The 98-cent sex manual

This-here vintage ad for a marriage manual, a classic of enlightenment and orgasmic edification, is going to require a little translation. I PROMISE you I am not adding anything or taking anything away, though deciphering the bleary grey letters may prove to be a challenge.

Will Their Dream Come True, or will Sex Ignorance Mar their Happiness



Thousands of marriages end in misery and divorce because so many married people are ignorant of the Art of Love. Is your marriage on the brink of ruin? Do you search for the joy of a perfect union? Now YOU can change despair into heavenly happiness -



if you know the secrets of  the intimate physical contacts of marriage.

Dr. Marie Stopes, in the preface to her world-famous book, said, "In my own marriage I paid such a terrible price for sex ignorance that I felt that knowledge gained at such a price should be placed at the service of humanity." This volume, "Married Love", courageously fulfills this noble purpose.

Editor's note. I didn't think they were even going to use the word "sex", what with all those references to the Art of Love, "perfect union" and "intimate physical contacts". This Marie Stopes is painted as a sort of Albert Schweitzer or Madame Curie of the fuck-book set, selflessly sharing all the hot gyrations she learned (somewhere, certainly not in her marriage) with mankind.

The thing is, these books use such remote, stilted, even clinical language that it's hard to even fit it together with the sweaty realities of sexuality, the squeezes and groans, the slippery. . . oh never mind, let's go on.

Partial Contents

The practice of restraint to please the wife.

Surest way to prepare wife for union.

The marital rights of the husband.

 What the wife must do to bring her husband's physical desires

in harmony with her own.

Regulation of physical marital relations.

Sleeplessness from unsatisfied desires.

Nervousness due to unsatisfied desires.

Charts showing periodicity of natural desire in women.

The essential factors for the act of union.

Greatest physical delights in marital union.

How some women drive their husbands to prostitutes.

Natural desire for physical union.

Joys of the honeymoon.

Ignorance of the bride and unwise actions of the groom.

The man who has relations with prostitutes before marriage.

Causes for unhappiness in marriage.

Frequency of marital relations.

Stimulation of physical desires.

The problem of the strong-sexed husband and the

weak-sexed wife.

Positions.

Physical relations during pregnancy.

Problems of childless unions.

All this makes me long to get my hands on a copy of this thing, but I am sure it has gone out of print by now. Also, this looks suspiciously like one of those ads in the back of a comic book. Good grief, imagine exposing our innocent youth to such a thing! "Joys of the Honeymoon"? What sort of filth is this? And prostitutes are mentioned not once, but twice. When you think about it, however, if virginity is assumed for both "bride" and "groom", then who the hell is going to know anything about this at all? It will be like the poor bloke who kept shoving himself into his wife's belly button and wondering why he couldn't get her pregnant.

With remarkable frankness, and in simple, understandable language, Dr. Stopes explains the intimate and important details of wedded life. Point by point, and just as plainly as she would tell you in private confidence, Dr. Stopes takes up each of the many troublesome factors in marriage. She makes clear just what is to be done to insure contentment and happiness. She writes directly, forcefully, concretely, explaining step by step every procedure in proper sex relations.

1,000,000 COPIES SOLD

This whole thing reminds me of that old vaudeville routine, "Niagara Falls! Slowly I turn. Step by step. . . inch by inch. . . " Though this may sound like instructions for building a birdhouse, it's actually a guide to ecstasy and spasmodic, flailing pleasure for both Bride and Groom. It's just that they had to use this sort of clunky, unsexy language to leach out every trace of erotic content. "Point by point", "step by step",  "directly, forcefully, concretely": this sounds like something from some sort of 1950s home repair manual. But my favorite is the last line: "explaining step by step every procedure in proper sex relations." If these proper procedures had been followed to the letter, the whole human race would have died off by now.

Can't read this worth a darn, but it seems to be saying there was some sort of "ban" on this obviously filthy, salacious material and that now it has been lifted. Could this be a ploy to get people interested in this smut? The federal judge, who looks like Andy Hardy's dad, is obviously reading the back cover with great interest. I am also intrigued that to get this book, you have to send your 98 cents to the American Biological Society on East 34th Street in New York. I wonder what it looked like. 

