Picture this: It’s 10:30 p.m., the kids are finally asleep, a mountain of laundry stares back at you from across the room, and your partner leans over with that look. You’re torn between “Aw, that’s sweet” and “Please don’t touch me until I’ve had eight hours of uninterrupted REM sleep.”
Sound familiar? You’re not alone.
The myth of “It should just happen”
Many of us grew up believing that great sex is supposed to be spontaneous. That it just happens when the stars (and your babysitter’s availability) align. But in reality, life, with all its deadlines, diapers, and dishes, rarely offers that kind of cinematic spontaneity.
Our culture has long sold us on the idea that if you have to plan sex, something’s wrong with your relationship. But new research by the Sexual Health and Relationships Lab at York University—by myself, Amy Muise, and four co-authors—shows that this belief might be holding couples back from more frequent intimacy and desire.
It turns out that planning sex is kind of hot.
The study
In a preregistered study newly published in The Journal of Sex Research (Kovacevic et al., 2025), 310 parents with young children were encouraged to read about…
