Sex and chores: Do heterosexual married men who contribute to household chores have more sex?
Sexuality science and research is fascinating for many reasons beyond the obvious one, duh…it’s sex! And when it comes to studying sex and household chores among heterosexual married couples, both men and women have a vested interest.
The possibilities and permutations of sex research are endless, there are always new and different aspects of sexuality to study. Evergreen topics that will forever be interesting to most of us—like masturbation, intercourse, frequency of sex, types of sex, and rates of infidelity—change as cultural norms evolve (i.e. gender role shifts, social acceptance of queer sexuality, and comprehensive sex education programs that reduce unintended pregnancies, to name a few); so the same research can show different outcomes a decade or two later. And as society changes, research questions themselves change.
The recent household chores and sex study is a great example. Last year the daily news cycle lit up with the news that men who do less housework have more sex. The sociologists who wrote the paper, reported that despite gender advancements of the past fifty years, we can’t escape our hunter/gatherer evolutionary sexual attractions; even liberated women find men who don’t pull their weight in household chores more sexually attractive—scientists call it, erotic resistance to gender equality. (I wonder how many men will try out that turn of phrase?)
Back in February, even the New York Times Magazine got in on the action with a feature article, Does a more equal marriage mean less sex? In essence, it said that in heterosexual marriages, the more similar men and women’s roles become (sharing of housework would be one similarity) the less sexual attraction there is.
But, wait a second, before we feminists expire. In fairness, other sociologists looking at the same data, proposed that perhaps less sexual frequency was due to more tired men (from all that housework!) and females who are less likely to initiate sex. As it turns out, the data used for the research paper were collected in the early nineties, when American expectations for male participation in housework were much lower, and also where a different generation of parents (baby boomers) had children at home.
While men of today aren’t actually doing that much more traditional housework than they were in the nineties, the dramatic increase has been in the amount of childcare they provide (a form of household labor).
So a new study asked, from data compiled in 2006, how does shared domestic labor affect sexual frequency and desire among heterosexual couples with children at home?
They found that gender expectations are changing. Couples with more egalitarian household responsibilities—women in these relationships still perform two-thirds of household labor, but men have doubled their housework since the 1960’s—are as satisfied with the frequency and quality of sex as couples where women do the vast majority of housework. In fact, egalitarian couples reported slightly greater satisfaction in these areas, although not enough to be statistically significant.
As one of the authors reports, “There’s a lot of evidence that men who engage with their children and are involved at home are sexy, and women who are strong and independent turn men on.” The caveat is when gender roles are reversed completely (5% of cases) where men do the majority of household labor.
As gender roles for heterosexual couples broaden, and partners are able to share more equally at home, it will be interesting to see how sexual research evolves, too. In the meantime, I wish the new study had made the same amount of internet splash as the New York Times article. As one mom wrote on my Facebook page when I shared the Washington Post report on the 2006 study, “This should be framed and hung in every room of the house!”
There are many reasons for having sex, besides the obvious ones related to lust and desire for dominance/submission over or to our partner.
We may want to tune into the economics term “opportunity cost” to note that in order to take time out for sex we have to turn our back to other competing activities that may be important or pleasurable. Thus there will be times when sex loses out to competing options. Note that when there are power outages that deny mass swaths of population access to media, birth rate increases inevitably follow.
Also, sex may be a “go to” activity for relief of tension or boredom. It may be that in cooperative households where parenting and chores are collaborative there is less tension. No fights, no make-up sex!
My points are that as complex as sex may be, it’s lunacy to consider it in isolation from the rest of life. Moreover, who is to say what the goal of frequency and diversity in sexual practices should be, for individuals and society?
Joy and satisfaction may come from the unmeasurable. Bad for the research biz, but not necessarily a problem for those of us simply living our lives as best we can.
PS – I use the name Cassandra for social media purposes, based on its significance in Greek mythology. Cassandra, daughter of Priam, king of Troy, was blessed by the Gods with the gift of clear-seeing prophecy, but placed under a curse that no one would ever listen to her. Gender is not the issue; I am male.
Hi Cassandra, thanks for commenting. You hit on a great point—what exactly should be measured when sexual satisfaction is researched? Are frequency and quality enough to quantify satisfaction? Probably not. As you pointed out, our lives as a holistic whole influence our sexual choices and activities in ways that are pretty unmeasurable. All things can be equal and a couple may have sex one day and not have sex the other day. How do you pinpoint and then measure the difference between those two days? Sexual researchers have to continuously modify their approaches towards identifying and measuring the outer aspects of human lives that affect sexual satisfaction. Thank you for your thoughtful comments.