Illustration by Simone Massoni

Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar have homeschooled their nineteen children, and the entire devout Christian clan has appeared for nine seasons on TLC’s “19 Kids and Counting.” As the Duggar kids have matured, Jim Bob has allowed only chaperoned dates, and, as People has reported, “the Duggar girls and beaus have agreed to only ‘side hugs’ pre-engagement and only hand-holding post-engagement. Their first kisses will be on their wedding days.”

For further guidance, the family has collaborated on a sex manual, excerpted here:

The Missionary Position

This is perhaps the most satisfying sexual maneuver, because the wife remains in America while the husband serves as a missionary along the Amazon. Both parties receive erotic pleasure from choppy long-distance telephone conversations, in which the only understandable words are “prayer,” “antibiotic gel,” and “I’ve finally persuaded the entire tribe to wear cargo shorts and culottes, so there’s no more of that flippity-floppity.”

The Wheelbarrow

Another Duggar favorite, in which the wife, while gardening and filling her wheelbarrow with homegrown yams, eggplants, and zucchini, imagines her husband’s smile as she serves him a tasty mixed salad. When he is alone, the husband is permitted to caress these vegetables and offer them inexpensive jewelry in exchange for their continued silence.

The Threeway

An advanced technique, in which a mom and her two grown daughters secretly discuss divorcing their husbands, until orgasm.

Sex Toys

By following the Duggars’ example, marital aids can be sensibly repurposed. A simple vibrator can provide hours of feminine pleasure if you remove the batteries and use the plastic shell to store a sterilized toothbrush or a collection of small hoop earrings.

The Family Orgy

All family members must assemble in a great room or back yard. Each member is handed a Magic Marker and a square of oaktag, and asked to write down an activity that leads them to profound sensual arousal. On the count of three, everyone holds up their statements, revealing such options as “Vacuuming Underneath Large Pieces of Furniture,” “Refinishing a Tag-Sale Find,” and “Coaching Softball at the Nursing Home.” If anyone’s oaktag reads “Picturing My Girlfriend Wearing Kneesocks” or “Wondering What It Would Be Like If We Had HBO,” then that family member will have a pentagram drawn on his or her forehead, and will receive only a single Pillsbury crescent roll at dinner.

The La-Z-Boy

This technique is for only the most adventurous couples, as it involves the husband tilting his recliner all the way back, while the wife straddles the armrests and crochets a birthday scarf for her dad.

The Babymaker

In order to reproduce, actual sexual intercourse may become necessary, but only according to the following parameters. Both partners will disrobe in total darkness and then move slowly toward each other, to avoid making love to a floor lamp. Once the spouses have found one another, they will apologize, hold their breath, and picture, in their minds, their mothers piling heaps of apple slices into a piecrust. After no more than thirty seconds of intimate contact, the wife will yell, “Marco!,” and the husband will reply, “Polo!” Then both partners will run to separate bathrooms and scrub themselves with wire brushes, until a child is born. ♦