alexandermcmanus

TV in the bedroom halves your sex life

Thinking of buying a TV for the bedroom? Think again — it could ruin your sex life.

Reuters reports that “A study by an Italian sexologist has found that couples who have a TV set in their bedroom have sex half as often as those who don’t.” This article is everywhere. Here’s a link:TV in the bedroom

Maybe Italy is not as romantic a place as we thought.

Along these same lines, my post, Tivo, Sex and You, asks, “what happens to sex when we have 100 hours of tivo to get through by the end of the week?”

What do you think? Is television the ultimate birth control? Technology can bring us closer. Can it also make us more distant?

Top Post of the Day: Niza asks, “What does it take to leave eveything and go? A terrific post called “Great New Movie” regarding a life of following Christ in conversation with two terrific movies. Comments worth reading.

into the mystic…

Alex McManus.

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alexandermcmanus

17 responses to “TV in the bedroom halves your sex life”

James Petticrew

January 19, 2006

We have never had tv in the bedroom 🙂
🙂
🙂
never missed it !!!!!

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Deana Watson

January 19, 2006

Sure it can make us more distant…but so can work…and kids…and taxes…and school…and chores…it’s all about balance. As far as the tv goes…turn it off before you are tired if there is one in your room…same with the computer…just walk away before you are tired…then you can have energy and focus…ahem ahem…for other things.

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Mel

January 20, 2006

The ultimate birth control is baby sitting for a family who had eight kids and then the father lost his job. Talk about family planning 101.

I think having a TV in your bedroom has proliferated not just with the advent of inexpensive and widely available technology, but also since the advent of wide-spread travel. I’ll explain: People go to hotels, where there is a TV in the bedroom; they think, “Oh, how nice. This is relaxing: just laying in bed and watching late-night TV.” Later when they buy a newer, bigger TV (vive le materialism), they move the old one into their bedroom. This leads to watching TV instead of reading before going to sleep. It is much easier to interrupt somebody who is reading than somebody who is watching TV; you only have to disrupt the visual cues, as opposed to with TV, where there are audio and visual cues. Hence, less sex. Yet another great arguement for reading instead of turning your brains to mush with all that TV. Literacy workers of the world, unite!

So, are technology and world travel ending our sex life and leading to the break-up of the family? I don’t think so. Keeping a marriage together has always been a challenge and will always be a challenge (says the girl who’s never tried it). But they may be the newest assault on it.

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Mel

January 20, 2006

PS Can you imagine that guys business card? Job Title: Leading Sexologist. How exactly does one get to that point? “What do you want to be when you grow up, Johnny?” “I want to be a sexologist.”

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candyce

January 20, 2006

as a single chick, i still don’t keep a tv in my bedroom. i heard somewhere that it can affect your sleep in that watching tends to keep you awake. of course i do keep my desktop computer in my room, which tends to keep me awake. go figure.

this post reminds me of some other sleep tips i heard recently. i’m not going to post it, but those who know me can ask me about it sometime… 🙂

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Anne Jackson

January 21, 2006

Chris and I have never had a TV in our bedroom…that’s all I’m gonna say about that!

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Jason Rewis

January 21, 2006

I just threw my TV outside and lit it on fire…..just kidding. But my wife and I never use our TV in our bedroom, I’m not sure why we have it.
We always use the one in the living room. I think it’s because I read in a “50 ways to sleep better” book one time that you shouldn’t use “where you sleep” for anything accept sex and sleep. It confuses your mind, blah, blah, blah

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shaman

January 21, 2006

What if you don’t usually have sex in the bedroom?

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alex mcmanus

January 21, 2006

I’m in the Marriott’s hotel lobby in Seattle reading your comments and cracking up. You guys are so funny.

Thank you for the enjoyable laughs. Really.

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Deana Watson

January 22, 2006

okay shaman…just choked on my drink…seriously…water coming up my nose!

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candyce

January 22, 2006

ok, so the ‘not using the bedroom for anything other than sex and sleep’ tip was exactly the sleep tip i wasn’t going to post. (actually the website where i saw that put it as ‘intimacy and sleep’. i wondered if praying in your bedroom can count as intimacy.) since it’s now been posted, i’ll go ahead and acknowledge that. 🙂 i’ll just say that really puts limits on what i (being a single chick and all) can do in the bedroom. shoot.

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Mel

January 23, 2006

This has nothing to do with sex, but…

I was home schooled and grew up in an old house with a heating system at least twice as old as I was. I used to do my homework in bed with blankets pulled up all around me.

When I got to college I had trouble sleeping. I realized that I had a lot more stress in my life and something had to change. So I had to go to the “no home work in the bedroom” rule. My bedroom is used strictly for sleeping and reading fiction books (magazine articles or other things that make me think critically are relegated to the living room).

The fiction books may be the next to go. This is sad, because I am an introvert, with flatmates, and like to think of my room as a haven of sorts. But I think it will have to happen because while I was unemployed and didn’t want to lay there worrying about things before I fell asleep I got into the habit of reading myself to sleep, usually not until after midnight, and then waking up at three in the morning and turning the light off. I actually had insomnia for a particularly stressful week when I was interviewing at some places. I have a job now so the bad-stress levels are down again and I go to bed much earlier, but the bad sleeping habits persist…any advice?

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Jason Rewis

January 23, 2006

Hey Mel,

I found the “50 Ways To Sleep Better” book I was talking about earlier and it says that a person shouldn’t read in bed. Even if they have to put a chair in their room to sit in a read, just don’t read in bed.
Their kind of obsessive compulsive about the whole NOTHING BUT SEX AND SLEEP IN BED!!! Anyways, thought I would share.

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Jason Rewis

January 23, 2006

I didn’t really expain, sorry. This books whole mentality is, our mind gets use to routines, so if the only time you get in bed is for sex and/or sleep your mind will only associate the bed with that. So when you get in bed your mind won’t say, “I’m still awake I want to read or watch TV” It will say, “I’m tired I want to sleep.”
Or depending on which comes most, when you get in bed, sleep or sex I guess your mind could say, “I want sex!” Well, you get the general idea….

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Mel

January 23, 2006

Thanks, Jason, I do actually have a chair in my room…a lovely though well-worn chair which my mother rocked me in when I was a baby. I should probably push the laundry and the magazines off of it and use it. 🙂 Novel thought, that.

I imagine the first week or so trying to go to sleep without reading will be tough…although not nearly as tough as the week I quit consuming caffeine, cold turkey. If I could handle that I think I can handle anything.

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Nicolas Nelson

January 26, 2006

Jason, I almost cheered as I read the beginning of your comment when you said I just threw my TV outside and lit it on fireâ€¦ …but then I read the rest and let my breath out as a sigh. It can be lonely, being anti-TV in a televised world. 😉

If anyone wants help kicking a TV addiction, I’m happy to give all the necessary rationale and encouragement. As the sticker on my trusty Xtracycle boasts, it is The Bike that Hauls… Your TV to the Dump.

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Hank

April 11, 2006

What if TV in the bedroom is just a smoke screen?

Two people are in bed together and all they can think of to do is watch TV? Hello?

It’s the same as the statistics on people who have books. Statistically people who are smarter own more books. But just buying books doesn’t make u smart. They smart people just happen to buy, read and understand the books…thus they are smarter than those without books.

It’s seems to be similar to the TV argument rigth?

People who have a TV don’t have as much sex.
But getting rid of your TV doesn’t mean you’re gonna have more sex right? You probably have some relational woooing to get done.

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