The Sexual Yardstick

I remember once as a teen, that a cynical teenage boy muttered to a friend, "Adults tell us not to have sex because they aren't having any!" I found that such a very odd thing to say, since it implied that he was sitting around thinking about how much sex that adult was having. I, myself, found it disconcerting to think of my parents kissing in bed, let alone thinking about having sex.  I reasoned they had sex five times and that was enough. 

When I married The Man Who Puts Up With Me, I found myself trying to figure out if there was a sexual yardstick for how good your marriage was.  To me, it somewhow seemed to be a good gauge on the health of a marriage.  Newly married couples, I reasoned in my Onceuponatimepeabrain, must have sex around three times a week to be normal.   That gave them a night off in between to "repair" or sleep or what ever. I was misled into worrying about this topic by shopping for food.  Once I got to the checkout line, the time I spent waiting to checkout gave me a perfect chance to read women's magazine articles. I could get information about how to drive him crazy, how he could drive me crazy, and all of these were supposed to help me keep my husband happy and faithful.

 As we obtained children, I wondered, as I had awaken one night for the third time, whether we were having sex whenever I was sleeping.  I even thought that people who just had babies, especially ones who were Night Owls like our Oldest, were someohow Sex Exempt from Reality Relationships.  Sleep deprivation, I decided, was probably responsible for women who weren't always able to act sensual.

Then I hit my forties, and the kids grew taller and I forgot about my yardstick.  What number of times a week is normal?  Was that cynical teen back thirty years ago really right?  Were middle age people just preaching abstinance because they weren't getting any fun of their own?

I wanted to take a survey of several middle agers, but then thought, "Who in their right mind would answer these questions?:  And if they were to answer them, would they tell the truth?

Somewhere along the way, I quit thinking about the sexual yardstick .  Instead, I found out the marriage with two boys in the house, necessitates secret liasons with your spouse.  It's sort of mysterious and goes like having an affair.  Consider a recent conversation I had with The Man Who Puts Up With Me while lying in bed one weekend morning.

She:  Are you sure you don't hear footsteps down the stairs?

Him: (pausing, lsitening) I don't think so.

She:  Mmmmm.

Then we hear a sudden sound of the toilet flushing upstairs and suddenly we are quiet.  We hear Oldest's footsteps as he come down to start the day.

She:  So much for that.

He:  You know.  I've just really enjoyed talking.

For the life of me, I cna't believe I ever used the number of lovemaking sessions per week to determine the health of a marriage.  Had I ever realized that there was so much more that could mess up a couple's intimate time, I might have just written a book about that.  As is, I am looking forward to a new decade with my sweetie and finding time together in our home AFTER our kids are gone away to school.  Who knows?  Maybe someday when I stand in the checkout line, I'll see my article in one of those women's magazines.  I'll title it: "Husband Tired?   Three steps to a wide awake lover." Now I have to go discover those tips.