Ruli Pennington - Talking Local Government podcast producer @CLGdotPOD executive producer @CLGdotTV. Passionate about better public services, devolution, chess, malt whisky, women's football.
@UnruliPPer-Erik Muskos, a 42-year-old councillor for the town of Övertorneå in Sweden feels that people are not spending enough time together and has tabled a motion allowing employees to take a one-hour, daily, fully paid, sex break.
Övertorneå is a northern municipality (pop. 4,500) on the Swedish-Finish border reports www.thelocal.se The area is noted for long lasting marriages. On average a marriage contracted in Övertorneå will last for 42 years compared to the national average of 25 years and some parts of Stockholm where marriages last less than 16 years on average "before divorce or death" intervenes.
Notwithstanding Övertorneå's performance in the Swedish marriage endurance league Councillor Muskos feels that in the virtual/digital age the physical side of relationships needs help.
"It's about having better relationships," Muskos says while admitting that there would be no way of policing what was going on during the proposed sex-breaks and that there was a real possibility that people might just go for a walk on their own instead.