Doing It Every Day Poem by gershon hepner

Do you do it every day,
or just at night time get your way?
Do you do it when it’s light,
or wait until it’s dark at night?
Do you do it when it’s dawn
on the patio or lawn?
In the afternoon do you
do what the birds and bees all do?
When you’re turned on close to dusk
by the sexy smell of musk
do you wait, or do you dash
towards your lover with panache?
Do you think that you can count
the times you’ve been on Venus mount,
or, if you are a woman, do
you let the man above it view
the panorama that YouTube
would love to show from either boob?
Lost count, perhaps? What does this mean?
Are you maybe a tad less keen
on sex than citizens who’re good,
or have I not quite understood
your lifestyle? Why am I so nosey?
Life’s poetic, and not prosy,
and since I am a poet I
will first compose fo reach reply
a verse, then emulate the acts
if they are born out by the facts.
A statistic in a study entitled American Sexual Behavior, by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago found that the frequency of sexual intercourse among married couples 18 to 29 years old was about 109 times. This poem was inspired by that fact and an article by Ralph Gardner Jr. about Charla and Brad Muller, who had 101 days of consecutive post-nuptial sex (“Yes, Dear, Tonight Again, ” NYT, June 8,2008) :
LET’S say you and your spouse haven’t had sex in so long that you can’t remember the last time you did. Not the day. Not the month. Maybe not even the season. Would you look for gratification elsewhere? Would you file for divorce? Or would you turn to your mate and say, “Honey, you know, I’ve been thinking. Why don’t we do it for the next 365 days in a row? ” That’s more or less what happened to Charla and Brad Muller. And in another example of an erotic adventure supplanting married ennui, a second couple, Annie and Douglas Brown, embarked on a similar, if abbreviated journey: 101 straight days of post-nuptial sex. Both couples document their exploits in books published this month, the latest entries in what is almost a mini-genre of books offering advice about the “sex-starved marriage.” The couples, though, are hardly similar. The Mullers are Bible-studying steak-eating Republicans from Charlotte, N.C. The Browns are backpacking multigrain northerners who moved to Boulder, Colo. The Mullers’ book, “365 Nights, ” is rather modest and circumspect in its details. The Browns’ book, “Just Do It, ” almost makes the reader feel part of a threesome, sharing everything they used to stimulate sexual desire (it’s hard to visualize and even harder to explainCharla Muller and Annie Brown both talk about how mandated physical intimacy created more emotional intimacy. “It required a daily kindness and forgiveness, and not being cranky or snarky, that I don’t think either of us had experienced before, ” Charla said. Annie said that she and her husband reached a place in their relationship that they have seldom approached since. “It was just this intense closeness, ” she said. “We were so aware of wherever the other person was mentally and emotionally and physically.” Today, the Browns report they have sex approximately six times a month, or double their frequency before their adventure. The Mullers decline to discuss their habits, except to say that they fall well within the national average. And, Brad said, the sex is better. “It made it much easier to be open to the idea, more spontaneous, ” he said, “So you don’t go back to that always gaming for it and always trying to get out of it.” Charla agrees: “It’s a lot better than it used to be. I may be slow to the take, but it was a really meaningful lesson.” Douglas Brown suffers less stage fright than he once did. “There’s much less of a sense of having to perform, ” he said. “After 100 days, that kind of melted away.” All the same, he doesn’t recommend the experience to everyone. “I’m glad we did it, ” he said. “But as far as a practical message, nobody needs to do it 100 days. You don’t have to climb Mount Everest to understand alpine sublime.”


7/9/08