The good wife: legs open, mouth shut

After all these years, I think I've figured it out: a “good” wife keeps her legs open and her mouth shut. She is placid, obedient, trots around willingly and cheerfully doing all the little tasks around the house, is grateful for her “position” and to have a roof over her head, and ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS defers to “her man”, grateful that he’ll even have her, put up with her annoying little habits like getting a cold and having her period and talking to her mother on the phone.  But since her position is fragile and she could be turfed out at any whim, she tiptoes a lot, constantly walks on eggshells and placates, placates, placates. If she has feelings of her own, they are so deeply buried that she can’t even find them any more.

The ideal woman. The ideal woman doesn't have much to say because she's too busy serving. Serving up meals, serving up sex, serving up herself. The direction is all outward, except for that little inward thing she needs to do now and then to keep everything running placidly forward.

Some of it she plain does not like, but has learned to do it mechanically, not thinking, then washing her mouth out with Listerine afterwards, hoping no one can guess what her breath smells of.


Like an old-time vaudeville act, she is adept at spinning a lot of plates at one time. She isn't perfect at this, but she tries. Though she quietly but diligently takes care of little things like paying the mortgage on time because he always seems to forget, he really would like a woman who defers to him in every matter, including paying the mortgage, though the very suggestion that he would prefer her to be like this flips him into a rage, or at least a sense of indignation that she thinks he could be such a louse. But she knows he IS such a louse, and doesn't want to be reminded of it.

 

She knows a lot of things, secrets. Masses of them, but she never tells, because it is her only power. She knows who slept with him last year and knows she showed up at their twins' birthday party with her kid who has no Dad. She knows he has no Dad because the kid told her. But why doesn't she say anything?

When she came back from that little trip to Vegas, that one fling with her friends that resulted in exactly nothing except weight gain and money loss, she came home a little early. As she walked in the door, she heard voices.

 

His voice, then hers. Hers? Who was this? Then she recognized it. They were in the bedroom, probably in a state of undress. He laughed in a slightly drunken way.

She backed out the door, called a cab and went to stay in a hotel, pretending not to be home for a few more days.

So nothing happened, nothing was disturbed. She did catch hell from her friend, the one who thought maybe she should say something once in a while. But her friend was divorced. That was what came of "saying something". Her friend said, "For God's sake, that's YOUR bedroom in YOUR home! Why did YOU have to go stay in a hotel? You should've thrown the bastard out, along with that cheap slut he's sleeping with!"

"Maybe he's bored," she said. And it was true, she wondered if this placid bit was getting just a little bit boring for him. So maybe she should just make allowances and look the other way.

It was like an army drill, really, and if you practiced it often enough you got good at it, or at least didn't object to it any more, or (for that matter) notice it was happening at all. Legs open, mouth shut. And on command: reverse! For a woman should always be ready, willing and able to swallow whatever a man has to offer.

Kathleen Wilhelmina Gunning: a great lady,and sadly missed

Kathleen Wilhelmina Gunning

GUNNING, Kathleen Wilhelmina (nee Hitching) - Peacefully in her sleep on Thursday, December 1, 2011, surrounded by family. Kathleen was in her 97th year. Beloved wife of George Clifford Gunning, who predeceased her in April 2005. They were married for 63 years. Mother of Bill (wife Margaret), Port Coquitlam, BC; Judith (husband Wayne), Oakville, ON; Ronald (wife Joanne), Kingston, ON; Alan (wife Janet), Caledonia, ON. Lovingly remembered and now sadly missed by her six grandchildren Shannon (Jeff), Jeffrey (Crystal), Christopher (Melanie), Cory (Keri), Kyle and Lauren. Kay was also richly blessed with nine great-grandchildren whose photographs adorned her home at The Village of Wentworth Heights in Hamilton, ON. The family wish to extend heartfelt thanks to the Scotsdale home area caregivers who lovingly attended to her needs throughout her ten year residency. Kay will be fondly remembered by her nieces, nephews and all friends and family who knew her. A private family interment will be held at a future date. If desired, donations made to the Canadian Cancer Society or the Hospital for Sick Children would be appreciated by the family.                                                                            

Published in the Toronto Star on December 3, 2011

I guess we knew it was coming, when my husband's brother called from Ontario to say she was getting weaker, not eating much, not able to rouse herself from bed.

