photo from Porn for Women

It’s long been a given in the sex advice biz that dudes who break out the vacuum cleaner every once in a while are more likely to get laid. We typically fight such Men-are-from-Mars-Women-are-from-Venus stereotypes, but we’ve heard too much anecdotal evidence to ignore this one. It’s not that watching a man iron is an actual turn-on — though there are exceptions, of course — but more that many women find it hard to get in the mood for sex if they’re annoyed that their partner isn’t pulling his weight in the domestic chores department. For these women, accessing the libido is a matter of clearing the deck of all potential distractions — clutter in the room, to-do lists, a buzzing Blackberry, body image issues, dirty dishes, petty spousal frustrations, etc.

But it turns out that it’s not just guys who should mop a little more often: A new study has found that, for men and women alike, the more housework you do, the more likely you are to have sex with your partner. In other words, the couple who shares chores together is more likely to swap spit (and more), too. Perhaps this is because sharing chores indicates mutual respect and a commitment to the “team,” or perhaps it’s a feng-shui thing where a clean and tidy house is more conducive to boot-knocking. Whatever it is, it’s good news — almost good enough to make us forget about the other statistic in the study: that the women spent an average of 41.8 hours on household chores each week, while the men spent an average of 23.4 hours. And this despite the fact that “chores” in this study included yard work, paying bills, and maintaining cars. Maybe once these numbers balance out a bit more, we’ll finally achieve coital harmony. Hey, two advice ladies can dream.

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It seems like everyone right now is talking about that new book Why Women Have Sex, by Cindy Meston and David Buss. Apparently lots of women reported having sex to keep the peace, to stave off boredom, to relieve a headache, or to get their husbands to take out the trash (oh, yeah, and occasionally because they’re in the mood, too). And everyone’s acting like it’s this huge deal that 100% of the women didn’t say that, 100% of the time, they have sex because they’re so turned on they can’t think straight. Sure, sometimes women have sex for fairly unsexy reasons…and sometimes they have sex for more, shall we say, honorable ones — which includes, but isn’t limited to, being so turned on they can’t think straight Here are 10 (and please, add your own reasons in the comments section below!):

1. Because you’re horny. (Duh.)
2. Because even if you’re not in the mood, 99.9% of the time you get in the mood once you start.
3. Because it’s (almost) impossible to argue while having sex.
4. Because you just received the most amazing 30-minute back-rub and your partner didn’t even try to segue the massage into sex.
5. Because your partner is hot stuff.
6. Because you still remember thinking there’s no way this person would ever look twice at you…and then they did.
7. Because orgasms are an excellent stress reliever.
8. Because you’ve got a partner who makes sure you always orgasm first, who doesn’t expect it to happen from intercourse, and who doesn’t immediately roll over after he’s spent.
9. Because your neighbors are really annoying and you want to do it loudly to remind them that you have a better sex life than they do.
10. Because sex with someone you love is (to paraphrase one-time Quaker Oats spokesman Wilford Brimley) the right thing to do and a tasty way to do it.

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photo by Vee Dub

Oh, it’s so unfair! We women are held to ridiculous American Apparel size-0 standards (yes, mostly self-imposed, but the media practically makes us do it!), while men get to eat what they want, become chubby, and are still considered cute and even sexy (e.g. Seth Rogen, Zach Galifianakis, Tobey Maguire). To make matters worse, the NYTimes Styles section on Wednesday embraced potbellies on guys in Williamsburg as a hot, new trend — an ironic reaction to metrosexuality and “manscaping.” In other words, beer guts — but only on guys — are now stylish. (Salon’s Broadsheet does a nice job of poo-poo-ing this particular piece of doo-doo.) A photographer’s work in the 2009 Vice Magazine Photo Exhibition in London seems to be taking this kind of absurd double standard to the extreme, with sexualized images of fat men in their underwear. Bitch Buzz called them “a big old middle-finger up to the predictably boob-heavy offerings of the exhibition.” But there’s a part of us deep down that worries this could be the future of what is considered passably hot for dudes, while we women will continue to beat ourselves up over the ice cream cone we so selfishly ate that hot summer day.

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photo via Filament magazine

The brand new Filament magazine in the U.K. calls bullshit on the so-called common knowledge that women don’t like to look. The real problem, they figure, is that women have just never had anything decent to look at. According to their “Female Gaze” mission statement: “From research we’ve learnt that what most women find erotic does not at all match what is typically thought of as an erotic image of a man designed for women. For example, on average, women prefer: men who are not muscle-bound; men with more feminine face shapes; men with attractive faces; images that show the subject’s character and the environment he is in.” Oh yeah, and sometimes women like to see erections, too. And there’s the, er, rub.

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photo by Qole_Pejorian

In news that will probably be surprising only to the male readers of this site, a recent study found that expensive cars don’t really impress the ladies. Researchers in Australia measured changes in the brain responses of women toward a range of men in different cars. Turns out a man having a mid-life crisis in a Porsche is still a man having a mid-life crisis. And a hottie surfer is a turn-on even if he has to take the bus. Apparently one of the “biggest surprises” of the study was that the classic MG Roadster car turned women’s heads when it was empty, but failed to impress if a dude was driving it. Well, that’s only surprising if it has never occurred to you that women are more likely to fantasize about driving a classic sports car than they are about dating a man who owns one. And an insecure man in the throes of a mid-life crisis kind of spoils that fantasy. What’s next — scientists demonstrating that crotch-rocket motorbikes don’t actually increase the size of your penis?

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