1967. Mary, my fiancee (and still my wife after forty-eight years) were then each twenty-four years old. Anne, the maid of honor, asked me if I would be willing to help out with the shower she was staging for my bride-to-be. I asked her what she would want me to do.

"Nothing much," she said. "Greet the guests at the door as they arrive, usher them into the rec room, put their gifts on the bar, help with the seating, and then, when most everybody has arrived, serve the drinks and pass the hors d'ouvres."

The day of the event, Anne asked me to come to the house an hour early to help get everything ready. When I arrived, she handed me a pair of French cuffs (with gold cuff links), a black bow-tie and a frilly white French maid's apron. "This will be your uniform for the day," she said. "Strip."

I protested. "This is more than I bargained for."

"But you promised," she replied. "Besides which, you're part of the entertainment, and Mary will be delighted to see you all gussied up."

I thought about it a bit. Mary and a few of her closest friends. Maybe it wouldn't be too bad. I relented. "Show me the bedroom."

So I stripped. As I struggled to put on the first French cuff (not easy to do when the cuff is not attached to a shirt), Anne appeared with a basin of water and a razor. "No way! I aint shaving a thing!" Apart from a healthy, but well-contained bush, I had only a few wisps of hair in my pits and a small patch on my chest. Anne reckoned that it wasn't enough to bother anybody, so she set the razor aside and helped me put on the cuffs and the tie. She fastened the apron on me with a large bow at the back. The apron was just long enough to cover my groin, affording me a modicum of modesty for my privates, but the bow, tied high on my waste, left my butt utterly exposed.

The guests began to arrive soon enough -- too soon for me. They came, one by one or in pairs. I met them each at the front door, that being part of my assigned role. They greeted me with gasps, wide eyes, open mouths, hoots, and whistles. And then, invariably, as I led them from the living room and on into the rec room, they made comments of one kind or another about my "cute bum," my "bubble butt," and my "nice ass." It was then, I think, that I began to realize how women must feel on hearing language that treats them as sexual objects.

Within fifteen minutes, there were sixteen guests on hand -- all young ladies, Mary's friends and cousins, ranging in age, altogether, from about fifteen to thirty. They spent a lot of time pointing at me and giggling, but I tried not let it bother me. And since they were all about my age, even though I had known them all before and would be likely to see a lot of them again, I was only a little bit shy about them seeing me in my current, unclad condition, being careful not to expose my backside more than absolutely necessary. My chances of surviving -- getting through the event with my dignity intact -- seem to have improved. Then the doorbell rang -- again!

I opened the door to find Mary (my bride-to-be) and her mother. The thought of being naked or all but in front of my future mother-in-law embarrassed me to tears, but before I could utter an apology or an excuse, Mary squealed her delight, grabbed onto me, whirled me 180 degrees, planted her lips upon mine, and squeezed my cheek -- my right butt cheek that is -- right in front of her mother.

My little French maid's apron began to tent before Mary finished her kiss. Feeling my pole poking her stomach, Mary gave it a bit of a squeeze with her free right hand (the left was still clutching my butt). That did it.

Embarrassed as I was to be exposing my backside to my bride's mother, I certainly did not want to expose my front self to her in my present condition. I looked back over my left shoulder to check on her whereabouts. She was waiting patiently in the doorway, only grinning a little bit (from ear to ear). But to my chagrin -- no, to my utter mortification -- I saw standing behind her, waiting to come in, my own mother, my sister, and my grandmother.

Could it get any worse? Oh, yeah. I managed to lead these last guests into the rec room without exposing my tumescent self to them, then I scurried off to the kitchen ostensibly to get a tray of treats and, hopefully, lose the bone. I shouldn't have bothered.

I was somewhat, mostly, or completely erect most of the time during the party largely on account of the younger ladies, who, as I served the drinks and snacks, were apparently unable to keep their hands off my breast, my belly, my butt, and the inside surfaces of my thighs. All that attention and the salacious comments that accompanied it, did me in.

Later, after the party, I begged Mary to forgive me for my wanton display. She laughed at me; told me that she would be concerned about me if I had not gotten erections. "That's OK for you," I replied, "but I am never again going to be able to face your friends or your mother." I didn't dare even to think about how I was going to handle the matter with my own mother, my sister, or my grandmother.

The upshot? The embarrassment I felt the first few years, when Mary and I visited her friends, eventually waned. They never said anything about what they had seen. Perhaps Mary had warned them that it was a sensitive subject for me. My sister razzed me a time or two after the event, but then told me that she was very happy at last to have seen how much her little brother had grown. That's my sister for you. Never heard a peep from my mother or grandmother, but could never visit either of them without wondering what they had thought of it -- or me, for that matter. Perhaps I should have asked, but then it was probably better to let sleeping dogs lie.

Mother-in-law. That's another story. When I was present, whenever she had company for dinner or otherwise, she took it upon herself, almost as if it were a holy calling, to tell the guests (with all the erotic detail) how I had been the star attraction at her daughter's bridal shower.