Even as a stay-at-home mom who handles almost all the household work, the term “choreplay” irritates me. Haven’t heard it yet? Well, here’s what it means: Men can get more sex if they do chores around the house.
This NYT article makes a lot of good points, including the part about fathers and women’s voices in business. (Note to beer and car manufacturers: I’m the one who buys most of the beer in our household. I don’t drink beer, but I buy it for my husband since I’m the one who runs most of the errands. I’m also part of the car buying decision. So if your ad is sexist and I don’t like it, I won’t buy your product. Perhaps, you should cater to me, too. I swear, when I watch some of these commercials I know there aren’t women, in positions of power, making decisions, because half this nonsense would never be aired if there were.)
But here’s where the NYT’s article goes off the rails:
If that isn’t exciting enough, try this: Couples who share chores equally have more sex. As the researchers Constance T. Gager and Scott T. Yabiku put it, men and women who work hard play hard. One of us, Sheryl, has advised men that if they want to do something nice for their partners, instead of buying flowers, they should do laundry. A man who heard this was asked by his wife one night to do a load of laundry. He picked up the basket and asked hopefully, “Is this Lean In laundry?” Choreplay is real.
Choreplay is real? I hope not.
Wash the dirty dishes, not because there are dirty dishes, but because men will be rewarded with sex for doing something that needs to be done? This is really a thing, and we need to nip this nonsense in the bud. Now I’m not saying that taking chores off your spouse’s plates can’t be romantic or appreciated, but the idea of men doing chores because it will pay off sexually implies that housework is women’s work – and that men doing laundry or dishes is somehow going above and beyond what is expected of them. Basically, it’s saying: Men shouldn’t have to do chores, so when they do they deserve a reward.
It also makes sex into a business transaction (just like the “good old days” when picking up the dinner check equated into a woman having to put out. Hey, I bought you lobster!). It reduces sex into something men want and something women must endure. “Oh hell, he vacuumed, guess I’ll have to give him sex tonight.”
Do men want women viewing sex as a chore? Because that’s the flip side. I would hope not. Sex, at least good sex (and I’m beginning to think that’s rare), is something both people should want and enjoy. It should not be a lie back and think of England, gotta cross this off my to-do list sort of thing, because well… he did do a load of laundry. Buying into choreplay means buying into transactional sex – I did this for you, you do this for me. It paints the picture of sex being something only men want, and something women suffer in order to have the bathroom cleaned. And if men and women start buying into choreplay I see problems on the horizon. Seriously, who wants to equate sex with laundry? And if you find yourself doing this… stop. Just stop.
I remember whenever my father emptied the dishwasher he’d say, “Honey, I did the dishes for you.” Yeah, there’s a generational thing going on here (my Dad is almost 80), but my mother would always, and I mean always, counter with, “They aren’t my dishes.” My Dad did stop saying that, and it concerns me that “choreplay” seems to be moving us backwards instead of forwards.
So, can we please not buy into this choreplay nonsense? No one deserves a reward for doing things that need to be done. And no one deserves a partner who only has sex with us because we washed the dishes.