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It can be hard to consistently find time and energy for sex, and yet we know that the best way to have great sex with your spouse is to have more sex. We get a lot of emails from husbands and wives who want more sex, but for all sorts of reasons it just doesn’t happen. It’s easy to blame your spouse, or to “try harder”, but there’s a tool available to you that you may not have considered and is guaranteed to work: creating a habit.

When was the last time you forgot to brush your teeth? Or put on clothes? Or how to drive to work? You’ve been doing these things for years or decades, and you basically never forget. Sometimes you even drive to work on accident when you mean to go somewhere else! These things are all habits, and you do them easily every day without thinking. They enhance your life, keep you healthy, and satisfy your needs. Bad habits are easily acquired, but good habits don’t just happen: someone creates them. Getting dressed and brushing your teeth seem routine, but your parents worked hard to create those habits for you! In the same way, you can intentionally create the good habit of daily sex with your spouse.

First of all, consider: does your marriage have a bad habit of assuming that you won’t have sex? This is pretty common for married couples. The expectation is set that they won’t have sex unless someone initiates it. The baseline assumption is no sex. That’s a bad habit! Fortunately, the best way to break a bad habit is to replace it with a good habit.

Ok, so how do we build a good habit? Tom Bartow has identified three phases of habit formation that we need to recognize in order to be successful.

Phase 1: THE HONEYMOON

This phase of habit formation is characterized by the feeling of “this is easy.” As all married people will tell you, at some point even the greatest honeymoon must end. The honeymoon phase is usually the result of something inspiring. For example, a person attends a highly motivational conference, and for the first few days after the conference the individual is making positive changes in his or her life.

Phase 2: THE FIGHT THRU

Inspiration fades and reality sets in. A person finds himself struggling with the positive habit completion and old habits seem to be right around the corner. The key to moving to the third phase of habit formation is to win 2 or 3 “fight thru’s.” This is critical. To win the fight thru, use the following techniques:

  1. RECOGNIZE: Recognition is essential for winning the fight thru. When you have entered the fight through, simply say to yourself, “I have entered the fight thru, and I need to win a few to move past this.” Winning each fight thru will make it easier to win the next. Conversely, when you choose to lose a fight thru, you make it easier to lose the next one.
  2. ASK 2 QUESTIONS: “How will I feel if I do this?”and “How will I feel if I don’t do this?” Bring EMOTION into the equation. Let yourself feel the positive in winning the fight thru and the negative in losing.
  3. LIFE PROJECTION: If the above 2 techniques haven’t moved you to action, then imagine in great detail how your life will be in 5 years if you do not begin making changes. Be totally honest with yourself, and allow yourself to feel what life will be like if the changes are not made.

Phase 3: SECOND NATURE

Entering second nature is often described by feelings of “getting in the groove.” Once in second nature, the following are 3 common interruptions that will send a person back to the fight thru:

  1. THE DISCOURAGEMENT MONSTER: An individual allows negative results discourage him or her into thinking, “This isn’t working, and there is nothing I can do.”
  2. DISRUPTIONS: An individual experiences significant change to his or her current pattern (e.g., vacations, holidays, illness, weekends).
  3. SEDUCTION OF SUCCESS: An individual begins to focus on positive results and begins to think, “I’m the special one. I have finally figured out how to have great results with not so great process.”

If a person experiences an interruption that sends him or her back to the fight thru, winning 2 or 3 fight thru’s will bring him or her back to second nature.

Here’s how to put this process into action and create a new habit of daily sex.

The first thing to do is have a conversation and say it. Tell your spouse that you’d like to change your daily default from no-sex to sex, that you want the two of you to set the expectation that you’ll be having sex every day. The key here isn’t that you must have sex every single day, but that the expectation is for daily sex —  if no one says anything, then assume you’re having sex. Does your spouse agree? If not, then you’re not ready to create a habit because you aren’t both on the same page. Continue your conversation and come back to this post later. To be successful, both spouses need to want to create the new habit.

