Pastor Mrs Owolabi, wife of Pastor Juwon Owolabi of Lightlife Church International, has sparked conversation about intimacy in marriage after encouraging women to become more intentional about understanding and enjoying their sex lives with their spouses.
Speaking during a “Marriage That Works” programme, Pastor Mrs Owolabi challenged the idea that sex within marriage should be treated solely as a means of having children.
According to her, sexual intimacy is an important part of marital companionship, and women should feel comfortable learning about their bodies and communicating their needs within marriage.
“If you die without experiencing orgasm, you’ve lived a wasted life,” she said, stressing that women should not feel guilty about seeking fulfilment in their marital intimacy.
She argued that since sex is part of marriage, couples should be willing to understand it rather than approach it as a subject that cannot be openly discussed.
Pastor Mrs Owolabi revealed that her own understanding of sex developed over time. She said she entered marriage as a virgin and initially had limited knowledge of intimacy beyond what she had learnt about it biologically.
She later realised that intimacy was something she needed to deliberately learn about, describing it as a “body of knowledge” that required understanding and exploration within marriage.
“I knew that okay, I need to understand because this is a body of knowledge, this is like a university,” she said.
She encouraged married women to educate themselves about intimacy and communicate more openly with their husbands, adding that couples should not allow embarrassment or misconceptions to prevent them from building fulfilling relationships.
Pastor Mrs Owolabi also suggested that couples could explore different approaches to intimacy within the boundaries of marriage.
“God is not against other styles in marriage,” she said.
Her comments formed part of a broader discussion on how couples can build stronger marriages by paying attention not only to emotional and spiritual connection but also to physical intimacy.
Her husband, Pastor Juwon Owolabi, who also participated in the discussion, maintained that intimacy should remain an important part of marriage even as couples grow older.
He referenced Abraham’s marriage to Keturah to argue that age should not automatically signal the end of intimacy between spouses.
“If you take care of yourself, the older you become, the better it should be,” he said.
The couple’s comments have since drawn attention to the often-sensitive conversation around sexual intimacy in Christian marriages, with their central message being that couples should not neglect the physical aspect of their relationship as they pursue emotional, spiritual and family goals.
