Dire Straights Marital 'intimacy' is the fifth shift of women's work
Today, we’re talking about the fifth shift — all the labor and consumerism that heterosexual women engage in to maintain their marital sex lives.
Appointment sex, date nights, intimacy classes, coaching programs, books about desire, erotic subscription services, and hours of internet content about keeping the spark alive. And then there's pills, gummies, bacon-flavored lube (an actual thing), and many more late capitalist iterations of sex positivity.
In this episode, we look at the erotic hurdles that are baked into hetero monogamous married life, from inequality in the home to sex becoming chore-like, obligatory, and just… not that hot anymore. A lot of women fear that they are abnormal, or headed for divorce, if they don’t have constant mind-blowing sex with their husbands. And they tend to blame themselves. But we’re also witnessing a growing cultural interest in open marriages and midlife sexual awakenings.
Our personal experiences with the un-sexiness of the “marital bed,” and the much hotter possibilities of encountering a spouse as a bit of a stranger, are behind this episode’s paywall, so you’ll have to upgrade to get the juiciest stuff. And this is easily our juiciest episode yet.
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Show highlights…
2:03 We discuss alllll the shifts women work after the second shift, and it takes us almost ten minutes just to describe them all. Women are doing that much work.
9:45 We have arrived at the fifth shift. We’re already tired.
11:45 Despite how exhausted women are, they are pathologized for not desiring their partners at the end of the day hmmmm
14:15 But why exactly aren’t men putting in the work of maintaining sexual intimacy in marriage?
17:45 Post-MeToo consent shakes up the long history of sexual duty and obligation in marriage.
18:54 Lots of things sapping eroticism from married life.
19:32 Late capitalist solutions to the challenges of monogamy.
22:20 Do we really need bacon-flavored lube??
30:51 Should women be flashing their boobs at their husbands to get them to do chores?
33:31 Can cohabitation ever be hot?
35:00 Go to the “marital bed” in this economy?
37:30 Amanda spills the tea on her (very!) surprising and hot FWB situation—and what it says about men taking care of themselves.
38:14 Speaking of, should women be working so hard to help men undo their patriarchal socialization? Why not just… let the men do it themselves?
44:02 We need to talk about spiciness and risk.
49:07 Tracy shares the (very!) surprising experience that launched her into a midlife sex portal.
54:39 The hottest married sex is sex that provides an escape from marriage.
1:02:00 Enter sex positivity™
1:17:00 Straight people are encouraged to use sex to avoid deeper relationship problems.
1:20:00 Your regular reminder that marriage was designed to oppress women… but at least we’re finally talking about sexual consent in marriage?
1:23:00 You’re normal… but also a weirdo freak like everyone else and that’s why we love you.
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