Maybe you’ve heard of “choreplay”, but is it real? Can a wife really get more sex by doing more chores around the house? Yes, I can confirm choreplay is a real thing — watching Sexy Corte do chores in lingerie always turns me on. Well, that was a short post.
Oh wait, you want to know if choreplay works in the other direction? Does the sight of a husband doing chores get his wife all hot for him? According to Keelie, yes.
As far as fun turn ons…yeah…any guy that is standing at the sink doing dishes is gonna get it later. It doesn’t just have to be dishes, but a guy can do any chore that their wives don’t like.
To frame our discussion, I want to distinguish between two different phenomena.
- Type 1: Implicit trading of chores for sex, wherein one spouse does more chores with the unspoken expectation that doing so will increase the other spouse’s sex drive.
- Type 2: Explicit trading of chores for sex, wherein both spouses agree that the person doing some chore will receive sex in exchange.
Let’s talk about Type 1 first. Research shows that doing more chores can increase sexual frequency, as long as you’re doing the right chores.
Does the sight of men doing traditional female chores turn women off? A new study suggests that the more time men spend on household tasks, the less sex they have.
“Our findings suggest the importance of socialized gender roles for sexual frequency in heterosexual marriage,” lead author Sabino Kornrich, junior researcher at the Center for Advanced Studies at the Juan March Institute in Madrid, said in a press release. “Couples in which men participate more in housework typically done by women report having sex less frequently. Similarly, couples in which men participate more in traditionally masculine tasks — such as yard work, paying bills, and auto maintenance — report higher sexual frequency.”
Each individual husband, wife, and marriage are different of course, but if you want to increase sexual frequency by doing more chores then your best bet is do to chores that match your gender role. Husbands should do things like taking out the trash, fixing stuff, paying bills, and manual labor. Women should do the housework and take care of the kids.
So, Keelie appears to be wrong on average. In fact, a husband who does a lot of dishes is probably getting laid less then a husband who doesn’t. These kinds of effects are largely subconscious, and I doubt that many wives would know or admit that they’d want more sex if their husbands did less housework.
Couples in which women did all of the traditional female chores had sex 1.6 times more each month than couples in which men did all of those jobs. The more cooking and cleaning a husband did, the less sex the couple had; women’s cooking and cleaning was linked with more sex. Couples in which men did more traditional male chores also had more sex; it did not seem to matter if women did more or less of those chores.
If you want more sex, do more chores that match your gender role and fewer that don’t. If you increase the chores you do that don’t match your gender, you’ll end up having less sex than before.
So let’s talk about Type 2: explicit trading of chores for sex. For example, “if you clean up the kitchen tonight, I’ll give you a blowjob”. On some level, this kind of exchange probably makes some people uncomfortable, including me. Why?
- It looks like prostitution.
- Why should I have to earn sex?
- Why should I have to give sex to get some help with chores?
I get all that, and I feel similarly. The sexual relationship between a husband and wife should be mutually edifying, loving, gracious, and sacrificial.
But, let’s be real for a second. If you ask your best friend to mow your lawn once, he’ll gladly say yes. If you ask him to do it every week, it’s only polite to offer something in return. If you need your lawn mowed right now, then you’re going to owe him a favor. These trades don’t negate your best-friendship, they strengthen it. They show your best friend that you value him, that you don’t want to take advantage of him, and that you’re grateful for his help.
Spouses are different than best friends, but I think the principles of maintaining a relationship still apply. You value your spouse. You don’t want to take advantage of your spouse. You’re grateful when your spouse helps you out. An explicit exchange demonstrates all this, and it greases the wheels of cooperation and affection. Aside from just more sex, you could also trade for some sex act that your spouse just doesn’t enjoy as much as you do.
Of course, not every chore or every sex act should be a negotiated exchange. However, if you’re laboring at an implicit exchange and it just isn’t working, why not be more explicit? Your spouse can’t read your mind; maybe she doesn’t know what you want. If you want something you’re not getting, offering a trade can open up lines of communication and possibly help the two of you to reach a mutually beneficial arrangement. Just remember to keep the relationship first!
And if your spouse asks you to do a chore that doesn’t match your gender, don’t expect to get extra sex unless it’s agreed to in advance.
If you liked this, please share it!