Her super-candid piece, which encourages couples to “put sexual favors on the table and start negotiating,” shares how she and her hubs fire up things up in bed by trading chores or wish list items for various sex acts. It works like this: Say you want to go get a mani-pedi with your BFF on Saturday, but the kids don’t have a playdate scheduled this weekend. You can get DH to skip golf with the boys and watch the kiddos … to the tune of one mid-night blowjob! Or, say you want a nice new handbag? Just agree to a Brazilian wax! Is it just me — am I being a buzzkill — or is sex bartering kind of sad? I know people are busy. I am busy. My boyfriend is busy. We are busy. I barely put down my laptop some nights, because I’m writing up a storm, and of course, those are the same nights he comes home from a 12-hour day, and then dinner has to be made, the trash needs to be taken out, bills have to be paid, yadda yadda. And we don’t even have kids yet! So I can just imagine that once you do have youngins under your roof, it gets even more difficult to make time for sex. I’ve heard it from friends and strangers again and again. I also know that things can get old after a while when you’re in a monogamous relationship. But I’m not sure if doing your best impression of hooker with a heart of gold Vivian (aka Julia Roberts) negotiating a humpty dance for a shopping spree is really the best way to retrieve those early day tingles and thrills. What about having sex for the sake of … having sex? For the sake of feeling closer to your partner, more intimate? Because you know it’s good for your relationship’s well-being. Because it makes you both feel amazing in the moment and leaves you feeling relaxed after? Or maybe just because orgasms rock? Also, if a husband is jumping at the chance to do domestic deeds for a shot at some play from his wife, I guess she hadn’t been giving it up much before now? Or hasn’t been open-minded to some of his requests? What about women who have been trying to keep the physical side of their relationship alive all along? You can’t really hold something over a guy’s head that he’s already used to getting. Maybe I’m missing the point. Maybe the whole point of sex bartering is that it can give you or your spouse a sexy incentive to actually do the dishes or take the kids to soccer practice. Because if the only reason you’re giving it up for your honey is so you can get him to pick up “a box of ice cream sandwiches, a copy of W magazine, and a bottle of Essie nail polish” (what Oxford once traded for a three-position sex session), your priorities are seriously out of whack. Do you and your guy participate in sex bartering? Would you?
