“It’s Not About the Sex” My Ass by Joanne Hanks, Steve Cuno Read Free Book Online

should have been the one to teach my own daughter
how to tie her own shoes, dammit. And I wouldn’t have taught her to tie them
some weird, inside-out way.
    Fair being fair, Judith had reasons of her own to be
jealous. Despite moments when the sounds of their encounters echoed off the
surrounding mountains, Jeff told me that sometimes when he was with her he had
difficulty getting excited, not to mention performing. Perhaps familiarity was
setting in. If you know anything about male anatomy, I probably don’t have to
explain why at such times there was no hiding from her his lack of excitement
and performance. If you know anything about women, I probably don’t have to
explain why at such times she didn’t find his lack of excitement and
performance terribly flattering. Sometimes in the morning after a nonperforming
night with Judith—she and I alternated nights sleeping with
him—Jeff would steal up to my room for sex. I felt guilty, as if we were
cheating on her. But then, I didn’t kick him out, either.
    Ha! Maybe I was
way older. Maybe I was way under-endowed by comparison. But
my—our—husband thought I was sexier. Ha and ha again. Not that
I inwardly or outwardly gloated. I was too righteous, too spiritual, and too
mature for that. Besides, today it is all consigned to a dimly lit past. I
don’t even think about it anymore, much less gloat.
    Did I mention that Jeff thought I was sexier?
    Polygamists love to set the record straight when you ask,
“Did you adopt this lifestyle for the sex?” The standard reply is that polygamy
is most emphatically not about the sex. It’s about doing the will of the Lord
and building up God’s kingdom on earth. Don’t think for one minute that men get
off on polygamy. Well, OK, they do get off on polygamy. But only literally.
    But when a man takes a plural wife with designs on her younger,
hotter sisters and then has trouble getting it up in the name of God because
she’s chubby—and his First Wife, God forgive her, takes competitive
delight in the thought—come on. It’s not about sex? My ass.
    Judith had something else to bemoan. An important duty of a
plural wife is to help her husband grow his kingdom on earth by bearing him
children. Judith experienced technical difficulties in that department. I
suspect that it was not her fault. I am no biologist, but I suspect that it had
more to do with Jeff’s vasectomy.
    We told Judith about the vasectomy before she and Jeff were
married. We had opted for it following the birth of our third child, unaware
that a few years hence we would find ourselves under the divine imperative to
multiply and replenish the earth with the pitter-patter of tiny polygamist
feet. Sooner or later Judith would want her brood, and I was ready to dig back
in and add to mine. Accordingly, we returned to Jeff’s urologist for a
reversal. “Why are you back?” the doctor asked, his brow knitted in a way that
suggested to us that rumors had reached him and he knew very well why. “I
changed my mind,” I said. “I want more kids.” It was the truth—just not
the whole truth and nothing but the truth. We made two reversal attempts. We experienced
disappointment when neither one took. Today I thank my lucky stars.
    Jeff’s lack of seed-sowing ability would eventually help sow
the seeds for Judith’s departure from our family. But for the time being,
jealousies and infertility aside, Judith and I for the most part hit it off and
grew close.
Wife Number Three catalyzes a revelation
    Meanwhile, Jeff and I remained on the lookout for his next
wife. God answered our prayers by bringing to Manti an older man, his wife, her
adopted sons, and Ginger, the man’s adopted daughter from a prior marriage. She
was 40 years old and had two adult sons of her own living independently in the
eastern United States. With Ginger’s sons successfully on their own, the man
and his wife agreed that at age 40, it was high time for Ginger to be
successfully on her own