Trading Beads for Sex

Have you heard about this beading thing?

Carolyn Evans, 40, offered her husband an unusual gift for his birthday: 40 days of sex.

I'm a little sketchy on the details, but somehow this evolved into a bead-based trade and barter system that works like this:

"The woman keeps a bowl, a.k.a. beadcatcher, by her bedside. When her husband (or lover) is in the mood, he drops a bead into the beadcatcher. The woman has to be ready to slide between the sheets within 24 hours."

Evans credits this dancing in the sheets with fixing an ailing marriage. And she's written the book to prove it: Forty Beads comes out tomorrow.

The Spousonomics authors would say this is an example of signaling, a procedure whereby one partner makes his or her priorities more apparent to the other. (For more on signaling and Spousonomics, read my review of the book here.)

But here's the truth: you're probably already having more sex than your unmarried friends. Here's a research-based breakdown of frequency of sex, by age group and marital status.

AGE UNMARRIED MARRIED
18-29 69 112
30-39 66 86
40-49 50 69
50-59 31 54
60-69 16 33
70+ 3 16

Source: National Opinion Research Center, as cited in For Better.

So here's the deal: if 40 rolls in the hay sounds like a significant improvement over your usual, or if a signal might come in handy, then visit your bead shop today. Otherwise, just keep doing what you're doing.