One of our favourite books of this year is called Porn for Women: it features hunky (but clothed) men doing household chores, making cups of tea, asking for directions, listening intently, and saying things such as, “I love a clean house!”, or “As long as I have two legs to walk on, you’ll never take out the trash”. The feminist blogosphere took immediate self-righteous offence: women are visual creatures too, they said. Women think about sex as much as they do about housework, they said. Women are grown-ups who deserve real porn, they said.

Well, yes. But that’s only half the story. Because while there are plenty of women who turn to porn or erotica during their “alone time”, who’d consider the book a waste of money because the men aren’t naked, and who wish their husbands were up for sex more than once a month, there are just as many women who could take or leave sex a good deal of the time. And most of these women, we venture, would find the book hilarious. Here’s the thing: a guy with a Dyson isn’t inherently sexy – especially if he’s doing the cleaning in the hope of earning himself a sexual favour later that night. But a guy who wields a Dyson on a regular basis, just because he knows that his wife hates lugging it around the house? Now you are talking.

One of the first steps in nurturing a woman’s libido is recognising that there’s more than one way to get in the mood. If she’s tired, or preoccupied, or stressed, then licking her ears or groping her breasts is about as likely to get her in the mood as an episode of Top Gear.

“The most toxic misunderstanding that men have about female libido is that sex drive is about feeling physically aroused and hot for sex,” says Sandra Pertot, author of When Your Sex Drives Don’t Match.

“Sex drive is anything that helps you to decide that sex is a good idea, and what helps many women in long-term relationships make that decision is the ‘Oh, isn’t he sweet’ feeling.” It might not be the Dyson, of course – but it’s as good a place as any to start, given the number of married women who listed household chores when we asked them what would put them in the mood for sex more often.

“My husband always complains that it’s unsexy when I nag him, but how does he think it makes me feel when I have to nag him? Like my mother!” says Fiona, 43, who’s been married for a decade. She gets the “isn’t he sweet” feeling when her husband remembers, of his own accord, that Tuesday is the night the recycling bins go out, or Thursday is after-school swimming class for the kids. He thinks that he’s earning points just by doing everything she asks, but she’d rather not have to ask every time. A woman can be easily preoccupied by her mental to-do list, but if she’s convinced that he can be responsible for that list, too, she might let it go . . . long enough to remember how long it’s been since they’ve had sex.

“The problem is that this isn’t a straight ‘If I do this I’ll get sex immediately’ formula,” says Pertot. “It’s more about creating an atmosphere in the relationship that builds shared intimacy and mutual caring – foreplay for women in a long-term relationship is often about the 24/7 sharing of housework or child responsibilities.”

That said, occasionally the rewards will be immediate. “It’s easier to relax when the niggling little chores are not hanging over my head, and if he sends me off to take a bath with a promise that he’ll clean up the supper dishes, his odds of being invited to wash my back are doubled,” says Shana, 39, who’s been married for seven years.

But if you long ago paid out for a house-cleaner or live-in nanny, then you’ll have to figure out how else to elicit that feeling from your partner. It might be as simple as kissing her full on the lips and smiling as if you’ re happy to see her when she walks in the door. Or maybe it’s secretly setting the TV to record the Julia Roberts marathon.

Amanda, 38, says that watching her husband take a risk to make her happy gets her every time. “He’s terrified of looking like a fool, especially on the dance floor, so it’s always thrilling when he abandons his comfort zone and lets loose with me.” It’s not that he moves like Justin Timberlake on the dance floor – far from it, she says – but rather that he does it for her.

Next on her list? She wants him to wear a thick-ribbed black cotton polo neck, which is decidedly outside his sartorial comfort zone. And she wouldn’t mind if he’d don “those knee-high black leather boots that are always being worn in Jane Austen movies” too – though she acknowledges that she might have to wait for a fancy-dress party for that. Or just get him to wear them in the bedroom. (Even if the attempt at 19th-century roleplaying left them both collapsed in giggles, we can guarantee that his willingness to play along would at least elicit that all-important “isn’t he sweet” feeling.)

Whatever he does, the most important thing is that he doesn’t see it as a quid pro quo scenario – back to the sexual favour theory of cleaning the loos. And this goes for more traditional acts of seduction, too, such as candle-lit dinners, fresh flowers, and sensual (rather than sexual) touch.

“I wish my husband would touch me affectionately more often without expecting sex,” Shana says. “I can’t usually get in the mood ‘on demand’, and if all the snuggles, hugs and kisses carry an unspoken expectation of more, I’m likely to pull away rather than start something I’m not sure I feel like finishing . . . but without that physical affection, I’m unlikely to get in the mood. It’s a Catch22 that a man can put an end to by not pressing for sex every time there’s a hug and ten minutes available.”

Amanda, too, wishes that her husband understood the importance of “random touching that’s not exclusively sexual”. She says that she finds herself stroking his bare forearms a lot, in the hope that he’ll respond in kind. “I want to be petted! I must have been a cat in another life.”

The problem is that a lot of men assume that women experience sex exactly as they do: they experience sexual desire, then sexual excitement follows closely behind, and eventually – boom! – orgasm. But it doesn’t always work this way for women. Some women need to be aroused and feel excited before the desire to have sex kicks in. And sensual touch that’s free of expectations may be just what gets her aroused. (“If you get annoyed that she doesn’t initiate sex after, say, a long massage, she’ll stop responding at all to these approaches in the future,” Pertot says.) Other women start with a simple openness to have sex – inspired, perhaps, by that “isn’t he sweet” feeling – and eventually excitement, or desire, joins the party.

Alexis, a 33-year-old CEO and mother of a one-year-old child, whose No 1 sex wish is that her husband would hoover without her asking him, explains it this way: “Women are always ‘switched on’ when it comes to everything but sex. We wake up and we’re ready to go. Men wake up and must have some coffee before you can give them the day’s instructions. Women need foreplay like men need coffee.” “Men shouldn’t take it as personal rejection,” Amanda says. “Women are more complicated beings than men, aren’t they? If all we needed to activate our libidos was a naked picture, we’d be men.”

Seduction tips for grown-up boys . . .

1. Get in the bath together: it helps to separate work from play and wakes up her nerve endings, too.

2. Set the scene: dim the lights, play some music she likes, change the sheets – hide the dirty laundry and your BlackBerry.

3. Kiss her how you used to on your early dates: put your hands in her hair, hold her face, and take your time.

4. As you undress her, (and DO undress her) tell her how much you love her body. Be specific! “And this is my favourite part . . .”

5. Don’t go straight for the boobs! That’s for teen boys and men who take their wives for granted.

6. If she has trouble being selfless in bed, blindfold her with your tie so she has no choice.

Emma Taylor and Lorelei Sharkey are the authors of six books on sex and relationships, including Buh Bye: The Ultimate Guide to Dumping and Getting Dumped (Chronicle Books). emandlo.com

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