He gets cranky and dysfunctional without it.
Dear How to Do It,
My husband “Larson” has developed an unusual problem. He is unable to fall asleep (or so he claims) unless we have sex, or, at a minimum, he receives oral sex. This has gone on for the last three months. At first I thought he was making it up, but on nights where I turn him down, I get woken up throughout the night with his tossing and turning. Come morning he’s an exhausted wreck. Once he even had to miss a day of work because he was so tired.
Our sex life is what I would describe as pretty normal, and on nights when we do it, he sleeps soundly after. Same thing when he’s given head. It’s when he doesn’t get either that he becomes an insomniac. So my question is, is this a real thing where a person literally cannot fall asleep without some form of sexual release, or am I being played?
—Wondering
Dear Wondering,
As wild as it may sound, there’s some data to back your husband’s claim. A study of mainly students that was published in the Journal of Sleep Research in 2023 found that partnered sex with orgasm was associated with reduced sleep latency (that is, the time it takes to fall asleep) and increased sleep quality. The results were based on pretest questionnaires and diaries that the subjects kept for two weeks, so it’s important to keep in mind that this data comes from self-reporting. (Another study from 2019 also found that sexual activity with orgasm was perceived to facilitate sleep.)
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