Why glossy mags are misleading about what women want in their relationships

GLOSSY mags love a sexy headline, and “Housework makes her horny” certainly is one — but the messaging around what women want in their relationships is misleading, writes Wendy Tuohy.

GLOSSY mags love a sexy headline, and “Housework makes her horny” certainly is one.

Big-selling US publication Men’s Health ran it when revealing findings by rock-star relationship psychologist John Gottman.

The story said fathers who share housework and childcare over the long term get more sex.

Reporting new data on the phenomenon the following year, the editors came up with an even catchier moniker: “Choreplay”.

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This is not sexy.

Visiting US sociologist Michael Kimmel got a laugh from his Melbourne audience last week after noting the “Housework makes her horny” heading, and adding “but not when she does it”.

Truth be told, it is impossible to imagine sex popping to mind for either gender while extracting the gunk from the dishwasher filter, or Exit-Mould-ing the shower.

What Gottman and Kimmel are referring to is that, for couples in the Generation X, Y and Millennial age groups, the latest numbers are showing dudes being down for the drudgery bodes very well for a lustier marriage.

Whereas, in older generations (used in previous studies), if both partners felt satisfied with their traditional role in the marriage and home, it equated to happy days — and nights.

For Gen X and younger couples, “sharing” is the key word.

Kimmel noted in marriages where partners shared housework and childcare, the children were happier, did better at school, were less likely to be diagnosed with ADHD or depression, and had “higher levels of achievement”.

“The wives are happier, healthier, less likely to go to the therapist or be diagnosed with depression and put on medication, more likely to go to the gym, and have higher levels of marital satisfaction,” he said. And the men were healthier, they smoked less, drank less, took recreational drugs less often, were less likely to turn up in emergency departments or be diagnosed with depression — they were happier and healthier.

Still, the sex thing was the biggest drawcard, he had to admit.

It’s impossible to imagine sex popping to mind for either gender while extracting the gunk from the dishwasher filter, or Exit-Mould-ing the shower, writes Wendy Tuohy.

But for anyone in a dual-income family with kids and mortgages and all of the costs, and the physical and mental workloads that go along with that, the fact there is more intimacy in equal relationships is hardly breaking news.

And it’s not just fatigue that gets between partners in long-term marriages where things are unequal in the area of housework heavy-lifting; there is a heck of lot of sex appeal about being treated more like a respected equal, less like a trusty pack mule.

It shouldn’t take studies to demonstrate the 2018 mother who has started the day packing lunches, gone to work and come home to a second shift involving hours of catering and cleaning up for loved ones — while her partner is AWOL for the grunt work — is less likely to detour to Sexyland tomorrow night on her way home.

Scratch the surface of couples in which the vast weight of the un-fun, repetitive and utterly vital stuff that needs doing to keep homes and kids’ lives humming is vastly stacked on one set of shoulders, and you will likely find a woman who has not only given up struggling for a more “shared” home life, but may also be rapidly giving up on intimacy, too.

Yes, housework is deeply unsexy, and even talking about or thinking about it can be the equivalent of the proverbial cold spoon — on the libido of either gender.

But if you care about your own marriage keeping up the heat, it’s worth listening to the experts showing couples who clean the windows and scrub the ring out of the bath tubs together stay, and play, happily together too.

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Wendy Tuohy is a Herald Sun columnist