03-28-2013 • www.slate.com
It may be gratifying for women to see their husbands loading the
dishwasher or folding laundry, but is it sexy? Yes, according to many
media stories. “Men: Want More Sex? Do the Laundry” was headline of a
2009 report from CBS News. According to Naomi Wolf, “research has shown that the most erotic thing a man can
do for a woman is the dishes.” Sheryl Sandberg, the author of Lean In, agrees.
“Nothing is sexier” she says, than a man who wants to do his share of
the housework. “It may be counterintuitive,” writes Sandberg, “but the
best way for a man to make a pass at his wife is to do the dishes.”
Sandberg urges readers to check out a “fabulous little book” called Porn for Women produced by the Cambridge
Women’s Pornography Cooperative. It is full of images of hunky guys
vacuuming, dusting, and cleaning the kitty litter.
But now a new study in the American Sociological Review casts doubt on the truth of this happy feminist idyll. Men routinely
doing “female” chores appear to have less—not more—sex. According to the
authors, Sabino Kornrich (Center for Advanced Studies in the Social
Sciences, Madrid), Julie Brines (University of Washington), and Katrina
Leupp (University of Washington):
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.
The three researchers looked at data from a nationally representative
sample of 4,500 heterosexual married couples from the U.S. National
Survey of Families and Households, 1992–1994—the most recent large-scale
study measuring household chores, sexual frequency, and marital
satisfaction.
Reported by Ernest Hancock
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