After you’ve agreed on your goal, start doing it! Have sex every day unless someone asks otherwise. Make sex the assumption, and no-sex the exception. This is the beginning of Phase 1. It’ll probably be easy for a while! Remember your first year of marriage, your literal honeymoon? You’ll want to pick a time that’s usually available every day and start doing it.

But Phase 2 is the hardest part. There may be a few days where no one says anything, and you don’t have sex. Your new habit hasn’t solidified yet. You have to recognize that your expectation is reverting to no-sex, and you need to have a conversation about it. Reaffirm your shared goal of daily sex. Don’t make excuses for why you failed, and don’t feel bad about it. Just recognize the need to “fight thru”. Take the time to get in the mood, muster some energy, and make love. Just Do It. Winning “fight thru” episodes is the key creating a new habit — it will take several wins over the course two or three months to set your new habit in stone.

And finally, don’t become complacent when you hit Phase 3. Periodically remind yourselves about your goal of daily sex, and verify that your new expectation is solidly in place: do you always have sex unless someone initiates a “no”?

Once your habit is in place, you should never have no-sex unless someone intentionally initiates it. The end result won’t be sex every single day of the year — sometimes you get sick, kids drive you crazy, work and chores overwhelm you, and emergencies happen. That’s life! But the expectation every day is that you’ll be having sex together.

What do you think about the daily habit of sex? Is your daily expectation yes, or no?

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The internet has completely let me down: I can’t find a video of the scene from Malcolm in the Middle that made me and Sexy Corte crack up last night. We’ve really been enjoying this show recently (thanks Netflix), and it amuses us that we now identify with the parents rather than the kids. Hal and Lois’s relationship is great. The episode we watched last night, “Malcolm’s Girlfriend”, has a scene with the parents laying in bed discussing Malcolm’s distraction by a crush:

Hal: Certain things are beyond the boy’s control. It’s his genetics. Girls, they just swoon. Sorry, what am I telling you for? You battle with it every day. There’s nothing we can do.

Lois: Oh, yes, there is! I can ground him, and I can ground him till he graduates from Harvard.

Hal: He’s gonna pull away, then we’ll have another Francis on our hands.

Lois: Are you blaming Francis on me?

Hal: No!

Lois: That’s what you said!

Hal: No, I meant that… Lois, let’s not have this veer off into us somehow not having sex tonight.

Yeah, we’ve been there before! A perfectly normal conversation somehow tricks foot into my mouth, and then my only concern is trying to steer back onto the path that was gliding towards sex.

 

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Reader “MM” asks:

Intimacy after losing a loved one. This is something I’ve thought about in the past. I want to know your thoughts about this. Do you think it’s taboo to engage in sex soon after losing one’s mother, father, brother, ect., or would you say it’s all right? I would think the comfort from married intimacy in the wake of loss would work wonders, but then, I haven’t found myself in that situation. What do you think?

This is a hard question for me to answer: neither Sexy Corte nor I have been in this position yet. Everyone eventually faces grief in life, so your question is universal.

It would seem to me that the intimacy of sex with your spouse would be very comforting in a time of grief. Far from being taboo, sexual intimacy can be a powerful healing force when one spouse is hurting. However, everyone is different, so I’d follow the cues of the grieving spouse. If Sexy Corte were grieving, I would provide all the comfort I could, and be available for sexual intimacy if she desired it.

Sometimes it’s hard for a grieving person to accept comfort of any kind, and that’s normal. However, as the immediacy and intensity of the grief dulls, it becomes easier to both talk about the loss and to welcome another person into the intimacy of the experience. If your spouse is grieving, I recommend that you make yourself available for whatever kind of comfort she desires, whether that’s listening, conversation, distraction, or sexual intimacy.

If any readers would like to share their experiences with this situation, please do so in the comments.

