The Fool-Proof Guide to Banging During Your Family Gathering
Here is a truth most universal: Nothing makes sex more appealing than a situation where it’s totally inconvenient, making Thanksgiving the ideal time for furtive and risky sexcapades. But with family obligations and creaky beds, what’s a person to do?
Here’s our guide to sneaking around on Turkey Day.
Scenario: You want to have sex with your current partner while both of you are staying at your family home.
Level of difficulty: 1 turkey baster full of semen.
Associated costs: Mild embarrassment.
Best places to do it: The floor of your childhood bedroom; the car; the bathroom. (Note that the bathroom ups it to two turkey basters of difficulty if the room you’re in doesn’t have its own.) (Also: Why did you even go home then? Do you enjoy living like an animal??)
Best position: Missionary in car or on floor; doggy style in bathroom due to ample counter space.
How to do it: This one is fairly easy. Since you and your partner are likely to be staying in the same room (it is 2014, after all) you can just complain of a headache and have them come check on you in five minutes. And sex is a cure for headaches: remember that if you’re caught.
If you’d like to have sex in the house, it’s best to do it during the day when the noises of your lovemaking will be covered by the noises of holiday revelry, such as your father complaining about Obama or your mother loudly folding sweaters in another room.
You may not know this, but it’s a universal rule that no matter what bed your parents have put you in, it will creak like it’s being murdered (the sound is not unlike a child’s shrill-pitched scream) at the first suggestion of coitus. Everyone will immediately know what’s going on. The floor may be less comfortable and may creak, but creaks are easily explained away, unlike the angry screaming of old bedsprings.
If you’d like to have sex at night, you’re going to need to go into the car (you and I both know someone will come looking for burglars if that floor creaks) and do it very quietly or use the bathroom. The bathroom is ideal for making noise (only one at a time). If anyone comes to investigate, one easy response to deploy is that the moans are the result of too much rich food and not enough fiber in your diet. However, this is risky because your parent will either leave you alone or (more likely) stay by the door, wringing their hands and trying to guide you through your fecal emergency. KNOW WHICH TYPE OF PARENT YOU HAVE BEFORE ATTEMPTING TO MAKE EXCUSES FOR YOUR SEX NOISE.
Scenario: You want to have sex with your current partner, while both of you are staying at your respective family’s houses in the same town.
Level of difficulty: 2 turkey basters full of semen.
Best place to do it: Motel; well-lit parking lot (Safety first)
Associated costs: motel room, the risk of bringing home bedbugs, feelings of shame, possible rug burn, cost of bottle of whiskey to relax nerves and/or disinfect bed.
Best position: Literally levitating within your motel room and not touching anything. So whatever gets you there is fine. Consider purchasing a portable sling!
How to do it: Offer to go to the store for last-minute food items, alcohol or a trip to Redbox. The latter is the best option, as the line for the Redbox is often long and excruciating and sometimes violent (when a child thinks they’re in line for the Coinstar machine but it turns out he got into the wrong line). In this Redbox scenario, it takes approximately ten minutes to get to the store, 45 to wait your turn and select a movie, and another ten to get home. Perfect. The trick is to just choose whatever movie comes up first, thereby saving you up to 20 minutes. You wanted Frozen, little cousins? You’re getting The Best Man Holiday and you are going to fucking like it.
Other reasons you may give for leaving the house (ranging from least to most risky): Liquor run, transporting relatives from the airport, visiting aunt Mildred at “the home,” taking a trip out to the family gravesite to pay your respects to those who have made the life you are living possible for you, picking a fight with someone and skulking out for some “time alone in the fresh air, mom, okay? Can I just have a few fucking minutes to myself or is this house now under nazi rule?”
Arrive at motel. Reserve room. Go up to room.
Check motel room for cameras (I have seen movies and know what is up), considering this ritual part of foreplay. Remove everything from bed (especially the quilt, because that is something my partner always reminds me is never cleaned at motels) (not that we have tried this). Set up sling. Have sex as quickly as possible. Enjoy none of it. Return home unfulfilled.
Alternately: Have sex in the car at the Radio Shack parking lot. No one will be there (because it’s Radio Shack). Make sure to engage parking brake if you are on an incline and do not freeze to death.
