NOTICE: THE FOLLOWING MATERIAL IS OF A SEXUALLY EXPLICIT NATURE THAT MAY AROUSE PRURIENT INTERESTS IN READERS WHO HAVE INSUFFICIENT CONTROL OF THEIR URGES.

Q. How long should sexual intercourse last?

A. This is an area of some disagreement between the sexes. As a rule, women would like to devote as much time to foreplay and the sex act as men would like to devote to foreplay, the sex act, and building a garage. This tends to lead to dissatisfaction on the part of the woman, who is often just beginning to feel pleasantly sensuous when the man is off rooting around in the refrigerator to see if there’s any Jell-O left.

Q. Well, isn’t there some sensitive and caring and loving technique that a couple can use to slow the man down?

A. Yes. When the woman senses that the man is nearing climax, she can whisper: “The Internal Revenue Service called again today, but don’t worry, I hung up on them.”

Q. I am a good-looking woman, as you can see from the enclosed glossy color photographs of me naked.

A. Yes. Thank you.

Q. Although I have an otherwise wonderful marriage, my husband seems to be losing interest in me sexually. It’s the little things: he hardly ever smiles at me; he often works late; and he comes home with as many as four naked women. So I thought, to rekindle the old flame, I’d surprise him, using a method suggested by Marabel Morgan in her book The Total Woman, namely greeting him at the door wearing only Saran Wrap. However, we were out of Saran Wrap, so I used Tupperware, which I feel is a better product anyway, but this unfortunately failed to produce the desired result, in the sense that when my husband saw me, he suffered some kind of seizure, and I had to drive him to the hospital while attempting to cover my private parts with two quart canisters and a Deviled Egg Transporter. My question is: Can we deduct this mileage on our income tax?

A. That depends on your individual situation.

Q. Listen, I, ummm, I have this kind of weird sexual hangup, which is that I, ummmm ... this is very embarrassing ...

A. Go ahead! Say it! Don’t be ashamed! That’s what we’re here for! To help!

Q. Okay, but I want to whisper it. (whisper whisper whisper)

A. My God! Really?

Q. Um, yes.

A. The joint Chiefs of Staff?!

Q. Well, yes.

A. How do you get the hamsters into the accordion?

The big problem with necking is figuring out whether or not your date wants to Do It. On the Planet of the Ideal Women, your date would just come right out and tell you. She’d say: “What do you say we lie down on the couch and neck like crazy?” Or: “Although I like you as a friend, I frankly would not neck with you even if the alternative were death by leeches.”

But here on the planet Earth, she won’t say anything. Sometimes this means she isn’t interested. But sometimes it doesn’t. Generally the way a guy finds out specifically what his date is thinking is at some point he lunges at her, lips puckered, and she responds by either puckering back, or quickly turning her head sideways, in which case the guy winds up sort of licking her hair, looking like a world-class dork. There is no face-saving way for a guy to get out of this situation, other than to have an instantaneously fatal seizure.

Assuming your date is responsive, your next move is to attempt “French-kissing,” which is when you stick your tongue into her mouth, and she sticks her tongue into your mouth, and so there the two of you are, with your tongues in each other’s mouths. This is a really sexy thing to do, according to French people, although you should bear in mind that they also like to eat snails.

Anyway, assuming your date seems to be responding positively to you, in the sense that she has not yet kneed you in the groin, and also assuming that you really and truly respect her as a human being and love her and plan to marry her, it’s time to move on to ...

The big problem here is the bra strap. You cannot casually unhook a bra strap. The bra-strap industry sees to this. Scientists over at the Bra Strap Research Center in Amarillo, Texas, work night and day with volunteer males and lifelike female dummies coming up with newer and more complicated fastening devices, devices where the first hook actually re-hooks itself after you go on to the second one, such that nobody can get these bras off, especially not a lust-crazed male in a dark room. Many priceless jewelry collections are now protected solely by bra straps.

If you get through the bra strap, your next challenge is the undergarments, which you will probably have to ask your date for assistance with, because they can be complex beyond human imagining, but I strongly advise that before the two of you tackle them, you should leave the restaurant.

Guys, you should definitely use a condom. All major health authorities agree on this. The whole nation has become violently pro-condom, not just for guys having sex, but also for guys puttering around the yard, domestic animals most vegetables and all major war monuments. Better safe than sorry!

The best source of reliable information is romance novels, which you can find in better bookstores and supermarkets everywhere. You know the books I mean—the cover always is a picture of a handsome and of course brooding man embracing a woman with green eyes and a bosom that is clearly heaving, sometimes most of the way out of her dress. The title is always something fairly humid, like Loins of Passion.

You sexually inexperienced couples should get hold of one of these books, because inside you will find a number of passages that are chock-full of explicit, down-to-earth, practical “straight talk” about the sexual act:

“As Sabrina gazed upward at Baron LeGume, whose dark, brooding eyeballs were turgid with passion, she felt the tormented tenseness of his throbbing, pulsating malehood, and she knew, with a knowledge borne of knowing, that she could no longer hold back the surging waves of passion that washed over her, like waves of something, as his brooding throbbing pulsating highly engorged lips sought hers, not that she wanted to hold them back, we’re talking about the waves of passion here, although she knew that somehow, somewhere, perhaps deep within the shuddering throes of yearninghood that even now gripped the very core of her womanhood, if you get what we mean, that she must find a way, through the hazy mists of desire, to end this sentence, although she sensed somehow that ...”

And so on. You young couples should study these helpful and realistic passages thoroughly, so you can use them for guidance when you are attempting sex (“You mean to tell me that’s the tormented tenseness of your malehood?”).