Update: An anonymous commenter points to a verse I should have thought of: 2 Samuel 12:24. After the illness and eventual death of King David and Bathsheba’s first child, conceived in adultery and murder, the parents are grief-stricken. They find comfort in repentance (Psalm 51) and each other.

Then David comforted his wife, Bathsheba, and went in to her and lay with her, and she bore a son, and he called his name Solomon.

Please use the contact pages for Sexy Corte and El Fury to send us your questions. We will only share your question if you give us permission, and we’ll never reveal your name or any other identifying information. You can ask questions anonymously, or use a free anonymous email server like Mailinator.

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I thought it would be interesting to share my perspective on Choreplay after El Fury’s post. I have been thinking on this concept a while and have a few thoughts:

1. I agree that the idea of trading sex for chores seems like borderline prostitution. However, I also agree with our readers that if this is done in a lighthearted way, it can be fun. If you know that Acts of Service is your spouse’s love language, and can spice up doing dishes while being sexy, go for it! I do think it is dangerous to toy with using sex for manipulation, especially if you imply sex is on the table and don’t deliver it.

2. El Fury and I assume the more traditional gender chores naturally simply because I stay at home with our pre-schoolers. So, I am happy to take care of the majority of the chores while El Fury works. I can remember when I did work full time after our first baby was born. It was so hard to balance taking care of the baby, household chores, and spending time with our family. At that time of my life, I greatly appreciated any help El Fury would give with chores. It helped to ease the burden, and relieved some of my stress. I’m sure this did help to keep my libido intact, although I don’t recall looking at El Fury with a load of laundry and thinking, “ah yeah”. But, as one of our readers commented, less stress is better for sex, so it was probably indirectly related. I will say though, there is something very sexy about El Fury using his drill while wearing a plain white shirt. Rawr. So maybe the studies are right and women find man-chores sexy!

3. I think the studies El Fury cites are interesting. The study says that couples had sex 1.6 times more a month when couples assumed traditional gender chores. I am curious of what the base average amount of sex for those couples is. For us, having sex 1.6 times more a month isn’t really a lot! But, if you are a couple that isn’t having a lot of sex, that could be a lot more sex.

4. What I think is the most important part of this whole idea of choreplay is to find out what your spouse finds sexy, and do that. You are the ONLY person that can fulfill your spouse sexually. That is a big responsibility. Be interested, and be interesting to your spouse. I have heard before that you should be a student of your spouse. You love each other, so be sexy for each other.

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We love hearing from couples who enjoy reading our blog together! Reader “J” sent in this quick tip that’s simple to apply in any marriage: get wet and naked together!

We have really enjoyed reading your blog. My wife and I were talking about this site and wondering what we did different that we would like to add to the discussion. Here’s one thing we came up with:

For all of our marriage my wife and I have talked best when either in the bath or shower together. It’s easy to talk about anything if you’re naked… On top of that one of the greatest things I have ever learned to do for her is to shave her legs. It takes time and patience and it apparently makes her feel cared for and pampered. I’d highly recommend every guy try that with his wife. Plus you get to play with her legs… What’s not to like about that?

Sounds nice and intimate to me! Here are some tips for having sex in the water. We’d love to hear from you too, so leave a comment or contact us using the links on the left.

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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.

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Boy, I feel dumb! Sexy Corte and I had some sexy plans lined up and I jokingly canceled them because I thought she wouldn’t want to do anything too noisy while we had family staying at our house. Based on that assumption I said, well, maybe next week. I didn’t realize that my assumption left my lovely bride feeling rejected, deflated, and sexually unfulfilled.

Communicating about sex is hard! I thought I had a good read on my wife, but sometimes a message just doesn’t click and both spouses can feel confused and rejected without anyone intending it. Sexy Corte and I wanted the same thing, but neither of us thought the other wanted it. It’s funny in a sitcom, but not so much in real life.

