Chore Whore

From Lee Fearnley’s greeting card collection

I call him my Chore Whore.

It is a term of endearment, always said with affection, and one that developed out of my deep appreciation for the tasks he undertakes. Yes, I tease my husband about how great his ass looks when he’s bent over scrubbing floors, but underneath my raised eyebrows and his wiggling ones is the shared knowledge that what he is doing is an Act of Service**, and that his doing and my acknowledging of the chores he undertakes is an expression of our underlying relationship.

He takes on the tasks that frustrate me, that squick me out, that try my patience. Hubby does the jobs at home that I don’t like to do, the things at which I balk or sigh or turn up my nose or run away screaming. He is the chief bottle washer and laundry seargant, the lawn boy and gardener, the bathroom cleaner, floor scrubber, and spider killer. He unloads grocery bags from my car and makes my bed. He replaces outdoor lights and maintains the exterior of our home. He secures the house every night and tucks me in before I go to sleep. He makes scrubby stuff for cleaning our tile. He empties the cat box.

And he does all those things because he enjoys doing them. He takes on those tasks cheerfully because they are the things he likes to do. (Except maybe the cat box part. Does anyone actually enjoy that?)

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Much has been made of service as a form of submission. While I understand the premise, I don’t really ‘get’ it. At least not in any Uber-Dommey Rules And Protocols kind of way. I just don’t kink to that.

I am not a task-master. Driving someone to do something they aren’t self-motivated to undertake does nothing for me. Making demands is not my style.

Will I ask? Yes.

Will I make a list of things that need to be done? Absolutely.

I do both regularly, and I follow up to make sure my requests have been met. But the reason I can do that is because the person to whom I am regularly assigning tasks has already repeatedly demonstrated that he is willing and able to do them, and he does them without complaint. And I thank him for it. (I also threaten to stick him on a corner and pimp him out to do chores for other women. “We’ll need business cards,” I tell him, “and a rate schedule. And all checks are to be made payable to ME.”)

But forcing him? Making him do something uncomfortable?

Absolutely not.

I have better things to do than grump at my partner to tick X, Y, and Z off my chore list. To me, that’s work. Of a very unpleasant nature. If I need something done I’d rather do it myself – regardless of how detestable I find the job – than grouse at an unwilling help meet. There is nothing sexy about that.

HOWEVER

If it’s a natural exchange, if a man – my man – is doing things for me because of a genuine desire to help, to alleviate my burden, to make my life less taxing, to provide for me in some way…

That is sexy as fuck.

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A submissive male blogger recently posted a question along the lines of “What would you have me do (or do with/to me) if you could borrow me for a day?”

Now, I’m sure there are Twue Dommes™ out there who would start salivating at that question and who, if the opportunity arose, would have their borrowed subbie licking their toilets clean and polishing their bullwhip collection, all the while beating his ass with last night’s leftover chicken drumsticks.

Me? Not so much.

While I find the question intriguing, it’s not really one I can answer effectively in the context provided, because I don’t know the man who posed it. We are not in a relationship. Assigning tasks is for me, just like exploring kinks and refining fantasies, completely relationship-based and person-dependent.

The whole concept of providing a task lust… Err, list… It doesn’t exactly turn me on. Sure, I have a running “wish list” of things I’d like to have done. Who doesn’t? My car needs detailing, my gutters need cleaning, my driveway needs smoothing, my kitchen needs a floor-to-ceiling spring cleaning and a half, etc. But assigning those tasks in a F/m fashion…

Nah. No thanks.

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But, you are wondering, what about sexy tasks, Feve?

Here’s the thing:

While it is perfectly acceptable for my my husband (and only my husband) to reference his attendance to my body as “doing [his] chores” (because he says it light-heartedly and only when he’s enjoying himself), I have a distinct aversion to categorizing anything sex-related as ‘work’. So while I understand, intellectually, that for some folks it’s hot to be assigned sex-related tasks (i.e., being required to wear a butt plug all day or complying with specific Edging instructions or counting down from 100 while being spanked or sending a particularly-posed photo), it’s – again – not something I kink to.

Sure, I do those things. I stimulate his body and tell him he is not allowed to cum. I make it clear he is to endure his birthday spanking until I have counted to his age. I demand that he give me an orgasm, or require that he provide me three (more) before he’s allowed to have one. (And that one is often not the way he wants.) I tell him if and when and how he can touch himself. (“Keep your hands off your dick!” can often be heard echoing, post-shouted-instruction, through our house.) Etcetera, ad infinitum, ad imagination-um.

I give him commands, I make demands, I set expectations of a sexual nature. Yes, yes, and yes. But to me, the sexy things I ask of him are not tasks. Thinking about them that way makes me cringe.

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As for anyone else setting tasks for me?

Fuhgettaboutit.

Sexual or otherwise.

I am decidedly NOT a Chore Whore. 🙂

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Are you a Chore Whore?
How do you feel about setting or completing tasks in a relationship?

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**Acts of Service is one of the Five Love Languages, as outlined by Gary Chapman by his book of the same title. It’s been a fantastic tool for my husband and I to each understand how the other communicates. If you are interested, you can find more information here.