Why Women Have Sex.
Posted: November 30, 2011 Filed under: Students 3 Comments »BY IRENE MATTONE
Have you ever stopped to think about the main reasons women have sex? Do you think men and women both have sex for the same reasons? Two psychologists thought long and hard about this mind-boggling question, and what they found ranges from pretty predictable to positively puzzling!
The psychology behind why women really have sex is probably far more complex than you would imagine. Psychologists Cindy Meston and David Buss from the University of Texas in Austin interviewed over 1,000 women, and later wrote a book based on their research titled Why Women Have Sex. The women they interviewed were from all around the world, and also through an online survey. Meston and Buss ended up with 237 reasons and motivations. They found that the main reasons why women have sex include: sexual attraction, desire for physical pleasure, expressing affection, and for sexual release, which may be predictable to most people. More important reasons that woman gave were about boosting their self-esteem or sexual esteem, to get revenge, and to relieve pain. A good percentage of women also claimed to have sex just for the health benefits. They reported having sex to relieve headaches, menstruation pain, stress, aid to more relaxed sleep, enhance mood and decrease levels of depression and anxiety, combat loneliness, and get exercise.
The authors say that many of the complexities of women’s sexual motivations can be explained by human evolution. One common reason for women is stealing a friend’s lover; According to the researchers, this can be viewed as a way to win a more desirable partner, someone with better genes. Fifty-three percent of women in the study admitted that this was their reason for stealing a friend’s lover. Some women act in “mate-guarding”: having sex out of a duty to please the other partner. Buss, who happens to be an evolutionary psychologist, states that “One of the things we realized early on was that there’s this huge gap in the field of study in that we thought women’s sexual motivations were sort of intuitive and understood. But what shocked me was the sheer complexity of women’s psychology.” Buss also told the Times that he “was surprised by the importance of revenge.” He even mentioned that he was particularly surprised by the explanations he got from women about why they were vengefully having sex. “A few had sex in order to give someone else a sexually transmitted disease.” – How disgusting!
In their research of finding out why humans have sex, Meston and Buss found that among men’s top 20 reasons are attraction and “it’s fun”, but also ranging to “I realized I was in love.” This may seem pretty straight forward, but too bad it’s not that easy for women. For the woman, her brain is the primary driver of her arousal. This means that women tend to overanalyze and dissect to the point that their motivations don’t have much impact on their physical desire. Other ways men and women differ can be as simple as their anatomical differences. When a man’s blood flow is increased by seeing an attractive woman, Viagra, or even through acts that are not related to sex, it can lead to an erection and therefore trigger sexual desire. This is in no way true for women. Simply increasing a woman’s blood flow will not help her sexual desire increase. Meston states that she could write a whole book on the topic of low female sex drive, including the fact that more than half of women under 60 still suffer from low sex drive, and a quarter are unable to orgasm.
Christopher Lynn, Ph.D., from the University of Alabama quotes Why Women Have Sex when he explains what it is about a man that attracts women. He says, “Evidence suggests that women prefer male bodies with the classic V-shaped torso with a high shoulder-to-hip ratio, which are hypothesized to have signaled good hunting and protection ability in the ancestral environment.” According to research, females find men with symmetrical faces most attractive because such symmetry tends to allude to male genetic quality and developmental stability. Another point is voice attractiveness, in which women tend to prefer deep voices. Females are most often attracted to elegant movement, interesting personality, and a good sense of humor as well. These traits function as fitness indicators. By reviewing this evidence from their studies, the researchers believe that human females choose mates based on what animal behaviorists call “mate-copying”, which involves females judging males as more attractive if the males are known to be successful with women. According to a 1979 study by Weatherhead and Robertson, this can be parallel to the idea of “sexy-sons”: the hypothesis by which mating with males who are seen to possess the ability to attract females makes a female desire to unite her genes with his in order to build bodies of sons and grandsons that are attractive to their generation of females.
