The Fringe Benefits of Housework

By Rebeldad Brian Reid

I rarely use my coffee table to display coffee-table books anymore. I don't have the room in the budget for huge, overpriced tomes full of glossy pictures. And I don't really have room on the table, either, what with the half-completed artwork and medical journal articles and laptops and whatnot. But I am tempted this summer to clean off the table and plop down a wonderfully scandalous book: Porn for Women.

If you click the link, you'll see that Porn for Women is actually something of a joke, a hardback that contains nothing but photographs of fully clothed, aproned men performing housework.

At least, I think the whole thing is something of a joke. While I don't think the sound of the vacuum sends my wife's heart aflutter, I have collected enough information on the link between housework and sex to conclude that the best way to spend more time snuggling under the sheets is to spend more time doing the laundry.

Marriage expert John Gottman, whose work at the University of Washington earned his facility the nickname "The Love Lab," found that women were more often amorous in marriages where men do more of the domestic labor. The same appears to apply on the population level, too: Countries with the greatest gender equity appear to have the highest levels of sexual satisfaction.

The social-science theory underlying all of this isn't exactly rocket science: Doing your fair share around the house is as much a sign of love and caring as a bunch of roses. (I assume that there has to be some sense of shared and ongoing responsibity, too. Folding laundry one time for the sole purpose of getting laid is probably a deeply flawed strategy.) And -- let's face facts -- a marriage where the floor-mopping, pan-scrubbing and kid-chasing is spread evenly is probably more likely to be a marriage where both spouses have the energy at the end of the day to, ahem, engage in a little nookie.

There are a number of excellent reasons why family tasks should be divided in a relatively equitable way, and "better sex" may not be at the top of the list, but -- hey -- it's a nice fringe benefit, don't you think?

Brian Reid writes about parenting and work-family balance. You can read his blog at rebeldad.com.

By Brian Reid |  August 16, 2007; 7:00 AM ET  | Category:  Dads , Division of Labor
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