Dave Barry's Guide to Marriage And/or Sex (4 page)

Q. How long should sexual intercourse last?

A. This is an area of some disagreement between the sexes. As a rule, women would like to devote as much time to foreplay and the sex act as men would like to devote to foreplay, the sex act, and building a garage. This tends to lead to dissatisfaction on the part of the woman, who is often just beginning to feel pleasantly sensuous when the man is off rooting around in the refrigerator to see if there’s any Jell-O left.

Q. Well, isn’t there some sensitive and caring and loving technique that a couple can use to slow the man down?

A. Yes. When the woman senses that the man is nearing climax, she can whisper: “The Internal Revenue Service called again today, but don’t worry, I hung up on them.”

Q. I am a good-looking woman, as you can see from the enclosed glossy color photographs of me naked.

A. Yes. Thank you.

Q. Although I have an otherwise wonderful marriage, my husband seems to be losing interest in me sexually. It’s the little things: he hardly ever smiles at me; he often works late; and he comes home with as many as four naked women. So I thought, to rekindle the old flame, I’d surprise him, using a method suggested by Marabel Morgan in her book The Total Woman, namely greeting him at the door wearing only Saran Wrap. However, we were out of Saran Wrap, so I used Tupperware, which I feel is a better product anyway, but this unfortunately failed to produce the desired result, in the sense that when my husband saw me, he suffered some kind of seizure, and I had to drive him to the hospital while attempting to cover my private parts with two quart canisters and a Deviled Egg Transporter. My question is: Can we deduct this mileage on our income tax?

A. That depends on your individual situation.

Q. Listen, I, ummm, I have this kind of weird sexual hangup, which is that I, ummmm ... this is very embarrassing ...

A. Go ahead! Say it! Don’t be ashamed! That’s what we’re here for! To help!

Q. Okay, but I want to whisper it. (whisper whisper whisper)

A. My God! Really?

Q. Um, yes.

A. The joint Chiefs of Staff?!

Q. Well, yes.

A. How do you get the hamsters into the accordion?

The big problem with necking is figuring out whether or not your date wants to Do It. On the Planet of the Ideal Women, your date would just come right out and tell you. She’d say: “What do you say we lie down on the couch and neck like crazy?” Or: “Although I like you as a friend, I frankly would not neck with you even if the alternative were death by leeches.”

But here on the planet Earth, she won’t say anything. Sometimes this means she isn’t interested. But sometimes it doesn’t. Generally the way a guy finds out specifically what his date is thinking is at some point he lunges at her, lips puckered, and she responds by either puckering back, or quickly turning her head sideways, in which case the guy winds up sort of licking her hair, looking like a world-class dork. There is no face-saving way for a guy to get out of this situation, other than to have an instantaneously fatal seizure.

Assuming your date is responsive, your next move is to attempt “French-kissing,” which is when you stick your tongue into her mouth, and she sticks her tongue into your mouth, and so there the two of you are, with your tongues in each other’s mouths. This is a really sexy thing to do, according to French people, although you should bear in mind that they also like to eat snails.

Anyway, assuming your date seems to be responding positively to you, in the sense that she has not yet kneed you in the groin, and also assuming that you really and truly respect her as a human being and love her and plan to marry her, it’s time to move on to ...

The big problem here is the bra strap. You cannot casually unhook a bra strap. The bra-strap industry sees to this. Scientists over at the Bra Strap Research Center in Amarillo, Texas, work night and day with volunteer males and lifelike female dummies coming up with newer and more complicated fastening devices, devices where the first hook actually re-hooks itself after you go on to the second one, such that nobody can get these bras off, especially not a lust-crazed male in a dark room. Many priceless jewelry collections are now protected solely by bra straps.

If you get through the bra strap, your next challenge is the undergarments, which you will probably have to ask your date for assistance with, because they can be complex beyond human imagining, but I strongly advise that before the two of you tackle them, you should leave the restaurant.

Guys, you should definitely use a condom. All major health authorities agree on this. The whole nation has become violently pro-condom, not just for guys having sex, but also for guys puttering around the yard, domestic animals most vegetables and all major war monuments. Better safe than sorry!

The best source of reliable information is romance novels, which you can find in better bookstores and supermarkets everywhere. You know the books I mean—the cover always is a picture of a handsome and of course brooding man embracing a woman with green eyes and a bosom that is clearly heaving, sometimes most of the way out of her dress. The title is always something fairly humid, like
Loins of Passion
.

You sexually inexperienced couples should get hold of one of these books, because inside you will find a number of passages that are chock-full of explicit, down-to-earth, practical “straight talk” about the sexual act:

“As Sabrina gazed upward at Baron LeGume, whose dark, brooding eyeballs were turgid with passion, she felt the tormented tenseness of his throbbing, pulsating malehood, and she knew, with a knowledge borne of knowing, that she could no longer hold back the surging waves of passion that washed over her, like waves of something, as his brooding throbbing pulsating highly engorged lips sought hers, not that she wanted to hold them back, we’re talking about the waves of passion here, although she knew that somehow, somewhere, perhaps deep within the shuddering throes of yearninghood that even now gripped the very core of her womanhood, if you get what we mean, that she must find a way, through the hazy mists of desire, to end this sentence, although she sensed somehow that ...”

And so on. You young couples should study these helpful and realistic passages thoroughly, so you can use them for guidance when you are attempting sex (“You mean to tell me that’s the tormented tenseness of your malehood?”).

