California's Supreme Court upheld Proposition 8 banning same-sex marriages the other day, and while it's a bump in the road for equality, The Naughty Bride consoles herself that it took decades to get women a vote, much less equal treatment under the law, which remains elusive.  (Much like success in marriage, by the way.)

The Geelong Observer carried the news to Portia Di Rossi's hometown, along with this photo of her kissing her bride, Ellen DeGeneres.  This pair is among the 18,000 same-sex marriages that will remain on California's books, which Melissa Etheridge lauds in the accompanying article, even though she's not Australian.  

And, as far as heating up your marriage goes, it's worth remembering that every time a Naughty Bride kisses or hugs a girlfriend, this is what her Dear Groom is thinking about.  Word to the wise.

Yesterday, The Naughty Bride suggested that brides (and grooms) put their naughty smiles into auditory action and access their Inner Phone Sex Operators.  For some Naughty Brides, this is a no-brainer.  For the rest of us, especially the more educated and accomplished we are, our brains get in the way.  

For some "strange" reason, the more educated or accomplished we are, the more women tend to think.  And while thinking's great for strategic planning, thinking isn't what a relationship is about.  It's about feeling.  If your partner doesn't feel loved, he isn't, no matter how much you might feel like you love him (or, in deference to the Proposition 8 ruling yesterday, her).  

So us upitty wimmin assume that because our love "knows" mentally that we love him/her, that he/she can hear it and feel it and know it in his/her body.  Not so.  That no-brainer?  It really is about having no brain.  It's about short-circuiting the cognitive connection and accessing the senses directly. Did you know you can send your love into orbit with just a purr?  Sure you did, you naughty thing.  There are times you know your least murmur melts in his/her mouth.  So... the logical, thinking-brain thing to do is use that knowledge to keep your connection going all the time.  

We can already hear you objecting.  "All the time?!!"  Technically, yes.  But logically, just most of it. No Naughty Bride is perfect, not even in her naughtiness.  That's what being Naughty's all about.  Just ask our Naughty Bride of the Day, Judge (soon, Justice) Sotomayor -- that sweet smile, that empathy, those brains.  She's got it going on.  

Now it's time to practice.  Leave yourself a voicemail in your normal businesslike voice.  And then do it, same words, as if you were whispering to pillow talk.  Then listen to both.  Which call would you return, first?  

For a follow-up, for the next ten times you call your love -- whenever you can -- practice first.  Leave yourself any message you want to send your love, then listen to it.  If it's not fun, funny, sexy or sweet, try again.  There's too much at stake here.  It's the very fabric of your family, the months, years, decades you have invested of the only life you've got.  So, prattle when you must, but try not to bark.  Purr.

"Hey Darlin'

I just

want

to hear

your voice."

What do Kathleen Turner, Angelina Jolie, Tommy Lee Jones and The Naughty Bride herself have in common?  Something The Naughty Bride likes to call a Naughty Vocal Grin, AKA a great phone voice.

When you can't give your beloved a hug, you can, as Diane Keaton once said, "Give great phone."  Whether your talk is dirty or clean, synchronous or via voicemail, whatever you detail to your Darlin', the Naughtiest Brides avoid letting it sound like a grocery list. We coo, whisper, rasp, rumble, and gasp... sometimes we even beg you.  Whatever we do, on our naughtiest days, we suggest it in the nicest tones and exhort you to somehow, anyhow, access your own inner Phone Sex Operator. 

Don't have one?  The Naughty Bride sez, in her very deepest, most complex voice (think, Rocky Horror's Frank-n-Furter), "Hm, virgin territory," and then, chanelling Sher Khan, she adds, "How de-LIGHT-fullll."  

We'll wrestle the question of practice, tomorrow.   

A few entries ago, pursuing our line of inquiry into Heating Up Your Marriage, we asked, "What Would The Naughty Bride Do," or WWTNBD? and discussed How to Find Your Naughty Grin.  

So now that we're all imagining each other naked (sometimes best done from the shoulders up, to avoid spare tires and manboobs), you may well ask, what do I do with this dirty smile?  The answer is of course, everything.  If your love is nearby, go smile it at him. You don't have to DO anything about it, but going about your homelife together WITH a naughty grin is a heck of a lot more fun that doing it without one.  

If he's not there, call him up with your filthy smirk dripping through your best Phone Sex Voice. (Don't have one? We'll fix that, next.) You don't even have to say anything sexy, just let him hear in the tone of your voice that you can't wait to hear his.  If you're truly stumped, try this out:  

"Darlin',

it's your Naughty Bride calling,

just to hear your voice.

I can't wait

to hear

what you're going to say

next."