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Does a More Equal Marriage Mean Less Sex?
- __pThrow 13y agoOriginal paper here: http://www.asanet.org/journals/ASR/Feb13ASRFeature.pdf http://www.asanet.org/journals/ASR/Feb13ASRFeature.pdf Science Daily writeup: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130130082258.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130130082258.ht... Slate: http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2013/03/28/guys_who_do_housework_get_less_sex.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2013/03/28/guys_who_do_... Write from U of Washington where the research was done here: http://www.washington.edu/news/2013/01/29/more-sex-for-married-couples-with-traditional-divisions-of-housework/ http://www.washington.edu/news/2013/01/29/more-sex-for-marri... Married men and women who divide household chores in traditional ways report having more sex than couples who share so-called men’s and women’s work, according to a new study co-authored by sociologists at the University of Washington. Other studies have found that husbands got more sex if they did more housework, implying that sex was in exchange for housework. But those studies did not factor in what types of chores the husbands were doing. The new study, published in the February issue of the journal American Sociological Review, shows that sex isn’t a bargaining chip. Instead, sex is linked to what types of chores each spouse completes. Couples who follow traditional gender roles around the house – wives doing the cooking, cleaning and shopping; men doing yard work, paying bills and auto maintenance – reported greater sexual frequency. “The results show that gender still organizes quite a bit of everyday life in marriage,” said co-author Julie Brines, a UW associate professor of sociology. “In particular, it seems that the gender identities husbands and wives express through the chores they do also help structure sexual behavior.”
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- smallerize 13y agocouples had sex 1.5 fewer times per month Could someone check the paper and see what was really meant here? I'm guessing people aren't having negative sex.
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- tedsanders 13y agoThis is a common error. Usually authors mean that y = x/1.5 rather than y = x - 1.5*x. I think it comes from taking the phrase "1.5 times more" and replacing more with less to reverse its meaning.
- Fishkins 13y agoI assumed "times" meant "instances", not multiplication, ie y = x - 1.5
- drivers99 13y agoYeah it said "fewer times" (subtract 1.5 from that actual count), not "times fewer" (-1.5 x).
- BlackDeath3 13y agoI cannot tell if your parent post is an arithmetic question or a sex joke...
- sanj 13y agoYou might be overthinking this. MachoMan and GirlyWoman had sex 28 times per month EgalitarianMan and EqualityWoman had sex 26.5 times per month. (numbers and names made up.)
- BlackDeath3 13y agoAnd if x < 1.5, it was a subtle joke.
- smallerize 13y agoOh, right!
- hedgew 13y ago
- Dewie 13y ago> Brines believes the quandary many couples find themselves in comes down to this: “The less gender differentiation, the less sexual desire.” The 21st century catches up with common sense.
- joeblubaugh 13y agoThis is a Hacker News submission? Yeesh.
- dropit_sphere 13y agoThis is my throwaway traditionalist account, and even I don't want to see this on HN.
- brandonbloom 13y agoThis gratifies my intellectual curiosity [1] in a way that another article about some boring JavaScript framework or crazy CSS quirk could never do. [1]: http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- dubfan 13y agoYeah, this belongs on the sidebar of Huffington Post, not here.
- cobrausn 13y agoPresumably many hackers eventually get married and, being generally left-leaning, practice an egalitarian marriage as described in the article. So, relevant? Maybe.
- drblast 13y agoWell, I thought it was an insightful article, and I'm just hanging around waiting to be mortified by the comments.
- TallGuyShort 13y agoAs much as that's a Hacker News comment, yes.
- sdegutis 13y agoThe concept of "gender" as social/cultural difference between the two sexes is being killed off by society. It's been happening slowly but steadily for the past century, and it will continue until the concept of "gender" is societally offensive.
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- wat0 13y agoTumblr isnt real life. Its more likely people will stop being offended by things once they realize it's the weakest form of argument and serves no purpose other than to be used as an argumentative social trump card and non-sequitor: to reduce credibility from one person and move authority to another.
