Monday, August 6, 2012

Ch 3: Supply & Demand

This chapter relates sex in a relationship to "the negative sloping demand curve," which shows the inverse relationship between cost and desire:  If the cost of something is too high, you want less of it:  "when the cost of sex becomes too high, you'll opt for a mindless night of TV and jelly doughnuts" (69).  Of course, the key term is cost, and they're clear they don't mean prostitution (but let's face it, all marriages are a kind of sexual contract and are essentially prostitution).  They mean what you have to give up in order to get what you want, as in this graph of the negative demand curve below:

Demand for sex, pg. 70.

(Just a note, I think they did the graph wrong.  If you reverse the axes, and put cost on the X axis, then you get a true negative demand curve where as costs go up, sex goes down graphically.  In other words, X and O would change places).

As Paula and Jenny point out, we all tend to become more like Couple X as years go by, where the costs of sex are prohibitive in terms of time, energy, effort, and missed work, etc.  Couple O (ha ha) has lowered the cost by doing it right after the kids go to bed and signaling to each other when they are in the mood rather than waiting for things to happen romantically.  They do it several times a week.

At this point, however, our intrepid authors warn about the dangers of trying to compare your sex life to some other couples'.  For instance, a friend of mine who's been married over 13 years says he's always had sex with his wife about one a week.  I almost spit out my drink.  The economic term for this chatter about what others are doing is called "marked noise," and as in the stock market, you should ignore it most of the time.  Easier said than done, but it's probably a good idea.

It's also a good idea not to let your marriage become celibate:  Studies show that there's a link between sex and marital happiness.  They cite a few studies and report in their own survey that 92% of people who have sex 2-3 times a week report being satisfied or very satisfied in their relationships.  Yeah, no shit. Only 56% of those who had sex every few months reported being satisfied (That is, all the women. And the 6% who were men were either gay or impotent...rimshot).

Solution:  Have More Sex

It really is that simple.  Instead of talking about how you're not having sex, just do it, especially if you want your marriage to be satisfying.  Now the economic lesson here is to lower the costs somehow.  The book offers three ways of doing that:
  1. Be more transparent--only transparent markets work fairly and well, so let each other know what you want, what works, what gets you excited, etc.  Therapy can help air things you've been holding back.
  2. Reset your habits--get back in the habit of having sex by reducing the costs (my examples: put the kids to bed earlier, share chores to get them done faster, do it on the weekends during kids nap times, etc).
  3. Signal your desire to your partner.  Come up with a system of signals and/or recognizeable signs of being in the mood.
I think, though the authors don't emphasize this enough, is that this solution requires compromise and that both partners have to want their marriage to thrive.  They do point out that it's incumbent up each partner to realize that the benefit of have sex must outweigh the cost in order for a marriage to survive.  


That might mean doing it when you don't want to, which most marriage partners report doing at one time or another:

Pg. 90
The point here is to highlight the benefits as well as lowering the costs.

Sure, they admit, there's the issue of differing libidos--you want it most of the time, she doesn't--but economists might say that not having sex is a matter of "coordination failure," that is, "when two or more parties are faced with an identical set of choices" (93).  The outcome can benefit all parties, just one, or none. This coordination game also includes matching buyers with sellers.

This is where signaling can reduce guilt and/or rejection by advertising who's ready for Business Time:

Pg. 96

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