the show notes at delight your marriage.com. So we’ll have all the links to Jays books, and then also to these other ones that she recommends. So definitely check those out. So as a last kind of parting piece of advice, if you could go back to year one in your marriage and sit yourself down, what would be one piece of advice you would give

21:17
you, I think that I would tell myself to stop worrying so much about unreleased unreasonable expectations about small things about getting it perfect. I would tell myself to to study more in the word and find out what it looks like not just to be a good wife, but to be a good person and bring that person into the marriage. I just think that I would have tried to focus more on you know, it’s okay to work on you. Because when you work on you that is working on your marriage. And I think that if I had just given myself that advice to be a better to to live out daily as a holy happy person. I just think that would have well, it was skirted a lot of issues. It would have saved a lot of heartache. And just would have started enjoying the kind of great marriage I have nail earlier.

22:37
Yeah, that’s that’s just so good. And Jay, your your advice and your stories have just been priceless. I know that there’s so many wives that are going to be really encouraged by this episode. So I really appreciate everything.

22:49
I would also say to myself, just a word of note, young wife. When you’re stressed, orgasms are a great stress reliever.

23:03
That’s wonderful. Well, that’s just a taste of what you’ll find it hot, holy and humorous. So please go there and check it out. And can you share with us just a little bit how we can connect with you? And then we’ll say goodbye? Yes.

23:16
Okay. So basically, if you just remember that the name of the site is hot, holy and humorous, but all the things are hot, holy, humorous. So the website is hot, Holy humorous.com. I can be found on Facebook, under hot holy humorous. On Twitter is hot, holy, humorous. And also on Pinterest is hot Holly humorous. So I’m each of those places. And I love for people to hunt me down, follow me read up, see if there’s something there that can help their marriage. And also, you’re welcome to go to Amazon, Barnes and Noble and check out my books. They’re

23:55
awesome. Please do. Jay, this has just been an amazing interview. So thank you so much for your time. I really, really appreciate everything you’ve given been delightful. Oh, thank you, Jay. And thank you so much for sharing so much insight and wisdom with all of us. And I also appreciate you because Jay was actually spent some time with me after our call to chat about this project and how I also am anonymous as she is, but some kind of cool news is that J has just opened the windows and she’s got some pictures on her website now so you can really see who she is. So check her out there. Also her book, I got a chance to read it and it’s just helpful and it’s fun and light and she has got some really good bite sized instructions. You know, each chapter is pretty short so it’s easy to get through. And that’s called Sex savvy. So check that one out. The last thing I want to ask you about is if you have enjoyed delight your marriage so far, I would love for you to leave us a review on iTunes. that actually helps us to have more views on the podcast. So if someone types in marriage, for example, if we have more reviews on iTunes, more people will find the podcast. So I’d love for you to do that when you get a chance. And if you’re not sure how to go to delight your marriage.com/itunes and we have a pretty easy step by step instructions on that. Really appreciate you appreciate you for listening and I appreciate you taking your time out. I think you’re gonna love the next episode and I hope to see you there. God bless God bless you and your marriage. Bye.

25:38
Thanks for joining. If you’ve been inspired by this show, would you help spread the word? If you take a moment to review and subscribe others can find us more easily. Find out how to delight your marriage.com forward slash iTunes. Until next time, live with love, wisdom and passion