Sexual Intimacy in Muslim Marriages: The Problems with Centering the “Right to Sex”
“If your spouse is not fulfilling your rights to sexual needs, you have the right to divorce them!”
“Muslims are told to remain chaste before marriage, so within marriage, sexual fulfillment is a right.”
“Muslim men have an absolute right to sex within marriage, and the wife must fulfil this need.”
“Wives, please understand how tough it is for your husbands out there in the world – they need to release and satisfy their desires at home!”
There is no shortage of messages such as these that Muslims absorb from social media, whether from an Instagram Reel, podcast style YouTube video, or an emotionally charged TikTok. Some of these individuals are Muslim content creators with strong opinions about sex within marriage; others are keyboard warriors who are standing up for “men’s right;” and a small minority are well-intentioned scholars trying to support and address the mountain of issues that Muslim are facing with marital sexual intimacy, yet without collaboration with a professional or training in sex therapy.
As an Occupational Therapist who centers a traditional Islamic Psychology (i.e. science/study of the soul) approach for sexual health therapy and education for Muslims, marital sexual intimacy is one of the foremost concerns facing our communities. And I am greatly concerned by the impacts that erroneous and simplistic messaging is having on the minds of Muslim when they already struggle with access to soul-centered sexual health education that is accurate. Muslims are unfortunately learning about sexual intimacy in marriage from inaccurate or incomplete sources, such as peers, entertainment media, and pornography. To add Muslim created social media content into the mix is problematic, given the struggle with critical thinking skills that our communities tend to have.
Having held therapeutic and educational spaces for Muslim individuals and couples struggling with anxieties, fear, misconceptions, and issues with marital sexual intimacy, I dive into the core of this topic daily. Social media content about “rights” to sex in marriage that Muslims are exposed to are grossly negligent of traditional Islamic contexts of marital sexual intimacy. These content creators are either unaware of traditional texts about marital sexual intimacy or are intentionally negating them. Both are irresponsible and have dire consequences on Muslims of all ages, single and married. These include:
Muslim women are entering marriage are often scared and anxious about marital intimacy. Women in general lack foundational information about their bodies and sexual intimacy – and oftentimes may rely on and take what their future spouse or spouse is telling them about intimacy to be true. This has resulted in Muslim women are apprehensive about marriage itself and are hesitant to even begin the search for a spouse.
Muslim men are entering the premarital and marital world with this “sex as a right” notion, especially under the misleading guise of “Islamic masculinity.” This can lead to lower-self (nafs al-ammarah) sexual and emotionally dominating behaviors and less-than-sacred treatment of women they’re getting to know for marriage, and their wife in marriage.
Within marriage itself, women are being subjected to un-Islamic power dynamics with sexual intimacy. Especially when men reduce sexual intimacy down to sexual intercourse and negate how God created women to need and want intimacy before sex – and that sex/sexual intercourse is one part of the sexual intimacy menu, but not all of it. And when men lack awareness that 60-70% of women do not experience an orgasm from sexual intercourse and require clitoral stimulation (aka foreplay!!).
While neither myself nor anyone else can stop the flood of misleading content about sexual intimacy in marriage, I can attempt to provide nuanced contexts about what is really going on when Muslim couples struggle with marital sexual intimacy – which renders this “sex is my right” argument less than helpful.
Because there are legitimate reasons why couples WILL struggle with sexual intimacy at one or more points in their marriage, and they have little to do with fulfilling “rights” – which reduces a complex and dynamic process to a soul-less transaction, which Islamic perspectives of sexual intimacy in marriage is far from being.
The following are six nuanced points that Muslims must keep in mind with regards to soulful marital sexual intimacy, and why Muslim struggle with it, for legitimate reasons…
1. Marital sexual intimacy cannot be addressed separately from emotional, physical, and spiritual intimacy between spouses.
A common mistake that non-expert Muslims make about marital sexual intimacy is that they speak about this separately from three other key foundational marital intimacy factors: Emotional, spiritual, and physical. The reason for this is simple and widespread: Abstinence before marriage is narrowed down to “just don’t have sex before marriage” (the “what”) without being given any helpful context about the “why” (i.e. apart from hellfire) and the “how” (i.e. this is how you manage your sexual desire and what you need to know about healthy marital intimacy to prepare you for marriage). Since premarital sex is spoken about as “just don’t do it,” many Muslims have the erroneous idea that sex within marriage is as easy as “just do it.” This is far from how God created men and women’s sexual response cycles, which is spoken about in detail within traditional texts on foreplay, for example. Overall, marital sexual intimacy is not a “thing” that is “done” by one spouse to another, nor does it take place separately from emotional, spiritual, physical intimacy. In fact, if these three foundational forms of intimacy are not present in marriage, you will see challenges with marital sexual intimacy arising. Sexual intimacy is the culmination and meeting point of emotional, spiritual, and physical intimacy, as the diagram below shows.