Scenario: You want to have sex with your current partner, while both of you are staying at your respective family’s houses, not in the same town.
Level of difficulty: 5 turkey basters full of semen.
Associated costs: The knowledge that you will have to explain whatever you’re doing to the five-year-old who will inevitably walk in (trust me on this) and the fact that you will also have to bribe said five-year-old with money and/or candy. The likelihood that the five-year-old will tell is still very high, so consider packing an amnestic such as Versed or several strong muscle relaxers to administer to yourself so that you can render yourself unconscious until no one remembers that this has happened. (While benzodiazepines do have a high addiction rate, the chances of you doing anything other than putting yourself to sleep for 10-23 hours just this one time is quite low.)
Best position: In desk chair, with the screen angled down from above to make you look your best. Keep the lights down low.
How to do it: First, you will need to acquire aforementioned amnestics or benzodiazepines. If there is more than one small child in the neighborhood, you will likely need to plan ahead and gather your supplies over a two to three-month period (hardly seems worth it, but there’s no stopping you is there, you incurable sex monster?).
Please remember that a small child will walk in regardless of whether they are in the house or not. This is not debatable.
If you have a prescription for heavy painkillers or muscle relaxers or have an unscrupulous doctor who is likely to prescribe those at will you may skip ahead. If not, you will need a hockey mask, a water gun (Note: NOT SEE THROUGH OR NEON-COLORED SO HELP ME GOD) and access to a 24-hour pharmacy or a nearby doctor’s office. How you pull off the heist is up to you (best plan: At the 24-hour pharmacy with the hockey mask and the water gun), but you’re definitely going to need the medicine. Don’t get caught. Stealing narcotics is a felony.
Once you have procured the goods (tough-person speak for drugs) and are at your parents’ house, you will need to wait until everyone is either out of the house or asleep to make the call. Lock your door, although this will be useless. Call your significant other. Proceed to talk dirty until small child walks in. Explain, bribe, end phone call because you are no longer in the mood. Knock yourself out as soon as small child leaves. Wake up 3-5 days later. Try again.
Modification if you are against using narcotics: Procure one of those mind-eraser pens from the Men In Black franchise. Use liberally on anyone who has knowledge of you trying to get it on via Skype. Burn house down if not able to acquire mind-eraser. It will take everyone’s mind off your sexual failures.
Scenario: Having sex with your high school crush during the family meal because this is literally the only time they are available and interested.
Level of difficulty: 10 turkey basters full of semen.
Best place to do it: A secluded area. The attic is a good choice due to the fact that no one goes there because that’s where the ghosts and spiders live and love and weave their tangled webs.
Best position: Oral is the only choice. You know no one brought condoms.
Things you will need: Your homecoming queen crown. If you were homecoming queen, you may feel free to skip ahead. If you were not homecoming queen (and this is irrespective of gender), you will need to do the following: Leave your family dinner, drive to the home of Heather McForney (who was homecoming queen), climb the trellis to her bedroom window (what, like no one’s done it before, Heather? Why do you even have a fucking trellis on your house? Pretentious), enter her room and start searching. The crown will either be in a trophy case, in the top drawer of her bureau (god, you know she has a bureau, right?) or, if she is well-adjusted and has moved on from the glory days of her high school career, in the back of her closet. Right behind the yearbooks and the Hanson posters — of Taylor, of course, who was the least cute.
Grab the crown and go, go, go! If you are caught (and you might be) do whatever it takes to take the crown that is rightfully yours. Violence is never suggested, but you climbed a fucking trellis, didn’t you? Yes, you did! Take Heather out — suggestion: Scream “look, over there! Taylor Hanson!” and run — and get the hell home before you lose your nerve.
Associated costs: Being assaulted by ghosts and/or spider, jail time, an unsatisfying experience that does not live up the to the fantasy you’ve been playing in your mind since your 16th birthday when they show up and look nothing like their Facebook picture, alcohol poisoning.
Turkey basters full of whiskey needed to complete the act of stealing the crown: 0, because it was rightfully yours to begin with, okay? There’s no guilt here!
