Husbands who do female housework have less sex

[JimC]

The classic British male line "Her indoors" springs to mind in this thread...

[JimC]

I quite like this article from the Age newspaper...

Doing the washing won't get you dirty

CERTAIN newspaper stories are bound to bring a smile to the face of any man scanning the daily news over his cornflakes. Almost a decade ago came a ripper yarn - a CNN report on research from North Carolina University suggesting regular fellatio could reduce women's risk of breast cancer by up to 40 per cent.

Sadly that one proved bogus - the report, which went viral, had been faked by a college student.

But this week's story is also worth a wry grin - a new research report suggesting doing housework means men get less sex. That's pretty funny news given the constant efforts to dragoon men into housework on the promise that doing the laundry will get them laid. Any bloke knows that that rarely works - however deftly he sorts whites from coloureds. The housework/sex connection comes with no guarantees.

The latest report does, however, raise some interesting issues. This time it is legitimate research - from the University of Washington, where sociologists studied almost 7000 couples, relating the division of household labour to their sexual frequency. The researchers found that men reported having sex 5.2 times per month on average while women suggested the rate was more like 5.6 times. Couples where men did more traditionally female household chores reported less sex than men who did less ''women's work''. The real domestic gods - men who did all the household work - had a third less sex than men who did none of it.

Surprisingly, the men who didn't lift a finger on the domestic front but made their manly presence felt through traditional chores such as clearing the gutters or fixing the fence were the ones most likely to score, upping the average sex frequency by 1.6 more times per month.

What's going on here? Do hairy dishwasher hands not do it for women? It seems unlikely that helping with household chores would really work against men's chances. Indeed, the study author Julie Brines warns domesticated men not to hang up their dishcloths because that's likely to trigger anger, which could make things far worse - resentment is a major passion-killer.

Perhaps the real story has more to do with attitudes towards mutual caring. It could be that women in traditional households are more likely to feel some obligation to care about their partner's sexual needs, harbouring a spirit of sexual generosity rather than embracing the modern creed that if a wife isn't interested in sex, it just ain't going to happen.

There are now two very distinct camps of women. Some see sex as just another area of marital life where husbands and wives look out for each other and make efforts to please their partners. Just as a woman might cook her husband's favourite salmon rissoles even though she's not into seafood, she'll also sometimes make the effort to respond to his sexual invitation even though she'd prefer to stay up and watch Lateline.

But others rankle at any suggestion that it's OK to have sex without initial desire - even though research shows many women cheerfully do this and find desire and arousal often kick in once they get started. Ana Carvalheira and colleagues from the University of Applied Psychology in Lisbon, Portugal, found that roughly half (42 per cent) of women in long-term relationships are willing to engage in sex without desire - while the other half won't have a bar of it.

Maybe women in egalitarian relationships with their domestically well-trained husbands are less likely to contemplate one for the team - hence their sexual pace drops below average? But it could be that watching a husband tackle manly chores just triggers something wild and primitive in the female psyche.

One woman taking part in my research on desire wrote at length about her husband's miserliness and other irritating characteristics - ''all the petty little niggling things that make you resentful and you think, 'Why would I bother to even be interested in sex?''' But she changed her tune when she saw him wrestling the fridge back into place after their new kitchen renovation. ''Hmm, he looks pretty good down there. Wouldn't mind if we had a go on this new black slate floor,'' she thought.

Watching a man push a hoover around the floor simply isn't on the same page.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/societ ... z2JpJVErYr

[Thinking Aloud]

... she said, "I wanna live like common people,

[Gawdzilla Sama]

That reminds me, it's laundry day. Must remind Ayaan to get out her contributions.

[Coito ergo sum]

Seeing a man do dishes and fold laundry is HOT!! Hubby definitely gets more nookie if he helps me with housework that day.

My only quibble with this point is the use of the word "helping." In my experience, I don't just "help", or at least I'm not just helping her with the housework any more than she's helping me. I do the housework, and so does SWMBO'd.

[Coito ergo sum]

'Course they don't. Women want a real man. One that sits in front of the TV with camo pants and hiking boots, deer blood in his hair, drinking a beer and farting while watching fooball.

Them alls a buncha pansy ass no pussy getting fags.

Where's my goddamn BEER, woman?

[Kristie]

Seeing a man do dishes and fold laundry is HOT!! Hubby definitely gets more nookie if he helps me with housework that day.