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For the wives: maybe you want to get your husband worked up all day, or maybe you’re feeling a little shy, but here’s a fun idea for using your panties to send a secret message to your husband.

Basically, the concept is simple – she picks (or randomly chooses) a specific color of panties to wear that day / night when she wants to do something specific. Then she figures out the “menu” and sends it to me via a text or hands me a dirty note. This is my signal that the game is on. It might read:

  • White means slow and gentle
  • Red means go hard and fast, don’t worry about me
  • Blue means lick me til I cum
  • Grey means I want your cum all over my face
  • Green means I want something in my ass but I’m afraid to ask
  • Black means I want to tie you up
  • Polka Dots means use a toy
  • No panties means anything goes
  • Etc. (you can kink up or kink down based on your personal preferences)

Then when we get suitably in the mood, I just pick up on what she’s feeling based on her choice of underwear without ever having to awkwardly discuss how kinky she is feeling that particular night.

You can add a little mystery by getting dressed in the dark, or by making your husband work to catch a glimpse of your panties after sending him the menu.

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I was recently in a conversation with other women and we were talking about dating before marriage. One remembered seeking advice from a counselor about how far was “too far” to go before being married. Another laughed and said “it’s funny, before you are married, you always want to push the limit on how far you can go. After you are married you think, I have to do this again?!?!” It was meant to be funny, but in retrospect has made me sort of sad.

Has sex within marriage become a chore? Or merely a duty? Where did the excitement from dating go? Shouldn’t there be more of a spark within marriage because now you can have sex?! What happens?

Honestly, I don’t know. I can only speculate. My guess is that the tiredness of our busy lifestyles makes sex one of the first things we cut out of our hectic schedules. Sexy time with your spouse should be one of your most guarded appointments. You have to guard it, because no one else will. Your boss, kids or house won’t mind in the least if they suck up that extra time from you. Connecting with your spouse, emotionally and sexually, is one of the most important things you can do.

Another thought is that maybe one spouse isn’t feeling loved. If you haven’t read the Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman, I suggest you pick up a copy and start speaking to your spouse in their love language. I know I am definitely more responsive sexually when my “love tank” is full.

You and your spouse might also need better communication. If you do or don’t like something, speak up. As much as I think El Fury should be able to read my mind by now, I know that he can’t. This comes easy for some couples and for others it will take boldness. But the more you communicate about sex, the easier it gets. Do a re-cap after sex. Try saying “I really liked it when you…”

Or maybe you need to find a way to change your attitude about sex. Again, this could be easy or extremely difficult for some. No matter what, pray about it. Pray that you can see sex as the beautiful gift that God designed it to be. Pray that you would welcome those touches and caresses from your spouse and instead of thinking “again?” you would think, “YES, again!”.

God gave us sexual needs and spouses to fulfill those needs. One of the beautiful things about marriage is that you no longer have to worry about going “too far”. There are so many ways to enjoy each other. Embrace your time together and go have sex!

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Some sex topics can be awkward to bring up even if you and your spouse have great communication, especially when it comes to secret fantasies that may not be entirely mainstream. You may be afraid that your spouse will do more than say no — you may fear that he’ll judge you or even be disgusted. Hopefully your spouse is more open to hearing about your sexual desires, but the nervousness can be real nonetheless.

To open the lines of communication with a little less anxiety you might want to try taking one of these sex questionnaires with your spouse. There are probably many more options online, but these two will get you started. In both cases the questions are answered anonymously and the sites do not require registration. What’s more, the sites only share answers between spouses when both husband and wife indicate a positive response to a given activity. If you say “yes” to something but your spouse says “no” then your “yes” won’t be revealed.

In the best case, you and your spouse will discover an activity that you both have been dying to try but have been too afraid to bring up!

One huge caveat: these questionnaires contain short descriptions of activities that no Christian should participate in. If you don’t want to be exposed to such ideas then you should not take the tests.

Questionnaires:

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