I now have another excuse.
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Asleep on the job but she loves his work
By Stephen Cauchi
June 25 2003
Falling asleep after sex is common. But sleeping during sex?
Medical researchers have discovered an intriguing condition, sexsomnia, in which people who are asleep proceed to initiate sexual activity with their bedmates.
The condition, detailed in the June edition of the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, appears to be a mix of sleepwalking and adolescent wet dreams.
Amazingly, not all partners of such people are distressed or irritated by the novel experience of having an unconscious person make love to them.
Some almost prefer it.
The article, by three researchers from the universities of Toronto and Ottawa and Toronto Western Hospital, described sexsomnia as, if not a new condition, a "distinct variation" of sleepwalking.
The researchers discovered it by interviewing patients referred to a sleep clinic for normal sleep-related problems.
"Only subsequently did the issue of sexual behaviour during sleep emerge," wrote the researchers, although they noted prior cases of indecent exposure during sleep.
"We anticipate that the number of potential cases is large but sexual behaviour in sleep is not yet recognised by physicians as a behaviour of note or a problem."
There were 11 case studies, mostly male.
One married man, 35, had sexual dreams and "enacts these by having intercourse with his wife, who is convinced he is asleep . . . [he] is only aware of his behaviour from his wife's reports".
Two girlfriends of another 43-year-old man "independently confirmed that he frequently engages in sexual behaviour while asleep".
One describes him as a "different person" during these activities - apparently he is a more amorous and gentle lover and more orientated towards satisfying his partner."
By contrast, another man, 37, is "more aggressive and more amorous" while asleep, according to his wife. "He indulges in behaviours while asleep that he does not undertake when awake . . . there is no stopping him."
But when he once grabbed her neck, she had to slap him.