High Risk Love Making…

"High-risk Lovemaking"

a mini-play

excerpted from Jock Doubleday's book

HUSBAND and WIFE passionately take off each other's clothes. WIFE reacts with alarm to HUSBAND's potbelly.

WIFE: How many French fries did you eat tonight?!

HUSBAND: Oh, about 200 . . .

WIFE: How many have you eaten since childhood?

HUSBAND: Uh, I don't know.

WIFE: You could die of a heart attack at any time! You could die tonight while we're making high-aerobic love! And I could die from a broken rib, you're so heavy!

HUSBAND: I've gained a lot of weight since high school.

WIFE: I don't think a heart attack for you or a punctured lung for me sounds too good, do you?

HUSBAND: No.

WIFE: I think our lovemaking has become just too risky, dear. I've been thinking . . .

HUSBAND: You have?

WIFE: Actually, no. I haven't been thinking. I've been talking with my friends. And my friends say that the best thing to do in a high-risk lovemaking situation is to go to the hospital.

HUSBAND: Huh?

WIFE: We're talking about life-threatening love, here, honey! Our home has become too dangerous for us safely to engage in our usual acrobatic sacred union. What better place than the hospital to make worry-free gymnastic love?

HUSBAND: Uh . . .

WIFE: We'll pack our things, bundle ourselves in the car, and drive to the hospital! It'll be fun, like a camping trip! We'll rent one of those hygienic operating rooms for two or three hours. Professionals will be bustling about on errands of mercy, and you and I will descend into our animal selves. Are we a zebra? Are we a lion? Nurses to take care of our every need! "Have a glass of water" . . . "Have some anesthesia." I think it would be just plain foolish to suffer painful injury just because we didn't bite the financial bullet and hire the necessary technicians to stand guard over our chandelier-swinging copulations.

HUSBAND: Uh . . .

WIFE: And once we feel truly safe – as one always does in the hospital – we can plumb the deep depths of our sexual natures! We can push the envelope of the sexual experience in a way that's impossible for fearful home-bound lovers to do! We can create our own Kama Sutra! We'll call it Calmly Sutured! Wow, I just made that up! I'm a neologist as well as an ideologue! ha ha! I've always loved the feel of starched sheets on my bare bottom! Talk about primal! I'm getting excited just thinking about hospital love!

HUSBAND: Honey?

WIFE: Yes?

HUSBAND: Uh . . .

WIFE: Could you hurry up? Our sex lives are ticking away!

HUSBAND: The thing is . . . I don't know if I can make love with strangers watching.

WIFE: Strangers!! They're not strangers, dear, they're professionals! Anyway, if you can't get it up, we'll just have you induced.

HUSBAND: Induced?

WIFE: Jody's husband gets shots. But you can have pills. Whatever. Any drug will do to get the "engine" running! Just stick your butt in the air or lie on your back and open your mouth, and five minutes later you're ready to roll! And if the drugs don't work, one of the surgeons can make a little cut in your penis . . .

HUSBAND: Uh . . .

WIFE: Not a big cut, dear, just a little cut. A little cut to insert a state-of-the-art inflation device. Some quick stitches, pump you up, and you're ready to go! There are all sorts of things doctors can do these days to keep your pathological shyness from ruining our sex lives. It's the technological age!

HUSBAND: You know, honey, the more I think about it, the more the idea of making love in our own bed sounds pretty good.

WIFE: But we're high risk, darling! Can't you see? We shouldn't have to miss out on all that safety just because you want to make love in your comfy old bed! Why do you think lovemaking technology exists in the first place? So people can ignore it and have sex at home? We have to take advantage of our high-tech culture's arsenal of drugs, tools, and procedures for the betterment of the health of love! We have to be modern!

HUSBAND: What if I get an infection from that "little cut"?

WIFE: Don't worry about it!

HUSBAND: Oh. Okay. But how risky is my potbelly, really?

WIFE: It's not just your potbelly, dear, it's the whole gamut! Anything can happen! We could fall off the bed and get concussions! We could die! There are all sorts of ways to see home-based love as high risk.

HUSBAND: Okay, well, let's say we did make love in the hospital. Do you think the staff would let us dim the lights?

WIFE: Of course not! How would they know when to intervene if they couldn't see every inch of our flesh at all times? How would they know what tools to ready, what machines to switch on, what lotions to warm, if they couldn't witness every detail of our lovemaking sessions from every angle, acute and obtuse? Call me an exhibitionist, but I think you'll have to agree that it would be downright dangerous not to have the brightest possible fluorescent lights illuminating our deepest crevices and offering for public view our every conjugal entanglement. Do you remember that night when you hit me in the eye with your elbow?

HUSBAND: I regret it to this day.

WIFE: It's just not safe to make the beast with two backs without some serious medical technology around! Even the Bible says sex is dangerous!

HUSBAND: It does?

WIFE: Phyllis said so. Anyway, if we're able to avoid the perils of high-risk lovemaking, we're not just helping ourselves, we're helping others. Think of our children! Where would they be if we got injured or died during one of our nightly cucarachas? Black eyes! Broken ribs! Cardiac arrests! In the hospital, if my heart stops during one of my myriad bone-cracking orgasms, the nurses can just jam one of those big needles into my chest! Don't you see? The hospital institution is our culture's answer to the phenomenal dangers of hot sex! They have ice packs and everything! I can honestly say that I look forward to atrial dysfunction, and its attendant loss of consciousness, so that I can be magically revived by cutting-edge technology!

HUSBAND: Dear, I guess I just have to say that, after much thought, I'm not really ready for hospital lovemaking.

WIFE: Then we're never having sex again.

HUSBAND: I'll pack my jockstrap.

WIFE: The sweaty one from high school? I adore it! I'll pack my cheerleading outfit! Remember that night?

HUSBAND: It burns in my mind.

WIFE: I truly admire your newfound devotion to copulatory technology, honey. You're a man of your age.

HUSBAND: You're my inspiration, darling.

WIFE: I can't wait to find out what the nurses think of your jockstrap! Now, let's get to the hospital and have some really hot, really safe, sex!

(The above mini-play is excerpted from the chapter, "You're not fooled by the term 'high risk,'" in Jock Doubleday's book, Spontaneous Creation: 101 Reasons Not to Have Your Baby in a Hospital, Vol. 1: A Book about Natural Childbirth and the Birth of Wisdom and Power in Childbearing Women www.SpontaneousCreation.org)