<Picking up from where we left off, the head-hunter and the lingerie>
About a week later, my husband and I went to dinner with a couple of good friends. We were planning a scuba diving trip together with them, and at some point the topic turned to what they should pack.
Me (to the gal): Well, according to [guy on my front porch], you better not bring any T-shirts to sleep in. Come to find out, we’ve been doing it wrong for nearly 30 years. We’re supposed to be doing a striptease and lap dance for our husbands every night.
The gal and her husband (almost in unison): Every night?
Me and Dave (almost in unison): Every night!
The guy (a pastor): How do they get anything else done?!
The gal: No wonder he works from home!
<side-splitting laughter, waiters wondering if they should cut us off, but realize we’re not drinking>
The gal: I guess that leaves you out, babe, because we can’t afford lingerie!
The guy: It just ends up on the floor anyway, I’ll save you the trouble……I’ll just go home and cut strategically placed holes in your T-shirts! You know, kind of like Charlie Brown’s Halloween costume?!
<Fast forward about 48 hours, Dave and I get a call from Pastor Guy, telling us his wife has been rushed to the hospital and she’s in emergency surgery. The doctors believe it is advanced ovarian cancer.>
In the hospital, we’re all at her bedside when the surgeon comes in to deliver the news that she did not have ovarian cancer, but instead that she had a very serious abdominal infection, from which she would recover.
There were shouts of joy and lots of tears! Her husband, exhausted from no sleep and worry, slumped into the chair and put his face in his hands. My husband went over to him, knelt beside him, and put his arm around his shoulders.
“It’s gonna be okay, we’re here for whatever you need. You guys just take it easy and let us take care of everything.”
The pastor looked up, tears in his eyes, and said, “It’s not that, Dave. It’s not that.” He put his face back into his hands, trying to gain his composure.
The pastor's shoulders began to shake. Dave looked at me, totally confused as to what to do next. I just shrugged my shoulders in an I-don’t-know kind of way and used hand signals to gesture “hug him tighter.”
But just at the moment, the pastor let out the most hilarious belly laugh you’ve ever heard! With tears streaming down his face, laughing uncontrollably he said to his wife,
“Honey, it just dawned on me that I almost cut holes in your T-shirt the other night as a joke! The T-shirt you wore as they rushed you to the hospital!! Can you imagine the doctors’ and nurses’ faces?!? Can you imagine what I would have had to explain if you had nipple holes cut out in your T-shirt?!?”
We love these two to pieces. Like us, they’ve been through a lot in their 30+ year marriage. And like us, they saw the humor—and the potential dangers—in teaching young couples that stripping’s where it’s at.
I’d like to say that I was shocked at my friend saying that his wife gave him a strip tease and a lap dance every night. I’d like to say that I was shocked that they were teaching couples in their church that THAT’S what great sex and a great marriage is all about.
To be fair to them, I’m not in their marriages, so I don’t know if that every-night-no-matter-what kind of sex works for them or not.
But I have a hunch they’re setting themselves—and everyone they’re teaching—up for huge disappointment. And maybe failure.
That’s what happens when sex is reduced to an act (or lots of acts), instead of understanding how it’s intricately tied into your love map.
Come back tomorrow for The Breast of the Story.
Come back tomorrow for The Breast of the Story.
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