My husband does our family’s laundry. If I believed in “choreplay,” I’d film a Tiktok of him emptying our laundry basket and set it to a song like “One Margarita.” With lyrics like, “I’ma open my legs…//It’s about to get freaky tonight, baby,” overlaying his third towel folding, the message would be clear: my husband, because he’s doing chores, is sexy.
But I don’t get “choreplay.” I find my husband delicious not because he folds our laundry or cares for our children, but because he’s a genuinely sexy guy that turns me on. It’s one of many reasons why I married him. His dimples make my knees weak.
But I’ve heard more than once that I’m “lucky” that we divide chores in our home. A mom I know once told me I’m “living the dream.” When my husband jumped up to get the vacuum after our daughter spilled her cheerios, my husband’s friend said, “Oh, you must be trying to get it in tonight,” like my husband was only doing it because he was going to get something in return and not because he was the one that happened to be closer to the vacuum when the cheerio-spillage happened.
I’ve heard again and again that when a marriage becomes sexless, it’s likely due to an unfair division of labor, and some stats even support that. Like this one that says that if you and your straight partner share chores, it seems likely you’ll also have more sex, but as a relationship coach who has worked with couples for many years, I find that sharing chores leading to more sex may in fact be an example of “correlation does not imply causation.”
The “Choreplay” Myth
Having been a married single mother, I was overworked and exhausted. I don’t think I even slept a full eight hours until my twins were close to their first birthday.
An unfair division of labor can impact sex drive and desire by increasing emotional exhaustion and heightening mental health symptoms like depression and anxiety, and sleep loss can lower it too as well as cause sexual dysfunction.
Since the opposite of unfair division of labor would be fair division of labor, you would think that sharing chores with my partner and getting more sleep would increase my sex drive and desire overall. But in fact, my sex drive has stayed the same throughout the years, both in my first marriage, as a dating divorcée, and in my second marriage. It only dwindled somewhat shortly after each of my pregnancies, but then returned to its original levels.
I could be an exception, but in studies, I’m not alone: “women between 27 and 45 had more frequent and more intense sexual fantasies than younger or older women. They also had more sex and were more likely to have it sooner in a relationship.”
In another study, it was found that in relationships where men did more “feminine” chores (cooking, cleaning, laundry) around the house, they had sex 1.5 fewer times a month than couples who divided their chores more traditionally (as in, women do the housework and men do the yard work). And this even went further: women reported greater sexual satisfaction too if the chores were divided more traditionally in their relationship. Again, this could absolutely be another example of “correlation does not imply causation.”
My husband and I have divided chores equitably based on our preferences, strengths, and availability. My schedule is more flexible, so I take on more to do with the children. He likes making sure the yard is nice, so he handles the yard. From the outside, our relationship might look like we’ve divided chores along more “traditional” lines, but cleaned clothes continue to magically appear in my closet, and when we bought my husband a new truck, I negotiated the sales price and signed all of the paperwork. Traditional chore division or not, the frequency with which we have sex and my satisfaction have never really changed.
And let us also not forget LGTBQIA+ couples. In many studies, LGTBQIA+ couples are more likely to share chores, yet 70% of gay couples have sex three times a week or more while only 33% of lesbian couples do.
The Complexity of Desire
Despite how my husband and I share chores, I’ve never found chores all that…sexy. Watching my husband clean sticky bits of food off of tabletops and counters isn’t arousing. When I’ve seen my husband doing any of the million of things he does for our home and children, I’ve never once wanted him to bend me over because he was doing that thing.
But why is this the case? I’ve wondered more than once. All these OTHER women seem to lust over their men after they’ve cleaned the toilet. Why does my desire have…nothing to do with any of that? Well, Esther Perel, couples therapist and author of Mating in Captivity, explains just that: “Egalitarian marriage takes the values of a good social system — consensus-building and consent — and assumes you can bring these rules into the bedroom. But the values that make for good social relationships are not necessarily the same ones that drive lust….most of us get turned on at night by the very things that we’ll demonstrate against during the day.”
What she’s saying is simple: lust doesn’t care whether the laundry is folded. Lust doesn’t care whether your partner replaces the toilet paper or picks up the kids after school. Lust means that the feminist might like it when she’s objectified or that the alpha male may get hard-ons over pegging.
Our sexual desires are and can be myriad and can completely conflict with the person we are outside of the bedroom, which is why “choreplay” may not do much to increase desire. As a mother and wife in my everyday life, I’m not interested in roleplaying domesticity whenever I’m between the sheets.
The Transactional Nature of “Choreplay”
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention how transactional “choreplay” comes across as well. If “choreplay” is advertised as increasing the sexual frequency in relationships, can’t you see some misguided husband pulling out the laundry basket and saying with a wink, “If I do this, maybe I’ll get some later?”
Transactional sex (“sex exchanged for money, goods, services, and/or status”) does require the consent of both parties, and the misguided husband in my example above likely wouldn’t find himself a willing partner in his annoyed wife.
When couples have sex problems, it’s likely connected to several issues instead of just one. It could be unfair division of labor. It could also be long working hours, lack of emotional intimacy or connection, hormonal or aging issues, sexual pain or dysfunction, health or psychological causes, loss of love, or even discomfort around sex in general. To state a couple’s poor sex life is due to just an unfair division of labor is likely a gross oversimplification. This means a partner taking on the laundry now when they didn’t before will probably do little to correct it.
I wonder too if “choreplay” might be a sad attempt to get men into sharing chores more. Even with equality in terms of dual-earner homes, women on average still do more chores than men. It could have an advertising slogan like, “Do a load, drop a load.” But trying to “sell” household labor with sex doesn’t quite work. Housework will always need to be done. It’s a necessary and daily evil. It’d be much easier if partners would just agree that it sucks and commit to doing it together instead of one always needing to be “rewarded.”
“Choreplay” isn’t a solution for the sex issues in any relationship. It may help, but I highly doubt it’d fix it. Sharing household chores is good because it benefits everyone who lives in that household. There shouldn’t be any other reason to do it.
“Choreplay” might make for entertaining social media content, but real intimacy and more frequent sex require more than a well-folded pile of laundry.
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Previously Published on Medium
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