Diogenes' Sex Advice for Young Married Women

Take that smile off your faces, you lot! Let’s get serious here.

First of all, the wedding ceremony during which the young bride will be symbolizing her triumph in securing a male to provide for her needs the rest of her life.

There is a negative side. Then she will have to pay the piper, so to speak, by facing for the first time the terrible experience of sex and lust.

The shocking truth is that women of a certain type actually anticipate the wedding night with curiosity and excitement! Beware of having such an attitude!

If you have married a sensual, selfish husband, he may take advantage of any weakness on your part in the marital bed. This is just a duty, not something to which you should descend to lascivious pleasure!

You need to: Give the minimum, give grudgingly and, above all, give seldom!

Or your decent marriage will descent into an orgy of lust!!

But don’t be terrified: while sex at best is painful and revolting, it has been endured by women since the beginning of time and the bride should steel herself, meanwhile contemplating all the material benefits her union will accrue.

You must prevail upon your husband to cease and desist any advances after such union has been completed once - at least until the following afternoon. But don’t judge him too harshly at this time; men are beasts, as all women learn.

In fact, most men, if not controlled, might demand sex every day! The wise bride might permit two brief conjugal events each week for the first to months of marriage. As time goes by, she must make every attempt to reduce this licentiousness.

Feigning headaches and fatigue are your best weapons to avoid his advances. Fainting can be used as a last resort.

Arguing and bickering some time before you estimate his advances might start can be helpful.

A clever wife will be continuously on the alert to find new ways to forestall her husband’s disgusting advances.

The act should have been reduced to just once per week by the end of the first year of marriage - and to just once per month by the fifth year. Of course, should pregnancy occur, that will end sexual congress until after the child is born.

By the end of the tenth year, the sagacious wife will have birthed her children and reduced the need for any more useless and wearying sex.

His love of the family and work commitments to provide for you on a lavish scale should take the place of sexual thoughts in his mind.

Just as the bride will work towards reducing the amount of sexual acts, she will be on her guard for all sorts of perversions enjoyed by men at her expense.

These include actually mouthing the female body and offering their own vile bodies to be mouthed in return!

The male often uses trickery, such as discussing sex, showing nude and suggestive photos depicting sex, meanwhile trying to stimulate parts of the wife’s body, such as her breasts.

It is wise to never allow him to see your unclothed body, nor allow him to display his.

Sex, when it cannot be prevented, should only be practiced in total darkness.

It is useful to insist on both wearing thick, flannel pajamas which should never be removed in each others’ presence!

A wife should await her groom laying upon the marital bed in silence and without movement, which he might take as encouragement.

He may stumble in trying to locate her, perhaps bruising some part of his body, and become discouraged from his heated pursuit.

A wife should never attempt to move to make easy his entry, and should lie as still as death during the encounter. This will make him get over it as soon as possible and discourage him in the future.

This includes moving the face slightly so his impassioned and greedy kisses fall upon the cheek rather than the lips.

Any attempt by him to lift the pajama top should result in the bride leaping from the bed and insisting she needs the toilet.

Try to divert any conversation he may attempt about sex into more harmless trivia…the economy is sometimes a diverting subject for him.

It may be helpful to make bright remarks about the housework while he is grunting and puffing above her (never in any other position!!). She must be careful about emitting any groans or small cries of her own, which might inflame him.

As he tries to relax into the “petit mort” after his labors, the wise wife will nag him about things he has forgotten to do for her, or around the house. This will help him to see the marital chamber as a rather uncomfortable place; somewhere to get on with it; forget about it and stay away from in the future.

I must confess to some help with this article from:-

Ruth Smythers, the “beloved wife of The Reverend L.D. Smythers,” who had no intention of being amusing.

This was deathly serious advice for young wives in Victorian England and published in 1894!

(I think Diogenes, from a couple of thousand years earlier, would have had a much healthier outlook on sex, don’t you?)

And, girls, anyone trying the headache excuse on me in the future will get the “gorilla cage” treatment…thrown into a gorilla cage at the zoo and instructed to “Tell that mudderfricker you’ve got a headache!”

Credit “Sex Tips, by Ruth Smythers 1894

Reprinted by Summersdale Publishers 2008