There's A "Sex Famine" & Netflix Is To Blame

The great Australian slumber.

There's A "Sex Famine" & Netflix Is To Blame

Here’s a fact: Australians are having less sex. Study after study after study has shown that while our wildlife game might be strong, we are ever tamer in bed. Especially once we get married.

While this phenomenon is hardly unique to the land down under (as people age, their sex drive decreases and their likelihood of tying the knot increases) it was brought to our sunburnt country’s attention earlier this week that we have a significant problem.

Netflix and Snore.

Appearing on the national broadcaster—the ABC’s—popular Q & A program on Monday, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach let rip an ominous warning for people who like to binge-watch their pop culture and then eat it: Netflix is killing sex.

“We speak of a ‘golden age of television’, but if someone has time in bed at night to watch all this stuff, the reason they have so much time is because they’re not having sex.”

What gives him the authority to preach on this topic? After all, isn’t sex a little outside a Rabbi’s expertise? Apparently not: Boteach is the author of a number of erotic manuscripts including Kosher Sex and (more recently) Lust for Love: Rekindling Intimacy and Passion in Your Relationship (which he co-authored with Pamela Anderson).

Intrigued? Luckily for you, he had more to say: “What binge watching does is, it almost saves your marriage – because we don’t want to confront the loss of passion, to acknowledge it, so having this noise to fill the silence is a convenient escape from having to focus on the loss of intimacy.” Ouch.

 
 
 
 
 
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According to Boteach, this is driving, “The sexual famine that exists in the modern Western marriage,” in which couples become “too tired” and “too familiar” to get down and dirty.

“Whether it’s mental health issues and an overly-drugged society, whether its the fact women really have two jobs today, working to help support families and then all the domestic responsibilities; these are all important factors.”

As reported by The Sydney Morning Herald, Boteach also blamed, “The ubiquity of pornography” for reducing our interest in real-world sex. Depressing? Sure. Inaccurate? We’ll let you be the judge.

But before you reach for the divorce papers, it might be worth giving his tips for re-kindling the romance a try.

  • Don’t walk around the bedroom naked: “Nakedness in marriage has to be earned”.
  • Don’t overshare mundane details of your life with your partner: “We are not supposed to be grafted to each other and morphed into each other; this leads to erotic familiarity.”
  • Women: be more open about your fantasies with your husband.
  • Men: ask your wife “erotic questions”.
  • Both partners: don’t discuss anything practical after 9 pm: “The practical is what openly extinguishes eroticism.”

Oh, and courtesy of The Sydney Morning Herald: “Don’t fart in bed.”