Illustration: Edd Aragon. Miranda Devine
The sex therapist Bettina Arndt's latest book The Sex Diaries has been selling like hottie-cakes, with 10,000 off the shelves in the first three weeks. But it's not just book sales that are up. There may be an Arndt-led recovery of bedroom hanky panky if wives heed her message that their poor deprived husbands deserve more sex.
Based on the bedroom revelations of 98 Australian couples over six to nine months, it has lifted the lid on the unspoken topic of men and women's biologically mismatched sexual desire.
From the Hindustan Times to the E Yugoslavia website, Arndt's exhortation to women to do their "wifely duty" and beef up the sex supply, has certainly been a headline grabber.
"It simply hasn't worked to have a couple's sex life hinge on the fragile, feeble female libido," says Arndt. "The right to say 'no' needs to give way to saying 'yes' more often."
Of course she has been excoriated by feminists for saying that much marital disharmony might be overcome if women just "put the canoe in the water" and start paddling, even if they don't feel like it.
"Bettina Arndt rape cheerleader" was one furious blog response. "F--- you, Bettina Arndt," was another. Eva Cox of the Women's Electoral Lobby launched a counterattack, claiming that it's men's own fault they aren't getting enough sex, because they don't do their fair share of housework.
"After an evening of organising kids, dinner, the shopping, the washing, the homework, etc, maybe [women] are too tired to want sex."
It's an old excuse. As Arndt says, any time men complain about something, even in the anonymity of a sex therapist's book, feminists hit back with the housework furphy. The fact is, when you add up in-home and out-of-home duties, men work just as many hours as women, and sex has very little to do with it.
The latest ABS social trends survey, released last week, found that women do almost twice as much housework as men - 33 hours and 45 minutes a week.
But while men might not do as much vacuuming and ironing, they spend a lot more time than women working outside the house in paid jobs - an average of 31 hours and 50 minutes a week, compared with women's 16 hours and 25 minutes.
In other words, men and women do about the same amount of work in total - about 50 hours a week each. It's called division of labour and it has long been the negotiated settlement of marriage.
Men have tried to up their share of housework - by 8 per cent - since 1992. But it doesn't seem to have increased their share of sex, judging by The Sex Diaries.
In her chapter "Laundry Gets You Laid?", one of Arndt's diarists describes her husband as the "domestic God", yet their libidos are still worlds apart.
Another diarist, Mary, 42, has put her husband on sex "starvation rations" until he does more housework.
But, she admitted: "[My husband] argues that even if I were a lady of leisure with a maid and housekeeper and no need to work … I still wouldn't be interested in sex. I deny deny and deny, but deep inside I have to admit there is a chance he might be right."
Housework is just one of the excuses used by women to fend off their partner's advances. Only 10 per cent of Arndt's female diarists had higher sex drives than their partners and her book is full of the anguish of the other men, whose wives have just lost interest.
Arndt said yesterday that female libido is so fragile it is easy to find excuses not to have sex. But desire is a decision. Women "have to make a decision to put sex back on the to-do list because if you allow these other things to swamp your sexual interest your relationship will be in real trouble". More here Continued…
Based on the bedroom revelations of 98 Australian couples over six to nine months, it has lifted the lid on the unspoken topic of men and women's biologically mismatched sexual desire.
From the Hindustan Times to the E Yugoslavia website, Arndt's exhortation to women to do their "wifely duty" and beef up the sex supply, has certainly been a headline grabber.
"It simply hasn't worked to have a couple's sex life hinge on the fragile, feeble female libido," says Arndt. "The right to say 'no' needs to give way to saying 'yes' more often."
Of course she has been excoriated by feminists for saying that much marital disharmony might be overcome if women just "put the canoe in the water" and start paddling, even if they don't feel like it.
"Bettina Arndt rape cheerleader" was one furious blog response. "F--- you, Bettina Arndt," was another. Eva Cox of the Women's Electoral Lobby launched a counterattack, claiming that it's men's own fault they aren't getting enough sex, because they don't do their fair share of housework.
"After an evening of organising kids, dinner, the shopping, the washing, the homework, etc, maybe [women] are too tired to want sex."
It's an old excuse. As Arndt says, any time men complain about something, even in the anonymity of a sex therapist's book, feminists hit back with the housework furphy. The fact is, when you add up in-home and out-of-home duties, men work just as many hours as women, and sex has very little to do with it.
The latest ABS social trends survey, released last week, found that women do almost twice as much housework as men - 33 hours and 45 minutes a week.
But while men might not do as much vacuuming and ironing, they spend a lot more time than women working outside the house in paid jobs - an average of 31 hours and 50 minutes a week, compared with women's 16 hours and 25 minutes.
In other words, men and women do about the same amount of work in total - about 50 hours a week each. It's called division of labour and it has long been the negotiated settlement of marriage.
Men have tried to up their share of housework - by 8 per cent - since 1992. But it doesn't seem to have increased their share of sex, judging by The Sex Diaries.
In her chapter "Laundry Gets You Laid?", one of Arndt's diarists describes her husband as the "domestic God", yet their libidos are still worlds apart.
Another diarist, Mary, 42, has put her husband on sex "starvation rations" until he does more housework.
But, she admitted: "[My husband] argues that even if I were a lady of leisure with a maid and housekeeper and no need to work … I still wouldn't be interested in sex. I deny deny and deny, but deep inside I have to admit there is a chance he might be right."
Housework is just one of the excuses used by women to fend off their partner's advances. Only 10 per cent of Arndt's female diarists had higher sex drives than their partners and her book is full of the anguish of the other men, whose wives have just lost interest.
Arndt said yesterday that female libido is so fragile it is easy to find excuses not to have sex. But desire is a decision. Women "have to make a decision to put sex back on the to-do list because if you allow these other things to swamp your sexual interest your relationship will be in real trouble". More here Continued…