After a while, the sparkle tends to go out of a relationship. I don’t care how passionate you are. I don’t care if you’re like those couples in romantic movies who, in the scene where they finally realize they’re in love, lunge into each other’s arms and fall to the ground, wherever they are, even if it is a pasture, and roll around amongst the cow doots in a sexual frenzy. You don’t think those couples keep that kind of thing up, do you? Throughout life? Of course not. What would their clothes smell like?

The point being, a relationship can survive on pure romance for only so long. Sooner or later, Mundane Reality starts to seep in, and you need to make a decision:

* Do you break up with this person and look around for another one in hopes of once again experiencing the searing surge of unbridled passion, ideally in a carpeted environment? Or,

* Do you accept that your relationship can move to a more mature stage, a stage based not so much upon impulse and romance and physical attraction as upon liking the same television shows? In short, do you get married?

One way to find out if another person is “right” for you is to spend a lot of time with this person, talking and sharing experiences, so that you really get to know him or her as a human being. This is what we call the old-fashioned, or “stupid” way. The modern way is to take a Compatibility Quiz.

The Compatibility Quiz is a concept that was developed by top research scientists at Cosmopolitan magazine, a highly informative publication whose cover always has a picture of a glamorous woman, wearing an extremely low-cut outfit, whose breasts appear to be pointing straight up. In fact, they are pointing down: Cosmopolitan suspends these women by their feet from the ceiling. That is the price you have to pay, if you truly wish to be glamorous.

Anyway, if you want to know whether your relationship will work out, you need to sit down and answer these questions:

Who do you feel should be the “breadwinner” in a family?

A. The man.

B. The woman.

C. H. Ross Perot.

Which of the following statements best describes your feelings toward children?

A. “Put that down this instant!”

B. “I said put that down!”

C. “Never put your finger in that part of the doggy!!”

In a modern marriage, who do you feel should be responsible for the housework?

A. Nobody.

B. It should be divided up fairly and equally among the servants.

C. Leona Helmsley.

Your idea of a pleasant romantic evening is:

A. Sipping a glass of wine and watching a roaring fire.

B. Drinking a few martinis and roaring at the fire.

C. Drinking a bottle of gin and setting things on fire.

The kind of sex you enjoy most is:

A. With another person.

B. With several other persons, but no animals.

C. At least not invertebrates.

D. Unless they are fairly tame.

How would you describe your attitude toward religion?

A. About your height, only thinner.

B. I am not especially big on religion, but I have watched it on television.

C. I am religious to the point of human sacrifice.

Bill and Denise are a young married working couple with no children. One day they set out from Reno, Nevada, on foot at exactly 4:30 P.m. Bill walks three miles per hour and rests for ten minutes each hour, while Denise walks at exactly two miles per hour without stopping. After a couple of days they are both dead from scorpions. Which of the following statements most closely matches your feelings regarding this?

A. It serves them right.

B. I hear Reno is quite nice.

C. I myself prefer a moister climate.

The capital of Vermont is:

A. Where they keep the governor.

B. Very cold.

C. Probably in New England.

HOW TO SCORE: Give yourself one point for each answer. No, what the heck, give yourself two points for each answer. Now add up your points and compare your total with the total for the person you’re trying to be compatible with. If both of your totals are numbers, odds are you two will hit it off pretty well. At least until you get married. Or maybe not. How the hell should I know?

Your total: Your potential mate’s total:

Another excellent way to decide whether another person is compatible with you is to use astrology. The word “astrology” comes from the Greek or possibly Latin words “astro” and “ology,” so right away we can see that it is very scientific. In fact, astrology rests on a proven principle, namely that if you know the exact positions where the moon and the various planets were when a person was born, you can get this person to give you money. The way you do this is by making up random, semi-unintelligible pieces of advice, such as “attend to future considerations.”

To use astrology for your own personal benefit, simply locate your astrological “sign” then look up your horoscope in any reputable newspaper and govern your entire life accordingly.

The ideal way to break up is the one featured in the famous best-selling book, Love Story, where the beautiful heroine, sensing that the relationship is getting maybe a little stale, contracts a fatal disease. In real life, however, it’s never that easy. You never have a really good excuse for breaking up with the other person, so you feel guilty, and you put off confronting the problem. I have a friend who found it so difficult to tell his girlfriend he no longer loved her that he just kept going along with the program, until finally, one day, they actually got married. They had a big wedding, and she was up there, in front of all her friends and family, thinking this was the happiest day of her life, and he was standing there in a rental tuxedo, thinking: “Should I tell her now? Nah. Better wait till after we cut the cake.” This kind of thing happens all the time.

So if you’re going to break up, you have to overcome your guilt and break up now. Otherwise you’ll never find the person you really want, the person with whom you can achieve your goal of Lifelong Happiness. You should follow the example of famous former ravishing beauty Elizabeth Taylor, who sheds husbands like used Kleenex and has consequently achieved Lifelong Happiness dozens of times.

Of course your major concern, in breaking up, is how to do it in such a way that the other person doesn’t get so upset that he or she stabs himself or herself. Or yourself. I recommend that you take the honest approach. Come right out with the truth. That is always best, in the end. To build up your courage, practice holding imaginary conversations with your lover, wherein you set forth, calmly and rationally, the reasons why you feel the breakup is necessary, then try to imagine, and sensitively respond to, the various objections your lover might have:

YOU: Listen, I, um, I, uhh ...

YOUR LOVER: Yes? Is there something you wish to tell me?