An Islamic model for Sexual Intimacy: Emotional, Physical, and Spiritual Intimacy
2. Muslims need to stop talking about their “rights” to sex in marriage and start prioritizing Divine responsibilities in marriage.
In one of our co-created videos. Dr. Tarek Elgawhary and I discuss the unfortunate focus on marital rights rather than Divinely ordained marital responsibilities. While we speak about this in the context of the “Angels cursing hadith” topic for our video, it is relevant to any discussion point made by someone about marital sexual rights. A nikah between a man and woman legitimizes the relationship as husband and wife and is completed through and with God’s witnessing and blessings. Marriage from traditional Islamic perspectives is a union of two souls, and there is nothing more sacred than marriage, which we see reinforced with the concept that marital sexual intimacy is the most sacred form of worship of God. As a continuation of the first point on foundations of sexual intimacy, when men are talking about their rights to sex within marriage, they are often excluding one key point: As Muslims, we cannot speak about our rights within marriage if we are not fulfilling our Divine responsibilities within marriage. Since issues with marital sexual intimacy are on the surface of a deep iceberg, spouses who complain about the “lack” of fulfilling in marriage often don’t reflect on whether they are fulfilling their responsibilities towards their spouse – such as emotional, physical, and spiritual intimacy and connection.
So, rather than men stating, “My wife doesn’t want to fulfill my right to sex,” husbands should be asking themselves, “What is preventing my wife from feeling more sexual desire (the wanting/interest) towards sexual intimacy?”
Husbands can also ask themselves, “Am I showing emotional, spiritual, and physical intimacy towards my wife in the love languages that are meaningful to her? Do I even know what this means and what she wants?”
Wives can also ask themselves, “What factors within our marriage are hindering me from wanting to be intimate with my husband?” and “What could help my sexual desire towards my husband?”
Of course, this requires both spouses to be open-hearted, self-accountable, and self-aware. Yet these traits are not always present, hence the “sex is my right!” stance that one spouse may take. And as will be discussed below, there are key components to healthy and pleasurable sexual intimacy in marriage, and by holding one-self accountable for the part that they play, couples can better navigate issues that may arise.
3. The nature of marital sexual intimacy cannot contradict the sunnah of marriage.
Interestingly, all this focus on men’s rights to sex within marriage – and sometimes, this right being spoken about as a demand that women must obey – contradicts the sunnah of marriage. Nowhere within our Islamic tradition about marriage does it reinforce or share the notion that sexual intimacy can be demanded from a spouse.
In fact, as I’ve mentioned above, the sunnah of marriage reflects that of sexual intimacy. An oft-repeated verse during Nikah ceremonies shares that God "...created you from a single person, and made his mate of a like nature, in order that he might dwell with her in love" (7:189). The Quran also refers to spouses being garments, as in “They are clothing for you, and you are clothing for them." (Quran 2:187). This metaphor emphasizes the closeness, protection, and comfort that spouses provide for one another, highlighting the intimate and supportive nature of the marital relationship in Islam. And of course, we cannot forget about this oft-quoted verse:
“And of His signs is that He created for you from yourselves mates that you may find tranquility in them; and He placed between you affection and mercy. Indeed, in that are signs for a people who give thought." (Quran 30:21)
If we were to stop and reflect on these verses, we would realize that since our spouses are creations of God and manifestations of His Divine Names, marriage then must reflect this sacredness. Nowhere within the sunnah are there verses indicating that we have the right to demand anything from our spouse. Ironically, as Muslims refer to the Prophet (Peace and Blessings Upon Him) being the greatest example and role model of a husband, he never approached his wives with harshness, power, and claiming that he has “rights” over them.
Why then are Muslims leaning into their lower nafs (the nafs al-ammarah), demanding that their spouse give us sex because it’s their right, without any consideration for the sunnah of marriage, and the compassion, love, and mercy that must always encompass how we view and treat our spouse? To selfishly center one’s sexual needs – while negating that sexual intimacy is the culmination of emotional, spiritual, and physical intimacy – is in contradiction to the mutual, heart-centered way sexual intimacy must take place. Demanding sex from one’s spouse is negating emotional intimacy and will have impacts on your spouse’s soul. This will have detrimental impacts on the sacred bond of emotional and spiritual in marriage, causing a snowball effect on sexual intimacy. There are simply no positive impacts on marriage when one spouse demands sex because of their “right.”
