You can bring home the bacon guys, but don’t wash that pan!
A study published in the American Sociological Review claims that men who engage in “traditionally female labor” (dishes, laundry, etc.) get less sex than those who do not. The study also found that, “A couple’s sex life is governed by a gendered set of sexual scripts,” meaning that men who do typical “guy” chores, such as mowing the grass, do, in fact, get lucky more often.
The report indicates that the genders differentiate subconsciously between types of work as “manly”. So men who repair the house are fine, but if you do the dishes, you’re probably not going to get any. The findings are taken from a 20-year-old U.S. data set that surveyed more than 4,561 middle-aged couples on a variety of measures, including sexual frequency and household chores.
Lead author of the report Sabino Kornrich said in a press release that, “Our findings suggest the importance of socialized gender roles for sexual frequency in heterosexual marriage. 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.” Kornrich also said, “I suspect that sex may change more slowly than other areas [of behavior] because we don’t want to talk about it and don’t want to address it.”
Julia Brines, a University of Washington associate professor of sociology and a co-author of the report said, “Marriage today isn’t what it was 30 or 40 years ago, but there are some things that remain important. Sex and housework are still key aspects of sharing a life, and both are related to marital satisfaction and how spouses express their gender identity.”
The findings are correlational, so they can’t say whether dishwashing actually makes men less sexy. But there’s also lots of anecdotal evidence that women prefer more masculine men in general. And if the findings from this report are true, it would seem that men who do more masculine chores would get sex more often. That means that in theory if men want more sex in their marriage, they should do more manly chores.