(Okay, remember how I was telling you [in, I think, How To Make a Living Writing, Part Two] that I used to have to write for gnarly free tabloids that I called “street rags”? Having it be Valentine’s Day reminded me of the piece below, which I once wrote for one such magazine’s “Love Issue.” If as the Christian Writer I have now officially become I tried to publish this sort of thing today, God himself would probably reach out of the sky and poke me in the eye. Or crack up and pat me on the head. Who knows? I don’t — but you might. Is the piece below Funny and Totally Acceptable, or Puerile and Unacceptably Un-Christian? You be the judge!)

My Essay for “The Love Issue” of  [Street Rag Quarterly]

People always say that love is mysterious. But I disagree. I think love is obnoxious. It’s as rude and invasive as a tapeworm. And, like having a tapeworm, being in love makes you spend a lot of time in the bathroom, crying.

Of course, there’s also much to be said in favor of love. And Shakespeare, as everyone knows, said most of it. Who can forget the Bard’s inspiring words, “Forsooth, mine own blinded love-seared crimson muscle-pump! Be still, internal idiot! Blast thee for thine heavenly, thrice-cursed flannigenans, ‘ere by my failieth gruen beaierurnaut yon glibbet! Dringlie-yay, dringlie-yay! Mort!”

But that’s Shakespeare. He was a genius. The rest of us just have to struggle along as best we can.

Speaking of sex. When it comes to love, sex can get very confusing. Especially for men. For women, there’s nothing at all confusing about the proper relationship between love and sex: They belong together, period. Men aren’t so sure. Men live with the conviction that there’s a whole universe of stuff about sex that’s a whole lot ruder than women understand.

They’re wrong about that, of course. Women are perfectly aware of how rude sex is to men. And they want it stopped. Right now.

But asking a man to stop being rude about sex is like asking a bear to stop being hairy about its body. It’s just not in the cards. To men, sex is rude. You take the rudeness out of sex, and men start shrugging and wondering what’s on TV.

So, that’s a problem .

If anyone out there knows the solution to this problem — if anyone can or has figured out how to make men and women think of sex in the same way — please send that answer directly to our office, care of me. Thank you.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

One thing I’ve learned in my many years of getting wrong just about everything having to do with romance, sex, and love, is that women don’t think sex is as funny as men do. To men, sex is a fantastic, never-ending source of first-rate yukkels. There’s so precious little about sex that isn’t funny, is why. Unless you’re a woman. Then you probably don’t find sex all that hilarious. At least, not in a good way. A woman laughing during sex is rarely, if ever, a thing to be desired. It usually means that she’s either spontaneously reacting to the existential irony of her current mortification, or she’s got one eye on a Will Ferrell movie. Either way, once she bursts out laughing, it’s time for her lover to excuse himself, leave, and not come back until he’s an enlightened swami who no longer cares if his sexual technique inspired hilarity. (Which, by the way, is the only attitude with which to approach Swami Sex.)

Of course, it’s completely understandable why women take sex and romance a lot more seriously than men. After all, a man who has just had sex is very often compelled to eat a ham sandwich and watch TV.  On the other hand, a woman who has just had sex is very often compelled to have a baby. And while it certainly can be difficult to get the perfect amount of mustard on a ham sandwich, the two really don’t compare in Total Hassle. So a woman has to be careful. She can’t afford to sleep with a man who won’t take seriously his responsibility to stay with her, and start feeding her ham sandwiches.

And through all of this, of course, men are fighting their apparently Genetic Propensity to wander. But (hopefully), they don’t wander. Instead, they incessantly switch TV channels, are chronically incapable of making up their minds, and die some four years earlier than women due to the stressfulness of always having to hide one’s porno collection. [Note to Christian readers: Not that Christian men ever buy, look at, or hide pornography! I know they don't! They don't! There's no question about that!  How could there be? ] 

But at least we get paid more at our jobs. And it’s a good thing we do, too. Porno isn’t cheap. Unless you get involved with those giant wire bins that adult “bookstores” always have near the cash registers. But somehow bargain porno always seems so …

Wait. Where was I?

Oh, right. Romance.

Ah, romance. Nothing says “romance!” like a big bouquet of flowers that live for about three days before they die and start attracting gnats and then smell worse than death.

Um.

Unless you sprinkle that white Prolong-A-Stalk stuff they give you into the flower water.

Then you can get, like, a whole week of not-dead-seeming flowers.

My poor wife. I’ve been married to her for quite some time now. And not a day goes by that I don’t, at least once and acutely, feel extremely sorry for her.