Intimate Clarity

Clarity On Relationship Domination

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

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Series Code: IC

Program Code: IC180103A


00:01 The following program discusses sensitive issues
00:03 related to sexuality.
00:05 Parents are cautioned
00:06 this presentation may be too candid
00:08 for younger audiences.
00:30 Welcome to Intimate Clarity.
00:32 I am Jason Bradley
00:33 and I am here with Jennifer Jill Schwirzer.
00:35 She is a licensed professional counselor,
00:37 and today we are going to talk about a sensitive topic
00:41 but it's a conversation we need to have.
00:43 Jen, what are we talking about, today?
00:45 The title of our program today
00:47 is Clarity on Relationship Domination.
00:50 What do you mean domination?
00:52 What do I mean by domination?
00:53 How does that affect the relationship?
00:55 So we talked before about how God created us.
00:59 He created this wonderful thing called sexuality,
01:02 and in sexuality,
01:04 one of the most important characteristics of biblical,
01:08 healthy, godly sexuality
01:10 is a mutuality between the partners.
01:13 There was an equality before the fall
01:16 and in a way we are going back
01:19 to that Eden experience in sexuality,
01:22 entering into the secret chamber
01:23 of our marriage.
01:25 And so there is this
01:26 very important characteristic of mutuality,
01:28 and what domination is this
01:29 when one person exercises power over the other
01:33 and control over the other,
01:34 and what I am saying is that's a love killer.
01:37 The point of sexuality is to foster, and build,
01:41 and develop marital love, that's what it's for.
01:44 And as you start to study neuroscience
01:46 and developmental processes and all the things involved,
01:49 psychology and you see
01:50 that God knew what He was doing,
01:52 He orchestrated everything down to the cell level
01:55 to build our capacity for love within the marriage
01:58 through sexuality.
01:59 But what happens with domination
02:01 is you make love impossible.
02:03 So typical scenario we offer is a man comes along,
02:07 holds a gun to a girl's head and says marry me.
02:11 It is just not gonna work.
02:12 Yeah, yeah.
02:14 A kind of a more modern version of that
02:15 or one that we've probably all encountered is
02:18 God told me to marry you.
02:20 Have you ever heard that with the dating world
02:22 and some guy goes to some girl or a girl comes to a guy
02:26 and says, you know, God has informed me
02:29 that you ought to be my partner.
02:31 Oh, really?
02:32 Oh, that's a form of manipulation...
02:33 I'll let you know when he tells me that.
02:35 Exactly.
02:36 It's so manipulative.
02:37 And what it effectively does is it makes it impossible
02:39 for that girl to feel any affection for him at all,
02:43 because control and affection are incompatible.
02:47 They are mutually exclusive.
02:50 So domination in a relationship really upsets
02:53 the delicate balance in that relationship
02:55 that God designed.
02:56 So the reality is
02:57 that our sinful world is obsessed
03:01 with the love of power,
03:04 but the gospel is all about the power of love.
03:09 So we see this opposite thing being manifested
03:12 in the life of God
03:14 that we see manifested in human life
03:17 because we're driven by the principles
03:20 of the enemy of God.
03:22 So we are obsessed with the love of power.
03:25 But God is all about the power of love
03:26 to where 2 Corinthians 13:4
03:28 said that "He was crucified in weakness."
03:32 God, the most powerful being in the universe
03:35 became weak in order to save us and humans,
03:39 the weakest of all creation
03:40 because of our sinfulness tried to become powerful
03:44 in order to save ourselves.
03:47 We are crazy.
03:48 We got it all backwards.
03:50 Yeah, it's interesting too
03:51 because like Christ's strength is made perfect
03:53 in our weakness.
03:55 You know, we have to recognize our need for Him.
03:58 For Him and we have to become weak in that process.
04:00 So we see this prophetically in the Book of Revelation
04:03 where you have a religious institution,
04:05 a religious system, really,
04:07 that pretty much takes over the world
04:10 and the religious system is metaphorized as Babylon.
04:14 Okay.
04:16 And this is, you know, immoral woman
04:17 but it's this religious system
04:20 that is based on power, abuse and domination.
04:23 And then, the counter figure to that is the lamb
04:27 who is really the central figure of the book.
04:29 You know, we make Revelation all about the beast
04:31 but it's really about the lamb.
04:32 Yeah, yeah.
04:33 It's the revelation of Jesus Christ,
04:35 not the revelation of Babylon.
04:36 It's a love story.
04:38 It's a love story, that's exactly right.
04:39 And so the central figure
04:40 of the Book of Revelation is the lamb
04:42 and he is the counter figure to Babylon
04:45 who is all about control and the abuse of power,
04:49 and the lamb is about laying, I mean what's a more fragile,
04:54 humble animal than a lamb.
04:56 And yet, God,
04:58 the all powerful God chooses
05:01 to present Himself as a lamb.
05:04 Yeah. That's mind-blowing.
05:06 Yeah. But He does.