It should come as no surprise that some women have sex with men to get material things, or even to get the man to do household chores. It is no secret that most sexual courtships involve some form of gift-giving on the male’s part. One study among undergraduates at a Midwestern school found that 9% of women had initiated sex for a tangible benefit and 82% of those women did so outside of an ongoing romantic relationship. Buss told the Times that women have sex based on what they call “sexual economics,” which includes a woman having sex in order to get her partner to take out the garbage, getting free dinners, or even getting expensive gifts. Women also have sex for an ego boost, or to enhance their self-perception of attractiveness. Women’s self-perceptions are altered by media and social standards; however studies show that “only 5% of women even have the genetic potential to look like a runway model.”
Do women have sex more often because they are in love? In Chapter three of Why Women Have Sex, love is described as “a combination of intimacy, passion, and commitment.” Some women in this study did report using sex to attain or express love and commitment; however, at the physiological level, certain parts of the brain are affected by “emotional love” through drug-like effects. In newer relationships, there is a decrease of serotonin, and in more evolved relationships, later stages of attachment are characterized by vasopressin and oxytocin changes. These hormones are the body’s way of ensuring the process of reproduction by producing a chemical concoction in our bodies to form attraction and attachment.
Vasopressin and Oxytocin are hormones that are very chemically similar in respects to how they are structured. They are located on the same chromosome separated by a very tiny distance. Vasopressin is released directly into the brain, where it plays an important role in social behavior and bonding, especially for men. In an book by Jennifer Roback Morse, Smart Sex:Finding Life-Long Love in a Hook-Up World, the economics professor states that although men may have a desire to have sex with multiple women, vasopressin helps them to counteract this tendency. She also explains how oxytocin in the brain is “involved in social recognition and bonding”, and effects women more-so than men due to women’s estrogen levels.
To further expand this study, I would be interested in seeing more research on why men have sex. It would be a lot more helpful to see men’s top reasons compared side-by-side to women’s. It’s understandable that they would want to understand the psychology behind women’s reasons for sex, but I don’t think they should under mind the reasons men have sex. They had previously done a study in 2007 on why humans have sex, and I think they should have used their results from men in that study, or conducted a new study, to compare the results they found from women in this study. I also think they could have explained more about the chemicals vasopressin and oxytocin. I was curious after I saw they mentioned it and didn’t explain it, so I took the liberty of looking up the hormones’ effects myself. I do find it interesting that this study shows connections between women’s reasons for sex to evolutionary facts. An example of this being how women choose men with specific physical features because in evolution it was thought signal good hunting and protection ability. Although seeing women’s reasons for sex through an evolutionary eye is interesting, I think they should have done more personal studies with people to see why some individuals in particular have their reasons for having sex. It would give more of a concrete foundation to their study if they were able to tell us that a specific group of women, for example, from the north eastern coast of the United States have sex because of x-y-z and they know this because of possible stressful life events they previously experienced, or their geographical location, or even because they all have similar personalities.
References:
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1928189,00.html
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-09-14/man-woman/29864769_1_cure-women-headache
http://thenewviewonsex.blogspot.com/2008/04/oxytocin-vasopressin-and-tale-of-two.html
http://www.epjournal.net/filestore/EP08275283.pdf
I think this study is really interesting- both informative and entertaining to read. A lot of the ideas presented are things that we might already know, but that has never been looked at from a research standpoint. It’s easy to forget that there are reasons for having sex that go past what you may initially think. As a separate point, it’s also refreshing to see this kind of information presented without any overtones suggesting that the woman is a “slut” for having sex for reasons other than simply being in love. The information on men and women is presented in a clear way without imposing any double standards.
I think this article is very informative. It was definitely interesting. Most people thing women have sex because they are in love but its great that there was a study showing that there are other reasons. It actually shocked me to see some of the reasons why women did actually have sex. As Sarah said it was great that there was no double standard or clear bias within this study.
I really like how this article was written, some of these reasons are crazy. One reason that threw me of was the STD’s one, i don’t understand what goes through someone’s mind to do that to another person. It’s good to see studies being done on the reasons for having sex. Like Sarah said it is very refreshing to seeing that their other reasons to have sex and a woman is not a slut for sleeping with someone she’s not in love with.