Sexual Privacy Matters More to Your Wife

J. Parker

Many wives do not feel comfortable having or talking about sex if others might hear or know. Many husbands don’t share the same concern.

One of the funniest takes about this is from the comedian Sinbad.

Yes, I’m generally for taking your house back and having respectful sex even with kids or pets or in-laws there. However, there’s a tendency for husbands to worry less about that stuff than their wives. Why is that?

She’s more aware of “the others.”

Women tend to have more tabs open in their mental browsers than men.

Meanwhile, men tend to be more single-task focused, to the point that if they are thinking about or engaged in sex, they may not even hear the baby crying or the knock at the door. They also aren’t thinking about their teenager coming home soon or taking a break from the headphones to get a snack in the kitchen—and thus possibly hearing what’s happening down the hallway. Or it could be the aging parent living with you who might become aware of your bedroom activity.

Let me assure you that most women don’t try to think about such things, but we do. Our senses are constantly picking up information, dropping more balls into the juggling act in our brains, and then turning that into decision-making and multitasking. We have to actively try not to think about such things.

When your wife is aware of all that going on outside, the sexual experience no longer feels as safe or intimate. It’s not just the two of you now, but the two of you plus her awareness of the others. It becomes not only hard to focus, but also to feel comfortable and confident in the bedroom.

She believes good girls don’t.

By “good girls don’t,” I’m not saying that good girls don’t have sex. They do, in the right context, and many wives are on board with that. And yet…good girls don’t flaunt it.

Consider the cliche of a bachelor boasting about getting laid and the response he gets from his buddies: “Nice!” “Well done.” “You ‘da man!” (Does anyone say that last one anymore? Oh well.) Now imagine a single woman gloating to her girlfriends about a one-night stand. What would they say? “What were you thinking?” “Did you use protection?” “Is he going to call you?” And the looks on faces might show disapproval as well. The message is clear: Good girls don’t flaunt their sexual encounters.

Yes, I used a cliche, but truth underlies that scenario. Plenty of women grow up absorbing the idea that being too out there about your sex life is tacky. It’s much better to be reserved about your sexuality.

And frankly, I don’t believe that’s all socialization but some biology too. Being too publicly sexual can invite unwanted attention and put a woman at risk. We learn such lessons while young and single, but we don’t flip a switch once married. Lots of women still want to keep their sexuality a bit under wraps, a little more nuanced, more private.

She links privacy with intimacy.

She connects privacy with intimacy because they are connected. Just think about how exchanging secrets with someone makes you feel closer to them. Shared knowledge of private information connects you in a way that excludes others and makes it feel like “just the two of us.”

Sex is certainly a private act in marriage, but how much privacy is needed for you each to feel “just the two of us” intimacy? For the husband, it might be simply that the act happened with only him and his wife, while for the wife, it might be that the fact the act happened is known only by him and her.

Of course, there’s a spectrum in between, and where you and your wife land is particular to you. But typically, a husband is less concerned about others knowing that sex is happening in the marriage or even at a particular time than his wife is. What he may not understand is that her sense of intimacy can be compromised by a lack of privacy.

How private should you be?

Again, while your lovemaking should be private and intimate only between you two, how private the knowledge that it’s happening can vary among couples or between spouses, or even from season to season.

For example, I was way more concerned about my kids hearing us make love when they were young. Once they were teenagers, I figured it was up to them to take steps not to overhear Mom and Dad down the hallway. We were respectful enough not to make a ton of noise, but they knew healthy married couples have sex and they had other places to go or headphones they could put in to avoid us.

That said, my husband has made sexually flirtatious comments in front of my sons that made me uncomfortable. Not horrified, but uncomfortable. And hey, having had a ministry about sex in marriage for over ten years, I’m no prude! Spock’s just less private about that than I am.

So while I cannot give straight-up advice on what amount of privacy your marriage should have, I can give a few general tips about what won’t work with your wife and what might work instead.

How can you lessen her anxiety about privacy?

Methods I’m pretty sure won’t work include:

• Complaining that she’s too uptight about others hearing or knowing. She can’t snap her fingers and change her feelings.
• Telling her to ignore the kids, in-laws, etc. Remember, she’s not trying to think about them; she just does.
• Continuing to talk about or have sex after she’s spoken up about her discomfort. For example, if she hears the kids and asks for a quick break to check on them, she won’t feel valued if you dismiss that concern and keep going.

What might work with your wife:

• Letting her talk through her concerns. Her worry may decrease once she expresses her thoughts, discusses best/worst scenarios and how to handle them, and slowly Xes out each of those mental tabs.
• Asking how you can help maintain your sexual privacy. She might ask you to get up and lock the door, make sure the kids are asleep, or take the activity into a more secluded room.
• Showing that you also value the link between privacy and intimacy. You can indicate your mutual desire for intimacy by taking steps on your own to ensure privacy (e.g., putting the kids to bed, getting a hotel room instead of staying with your parents) and telling your wife that you long for true alone time.

If your past actions didn’t honor her desire for privacy, an apology might work wonders—or at least move you toward a better outcome. When a husband says something like, “I don’t think I understood how much this mattered to you, but I’m going to try to do better,” a wife hears that she’s valued. (Some wives even swoon!)

Over time, your wife may not only feel less anxiety—she may feel freer to engage in sex, even with others around or at the back of her mind. Because she feels safe with her husband in their private, intimate marriage bed.