for men housework = less sex

For men, doing housework means less sex, say sociologists

BY: TOM WHIPPLE From: The Times January 30, 2013 4:02PM


HUSBANDS take note: to stay successful in the bedroom, make sure you don't do any chores in the bedroom. Or in the bathroom or kitchen for that matter.

Researchers from the University of Washington have found that men who regularly undertake traditionally female housework take their partners to bed considerably less regularly.

In the study, the sociologists looked at about 7,000 husbands and wives and how the division of household labour related to the frequency with which they had sex.

They concluded that, despite the best efforts of 50 years of feminism, wearing rubber gloves rarely results in sexual success. Neither does cleaning the toilet nor - certain celebrity chefs aside - cooking.

“It is maybe not surprising that sexual behaviour is linked to traditional concepts of masculinity and femininity,” said Sabino Kornrich, who admits to doing half the washing up and half the cooking in his household but does at least restrict himself to “about 15 per cent” of the cleaning.

“The sexual norms for men and women are still very different. In this area there are lots of double standards.”

He and his colleague, Julie Brines, found instead that red-blooded men were far better served by performing red-blooded tasks, such as putting up fences or fixing the plumbing. The ideal marital situation, in which men did absolutely nothing about the house but occasionally hammered in a nail, resulted in a couple who consummated their relationship 1.6 more times a month.

Dr Kornrich conceded that couples rarely attained such Utopia, but said of the research, published in the American Sociological Review: “What this is about is gender expression in the home. What matters for sex is expressions of masculinity and femininity.”

In common with other studies, the sociologists found that women still performed most of the housework.

Oriel Sullivan, from the University of Oxford's department of sociology, said that she was slightly sceptical about the result. “I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand,” she said, “but personally I would be a bit wary of measures likely to be affected by all sorts of different biases - anything on sexual frequency is notoriously unreliable.”

The Times