Can sharing housework make for a better sex life?

The recession has seen hundreds of thousands of Americans lose their jobs. One result of this lingering economic slump is that men are apparently taking on more housework, as we reported a few months back. That shift is not only good for gender equality on the household-work front but it might also heat things up in the bedroom, according to this CNN report.

"When a man does housework, it feels to the woman like an expression of caring and concern, which then physically reduces her stress," Joshua Coleman, a San Francisco-area psychologist and the author of The Lazy Husband: How to Get Men to Do More Parenting and Housework, told CNN. "A guy can be completely stressed out and want to have sex to burn it off, but women are not wired like that."

In 1976, men did only six hours of housework per week, according to a University of Michigan study of 8,000 families that began in 1968. But by 2005, they were doing 13 hours of housework a week compared with 17 hours a week by women.  A 2008 survey by the Consumer Reports National Research Center showed that while most women still did the cooking, 54 percent of men responding claimed they did the cleaning.

Guys who haven't been pulling their weight around the house can find motivational help, including Q&As like "What's the Best Way to Load a Dishwasher?" on this blog and items like "10 Easy House-Cleaning Strategies" on our Web site. If you're a grilling fanatic, give your significant other the night off and make some of these easy, delicious grilling recipes.

As much as you might envision a Jetsons-like future, the time of automated home chores has yet to fully arrive. (Take a peek inside the Microsoft Home concept space.) For instance, robotic vacuums modeled on those used in the military have proved poor performers in our tests. Nor were there any real winners among some shower cleaners; the longer you wait between cleanings, the more elbow grease you'll have to expend.

So visit this blog for more expert advice on getting things done around the house. Keep in mind that it's possible for a man to overdo it—earlier this spring, a German housewife apparently divorced her husband because he did too much around the house.—Gian Trotta | e-mail | Twitter | Forums | Facebook