Johannesburg - Any men out there who want more sex? You might succeed if you do the dishes more often.
According to a new study, if household chores are fairly divided between men and women who’re part of a couple, this leads to a better sex life.
The study – “Skip the Dishes? Not so Fast? Sex and Housework Revisited” – was published in the Journal of Family Psychology.
The study began after researcher Matt Johnson, a family ecology professor at the University of Alberta in Canada, took issue with a paper released in 2012 that said when men did “what is regarded traditionally as female housework”, such as washing dishes, cooking and doing the laundry, the couple had less sex.
“The study did not ring true. It didn’t fit with my intuition and background experiences as a couples therapist,” Johnson said in a statement published by EurekAlert.
Johnson turned to data from a five-year-old study conducted on more than 1 000 German couples to see if the amount of housework done by the male was a predictor of the couple’s sex life. He found no connection. He then examined whether men believed they contributed fairly to housework, and how this perception was related to their sex life.
“In any relationship, the amount of housework is going to mean something different, based on the couple’s context, based on their own expectations for what each partner should be doing, and their comparison levels of what happens with other couples they know,” Johnson said.
In assessing the data from the study, Johnson found that when men believed they were doing their fair share of the housework, the couple had sex more often – and both the men and women in those couples reported being more satisfied with their sex lives.
Johnson describes Germans as having “more traditional gender roles than the US”, saying other studies had shown that German men did less housework on average than men in North America.
“There are cultural differences, but if the logic held from the prior studies, we would have expected to have a more pronounced negative impact of housework on sexuality in Germany, because it is a bit more traditional. But that was not the case at all.”
Johnson believes his findings are important for couples “seeking to maintain sexual intimacy while balancing the demands of daily life.
“Rather than avoiding chores in the hope of having more sex, as prior research would imply, men are likely to experience more frequent and satisfying passion – for both partners – when they do their share.”
The Star