A romantic Valentine’s is close. Like, broom-closet close. All you need for a sexy good time is a bucket of cleaning supplies and maybe a notary public — depending on how litigious you are. My wife and I are horrible at paperwork, so we struck our deal with a handshake. It was a dubious-sounding pact that went on to revolutionize our marriage: sex for cleaning.

Yes, it’s a solution worthy of its own Charlie Sheen sitcom, but then, our relationship was already well on its way to cliché. We were suffering a common dilemma for new parents: struggling to manage our marriage, our household and … oh yeah, keeping our 1-year-old son from joining a gang or something. Fortunately, the boy hasn’t yet come home with a tattoo or a beeper. But the marriage and the household were beginning to resemble something in need of a blindfold and a cigarette.

Before this most sensual of swaps, I more or less ignored housework for constant duties like diaper changing, reading “Llama Llama” books and thinking of gentle, encouraging, swear-free ways to tell our son, “Don’t put that in your mouth!” After a draining day at her office, my wife had a difficult time mustering up the oomph for even a decent bro hug. Add that to the energy she spent picking up around the “Sanford and Son” set we called a home, and we were quickly becoming more like roommates than soul mates.

Enter our X-rated deal.



Our compromise was born from dual needs for intimacy and cleanliness. I began cleaning the house while the boy was strapped into his highchair at mealtimes. This left my wife less stressed and with more free time in the evenings. Light the candles! Pour the bubbly! Cue the Al Green albums!

I know what you’re thinking. “Here’s where it all goes to hell, right?”

You’re not alone. I was also skeptical. This plan even sounded flimsy to me, and my libido helped write it. But our plan didn’t turn out to be the disaster both Charlie Sheen and common sense said it should have been. This boot-knocking bargain actually worked. I’m not saying a sex-for-cleaning scheme was a wonder drug for all family stress points. I’m just saying it neatly eased two of them.

This newfound partnership was turning every cleaning day into its own Valentine’s Day.

But one afternoon, kneeling on the floorboards, attempting to scrape up a raisin that may have witnessed the Clinton administration, I asked that big question: have I become a domestic gigolo?

The answer arrived easier than I thought. “Sure looks like it, dude.” Consider this: I now compared certain jobs against their erotic payoff. “This raisin isn’t worth a half-hour of naked time,” I thought, and gave up that day. Conversely, I found myself seductively mentioning our clean dishes whenever I was in the mood. This, I thought, is not how a normal husband behaves.

There was a time when I would have fought back against becoming some bedspring-squeaking pawn. But the cries of a nap-needy baby quickly scared that old, single, opinionated me away. My current incarnation was a lot mellower. He had no trouble selling out to the Swiffer. Yes, our kitchen emits a subtle whiff of Mr. Clean. So what?

It beats all the legit office jobs I’ve ever held. There’s a daily nap, and I wear whatever I want to the office. And, you know, the aforementioned cleaning rewards. I don’t recall there being much hanky-panky in the corporate world, no matter how frequently I swept my cubicle.

I think I’ll keep this gig.