237 Reasons Why Women Have Sex

[Better Believe It]

237 Reasons Why Women Have Sex
By Tanya Gold
September 29, 2009

Drugs, money, revenge, because it's fun -- those are just a few of the reasons women have sex, according to a new book that interviewed 1,006 women from around the world.

Do you want to know why women have sex with men with tiny little feet? I am stroking a book called Why Women Have Sex. It is by Cindy Meston, a clinical psychologist, and David Buss, an evolutionary psychologist. It is a very thick, bulging book. I've never really wondered Why Women Have Sex. But after years of not asking the question, the answer is splayed before me.

Meston and Buss have interviewed 1,006 women from all over the world about their sexual motivation, and in doing so they have identified 237 different reasons why women have sex. Not 235. Not 236. But 237. And what are they? From the reams of confessions, it emerges that women have sex for physical, emotional and material reasons; to boost their self-esteem, to keep their lovers, or because they are raped or coerced. Love? That's just a song. We are among the bad apes now.

Why, I ask Meston, have people never really talked about this? Alfred Kinsey, the "father" of sexology, asked 7,985 people about their sexual histories in the 1940s and 50s; Masters and Johnson observed people having orgasms for most of the 60s. But they never asked why. Why?

"People just assumed the answer was obvious," Meston says. "To feel good. Nobody has really talked about how women can use sex for all sorts of resources." She rattles off a list and as she says it, I realise I knew it all along: "promotion, money, drugs, bartering, for revenge, to get back at a partner who has cheated on them. To make themselves feel good. To make their partners feel bad." Women, she says, "can use sex at every stage of the relationship, from luring a man into the relationship, to try and keep a man so he is fulfilled and doesn't stray. Duty. Using sex to get rid of him or to make him jealous."

"We never ever expected it to be so diverse," she says. "From the altruistic to the borderline evil." Evil? "Wanting to give someone a sexually transmitted infection," she explains. I turn to the book. I am slightly afraid of it. Who wants to have their romantic fantasies reduced to evolutional processes?

Please read the complete article at:

http://www.alternet.org/sex/142952/237_reasons_why_women_have_sex

[tularetom]

1. My wife says she does it because I don't snore afterwards

and she can get some sleep.

[JVS]

3. If you ever see breath-rite strips in the house, throw them away!

[gateley]

2. We can add more reasons as soon as I come up with more Johnny Depp fantasies...

[Horse with no Name]

4. I never get tired of the one in the pirate suit..

I call it my "standby".

[DevonRex]

5. I use Chocolat. Still on a boat but less makeup and probably smells better. :)

Yum.

[Ignis]

21. And fewer squeaky doors? (nt)

[Orsino]

6. We could have reasons?

Who knew? :shrug:

[SPedigrees]

7. The obvious: because it feels good. That's always been my reason. nt

[SPedigrees]

14. reason why it feels good: testosterone

Ladies, check your fingers. If your ring finger is longer than your index finger you are likely to have higher testosterone levels, and thus have a stronger sex drive, be more assertive, and less likely to be afflicted with osteoporosis.

[Gwendolyn]

20. Interesting. I've never heard that before.

Now I will so be checking out hands in the next few days. :)

[lapislzi]

8. ONLY 237?

I'm sure I can think of more than that without even trying. All of them good.

[skygazer]

9. Because that's what mammals do?

Why do people have to make things so complicated?

[MineralMan]

11. Aw....JINX!

You may hit me as hard as you want on the right shoulder.

[lapislzi]

13. Of course you can reduce it to biology

...and at the core most of the *good* reasons are biologically driven. But I, for one, am interested in the conscious human motivation that causes us to seek out and engage in certain behaviors. We make choices, and we make them for many reasons. Aren't you curious?

[SPedigrees]

15. I'm not. I have no interest in those w/ bizarre other agendas.I avoid people with ulterior motives.

[skygazer]

18. Not about that particular subject

Especially since it is specific to women - as if it's bizarre that women choose to have sex and so there must be some deep reason other than that they like sex.

[MineralMan]

10. One reason: They're mammals, and that's how mammals

reproduce.

[Gwereeya]

12. Women have sex???

And all this time I've been thinking that when they undressed in my apartment, it was because I had the damn thermostat set too high!

[Withywindle]

16. Because there's nothing good on TV? n/t

[rd_kent]

17. Uh, because it feel good?

[Lilith Velkor]

19. Someone should tell these two that women sometimes have sex with other women

and tape their reaction. That way, we can see what it looks like when a human being gets the BSOD.

[lefthandedlefty]

22. My wife does it for the same reason as I do

She gets horny!:evilgrin:

[Bunny]

23. With the right person, there's really only one reason for sex.