As we all know, Thanksgiving is an incredibly sexy holiday. And while Thanksgiving-horn skeptics might be inclined to argue that its seasonal successor, Christmas, is a far superior sex-having holiday, those people have been proven wrong.
Indeed, despite the abundance of sexy Christmas lingerie on the market and the provocative mythology surrounding Sexy Santa, the original sugar daddy, recent research suggests the Yuletide season doesn’t tend to put most of us in the mood. Rather, sex tends to drop off in the days leading up to the holiday, before picking back up around New Year’s Eve.
In an investigation analyzing the self-reported sexual activity of more than 500,000 women who logged their sexual encounters on the women’s health app Clue, Stanford University’s Laura Symul noticed a significant sexual dry spell right around Christmastime. While holidays in general, including Valentine’s Day and even bank holidays, tended to correspond with a spike in sexual activity, the three days leading up to Christmas turned out to be surprisingly sexless.
Micaela Martinez at Columbia University in New York, who was also involved in the research, theorizes the sex spike they found on weekends and more low-key holidays suggests “that having leisure time with your intimate partner facilitates sex.” Christmas, however, is not a holiday that tends to provide a lot of down time for most.
“Christmas carries a lot of work, and expectations, with it: from organizing and wrapping presents, to making the home look different and special, to preparing special foods and perhaps doing Christmas cards,” Dr. Kate Boyer, a senior lecturer in human geography at Cardiff University, told the Guardian. “In most families there isn’t someone at home who can make this ‘holiday work’ their priority, so it ends up getting squeezed in around jobs and childcare. It just isn’t a recipe for feeling sexy.”
Sexual activity tends to pick up again once the holiday stress winds down, with the research finding people returning to their regularly scheduled hookups the day after Christmas, enjoying a sex surge that lasts through New Year’s Day.
For the time being, however, a sexual dry spell is settling in around us like a blanket of newfallen snow, chilling our libidos and nipping our sexual urges like Jack Frost at one’s nose. As it turns out, the birth of Christ isn’t as sexy as we thought, so let this be a reminder to get your last holiday fucks in at Thanksgiving next year.
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