And as will be discussed in the next point, the “sex demanding” spouse is often not self-reflective to ask themselves what role they play in issues that arise…
4. Issues with marital sexual intimacy may result from difficulty with communication and emotional intimacy.
Having served as a therapist for couples with marital intimacy challenges, there are two recurrent themes that continue to arise: Couples struggle with communication and emotional intimacy. Placing these together also means that couples struggle even more with communication for the sake of emotional intimacy.
Most couples are great at functional communication – that is, sharing updates about their day and logistical items about their marriage and themselves. With regards to emotional communication, most couples think that telling their spouse where they’re going wrong and how to fix themselves is what this means. Or, that emotional communication means saying, “I love you.” Or that giving advice to your spouse when they’re sharing a challenge or issue is the best way to be empathetic and show support.
Well, none of these are helpful when it comes to communicating for the sake of emotional intimacy. And without emotional intimacy, there are often challenges with sexual intimacy.
First and foremost, communication within marriage is emotional by nature, and is for the sake of spouses emotionally bonding. Dr. John Gottman’s research in this area is unprecedented, since his work decades ago showed that communication patterns between spouses can predict with uncanny accuracy which couples will remain married, and which ones will divorce. His work has shed light on four common unhealthy communication patterns that spouses need to ask if present within their marriage: Criticism, Contempt, Defensiveness, and Stonewalling.
What’s also important for spouses to learn is how to communicate emotionally – that is, how to read the emotions between the lines of what your spouse is sharing; how to reflect the emotions back to your spouse; and how to hold space for your spouse without giving advice or wanting to fix things right away. Your spouse wants to be compassionately witnessed and held emotionally – if they want advice, they will ask you for it. In the moment of communication, they need your emotional presence. And many of our hadith traditions demonstrate how the Prophet exemplified this heart centered empathy. Yet so many of us aren’t even present with our spouse when they’re speaking – we’re in our heads thinking of what we want to say or what happened to us that we want to share. Or we’re analyzing what they’re saying and getting too much into the details.
And with regards to communicating emotionally, this also means that your spouse will want love expressed to them in a meaningful way for them – which is where the Five Love Languages come into play. Given the many women I’ve worked with, this is one of the top complaints I hear with regards to not feeling enough sexual desire before intimacy, Women often don’t feel that their husband is expressing love in the way that they need. I advise all couples – regardless of how long they’ve been married – to take the Five Love Languages quiz and share with one another what your love languages are. Trust me, you will see the impacts when you start communicating love in your spouse’s love language.
Reflection questions Muslims should ask themselves with regards to enhancing emotional intimacy in marriage
There are other key reasons that Muslims struggle with marital sexual intimacy, and these reasons often show up in the therapy room. For instance, mental health issues like depression, anxiety, and the aftermath of trauma can affect a person's sexual desire and sexual response. Physical health issues, such as chronic pain or hormonal imbalances, can also play a role. For women who are in the post-partum phase, physical recovery isn’t only needed, but a whole new way of relating to their body and navigating challenges such as fatigue and lack of personal time, let alone time for intimacy. Additionally, past traumas and negative experiences related to sexual intimacy, including childhood abuse or previous marital experiences, can impact one’s ability to engage in and enjoy sexual intimacy. Pornography also impacts the brain with regards to how sexual intimacy is perceived, and may even impact sexual desire, arousal, and pleasure with one’s spouse. Furthermore, societal or family pressures and unrealistic expectations about sex and marriage can create anxiety and stress within the marital relationship.
All of this is to say that there are many, legitimate reasons why couples will struggle with marital intimacy at one point of their marriage or another. Let’s explore another reason.
5. Men and women naturally have different sexual desires and sexual intimacy, therefore, cannot always be “on demand” and “spontaneous.”
There’s a crucial concept we need to explore called "sexual response,” which is outlined in amazing details within the book Come as You Are by Emily Nagoski. Sexual response is a term that refers to how each of us experiences desire, arousal, and pleasure. Let’s first define what these terms mean (Note: The content below is outlined in much more detail and expertise in Nagoski’s book!)
Desire is the wanting, or interest, towards sexual intimacy. This refers to your baseline interest in sex and may also be called your sexual appetite or desire. Desire is impacted by several factors within and outside of each of us, such as those which are physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.
Arousal is the feeling of being turned on sexually. When you’re "turned on," you may experience physical and emotional changes. Your penis or clitoris may get erect (hard), larger, and sensitive, and you may feel wetness on your vulva or vagina, or on the tip of your penis. Arousal can also happen when certain parts of your body (i.e. breasts, nipples, inner thighs, etc) are pleasurably sensitive to touch (also called "erogenous zones").