05:07 And so He shows us that true power
05:10 is found in love and self sacrifice.
05:14 So it's impossible for us to love one and another
05:17 without that sacrifice in our sinfulness.
05:19 God himself couldn't love humanity
05:23 without sacrificing Himself and He is holy.
05:26 So that self giving, that humility and self giving
05:31 that really fosters a sense of equality and partnership
05:34 in a sexual relationship is essential to it.
05:38 And we can see some pretty bizarre counterfeits of that
05:43 or abuses of power in relationships.
05:46 One of them that comes to mind is sometimes in marriage
05:50 there is one individual that dominates in the marriage.
05:53 And as I have said before, it's just so important
05:55 that it's a mutual partnership.
05:57 And even, you know,
05:59 the fact that the scriptures enlist submission
06:01 of the wife to the husband,
06:03 which I believe is true, it also enlists the husband
06:05 loving the wife as Christ loved the church.
06:08 And how did Christ loved the church?
06:10 He sacrificed Himself for it.
06:12 He did, huh?
06:13 So it's not an abusive power or domination.
06:15 It's a giving of self to lift up that person
06:18 in servant leadership.
06:19 So one of the text that is often abused
06:21 in an abusive marriage is 1 Corinthians 7:4,
06:26 it says, "The wife does not authority
06:28 over her own body but yields it to her husband."
06:33 Men will take that, isolate it from the passage, and say,
06:37 "I have control of the bedroom.
06:40 It's up to me what happens and when."
06:43 And they will violate their wives
06:46 and their lives in the context of a married relationship.
06:50 But what they've left out is the second half.
06:52 Because the second half says that,
06:54 "The wife has authority over the husband's body."
06:58 So if he could say, "You have to do this."
06:59 She can say, "No, I don't want to do this."
07:02 Because she has equal authority
07:03 and what God is trying to say here is,
07:05 it's a mutual sharing.
07:07 You become so close and so intimate
07:09 in your relationship
07:10 and so willing to sacrifice for the other...
07:12 Yes, and...
07:13 That you are willing to give up your desires
07:15 and your preferences for the other.
07:16 And as men, you know,
07:18 we are supposed to love our wife
07:20 as Christ loved the church.
07:21 Amen.
07:23 And so, really, when you look at God,
07:24 He allows us the choice upon who we want to serve.
07:28 He loves us, He doesn't force us out of fear
07:31 or anything like that or domination or anything.
07:34 And if anyone should we allowed to force people, it's God.
07:36 He is all powerful, He is God, He knows what's best for us.
07:39 Yup, and He created us.
07:41 Exactly, He can come along and say,
07:42 I know what's best for you
07:44 so I am going to force you to do it.
07:45 Yeah.
07:46 You know, it's interesting 'cause some people say
07:48 and let's go back to submission within marriage.
07:50 Some people say,
07:52 "Well, the wife submits unquestioningly to the husband
07:55 unless he asks her to do something immoral."
07:58 I counter that with what if he asks her
08:01 or what if he tells her what to eat,
08:04 what to wear, what to say,
08:07 micromanaging her every move.
08:09 It happens. It happens.
08:11 It happens the other way around too,
08:12 wife on the husband.
08:14 But what if he does that?
08:15 Isn't that a violation
08:17 of a basic principle of freedom?
08:19 If it's someone's...
08:20 Even though he doesn't ask you to do anything immoral per se.
08:22 Who wants to be a part of that type of marriage?
08:24 Oh, but people have to,
08:25 people have to suffer with that.
08:27 And we've talked about, you know,
08:28 when to separate and so forth.
08:30 Another form of sinful domination
08:32 is what's called BDSM.
08:34 Okay.
08:35 Bondage, discipline, sadomasochism.
08:37 This has been...
08:38 This is, you know, domination on steroids so to speak.
08:41 This is a whole subculture where people become so deviant
08:45 in their sexuality
08:46 that they actually construct a method of domination,
08:51 and I don't even want to go
08:52 into the details of how it's done
08:54 because it's just disgusting to be honest.
08:56 But it's all based on inflicting pain,
08:59 putting people in entrapped situations
09:01 and one partner dominating the other,
09:03 that's the whole premise of it.
09:05 And the sad thing about that is that what we do sexually
09:09 actually reinforces any feelings
09:12 that we have
09:13 so if we experience like sexual attraction
09:17 in the context
09:18 of a deviant situation like that,
09:20 we will be sexually attracted to that deviancy in the future.
09:23 We actually develop an appetite for it.
09:26 It's pathetic and...
09:27 Yeah, by beholding you become change.
09:28 You too and by participation in something,
09:31 you start to mould to it.
09:32 So there's a little bit of research about this
09:34 that I've read and people will say,
09:37 well, this is okay because everybody signs on it,
09:40 everybody consents.
09:41 It's just adults having a great time together...
09:44 Doesn't make it right.
09:45 But if you dig...
09:46 Exactly, even if you are consenting,
09:48 it's still wrong.
