Women who like to be in charge at home go up to 100 times longer without sex than women who make decisions with their partner, says a study.
It said decision making like the weekly budget, food shopping and when to visit friends has influence over a couple’s sex life.
Researchers from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public health in Baltimore looked at women in Ghana, Malawi, Mali, Rwanda, Uganda and Zimbabwe – where household women’s roles are clearly set out as either head of the household or a joint decision-maker.
The study compared the women’s accounts of their sex lives and the level of their decision-making, finding there was a clear link.
Researchers said this could be by choice, showing that women are taking control in the bedroom rather than because men are turned off by bossy wives.
For men, the survey found that their decision-making did not affect the timing of sex.
Research team associate professor Michelle Hindin said: “As the number of decisions in which a women had the final say increased, the mean and median time since most recent sex also increased by three to 100-fold.
“The more decisions a woman reported making on her own, as compared to joint decision making, the less likely she was to have sex and the longer it was since she last had sexual intercourse.”
Study co-author Carie Muntifering said: “Understanding how women’s position in the household influences their sexual activity may be an essential piece in protecting the sexual rights of women and helping them to achieve a sexual life that is safe and pleasurable.”
Kim Cattrall, 55, who played sex-mad Samantha Jones in Sex and the City, has spoken out in the past about her real life bedroom action: “I always had a sexy image, on camera, but I was not having a fabulous sex life.”
‘Everyone expects great-looking guys and women to be having great sex – that’s not true. It is one thing to have patience and build up a good sexual relationship, through love but, with some men – I would say, in my experience, the majority of men – it is just never going to happen.’
The study will be published in October's issue of the Journal of Sex Research.