Sexual pleasure is usually the result of sexual desire (the "wanting") and sexual arousal (how our body responds). Sexual pleasure can be felt physically in our genitals (i.e. such as when the pelvic floor muscles within the vagina and the penile muscles contract), our erogenous zones, mentally through our thoughts, emotionally, and spiritually. Some people may moan or make other sounds indicating arousal and pleasure; others may not. Sexual pleasure is often described as building up in intensity, eventually reaching a peak that results in orgasm for women and ejaculation for men, after which people describe a "release" and a "feeling of being done." To be clear, not all forms of sexual pleasure may lead to an orgasm, and we should instead be focused on feeling pleasure in our bodies, and not wondering if we've had an orgasm. The more we start to think about our pleasure, the more we get taken away from our bodies in the present moment, impacting our pleasure.
Many of us think that our sexual response is a "drive," which is not always accurate. First, this doesn't consider how diverse our sexual response can be; that it changes over time; and the "drive" aspect refers to desire/libido (and many people don’t experience it as an intense force), but we incorrectly apply it to the entire process of sexual response. Arousal, desire, and pleasure are NOT the same thing, and while for some people they may feel like they're all happening at once during intimacy, for others, it doesn't. So, let's get into a few details to help you figure out your sexual response, remembering that it can change!
Contrary to what most people think about sexual response being a light switch, it is more like a car, with a brake and gas pedal. The brake pedal is called the "sexual inhibition system" (SIS) and the gas pedal is the "sexual excitation system" (SES). The brake pedal gets activated by all the factors that will slow or stop your sexual desire, and the gas pedal gets activated by all the factors that will speed up your sexual desire. These factors can be emotional, cognitive, spiritual, physical, and sexual, and can be within you and external to you.
Based on the activation of the brake and gas pedal in each of us, three different types of sexual responses can occur. Let's explore them in detail.
SPONTANEOUS DESIRE is when your gas pedal is sensitive, and your brakes are harder to activate. For this reason, it can feel as though your desire comes out of nowhere, or it may be hard to pinpoint what hit your gas pedal. The early stages of marital sexual intimacy can feel like this, thanks to surges of dopamine, or perhaps you will feel spontaneous desire when your spouse is on a work trip, and you find yourself wanting sexual intimacy when they're away. Spontaneous desire accounts for around 75% of men and around 15% of women. Make note of the HUGE difference between men and women, which means that most spouses are not both going to be spontaneous with their desire.
RESPONSIVE DESIRE means that you need "sexy things" to happen before you start to feel desire. Which means that these "sexy things" will start to activate your gas pedal and since there aren't many things hitting your brakes (hopefully!), you will feel your desire increase in RESPONSE to these sexy things. Responsive desire accounts for 5% of men and around 30% of women.
CONTEXTUAL DESIRE means that your desire becoming activated really depends on what's going on. So, for example, your spouse may be giving you some physical intimacy and your gas pedal starts to get activated, but then your one-year-old starts to cry in the baby monitor and all of sudden, your brakes are hit and your desire shuts down. Or, you may be in bed getting your foreplay on, and then you start to question how your body looks, and why you're not feeling more pleasure, which causes your brakes to become hit, and your desire to plummet. Factors both within and outside of us can activate our brakes. Even being in an unfamiliar space can shut down our sexual desire. So, for those with contextual desire, the situation and context really matter, which means that these spouses may need to work harder to create ideal contexts for their gas pedal. Contextual desire accounts for around 20% of men and 50% of women.
Two more points that are crucial to consider:
The Sexual Inhibition System (the brake pedal) tends to be more sensitive than the Sexual Excitation System (the gas pedal). You'll want to then focus on what's hitting the brakes more so than trying to have more factors activate the gas pedal.
Our sexual response changes depending on many factors. Which is why it is so important to keep an awareness of your response before and during intimacy, and to reflect on any life changes that may be impacting this.
With all this information in mind, sexual intimacy in marriage needs intentionality and open communication to figure out what types of desires each spouse has; what activates their gas and brake pedals; and how spouses can WORK TOGETHER to create mutually pleasurable contexts for sexual intimacy. Speaking of which…
6. Marital sexual intimacy requires four key approaches: Communication, consent, collaboration, and compromise.
Keeping the fact that there is nuance within sexual response in mind, what then is the recipe for mutually pleasurable and sunnah aligned sexual intimacy in marriage? There are 4Cs to consider: Communication, collaboration, consent, and compromise.
