How to torture your husband

If the goal is to put men off marriage, then this sort of non-stop, ribald hilarity would appear to be an excellent way to go about it:

Let’s face it: Even the best husbands need a little punishment every now and then, even if it is just to get him to treat you like the princess you really are. In her hilarious book, 101 Ways to Torture Your Husband, Maria Garcia-Kalb talks us through some clever tactics to help us learn how to make him beg for mercy….

10. Bribe him with sex , then don’t pay up

Sex is great, but the monotony of marriage tends to stifle it, so that’s why men can be lured but the bribing manoeuvre so easily, First, withhold intimacy for two weeks. Your husband will be on a “sex fast”, he’ll be thrilled by the prospect of ‘getting some’, which is when you make your offer.

“Okay honey. We can have sex tonight if you do the washing or mow the lawn (or whatever if might be that you want him to do).”

Your man will immediately agree and get the chore done. When he comes around to “collect” his reward, tell him that the office is closed and he will have to come back tomorrow. Lick it up a notch by wearing racy underwear in bed but sleeping all night long.

The book is obviously supposed to be tongue-in-cheek, but I don’t see what is so tremendously hilarious about stating the inescapably obvious. It’s not as if men don’t know that women are unreliable when it comes to paying their debts; they are disproportionately likely to file for bankruptcy and lose their properties in foreclosure after all. This failure to understand the appeal of the unexpected is why most comediennes suck. Because they don’t actually have a sense of humor, seeing them try to tell jokes and relate amusing anecdotes is rather like watching a dog try to ride a bicycle. They just don’t seem to understand that it’s not the complaining itself that is the funny part. Now, I’m not saying this book quote isn’t funny because I find it offensive in any way, I am merely pointing out that there is nothing even remotely amusing about it. I mean, how is a woman welshing on a promise of sex any different than her telling a woman who is unemployed that she’ll pay her to clean the house for a month, followed by a subsequent refusal to pay the woman? HA HA HA HA HA! (wipes eyes) Oh dear, when you put it that way, I suppose it really IS a good one….

Now, despite the lame foundation there is a way to make it at least vaguely humorous. You see, the next morning, when our lingerie-clad princess-protagonist asks her long-suffering husband why he is so unaccountably relaxed about her failure to deliver on the promised erotic acrobatics the evening before, he shrugs and replies laconically.

“I was sorry to hear that your office was closed, but fortunately your sister’s offers 24-7 delivery.”

Of course, any man who is dumb enough to fall for the blitheringly transparent “I find it sexy when men do [insert unpleasant task that woman doesn’t want to do]” routine is a hopeless Gamma who eminently deserves whatever hell the women in his life are going to put him through.