Nonstop sex surprisingly unsexy
Rocky Mountain News (Denver, CO) (Published as Rocky Mountain News (CO)) – June 28, 2008Browse Issues
- Author/Byline: Mary Winter, Rocky Mountain News
- Edition: Final
- Section: Home Front
- Page: 2HOMEFRONT
Ever wonder what it would be like to have sex with your spouse every single day for a year?
Me neither.
But at least two people were curious enough to carry out such an experiment and then write books about it.
365 Nights: A Memoir of Intimacy is by Charla Muller, a 39-year-old wife, mother and marketing specialist who lives in North Carolina.
Just Do It is by Douglas Brown, 42, a Denver Post reporter who lives in Boulder.
I read 365 Nights because it landed on my desk. I didn’t read Just Do It.
I can’t recommend 365 Nights, mainly because I think the material’s thin. In a nutshell, the couple have sex each night for a year, and lo and behold, pretty soon sex becomes a chore. But in the end, the experiment is a wonderful thing because being intimate every day brings the couple closer in the same way a 72-hour road trip or cleaning out the basement with another person brings you closer.
That’s my interpretation. Hope I didn’t ruin the ending.
Not that either author needs my two thumbs up. The New York Times Sunday Style section devoted a cover story to the books this month headlined “YES, Dear. Tonight AGAIN.” The Times reports there’s a mini-genre of books offering advice about the sex- starved marriage.
Which confounds me. With homes in foreclosure, airlines going bankrupt, $4 eggs, $4.25 gas and Osama bin Laden still on the lam, is lack of sex what’s really keeping people up nights?
Muller’s inspiration for the book was the present she gave her husband on his 40th birthday: sex each day for a year. She refers to it as “The Gift.”
Muller is at times funny and insightful as she writes about her decision to cut back on her work hours for the sake of the family, her taste in TV shows, her family’s Christmas rituals. She covers a lot of ground, but to my disappointment, it includes neither lust nor romance.
In fact, I can’t recall a single steamy word or sentence in 270 pages, much less a description of how she turbo-charged her husband’s engine. Or he hers.
She makes reference to wooing her husband in the bathtub with wine, but Muller, a practicing Baptist, plays it pretty close to the corset.
In the passage below, she illustrates how, early on, sex once a day has reinvigorated their marriage:
Charla: “Hey, honey, what’s on tap for you this weekend?”
Brad: “Well, I thought we could have some great family time together on Saturday morning, then I could work in the yard in the afternoon, then we could take a nap and have a roll and then I’d love to take you to dinner. You know, I really like that book you gave me on the boxer from South Africa. Maybe we can talk about that tonight at dinner. Isn’t he one of your favorite authors?”
Charla: I was speechless. Before The Gift, Brad would have happily gone along with whatever I had planned for the weekend and was quite content to let me plan evenings, confirm the sitter and make reservations. . . Now all of a sudden, he was really plugged into me, and looking at our calendars, and initiating activities. It was like we were dating again. . . . I realized the unintended beauty of my gift was its unconditionality. My gift was sex every day, no strings attached.
Muller concludes her book by reporting that daily sex has boosted her endorphins and her general well-being.
She writes that it improved their marriage because they talked more, had more fun and became “teammates.”
Still, both admit relief when the 365 days are up.
“For sure, there were days when I was sick of sex – I was tired of the same old thing, I just wanted my own space, I didn’t really feel the mojo all the time.
“But I was amazed to discover that I was never once sick of Brad. In a way, it was as if I had been reintroduced to this nice man I had married.”
The Mullers told The Times that since the experiment ended, the frequency of their sex has dropped off and it now falls “well within the national average” of about 66 times a year.
Who would have guessed?
I have an old-fashioned view of sex. It’s not so much the frequency as the quality. I think the best aphrodisiac is a big pair of . . . ears. The act of love begins with the art of listening.
- Memo: mwinte@aol.com sex, 365, Nights, Muller, Brown, Just Do It, New York Times
- Index terms: SEX 365 NIGHTS MULLER BROWN JUST DO IT NEW YORK TIMES
- Record: 0806280005
- Copyright: Donated to the Denver Public Library by the Rocky Mountain News, under the permission of the City and County of Denver, other rights reserved. Copyright © 2008 Rocky Mountain News. All Rights Reserved.