Communication: As shared above, emotional communication is crucial for marriage – and I’d argue that it’s the glue that keeps spouses together. In addition, many couples who struggle with marital sexual intimacy cannot emotionally communicate about sexual intimacy – which is a problem. Let’s analyze a common communication pattern with what’s really going on with my analysis of the emotional needs of both spouses:
Husband: “You’re never in the mood for sex!”
(What he means to say: “We have different sexual desires, which is normal, but I don’t know that it’s normal, so I’m blaming you because you’re saying no again.”)
Wife: “I can’t just get in the mood when you ask for sex! I need to ease into it!”
(What she means to say: “My love language is quality time and physical touch – I need some emotional and physical foreplay from you before we get into sexual foreplay. This will help my sexual desire.”)
Husband: “I tell you that I love you, what else do you need?”
(What he means to say: “My love language is words of affirmation, so that’s what I do for you because it’s natural to me. But I really should learn what your love languages are, so I can express my love in the way that you need it to be expressed.”)
Wife: “Well, and you only hug and kiss me when you want sex – what if I want closeness without it being about sex all the time?”
(What she means to say: “Again, I am trying to tell you that I need physical touch that doesn’t lead to sexual intimacy right away. Can we please go on a date to a new place, get dressed up, hold hands and talk intimately like we used to? Can we take a walk and talk about our fun memories together? My sexual desire as a woman is responsive, and this will help me get into the mood.”)
Collaboration, Consent, and Compromise
When spouses are openly communicating about sexual intimacy, crucial foundations of collaboration, consent, and compromise are centered.
Collaboration: Spouses give each other what they each need, to prepare each other for sexual intimacy. The contexts required for sexual desire to grow are created and participated in. There is a mutual goal of mutually pleasurable intimacy – it’s not one spouse over the other.
And when collaboration takes place for marital sexual intimacy, consent naturally happens. Spouses share what they need to feel ready for intimacy, and consent is given to then make this happen. There are mutual benefits for both spouses – one spouse does not win while the other loses.
And when then there’s consent for sexual intimacy, there often comes compromise, since it’s totally normal for both spouses to not feel fully in the mood. I cannot emphasize this enough for marital sexual intimacy. It is NORMAL and OK to not feel in the mood/have sexual desire for intimacy – reasons such as fatigue, illness, the postpartum phase, stress, marital conflict, family stressors, and more are all legitimate and will arise within marriage. AND it may be that since you are communicating emotionally and collaborating with consent, the “not in the mood” spouse does agree to engage in sexual intimacy with their spouse because it makes their spouse happy, which gives them some emotional and spiritual satisfaction as well. And the same is true when the other spouse may also agree to intimacy when they don’t fully feel in the mood, because seeing their spouse experience sexual pleasure still makes them feel good – and makes God happy too. This is compromise within marriage – give and take. Back and forth. Compromise is NOT one-sided – that’s called selfishness.
Summary and resources
For a myriad of reasons touched upon in this article, Muslims are greatly misinformed about the nature of marital sexual intimacy. Having worked in this space for many years, I see the results that lack of access to soul-based, comprehensive sexual health education for Muslims is having. Our continued focus on “don’t have sex before marriage, it’s haraam” is not only missing the mark on what Muslims need to know before marriage to remain abstinent – it’s also having dire impacts on marital sexual intimacy.
Since God will not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves (Quran 13:11), we need to focus on our own soul and how we are contributing to any issues that we may be experiencing with marital sexual intimacy. Which means taking a compassionate yet self-accountable inventory of where we are at with this topic of marital sexual intimacy. And the following reflection questions may help:
What do I already know about sexual intimacy? Where did I learn this information from?
What might I need to unlearn and relearn? What am I curious to learn more about?
What is my understanding of the relationship between Islam, the soul, and sexual intimacy in marriage?
What are the current struggles with sexual intimacy in our marriage? How am I currently understanding why these issues exist? How can this article provide me with more nuance and self-accountability for how I’m showing up in my marriage and how this may be contributing to the issues?
For those curious to learn more about marital sexual intimacy, you may want to explore a comprehensive toolkit on marital sexual intimacy for Muslims that I’ve developed.
For Muslim women ages 18+, I’ll be leading a four-week LIVE course on Foundations for Marital Sexual Intimacy. I hope that you can join me!
For Muslims seeking individual or couples therapy, I’m now accepting new clients. Or for those who may not need therapy but are seeking information and have questions about their sexual health, I’m offering online custom workshops called “Sexual Health Circles,” for you and up to four friends.
And as always, I’ve shared a lot of content on this topic on my Instagram account, which I encourage you all to browse through.
