I ran across an article on the USA Today website which was titled “Westin survey respondents pick sleep over sex” (written by Kitty Bean Yancey and based on a recent guest survey Westin Hotels completed), and the results warrant comment.
What they found was that 51% of their respondents picked a good night’s sleep over sex.
Of course, the first thing that pops into mind is that perhaps female guests picked “sleep” and male guests picked “sex” (that being how self-reports regarding sexual behavior tend to turn out). But the article states that male respondents were more likely to pick sleep over sex than were female respondents.
Another finding of interest was that, a decade ago, the same survey found that only 31% of the respondents opted for sleep rather than sex. So that’s 20 percentage points of slippage in only 10 years and that’s a lot!
Here were some of the other findings:
- 42% would rather find a sleeping pill on their pillow than the usual chocolate at turndown.
- More than half of travelers - 62% - say they take an over-the-counter or prescription relaxant, sleeping pill or stress medication during an overnight stay away from home.
- 60% said their BlackBerry or other personal digital assistant has hindered getting a good night’s sleep.
- 57% said a great hotel bed provides a better sleep experience than at home.
“…
but more recently it seems we’re now living so that we can work
…”
We used to say that we worked so that we can live, but more recently it seems we’re now living so that we can work. It certainly appears to be very misplaced priorities, but individual participants have only limited choice in terms of escaping the gerbil wheel.
But these findings don’t just illustrate how we’re working way too much to enjoy life the way it ought to be enjoyed. They also show just how much sex has evolved from being an unbridled pleasure to being mostly just another chore for large numbers of people.
Take, for example, the 57% who had said that a great hotel bed provides a better sleep experience.
Why might that be?
Chances are that it’s not that their own bed is poorly designed … presumably they could buy the same kinds of bed that hotels can buy. The real difference, I suspect, is likely to be that your bed at home also has your spouse in it and the hotel bed does not. And it’s the peace and quiet from not having to interact with said spouse (especially when she’s in “we need to talk” or “cold shoulder” mode) that’s the real attraction of sleeping in a hotel bed.
And that’s pretty depressing … what have we come to?
Stay tuned,
Mack Doppler
