I don’t know how many of you have ever read Shaunti Feldhahn’s book, For Women Only, but it is a book I believe every married woman should read.
I discovered this book about four years ago, not long after its release. Since I teach classes on sex and intimacy in marriage, I was especially curious about what it had to say regarding the sexual relationship. When I opened up the book for the first time, scanned the table of contents, and saw the chapter entitled, “Sex Changes Everything: Why Sex Unlocks a Man’s Emotions (Guess Who Holds the Key?),” I decided to buy it.
As I began reading, I learned that Shaunti wrote this book after beginning a different project. She was in the process of writing a fictional novel and the main character was a man. During the course of trying to write her book, she discovered quite by accident that a man thinks very differently from what she believed a man thought.
It was during this time that she and her husband Jeff contacted a national survey company and began compiling questions to send out to men around the country who would answer different questions and could make comments on various topics. The results of that survey are what prompted the writing of this book.
While some of the information in Shaunti’s book didn’t surprise me, like, “Men want more sex.” However, it was statements like, “Men want more sex than they are getting. And what’s more, they believe that the women who love them don’t seem to realize that this is a crisis-not only for the man but for the relationship.”[1]
How about this one: I had always known that men were attracted to beautiful women. God wired men to be “lookers.” Shaunti calls a beautiful woman that attracts the attention of a man as an “eye magnet.”[2] Yet, these next statements caught my attention: “A woman with a great body is an “eye magnet” and is incredibly difficult to avoid, and even if a man forces himself not to look, he is acutely aware of her presence. Secondly, even when no such eye magnet is present, each man has a “mental Rolodex” of stored images that can intrude into his thoughts without warning or can be called up at will.”[3] In other words, a man can’t not be affected by the presence of a beautiful woman, even if he is a happily married man.[4]
There are many other revealing truths that come to light through the reading of this book. It’s not hard to read mostly because it’s a small book with fairly large print. Plus, the chapters are not overwhelming in length. Those of you with small children I know will appreciate this fact.
I strongly encourage you to spend a few dollars and some time reading through For Women Only. Not only was it a book I thoroughly enjoyed, but I’ve used several different quotes in my classes, as well as having some great conversations about this book with my husband.
Footnotes:
1. Shaunti Feldhahn, For Women Only: What You Need to Know about the Inner Lives of Men (Sisters, OR: Multnomah Publishers, Inc., 2004), 91.
2. Feldhahn, For Women Only, 111.
3. Feldhahn, For Women Only, 111-112.
4. Feldhahn, For Women Only, 112-113.
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