Chore Play... Does It Work?
27 Jan 2025 · 6 min
The Dad Starting Over hosts tackle whether doing more chores improves your sex life. Chores reduce stress and divorce risk, but they're not erotic. The real problem: when sex becomes conditional on hitting a moving target of household tasks, you're treating intimacy like a reward instead of fixing what's actually broken.
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Daniel talking about sharing a podcast about how increasing your housework Uh, does not lead to a better sex life. Surprise, surprise. Um, a lot of, a lot of, uh, nuances with that. Exactly what situation was the relationship in before that? You know, let's say a guy suddenly cranks up the, the, uh, chores around the house. What was the relationship before that? What made him suddenly want to crank up the chores? All kinds of questions. But, uh, it's always been my My thought, and guys on the, on the comments here also say the same thing, the chores thing, it's an adult thing. You just do housework because of what needs to get done. It's not because I'm trying to please this woman so she gives me the gift of sexual intimacy. If that's your goal, it ain't gonna work, dude, so don't even go there. You know, back to this concept of the chore play thing, um, what was interesting was that this, uh, apparently The podcast, I have not listened to it, just going by the text here, seems to show that quality of life did go up when the chore sharing, I guess, went up, so to speak. What else? Reduced chance of divorce. Makes sense. But it doesn't necessarily increase the old in and out in the bedroom, does it? Because there's nothing inherently erotic about doing chores. And it seems on the surface like, well, duh, you know. And some people look at that and go, yeah, dude, could have told you that. Well, but in a lot of men's defense, because that's who we're talking about, these men that reach out in the form of chore play and stuff to try and connect, um, we have flat out positively heard that in very direct ways from the women in our lives. Perhaps if you did more chores, that would result in more sex with— and I see it in my comments. Literally every single day. If there's anything related to the dead bedroom situation that I post on my social media, which is pretty much every day because it's the most popular topic, uh, man, it's like you just look at your watch and go, any minute now. And here come the comments from the ladies: perhaps if the man did more work, we would have more sex. Perhaps if he did his share around the house, we would have more sex. So it's just the, the knee-jerk, thrown out there, number one reason that women give for a lessening in the old bedroom department.
Or then—
that's not true. That's not fair, is it? It's not the reason that women give. It is the solution that women give to the presented problem of sexlessness. They don't come out with that initially, but they will come out with it as an after-the-fact solution. And then I've created content on why is that? Why do we all hear that? Because it's so damn common. Why are we all, um, I'm missing some things here. Why are we, uh, why do we hear that so common from the women in our lives? And I think it's pretty simple, because the women are overwhelmed, anxious, stressed out by life, and they're looking around at like everything, their head spinning with kids, work, house, husband bugging me for sex. Oh my gosh, we're gonna have enough money for that thing, the, the vacation coming up. Our kid's sick, I'm getting old, this is not fun. And then here comes husband going, is there anything we can do to increase bedroom activity, wifey? And she's like, I'm so stressed. I'm said, let's see, what's, what's a good solution for stressing? See that pile of dishes over there, dude? Can you please tackle that? And the bathroom needs cleaning, I haven't done it in a week, can you please go do that? And maybe if you made the bed every day, and maybe— she's just rattling off things that will help alleviate her stress. They're not necessarily things that will increase libido or increase— make turned on or get them better connected, but it will help lessen her stress, sure. Which goes to the point of this— stats seem to show that doing said things will lower risks of divorce and, um, and increase life satisfaction.
Makes sense.
But that's not necessarily what we're talking about, is it? Those are all great things. And then Steve says, yeah, don't listen to the deer on how best to catch it. There you go. I wonder who said that. That's right. The metaphor there, the moving goalpost, is your partner saying to you, if we did this, then you'll get the win. You'll score the points, mister. And oftentimes it's, it may be if you did more housework. Guy does that for 6 months to a year. Nothing happens. Wife, perhaps you haven't seen I'm doing like 90% of the housework here. Well, maybe if you did. She's moving the goalpost. She's moving. Maybe if you did this over here. Okay. And then he kicks the goal through.
He wins the prize.
And she's like, well, shit, he did that too. Well, perhaps if you did. And it doesn't ever change. And then eventually the guy wakes up to the fact like, "I don't think it's the things that I need to do. I think there's some deeper underlying issues here."
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