Covenant Sex

Covenant Sex is Dr. Anthony Hughes, a certified sex therapist, talking on his own about how married couples in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints can build a sexual relationship that works for both spouses. The subject he keeps returning to is desire discrepancy, the gap that opens when one spouse wants sex more than the other. He treats that gap as ordinary, suggesting most couples run into it at some point in a marriage. Words matter to him. The higher desire partner, in his account, is the one who feels loved and expresses attachment through sexual intimacy; the lower desire partner may value that closeness too but tends to reach for it in other ways. Having less desire to bond through sex, he argues, is not the same as having low sexual desire, and it should not be pathologized. The advice that follows asks something of both spouses. To the partner who wants sex less, he offers reassurance that the body is responding rather than failing, and he pushes back on the idea that a good relationship should make desire simply appear. He is also blunt with that same partner. Hearing no again and again inside a monogamous marriage can be traumatic over time, he says, and he names that pattern sexual neglect or sexual abandonment. He adds that no one owes a quota; what he asks for is, as he puts it, a lot but not too much. The series is laid out in numbered steps, under titles such as 'Step 2.5-Working Through Sexual Desire Differences in Marriage' and 'Step 3-Working Through Sexual Desire Differences in Marriage'. Step one, as he recaps it, is making sure each partner's desire is accurately seen and respected, while step three, he says, turns to blending two erotic worlds. In 'The Sexual Playground for Issues of Sexual Desire Discrepancy', he stresses the meaning behind sexual activity, arguing that going into a spouse's sexual world shows a wish to be there with them. 'Now what? Sexual desire discrepancy paths forward' spells out the cost of doing nothing, including his warning that part of the higher desire partner's soul can die. Faith shapes the language: souls meet, marriage is described as eternal, and one episode closes on a Christmas thought that the present a higher desire spouse wants most is a partner who is present. Desire is not the only subject. In 'True Warrior Program for Sexual Addiction', he describes a project meant to help people struggling with what he terms problematic sexual behavior, one he says took far longer to build than the week he first expected. Elsewhere he mentions the Desire Lab, which he set up for couples struggling with frequency. The production is modest by his own admission, and one recording carries a cough he asks listeners to bear with, but the delivery stays earnest, repeats key points for emphasis, and is frank about sex without turning crude.