Turkey basters full of whiskey needed to complete act of sex with high school crush: 10. You’re literally blowing your lost youth in a stolen plastic crown, don’t get proud now.
How to do it: Once you’ve procured the crown, opened the door and been disappointed by the reality of your sexual partner, sneak them upstairs (if family asks, tell them they’re here for a book they lent you senior year) and get on your knees immediately. The reality here, friend, is that all you’re getting out of this is a dick (or another sexual organ in your mouth) and will have to continue fantasizing what it would actually be like if your crush brought you to orgasm. Console yourself with the fact that they probably never would have been able to, anyway. Finish the deed. Bid them farewell. Defriend on Facebook. Spend rest of night in bathtub. Crying. (Everyone warned you about this.)
Scenario: You have just met your third cousin (adopted! adopted!) and he/she is hot and into you. You agree to sneak away for a Thanksigiving tryst.
Level of difficulty: 8 turkey basters full of semen
Associated costs: The realization that you are literally “keeping it in the family” and doing some Flowers in the Attic shit, high therapy bills, never being able to look at this cousin or their family in the face again, being referred to as ‘cousinfucker’ by anyone you ever share this story with ever.
Best place to do it: Anywhere that locks, really. You’re not going to be in there for long. Refer to earlier suggestions. DO NOT LEAVE THE HOUSE. THIS WILL BE SEEN AS VERY SUSPICIOUS AND PEOPLE WILL SUSPECT YOU ARE BANG BANG BANGING.
Best position: Really? You’re fucking a technical member of your family. You’re on your own here. Uh, be creative! Be free! Let’s move on.
How to do it: Fake a shared mutual interest and invite your cousin — ADOPTED! ADOPTED! — to your room to either play a computer game or have them listen to this one mix tape you made that is really good. Do not go to your room because that is the first place you will be looked for. If the house you are in has a yard with no lights, this is a good place to go. If someone comes out, fake coyote noises as effectively as possible.
Once a place has been chosen, first re-establish that the cousin is adopted. When that has been done, let your animalistic urges take over and just do it like wild animals would. Briefly consider the fact that in all states marrying your third cousin is legal and that you could technically have a long and fulfilling life together if you so chose and if your family wasn’t a disgusting example of how judgmental society could be. Lose desire to have sex. Finish awkwardly and possibly painfully.
Return to gathering. Never speak to each other again. Always wonder if the rest of the family knows. (They do. Trust me.)
Scenario: A clandestine handjob during dinner.
Level of difficulty: 12 turkey basters full of semen.
Associated costs: No one ever speaking to you again, the literal death of at least one elderly person at the table if you are caught.
Best position: Hand to partner’s genitals; rubbing above clothes is much easier than skin-to-skin contact.
Best time to do it: During grace.
Worst time to do it: While everyone is going around the table saying what they’re thankful for. This may seem like the best time because this entire thing is really boring and at least one of your relatives will take about ten minutes recapping their entire life and what they learned from losing a job and finding a job and then losing it again in the past year, but everyone else will be bored to and looking for something interesting to focus on. Under-the-table hand parties will be a prime target.
How to do it: Make sure you are a) seated next to the object of your affection and b) know your right from your left. If you do not know your right from your left, do not attempt this because it is possible you will grab the genitals of a relative. Best case scenario: They hate it; Worst case scenario: They like it. (Please see below if this is not your worst case scenario.)
While everyone’s eyes are closed, firmly grasp the crotch of your sweetheart in your hand and begin kneading until firm and/or moist (moooiiiiisssssstttt). If you are not stopped (and you should have negotiated this beforehand, okay?) you may proceed to attempt to make a connection between their flesh and your flesh.
You should remember that while this sounds hot in theory and looks good in pornographic films, the likelihood of your either or your partner becoming spooked, convulsing or laughing really hard is a distinct possibility. If you are unable to explain what’s going on, the tablecloth will be whipped back, dinner will be ruined, your parents will shake their heads in shame and your grandmother will die of disappointment right then and there. You will be stuck with the bill if she has not yet signed up for Obamacare.
Thanks, Obama!
If you have further suggestions or modifications, please leave them in the comments. Safe sex tips are always appreciated. Have a safe and enjoyable holiday!
Illustration by Jim Cooke.