The orgasm gap is one of those stats that sounds bad and somehow keeps getting worse. Heterosexual women reach climax during partnered sex roughly 65% of the time, compared to a near-perfect 95% for men. That disparity is well documented. What’s less well known is that moving in together, instead of closing the goddamn gap, seems to make it wider.

Several studies have found that cohabiting heterosexual couples report larger orgasm gaps than those who are dating but living separately. Proximity and comfort don’t equal better sex. They might even be making things a bit shit.

Researchers describe a “bedroom tax” of cohabitation. Once sex stops being a special occasion and becomes part of the domestic routine, it tends to default to whatever is quickest and easiest for one partner. And that partner is almost always him. Spontaneity goes out the fucking window, and with it, any pressure to maintain novelty or attentiveness. The result: she starts faking it just to get it over with, while he probably stopped noticing years ago.

There’s a communication problem too. Women in long-term cohabiting relationships are less likely to speak up about what they want sexually than those in newer ones. The incentive to impress fades away, replaced by the awkwardness of raising the subject with someone you also argue with about bin night. Research from Chapman University found that the frequency of female orgasm is strongly linked to three things: asking for what you want, giving directions during sex, and having a partner who takes his sweet fucking time. Cohabitation appears to erode all three.

The gap narrows significantly among same-sex female couples, who report far more consistent orgasms than women in heterosexual relationships, regardless of living arrangements. That points to the real issue: not cohabitation itself, but heterosexual sex defaulting to penetration-focused patterns that work reliably for one body and inconsistently for the other.

None of this means moving in together is a death sentence for anyone’s sex life. It just means that cohabitation removes some of the social pressure that was quietly doing useful work, without automatically replacing it with anything better. The couples who manage to maintain relatively even orgasm rates over the long term tend to share one thing in common: they kept talking about sex after the early months stopped making it feel necessary. That sounds obvious. Given these numbers, maybe it’s not as common as anyone would think.

So here’s the takeaway, for anyone who needs it: don’t let cohabitation fuck up the fun between the sheets. Keep the communication open. It might even make things more exciting. Because if there’s one thing worse than a hangover on a Monday morning, it’s an orgasm-less Sunday night.