To that point, her appreciation for life was a gift to everyone around her.

In forty years of knowing her, of having the privilege of being her daughter-in-law, I have too many memories to share here. Mostly I remember her kindness, her rather peppery humor, her straightforwardness. As an army nurse in World War II, she never lost the nurse's keen diagnostic eye, and if you didn't feel well she scanned that eye over you and told you what you should do. Like, go to bed, now!

I remember when my daughter was born in Saint John, New Brunswick, back in 1977, and she flew out from Ontario to help me. She'd never been alone on a plane before in her life, and I didn't ask, but she offered, and we could not refuse.

While I nursed a fractious, difficult baby, she did everything else, cooked, cleaned, kept my 18-month-old son amused. I just didn't have anything left for him, but Nana saved the day, and I will never forget it.

She made the best, and the most, of everything she had. She lived through the Great Depression, then dealt with many lean years while raising four kids by somehow stretching the resources, so that no one ever felt "poor".

My husband is the science nerd on the right. Looks like someone out of The Big Bang Theory, doesn't he? But his parents were extremely proud of the fact that he was the first Gunning to go to university (at age 16, ending up with a Masters in biochemistry. Sheldon, are you there?). This doesn't happen by accident.

Note Mum reflected in the background. I don't remember my Dad-in-law cutting up like this! Bill probably took the photo.

Going steady.

This is what Christmas looked like in 1947. Little Billy in Dad's lap is now 65!

My personal favorite. Surreal, misty, full of love. "Billy + Mummy, 5/6 months."

Lovely bride (1945).

Dedicated nurse.

Beautiful soul.

http://members.shaw.ca/margaret_gunning/betterthanlife.htm

Do husbands fall from the sky?

The answer to that, my friends, is: sometimes.

I can't say I never complain about my partner - in fact, it can be a sort of competitive sport among women. Natter, natter, natter. Meanwhile, the ones who have really grave concerns - such as, he's hitting her, or hitting on other women - tend to remain silent.

It's a funny thing. Complain, complain, complain - he doesn't understand me, he leaves his socks on the floor, he watches sports with a glazed look on his face, etc. etc.

It dismays me that when women get together, so much of their talk is negative. In fact, they often seem to support each other in their negativity rather than try to build up each other's strengths.  By negativity I mean a sort of powerless moaning, which on some level is meant to trigger a certain response, "Oh, yeah, I know what you mean."

Empathy for suffering. Good in small doses, or maybe when you need to offer serious comfort. But sometimes I want to remind these people - hey, did this guy fall from the sky? Do you remember any part of your wedding vows? Forsaking all others, in sickness and in health, etc. etc. Maybe I'm wrong, for God knows I've been wrong before, but that sounds to me for all the world as if you are choosing that person to be your mate, not just for 72 days but forever, or at least as far as mortality will allow.

You picked him, dear, didn't you? Out of all the men in all the gin joints in all the world, you selected this guy to be your mate - you singled him out, and then you were no longer single.

He didn't fall from the sky.

Falling from the sky doesn't just apply to life partners. Jobs are especially prone to the syndrome. OK, I know the economy is lousy and a person can't always just dump a job that hasn't worked out. But in too many cases, there is a sense that the person was relegated to this job without any personal control at all, like being sent to Siberia. And thus the endless complaining.

It's a case of playing the victim. "They" are the culprits, the big bosses, the ones making you suffer. You didn't have anything to do with it at all, did you? And that means you can't do anything about it. Ever.

And in many cases, since this is a relatively free society, out of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, you applied for and were hired for this job because you wanted it, which means you chose it. Which means you didn't choose all the rest of them. It was this one. This one. Your cherished choice, the one you whine about day and night, non-stop.

Jobs don't fall from the sky.

I guess while I'm in this mode (never critical, of course), I'll get a few more things off my chest: truisms that drive me crazy, which most people never really stop to look at closely or analyze. They just repeat them like parrots, trusting that it's the "right thing", not just for them but for everyone to live by. And if you don't, it means you're some sort of spiritual spoil-sport.