- guard-of-terra 13y agoTaking out the trash as a manly activity made me giggle. To be serious, I see the problem like this: we don't understand what should men be like anymore. We have at least two viable role models for women: girly woman and equal breadwinner woman. Both attractive as you can see. But we have no viable role model for men. Egalitarian man loses sexual attractivity and "manly man" is a dick who doesn't do his fair share. As a programmer I spend the whole day sitting in a chair and clicking my mouse (keyboard tapping from time to time). Is that manly? I don't know.
- Dewie 13y ago> As a programmer I spend the whole day sitting in a chair and clicking my mouse (keyboard tapping from time to time). Is that manly? I don't know. I certainly don't feel like less of a man for doing it.
- BadassFractal 13y agoI really enjoyed "No More Mr. Nice Guy" by Dr. Glover, it does a really good job of covering this very topic and providing the reader with a plan for how to fix the situation.
- guard-of-terra 13y agoIs there a short tl;dr? I think I know what to expect given the title however...
- Einstalbert 13y agoI believe the TL;DR is simply, live for your own goals and health first and then help others after, instead of trying to conform to some idea of a chivalrous person. It isn't some strange P.U.A. take on the "friendzone" issue, either. I think a lot of people are turned away from the book because of its title and connotations. I think that was a clever move on the author's point, to be honest. So from what I understand, it's more of a self-help/self-confidence book than anything.
- Dirlewanger 13y agoLast sentence is great: "“It’s a tall order for one person to be your partner in Management Inc., your best friend and passionate lover. There’s a certain part of you that with this partner will not be fulfilled. You deal with that loss. It’s a paradox to be lived with, not solved.”" It's why I've only recently "got" open relationships. A couple years ago I would have vehemently derided them as an excuse for not being able to keep it in one's pants and inability to commit to a relationship. But now I see that no one person has never been and will never be "everything" to any one person...and if two people who openly understand this and have a relationship, then it will only strengthen their love for one another because they realize that while they may not be everything to each other, both are getting the most out of life while still having an anchor at home.
- sliverstorm 13y agoI guess you could see open relationships as one resolution to that trinity. The others then being: - greater reliance on same-sex friend groups (spouse lacking as a best friend) - Keeping aspects like finances split, or surrendering management of this or that aspect completely to one or the other partner All three resolutions have been a part of successful relationships, though not necessarily together.
- lexcorvus 13y agoHomo sapiens has evolved from a long line of primates exhibiting significant sexual dimorphism. [1] Attempts to eliminate spontaneously emerging gender roles are thus fighting millions of years of evolution. This doesn't necessarily make such attempts bad—the strategy of forced copulation is also millions of years old [2], and I'm sure we agree it should be suppressed with vigor—but it does suggest that denying the reality of sex differences might cause unnecessary suffering. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_dimorphism#Humans http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_dimorphism#Humans [2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_coercion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_coercion
- dalke 13y agoQuoting directly from the first line of your [1]: "Sexual dimorphism in humans has long been a subject of much controversy, especially when extended beyond physical differences to mental ability and psychological gender." That seems directly counter to your statement that gender roles are based on any sort of clear evolutionary basis across millions of years. Upon what do you base your conclusions? Certainly the studies I've heard about haven't identified a strong sexual dimorphism in humans, outside of physical differences. For a recent lay presentation on the issue, covering some of the history of studies trying to identify sexual dimorphism in humans, see: http://freethoughtblogs.com/lousycanuck/2014/02/03/ftbcon2-evidence-based-feminism-w-full-transcript/ http://freethoughtblogs.com/lousycanuck/2014/02/03/ftbcon2-e...
