Some twenty
years ago I was invited to play in a mixed doubles tennis tournament at a
friend’s club. My partner was a lady
named Mimi, and Mimi turned out to be
a sex therapist.
Chatting
between matches, Mimi and I discussed, among other things, the sexual mores of
the younger generation. I told her what
I had observed on the campus of my daughter’s college, and Mimi told me about a
niece’s wedding that she had recently attended.
It seemed
that a few minutes before the ceremony began, Mimi was alone with her niece
doing the things that aunties do with needle and thread and safety pins at a
time like this when her niece said, “Auntie Mimi, I am so lucky to have an aunt
who is a sex therapist. Please tell me
what I need to know.”
For a few
seconds my friend pondered what she might say to her niece on the subject of
sex, three minutes before she was to walk down the aisle. Finally she came up with, “Maintain a sense
of humor at all times.”
The moment I
heard this, I realized that it was a great philosophy not only for the perils
of sex, but for the minefield that is marriage in general. It was too late to apply this newfound wisdom
to my first and second marriages, but it’s done wonders for the current one.