count the legs and divide by two

[senaka]

Hi, everyone. How are you?

Might I ask your help and could you teach me the meaning of "count-the-legs-and-divide-by-two" in the sentence below?

It may, however, help to explain why Gandalf never got married and why Merlin was a man. Because this is also a story about sex, although probably not in the athletic, tumbling, count-the-legs-and-divide-by-two sense unless the characters get totally beyond the author's control.

(Quote from, Equal Rites written by Terry Pratchett)

You can see more context from here.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Copyright]

Might I ask your help and could you teach me the meaning of "count-the-legs-and-divide-by-two" in the sentence below?

I believe the humorous suggestion is that there are so many people involved in this particular episode (orgy) that you need to count them. One funny way to do that is to count the number of legs and divide by two to determine the number of people.

 

[senaka]

Thank you Copyright.

After reading your reply, I felt so, so and so easy to read the sentence. (Sometime just one unknown phrase makes a sentence very obscure. )

It's a great help!

Thank you very much!