Would you trade beads for a booty call?

We all know what new parents like to do in bed. Sleep.

When you’re not getting enough of that magic sleep stuff – and face it, what parent is? – nothing else seems like as much fun. Sex, what is that? Just one more thing standing between you and some shut-eye. No thank you.

Since most parents feel this way at least some of the time, it’s hardly surprising that parents have less nookie than they did pre-kids. Carolyn Evans, a wife and mother, feels your pain. She’s here to help with a ridiculous new game that she hopes will change your life.

In her new book Forty Beads, Evans describes a system she and her husband came up with to ‘swap’ beads for sex. For her husband’s 40th birthday, she gave him a jar with 40 beads in it. If he wants to get some, he puts a bead in her “beadcatcher”, a little bowl she keeps near the bed for this purpose. Within 24 hours, she has to be ready for action.

Evans says this does more than improve her love life. She credits it was getting her rocky marriage back on track. Suddenly, she says, her husband is totally on the ball with household chores and parenting tasks. As she tells U.S. News’ Healthland blog:

“He drops the bead in a bowl and all of a sudden he’s scooping up the baby with the stinking butt instead of walking right past because he is so stinking happy with the promise of all this sex in his future.”

Evans’ premise rests on the idea that men want sex and women don’t, but that we ladies should put up with it because it builds intimacy in a healthy marriage. Making a game of it is just the motivation we need to make it happen, she seems to be saying.

I like her game, even though I find the premise that men want sex and women don’t appalling. In my house, the desire for sleep vs. the desire for some quality time between the sheets is about equally proportioned. Most of the time, my husband and I would both rather be snoozing. Sometimes we’d both rather frolic. Sometimes one or the other of us wants to get some and goes to bed disappointed. There’s no clear gender difference.

Still, I can see the bead game working for us if we both had a stash of beads to put in the pot as needed. Sometimes we really do just need a playful nudge in the direction of nookie, and then we’re both glad we stayed awake that extra hour. More often, what we really need is a night off from parenting. I’d love to see a bead game where I could cash my beads in for a night of babysitting. Now that would be sexy.

Would you try this trick to spice up your life?

Photo: Fortybeads.com

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