People love to say that "x" was "meant to be". I don't know what that means. It always applies to a stroke of good fortune, never bad. If a person's whole world collapses, if he or she loses a mate or a job or a home, they never (EVER) say, 'It was meant to be." No, it only applies to those rare times when good fortune rains down from the sky like so many fluttering dollar bills.

Meant to be. Of course! This is somehow attached to "things are exactly the way they are supposed to be," which if applied to the Third Reich would mean we'd all be speaking German (or, more likely, dead). Acceptance is not just preached in recovery circles, it's rammed down people's throats. I once tried to write about this in my "other blog" and was torn to pieces by all those "accepting" 12-step people, who said I belonged in a mental hospital for daring to express an alternate view.

I guess there are no alternate views.

I have some problems with acceptance, yes I do. Women who are being battered by their partners often do things like put makeup over a black eye or come up with stories about falling down the stairs or walking into a wall. Is this a form of acceptance? I don't know. Is she trying desperately to accept a situation which I refuse to believe is "exactly the way it is supposed to be"? I wish someone would explain this to me, because it makes no sense. It makes about as much sense to me as "turn the other cheek" (so you can hit me again).

There are others, less dire but still annoying. I'm not saying I never do them, just that I wish I could stop because they don't make sense to me either.

If it's never happened before, then it will never happen in the future. It's a strange form of magical protection, like crossing your fingers or wishing on a star.

"If I speed/drink/close my eyes while I'm driving, I'll never have an accident because I've never had one before."

"I smoked all my life and never got sick so I won't ever get sick and besides, my great-great-great-grandfather smoked 16 packs a day and lived to be 206".

This is linked to "if I did it before, I can do it again," which is a nice myth that is sometimes even true. "If I recovered from cancer," "if I lost weight," "if I was financially stable" or "sober" or  "married" or "happy" before, then I will automatically be that way again.

Nothing is automatic. Nothing is even known. We invent these myths to make ourselves less anxious about the often-violent twists and turns life can take. The people who cling to these axioms have never experienced the gut-sucking sensation of having the bottom drop out of their lives. Or maybe it has happened to them once too often.

OK, one more while I'm here, and it may stem from the acceptance myth. "Critical" is bad. You shouldn't be critical, ever. It means you're being judgemental, which is always wrong.

I beg to differ. Critical means using your powers of discernment to figure out if a situation is right or wrong for you (i. e. getting married: or did he really fall from the sky?). It means a careful assessment of both sides, pro and con. It means being rigorously honest with yourself (which you're also supposed to do in recovery! So how does that jibe with all that propaganda about acceptance?). It's using your God-given human gift of evaluation. Tell me what is wrong with that.

As I bumble and rumble along the often-rocky path of my life, I am beginning to develop a radically new philosophy which more closely fits my current world view.

Anything can happen to anyone at any time.

Do you want to know where I got this philosophy? You'll never guess.

Superman.

I am sure Christopher Reeve used to be one of the special protection gang, until he took a disastrous tumble from a horse and was rendered completely immobile from the neck down.

After years of acclaim largely built on his physical prowess, it was all blown to hell in an instant, along with his previous philosophy (for there was no way in the world his accident and paralysis was "meant to be"!). He was in the trenches, and he stayed that way until he died. He didn't walk again, and for all his public bravery he probably knew he wouldn't.

It was on a talk show, perhaps Oprah, that I heard him make the statement I am increasingly adopting as my personal code, creed, or whatever you want to call it: anything can happen to anyone at any time. 

Yes.

We don't have special, magical protection simply because we wish for it or believe in it. God does not play favorites. Things happen, they can happen to anyone. We do have some control, yes (our powers of judgement and discernment, unless the propaganda of acceptance washes them away). We choose certain things, and we can sometimes (but not always) unchoose them, walk away. Reeve didn't choose that accident, even if it was the result of doing something he loved. Though he became an example to the world, demonstrating raw courage in the face of unimagineable adversity, I am sure he would have had his old body back, any day, any way.

