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SocietyFebruary 16, 2019

How to decorate your home to make men horny for you

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A reporter for the Daily Mail interviewed some ‘interiors therapists’ who warned her that her home was repelling men. Emily Writes has some advice on how to make your home welcoming to dudes.

This article was published in February 2019.

I knew I had to click the article as soon as I saw it. How to avoid turning your home into a manrepeller: Interiors therapist reveals the items that could be making your abode off-putting to men, it read. I have cohabited with a man since I was 17 so I was keen to know if our decor was man enough to please my husband.

I remember well the first time I went home with him to find a Holden bedspread on his bed and silk sheets. Luckily I stuck with him and we now have two kids and not a silk sheet to be found. I also KonMari’d the shit out of all of his Holden gear including his precious poster of a Holden car somehow pissing onto a Ford car like that makes any sense whatsoever.

Liz Hoggard, the author of the stunning Daily Mail piece, has the kind of house I want to live in. It has ladies all over the walls, cacti, no children, no men. It sounds like a dream. But the “interior therapists” didn’t agree. She was marked down for having images of single women which apparently told men: ““I’m fine on my own. I don’t need anybody else. I am perfectly comfortable as I am. Don’t mess with me.”

What she needed was images that said “Please, take me home and jackhammer my cervix for a minute and a half and then critique the art on my wall even though the only art you put in your mum’s basement is a picture of dogs playing snooker on the wall.”

Not snooker, but another great option

Critiquing women and trying to get them to change who they are for men seems to be a national sport. I thought I might be able to help what with my impressive knowledge of What Men Like gleaned from years of men called Dave, Steve, and Jeff emailing me daily to tell me I’m wrong about Feminism, Breastfeeding, Giving Birth, Being A Working Mum, Pelvic Floor Exercises, Midwifery, The Gender Pay Gap, Women’s Work and so on and so on and so on until I die of mansplaining. So I’m prepared to offer you this information free of charge! I’m good like that.

First up – get rid of your nice furniture and replace it with three different chairs collected from the Tip Shop or the side of the road. You need to somehow include one Jim Beam chair that was given away free from The Mill in 2004.

Chuck the coffee table and replace it with a cracked glass table inherited from a dead grandmother that Josh fell through that night he drank absinthe. Coffee tables that are held together with duct tape show you’re carefree and optimistic. A Bob Marley flag is the perfect art work to compliment your new stubby collection, including one shaped like a woman’s body – tits and all.

Ensure all furniture is centred around an enormous TV with an Xbox and PlayStation connected. The fact that it’s sitting on a Swappa Crate will show you’re industrious and you’re good with your hands.

You want to make your space welcoming for a man and apparently that means no plants of any kind. Because it’s a known fact men don’t like plants?

Wallpaper? Unneeded. Just pull pictures from FHM and stick them on the wall. Bathroom décor? All you need is a basket that you fill with old copies of Mad magazine and Penthouse.

There are of course great tips from the “interior therapists” in the piece. One says, in all seriousness, “We need to make this room a boudoir to welcome a man into. A space where he feels comfortable and confident. And not squashed out by anything else.”

The more construction signs, the better

I suggest you craft some posters with glittery fonts that have supportive messages like “Keep going! My G-Spot is only 500m away from where you’re currently mashing your face!” or maybe a giant poster of a clitoris with arrows to make life a bit easier for him? How about a giant mirror? If it’s good enough for Patrick Bateman, it’s definitely good enough for Doug from The Grand.

Other great advice in the article included the author having a T-shirt with a woman’s face banned from her wardrobe. “Why would you wear another woman’s face?” DON’T YOU KNOW WE ARE IN COMPETITION FOR MEN LIZ!!

It could be funny if it wasn’t all so sad – for both men and women. I’ve never ever seen an article about how men can make their homes more welcoming for women. On Married At First Sight NZ last year it was considered hilarious that one contestant, an actual grown man who was getting married, had a mattress on the floor and no furniture. If it had been a woman contestant she’d have the experts talking about how she’s unhinged and not ready to marry.

Fraser’s bed on MAFS ft. decorative kimono

Women having to change everything to please men is a trope that has been around since the dawn of time, but that doesn’t make it any less ridiculous or grating. I want to see a piece on how men can show respect for the women in their lives by, I don’t know, not having their cum towel right next to their bed? If it feels like I’m rounding up all men and labelling them as ridiculous children incapable of looking after themselves – it’s because I am. And it doesn’t feel nice does it?

The reality is that heaps of men have lovely homes that they invite women into (I know I’m being heteronormative here but trust me, in the gay community this is not a conversation we have to have). But where are those men and why aren’t they rallying against ridiculous advice that makes them sound like fragile little babies who get soft at the site of a cactus? All that article seemed to solicit was a lot of eye-rolling from women. And a few laughs from men.

What I’d rather have seen is a bit of solidarity in pointing out the utter pointlessness of tropes that suggest single women are single because of their houses, or their clothes, or their personalities. Men are bachelors, women are spinsters. It’s all just as tired as a 1970s kitchen in need of a glow-up. Don’t get rid of your cactus, just get rid of pricks.

Keep going!