My only quibble with this point is the use of the word "helping." In my experience, I don't just "help", or at least I'm not just helping her with the housework any more than she's helping me. I do the housework, and so does SWMBO'd.

My household runs differently. I was a stay at home mom for years and now I only work part time. Taking care of the house is my job. It's the least I can do since hubby works 50 hours a week. So, when he helps with housework, I really appreciate it. Just like he really appreciates it when I pay the bills or write the checks for the kids' school lunches.

[Coito ergo sum]

Seeing a man do dishes and fold laundry is HOT!! Hubby definitely gets more nookie if he helps me with housework that day.

My only quibble with this point is the use of the word "helping." In my experience, I don't just "help", or at least I'm not just helping her with the housework any more than she's helping me. I do the housework, and so does SWMBO'd.

My household runs differently. I was a stay at home mom for years and now I only work part time. Taking care of the house is my job. It's the least I can do since hubby works 50 hours a week. So, when he helps with housework, I really appreciate it. Just like he really appreciates it when I pay the bills or write the checks for the kids' school lunches.

Does he mow the yard, trim the hedges, cleans the garage, fixes broken things, do general maintenance, climb up on the roof, etc.?

[Animavore]

"checks"


I don't usually mind most American bastardisation of English but that one makes me

[Kristie]

Seeing a man do dishes and fold laundry is HOT!! Hubby definitely gets more nookie if he helps me with housework that day.

My only quibble with this point is the use of the word "helping." In my experience, I don't just "help", or at least I'm not just helping her with the housework any more than she's helping me. I do the housework, and so does SWMBO'd.

My household runs differently. I was a stay at home mom for years and now I only work part time. Taking care of the house is my job. It's the least I can do since hubby works 50 hours a week. So, when he helps with housework, I really appreciate it. Just like he really appreciates it when I pay the bills or write the checks for the kids' school lunches.

Does he mow the yard, trim the hedges, cleans the garage, fixes broken things, do general maintenance, climb up on the roof, etc.?

All yardwork is taken care of through our HOA. He is a magnificent handyman. The garage is his domain. He also does all our financial stuff.

[MiM]

Just was at a parents meeting in ED:s school. The class teacher told about a movie evening they are planning, and that they planned for some real healthy food and not only chips and popcorns this time. Then she added that my kid had volunteered to take meatballs, as "her daddy makes great meatballs"

So I guess mommy's or grandma's meatballs are out now, and the kids are munching on Daddy's balls instead

[Kristie]

Just was at a parents meeting in ED:s school. The class teacher told about a movie evening they are planning, and that they planned for some real healthy food and not only chips and popcorns this time. Then she added that my kid had volunteered to take meatballs, as "her daddy makes great meatballs"

So I guess mommy's or grandma's meatballs are out now, and the kids are munching on Daddy's balls instead

Should we be calling the proper authorities?

[Coito ergo sum]

"checks"


I don't usually mind most American bastardisation of English but that one makes me

It isn't an "American bastardization." The spellings check, cheque and checque were used interchangeably beginning in the 17th century. Beginning in the 19th century, however, the Brits adopted the French spelling, which is the cheque version.

[MiM]

Just was at a parents meeting in ED:s school. The class teacher told about a movie evening they are planning, and that they planned for some real healthy food and not only chips and popcorns this time. Then she added that my kid had volunteered to take meatballs, as "her daddy makes great meatballs"

So I guess mommy's or grandma's meatballs are out now, and the kids are munching on Daddy's balls instead

Should we be calling the proper authorities?

No need, I am sure I can at least abide with proper food hygiene standards

[Coito ergo sum]

All yardwork is taken care of through our HOA. He is a magnificent handyman. The garage is his domain. He also does all our financial stuff.

The garage is in the house and constitutes housework, as does handyman work. And, handling the home and family's finances is also housework. So, he does it. He doesn't just merely "help" anymore than you "help" by washing clothes and cooking and such.

But, it's all in how you look at it, I guess. The diminution of male contributions to the household sticks in my craw. Not that you diminish your husband's contributions. Clearly you respect them very much. But, it is very often that I hear men's contributions belittled. SWMBO'd belongs to this discussion group on a social networking site for mothers of small babies. She showed me the discussions there and they seem to very often devolve into male bashing exchanges -- women relating how their husbands or significant others don't do anything of note, and don't pull their weight.