So much for that old saw, "there are no accidents". Sure there are. Ask the cops on duty in a snowstorm, the ER nurse, the pastor trying to console the parents of a child killed in a car crash. There are no accidents! How consoling is that? To me it sounds like the most  monstrous cruelty, and has a smugness about it, a flavour of "well, it's all in God's plan" that I would like to shove up the nose of the next person who says it.

So how much did Christopher Reeve accept, and how much did he actively resist?  I am sure it was a mixture. Whatever dire limitations he faced, he kept on with the struggle. It was in his nature.  In a metaphoric sense, he really did fall from the sky, but made of his disaster a daring, even death-defying example of life stripped bare and lived raw. A life set free from the suffocating comfort of illusion.  

(I just have to add a p.s. I'm not sure where that J. K. Rowling quote about acceptance came from, but I'd sure like to accept some of what SHE has.)

 

Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book

    It took me years to write, will you take a look

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Nancy and Kate. . . are they really the same person???

(Also known as Sort Out the Cloned Brunettes). Half of these photos are of Kate Middleton, and the other half of Paul McCartney's new 51-year-old-but-looks-30 heiress bride, Nancy Shevell.

Can you tell whom is whom, which is which, and (most importantly) why is why? I think I've lost track, myself.

(Confused? Me too. Does Kate have a twin?)

Oh. NOW I know. . .

Why my husband is NOT my best friend

So, OK. . . what's on the top of my head today? I'm not halfway through my enormous Starbuck's mug yet, so who knows how coherent it will be, but several ideas have been forming like baby icebergs in my brain, waiting to calve.


I have been married for 38 years, to the same person I mean, and as with a lot of life's more arcane mysteries, I can't really talk about it. I've attempted to write about our relationship before, either in this blog or "that other one", the Open Salon experiment that backfired so badly.


So I won't write about it except to say a few things, maybe dispell a few cliches. If you read this at all, and let's hope somebody does, you'll realize I keep yammering away at certain themes: horses, Anthony Perkins, Harold Lloyd, frustration as an author, etc. But it's the cliches that really get down my neck, chief among them "everything happens for a reason" (with a side of "God never gives us more than we can handle").



These sayings are idiotic in my mind, because there are murders, disasters, jihads, planes flying into towers, world wars, child murders, and all manner of things that happen for no reason at all, except perhaps human stupidity and indifference. And as far as good o'l God seeing to it that we aren't overburdened, as a friend of mine likes to say, "our prisons and mental hospitals are full of people who had more than they could handle".

Amen.

So what do we attack today? So to speak. I hear this phrase all the time: "My husband is my best friend." I have never felt that way about my husband, and I will tell you why.

I have a best friend already. That's part of it. To her, I can tell all the woman-stuff that guys, sorry about that, just don't get and won't get in a million years because of their hormonal structure and brain physiology.

So if I already have one, how can my husband be my best friend? To me, the term implies a buddy-buddy-ness, being there to listen on the phone when you lose that promotion, walking along the beach skipping stones together or sitting in Starbuck's over a double caramelized Machiavelli, just gabbing away.


We don't do that.


It also implies, to me, sexlessness. I'm not saying we're Romeo and Juliet, but our marriage is not sexless and never has been.

Saying "my husband is my best friend" is supposed to be totally positive, but to me it's totally weird if you really look at it (and that's the thing: how many people LOOK at it?). It's like roommates who really get along and even do each other's laundry in a pinch. (He does his own laundry, by the way - always has - it's why we're still married.) So if we aren't best friends, what are we?

The other one is "soul-mate". I don't know about that one either: I dislike like it for reasons that are hard to articulate. It just doesn't hit the mark, and maybe nothing can. My husband is my husband, and occupies a unique place in my life and has occupied that place for the vast majority of my life (since I was ten when I got married - one of those cultural betrothal things). He is my life partner, the father of my children and grandfather to my precious grandkids. And guess what: a best friend doesn't do that.


"Friend" is great, it's wonderful, but it only goes so far. When you're in the trenches together for nearly 40 years, you find out about the deeper levels of commitment that most people seem to ignore.