- lexcorvus 13y agoYou raise a good point. Wikipedia's policy of NPOV (neutral point-of-view) effectively means "mainstream"; while I grant that "controversy" on this subject exists in the mainstream, I believe in this case the mainstream is unhinged from reality. Thus, on this point, so is Wikipedia. [1] Given the dramatically different reproductive incentives for women (one egg per month for ~25 years, 9 months of pregnancy plus lactation, etc.) and men (millions of sperm per week and potentially no more than a few minutes' commitment), biologically determined cognitive and behavioral differences are obviously the null hypothesis. In other words, the burden of proof is on those who claim that women and men don't exhibit cognitive dimorphism. Does this strike you as the "mainstream" view? For example, there are many who claim (or, much more often, merely imply) that women and men must on average be equally well-suited to engineering. Are such people routinely called out by NPR and the New York Times to produce evidence to support their position? Um, no. So, we can see that the mainstream is in error: even if it turns that there is such evidence, the mainstream doesn't generally demand it. (Indeed, those who do demand it risk censure for their beliefs.) A survey of different cultures around the world tends to confirm the null hypothesis: a belief that women and men have different natures is a human universal. [2] For a rigorous account of the positive case that women and men differ in their cognitive and behavioral characteristics, I can recommend The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker. [3] If you're short on time, see his TED talk for a quick overview. [4] [1]: If creationism were mainstream, Wikipedia would claim a "controversy" over evolution. Indeed, many creationists make just such a claim. This doesn't make them right. [2]: http://humanuniversals.com/human-universals/ http://humanuniversals.com/human-universals/ [3]: http://www.amazon.com/The-Blank-Slate-Modern-Denial/dp/0142003344 http://www.amazon.com/The-Blank-Slate-Modern-Denial/dp/01420... [4]: http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_chalks_it_up_to_the_blank_slate.html http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_chalks_it_up_to_the_b...
- shittyanalogy 13y agoI'm being nitpicky, but these are the exact moments when statistical findings get turned into forced conclusions: "The risk of divorce is lowest when the husband does 40 percent of the housework and the wife earns 40 percent of the income." It's not that some risk is lowest, it's that, of the divorces studied, apparently regardless of demographic, there seems to be a statistically significant smaller amount of divorces coming from that particular configuration of earning and housework. Emotional write ups, of everyone's favorite subject, like this are destined to be rife with opinion and forced conclusion. That entire write up, IMHO, is just as valid as answering the question with the word "no." Like everything else in life you need to ask yourself, "does my sex life suck?" and then "What can I do to change it?" If the answer is, "Tell my wife to make less money and do more chores" then go for it.
- hedgew 13y agoHow much money would you bet on the answer to the question being "no"? Based on the evidence we have, couples in more equal relationships seem to have less sex and are less satisfied with the sex. This is a conclusion based on statistical inferences made from sample containing about 4,500 marriages. It is much more valid than a "no", even if it is imperfect. If we return to our bet, how would you propose that we resolve the answer? How large would the sample size have to be for you to be satisfied?
- shittyanalogy 13y ago"How much money would you bet?" Is not a good way to start a healthy argument. Opinions and statistical molding are not conclusions in this sense. They are just opinions. There is no possible way to "resolve the answer". Every every person is an individual, relationship is different, and they change over time. There's absolutely no way to prove or conclude that equality in home and monetary responsibility are emasculating men and ruining sex lives. People should be evaluating their sex lives on an individual basis, not blaming them on any broad "conclusion" posted to the internet based on poor statistical inference.
- WildUtah 13y ago"... of the divorces studied, apparently regardless of demographic, there seems to be a statistically significant ..." Most generally, correlation is not causation. Maybe people who are more attracted to each other sexually form more asymmetric marriages or maybe people with stronger sex drives are more likely to follow gender stereotypes. Just taking a sample from a self-selected population doesn't even indicate anything about causation. What we need is a study where the researchers randomly assign men and women into marriages with partners chosen by the researchers where they will divide up roles according to gender stereotypes or divide up responsibilities evenly. Then the researchers will return a decade later to see how they're doing.
- facepalm 13y agoThe real purpose of that article is to establish that "number of household chores shared" is a meaningful measure of equality in a marriage. The sex bit is just the transmission vector for the feminist meme.
- j2kun 13y ago> Specifically, if men did all of what the researchers characterized as feminine chores like folding laundry, cooking or vacuuming — the kinds of things many women say they want their husbands to do — then couples had sex 1.5 fewer times per month than those with husbands who did what were considered masculine chores, like taking out the trash or fixing the car. 1.5 times fewer per month... is that statistically significant?
- twelve40 13y ago> woman in her early 40s said that it wasn’t until she came across some porn scenes her husband had viewed online that she felt comfortable telling him about her fantasies, which happened to be very similar to what she found. She thought he’d be thrilled, but although he enacted the scenes with her, she was surprised by his lack of enthusiasm. I'm sorry. There is most likely a much simpler explanation for this, and it has nothing to do with manly chores. The fact that the esteemed author fails to even mention it undermines everything else.