“Give him a hand job.”
That is the advice given to post-partum women in books like Sheet Music by Kevin Leman:
There are times for whatever reason that a wife may choose to make use of… ‘hand jobs’. A woman…who has just gotten through a pregnancy…may genuinely feel that sex is more than she can handle. But with a minimum of effort, she can help her husband who feels like he’s about ready to climb the walls because it’s been so long.
Kevin Leman, “Sheet Music”
When I read that quote several years ago before getting married, I thought that sounded like a good compromise. A married man cannot be expected to go weeks without sex, right? That opens the door to temptation. Surely a hand job is a conciliatory act to tide him over until his wife can have sex again.
Fast forward to 2018 when my husband and I had our first child…