There are three of them, actually. Everyone goes on and on about commitment, and it's fine. But you can be committed to a dog, a job, a fitness plan. Will that be enough to keep the bond strong as life's hurricanes blast you out of your chair?

No.

The next level, as I see it, is devotion. Great-sounding word, isn't it - and a leap beyond commitment in emotional content. But is it enough to stay married?

Double-no.

The third level is one that doesn't even occur to people, and I call it covenant. In case you think I'm going all religious on you, let me define it now:


cov·e·nant   /ˈkʌvənənt/ Show Spelled[kuhv-uh-nuhnt] Show IPA

noun

1.

an agreement, usually formal, between two or more persons to do or not do something specified.

2.

Law . an incidental clause in such an agreement.

3.

Ecclesiastical . a solemn agreement between the members of a church to act together in harmony with the precepts of the gospel.

4.

( initial capital letter ) History/Historical .

a.

National Covenant.

b.

Solemn League and Covenant.

5.

Bible .

a.

the conditional promises made to humanity by God, as revealed in Scripture.

b.

the agreement between God and the ancient Israelites, in which God promised to protect them if they kept His law and were faithful to Him.

OK, I see where this is going all Biblical, and that puts people off. But what I'm trying to say is: you don't sign a contract with your best friend, unless you happen to be business partners. You don't even sign a contract with your soul-mate, as a general rule.

Marriage is legal. It's something that holds up in a court of law. Most people seal this covenant in a public setting, often very elaborately and expensively, as if to show off the intensity and sincerity of the covenant (though more often, it's the elaborateness of the trappings, including the supposedly-virginal white wedding gown. This ubiquitous bridezilla-mania represents a return to a deeply sexist tradition that makes my hair stand on end).

But the truth is, as people sign that register and smile their faces off, they don't really think that they have signed on for the long haul.

Remember how it goes? Forsaking all others; for richer, for poorer; in sickness and in health. . . so long as you both shall live.

If you think it sounds cold to define marriage as a covenant/contractual agreement, then why do people still insist on it? A few decades ago, the prediction was that legal marriage would become completely obsolete by the year 2000 (always named as the watershed year when absolutely everything would change). People would just live together, or if they married at all the marriages would be loose agreements with lots of escape clauses built in, based on the concept of "serial monogamy" (which still exists: it's called a pre-nup).

Most of us don't have prenups unless we're George Clooney or something, and last time I checked, I wasn't. So OK, why has marriage become more popular than ever, with crazed brides stampeding each other to upstage their girl friends and nab the perfect virginal white gown? On one level at least, it has to do with the kids. Raising kids can be brutal, and it's long and it's very expensive. "Commitment" won't do it. This isn't a Dalmation. Even devotion might wobble and collapse in the storm.

So we're back to that old, creaky, Moses-esque concept of covenant, because it has been the glue in profound human attachments for millennia. Can I step out? OK, it's just my girl friend, she'll never notice. Oops, wait a minute. . . she's my wife. Not only that, she's the mother of my kids, who just happen to have my name on them.

We won't go into the ramifications of last names right now, except to say that the awkward double-barrelled name seems to have trickled away in popularity. (Think of it: the next generation would have four names, the one after that eight. . . It just doesn't work.) Suffice it to say that, in my opinion, that "little piece of paper" people used to scorn is about as unimportant as the Magna Carta and other little pieces of paper that have made a bit of difference over the years.The bits of paper that have changed the course of human history.

Why are we still together? I only have one husband, and he occupies a unique position in my life. To say he's some sort of patriarchal figure would be completely inaccurate, except for his innate need to be protective in his love.

We signed on the dotted line all those years ago, and during those inevitable stormy times when it looked like we might be over, one or the other of us would say: wait a minute. Let's wait it out, work at it for just a little bit longer.

We're not best friends. We're married. Still married. And somehow, as intimate and exclusive as we are with each other, the marriage is part of a much bigger picture, a network or matrix of kids and grandkids, uncles, cousins, in-laws, and other people we probably wouldn't be able to stand otherwise. And may I say this? Marriage is the basic social unit of society, a whole lot of interlocking puzzle pieces of people at least making an attempt at commitment to living in a manner based on love.  Or devotion.

Or that which lies beyond devotion, and always will.