09:49 It turns out that women are in the submissive role
09:52 in BDSM 75% of the time.
09:55 And it also turns out
09:56 that those who play the dominant roles
09:58 are less agreeable than the average,
09:59 this is a scientific research.
10:01 So I just say, like,
10:03 what if a bunch of mean spirited men,
10:04 you know, are dominating women
10:06 and what's new about that, you know?
10:07 Yeah, yeah.
10:08 That's terrible and I don't care
10:10 if the woman said it's okay
10:11 because they are not thinking straight
10:12 if they sign on, anybody that signs on for BDSM.
10:15 Yeah, 'cause you see that the reverse of it too,
10:17 you see the woman being the dominaterics...
10:20 It does happen.
10:21 And the man, you know, being dominated or whatever
10:24 and that's whole weird...
10:26 It's just weird. It's weird.
10:28 Everything that, you know, comes out us these days
10:31 through the media about sexuality,
10:34 pretty much everything is just weird like you said.
10:38 Yeah, and I am not analyst to say it.
10:40 See the enemy can deviate.
10:42 He can't create.
10:44 God is the creator.
10:45 He creates this beautiful model of sexuality
10:47 and it's so perfect in its design,
10:50 and the enemy gets jealous and frustrated
10:53 that he can't do that.
10:54 So what he does is he takes God's design
10:56 and he twists it and he deviates it,
10:58 and he is constantly coming up with new deviations.
11:00 But you know what?
11:01 I am not impressed by that.
11:03 It doesn't take any kind of brain power
11:05 or capability to deviate something someone else did.
11:08 No.
11:09 You know, it's a form of plagiarism.
11:10 Yup.
11:12 It's for weps, you know. Yeah.
11:13 So I am not impressed by it.
11:14 But he is continuing to come up with new
11:16 and more ridiculous forms of deviancy.
11:18 And no originality there.
11:20 That's right. That's right.
11:21 So how do you feel talking about this?
11:23 Is it, like, are you fainting?
11:25 It's...
11:26 Yeah, my thing is, like, I just...
11:28 I don't understand why anybody would want to behave like that
11:31 and I don't understand
11:33 why anybody would want to be
11:35 on the receiving end of that type of behavior, you know,
11:38 that's not true love, that's not genuine love.
11:41 Why would you want to do that?
11:43 Well, I'll answer that.
11:44 I think that often an appetite for that kind of thing
11:48 is preceded by abuse.
11:50 So what our first sexual experience
11:53 tends to format us and create attractions in us
11:58 to good things or deviant things.
12:00 So a child who is not yet formed,
12:03 you know, emotionally, psychologically,
12:05 and sexually, encounters an abuse situation
12:08 and it's perpetrated on by someone
12:09 that's into that kind of thing,
12:11 they are going to develop an...
12:12 They could, they could develop a total aversion to it,
12:15 they could sustain trauma.
12:16 People respond differently to different things
12:18 but sometimes they can develop an appetite or curiosity.
12:22 The internet can lead a young person to see something
12:26 that's disgusting
12:28 but fascinating at the same time.
12:30 And they can start to expose themselves continually to it.
12:33 Sometimes it's a gradual process.
12:35 And we need to put net filters on all of our computers
12:38 in our homes when we are raising children.
12:40 We need to be vigilant.
12:42 Never has so much garbage been available,
12:46 so readily available to our children.
12:49 Yup.
12:50 Technology is everywhere and parents need to be vigilant
12:52 in protecting their children from it.
12:54 And watch what they are watching on TV.
12:56 Yeah.
12:57 Because even in these cartoons, you are seeing things being...
12:59 Subtle things.
13:01 Yeah, yeah, because
13:02 they are trying to get to the kids.
13:03 I remember watching a Disney movie
13:06 with my children
13:07 and in the middle of the movie,
13:10 there was something suggestive,
13:12 I couldn't believe it.
13:13 I looked at my kids and I was, like, what just happened,
13:17 you know?
13:18 This is supposed to be wholesome family stuff.
13:21 It was shocking to me. Yeah.
13:23 And I think what it's doing is it's the enemy working
13:25 through the media to acculturate people.
13:28 Yeah.
13:29 Children, young children at younger and younger ages
13:31 to things that even adults shouldn't be into.
13:34 He wants to program their minds.
13:35 That's right. That's right.
13:37 So the bottom line is that the takeaway
13:39 is that any kind of dominance
13:41 in a sexual relationship will...
13:43 It's a love killer.
13:45 It's gonna make love in that relationship impossible.
13:48 And God created us in such a way
13:51 that we can only respond in love
13:52 when there's mutuality in relationship.
13:54 So we need to strive
13:56 for that idyllic ideal God's design.
13:58 Absolutely, going back to the divine design.
14:02 That's right. Absolutely.
14:03 Man, this time has just gone by too fast.
14:06 We need to show and tell people
14:08 where they can get more resources.
14:10 So if you want more resources, go to intimateclarity.tv.
14:15 Get your resources there and join us on the next program
14:19 of Intimate Clarity.


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Revised 2018-08-02