Sex and the Unemployed Woman

While looking up research on dating and the unemployed, I ran across this article on Nerve.

Might not be safe for work – take heed.

I began to wonder how sex and romance are affected for an unemployed woman when she’s in a relationship. And… when she’s not.

I’ve been unemployed and in love (sometimes, even at the same time). Usually, however, it seems that my love life is tanking at the exact same moment when my career is heading somewhere. Then, the polar opposite crops up as my professional life is heading towards a quasi-black hole – I find Mr. Right (For Now).

In other instances, people have used their personal relationships as reasons behind bad job performance…most likely because they are looking for an external reason to hate a crappy job in the first place.

In truth, my love life has (in)directly caused a crappy job performance.  I know all that stuff advocating the separation of work and personal dramas, but that’s a real dream. It’s like trying to separate yourself from your own skin. Theoretically, you can ignore it and pretend it’s not there, not take care of it and tell everyone the pimples they see are actually stress bumps.

But eventually, you’ll have to do something about it if you aren’t interested in looking like a pimple-infested, pus oozing weirdo.

It’s the maintenance that keeps the breakouts from coming.  Relationships (and sex) are the same. You can pretend it’s not there because they are relatively easy to start yet, it’s the maintenance (or lack thereof) that can be the true killer.

OK – back to sex and the (sometimes single) unemployed woman.  This has been on my mind because there is lots of talk about dating on a budget, dating in a recession, dating when you are unemployed – blah blah blah.

But, in a meandering way – these articles aren’t getting to the nitty gritty of what I want to know.

Are women
just
as likely
to sleep with
a man
when he is
jobless versus when he
isn’t? Are women just as likely to sleep with a man when he is jobless versus when he isn’t?
Would men date a woman who is unemployed?  Are unemployed women equally stressed in their sex lives like men?

Women are connected to work differently than men – they are connected to sex differently than men. So, when they are canned and there’s no sweetie to warm the covers with – how likely (and how fast) are they going to become disconnected from sex before they become disconnected from their career motivations?

And stop – I don’t want to hear any crap about how people should “only look at the personality” or shouldn’t judge others on such “superficial” things. Wanting to date someone who has a job (and legal means of income) is not superficial.

Men are just as likely as women to judge your dating “merit” on your ability to get a job or hold one.

So, when there is no job – is there still just as much sex for a woman?

Penelope Trunk touched upon this when she blogged that more sex will be a coming trend in the recession. And, as condom sales go up – that must mean men (and women) are smacking more tail than they could when 8 hours of their day was devoted to working it for the man – no pun intended.

Or, maybe people are anticipating more sex because now they can spend part of their unemployment check (and job searching hours) at the bars? Or, opting to stay at home (assuming they are not at home alone)?

Besides the unavoidable see-sawing – one’s sex life is also in a constant roller coaster as well. Even when we’re in steady, great relationships – it doesn’t change the fact that your better half is not working.  Things have inevitably steered into a different course, particularly, if your partner is demanding more sex (or not demanding any).

What is the quality of a woman’s sex life when she is unemployed? Do women associate the same kinds of stress from being out of work like men (and have it manifest in their sex life)?

Maybe it’s really about priorities. Women don’t prioritize (or categorize) sex the same way men do.

So, if the quality of their professional lives takes a hit – a woman’s sex life remains unaffected because women tend not to singularly indentify their personal worth with their jobs like men do.

For someone like me – who will be gainfully unemployed for a year in a few weeks – there hasn’t been much change in my love life pre-unemployment. There have been moments when I began to wonder if something was wrong because I hadn’t found anything yet.

However, momentary crushing moments of self-doubt haven’t affected me to the point where I’ve morphed into something else entirely – like Paul Nawrocki.

I don’t know. Maybe I should get a job as a sexpert instead.

Featured in the April 9, 2008 issue of The Printed Blog