We Were Told the Marriage Bed Is Undefiled—So Why Is Pleasure Within Marriage Still Taboo? [Op-Ed]
We were raised to believe sex belonged in marriage, sacred and set apart. So why, once we got there, did enjoying it still feel like something we had to keep quiet? The post We Were Told the Marriage Bed Is Undefiled—So Why Is Pleasure Within Marriage Still Taboo? [Op-Ed] appeared first on MadameNoire.
Black News ![We Were Told the Marriage Bed Is Undefiled—So Why Is Pleasure Within Marriage Still Taboo? [Op-Ed]](https://madamenoire.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2026/04/17768703814679.jpg?quality=80&strip=all&w=1024&crop=0,0,100,683px#)
I remember watching Erica Campbell get married like it was yesterday. I was a teenager, sitting in my parents’ sunroom with a bowl of shrimp ramen, watching her wedding to Warryn Campbell on TLC’s A Wedding Story. At the time, she represented what so many of us were taught to aspire to: a beautiful, saved Black woman doing things “the right way.” What’s stayed with me even more than that wedding is who Erica Campbell has chosen to be in the years since.
Over time, she’s been open—never crass, but never coy either—about the fact that she and her husband have an active sex life. She’s affirmed that the marriage bed is, in fact, being used. She’s embraced her curves, her sensuality, her presence as a woman who is both Christian and fully embodied. Recently, in a search for her vow renewal gown designer, she didn’t skip a chance to remind followers that she’d like something sexy. Every time she does, it feels like a disruption. For many of us who grew up in the church, that kind of openness still feels off-limits.
We were given a destination—marriage—but not a real picture of what intimacy looked like once you arrived. For millennials, there weren’t many visible examples of Christian couples who were both deeply rooted in their faith and openly enjoying each other over time. So when couples like Kevin “KevOnStage” Fredericks and Melissa Fredericks, married for more than 20 years, speak candidly about sex, attraction, and the work it takes to stay connected, it feels like a rare window into something we weren’t taught how to imagine. Now, with younger couples like Jayla Henry and Tony Henry or Keith Lee and Ronni Lee showing up online with an easy, playful chemistry, that visibility is expanding.
Growing up, even the closest thing to that kind of acknowledgment felt hidden. If you know, you know: T. D. Jakes had that Sacred Love Songs CD, and somehow we all knew it existed, but also knew better than to touch it, let alone play it out loud. It was one of those reminders that intimacy existed, but only in a way that stayed tucked away. So we learned how to wait, how to avoid, how to suppress—but not how to see desire as something that could live alongside faith, or even as something sacred in its own right. For many of us, sex was never framed as something that could be connected to worship—even though, in its most honest and present form, that’s exactly what it is.
RELATED CONTENT: Dating Without Sex: When to Tell Your Partner You’re Abstaining
The post We Were Told the Marriage Bed Is Undefiled—So Why Is Pleasure Within Marriage Still Taboo? [Op-Ed] appeared first on MadameNoire.
