Men have spent millennia trying to figure out exactly what prompts women to climb into the sack. It's a question that science hasn't been able to truly answer. That's why researchers Cindy M. Meston, Ph.D. and David M. Buss, Ph.D. decided to simply ask more than 2,000 women, age 18 to 87, why they have sex and what they expect to get from it for their book, Why Women Have Sex. The two psychologists discovered reasons that ran from the trivial—"I was told that if a man could dance he could perform in bed. I did not believe this and wanted to see if it was true"—to the downright unscrupulous: "I decided that I wanted to sleep with this man, just to sort of get back at my friend, and to sort of prove that I was the more attractive/better one of us. So I achieved what I set out to do." But their results also found a surprising, most-common reason why women have sex, summed up nicely by this 36-year-old survey participant: "Sex for pleasure is the main motivation for most of my experiences."
Does this focus on pleasure mean that women are more like men than we thought? Not exactly. iVillage spoke with Meston and Buss to find out more about the remarkable reasons women pursue sex.
iVillage: What surprised you most about the survey?
David Buss: I was surprised by—and maybe it's just because I have a Y chromosome—the tremendous impact that sex has on women's self-esteem. Some of the stories are truly heart-wrenching. Some women feel that they have sex because it will result in greater emotional closeness, but they do it and end up feeling lonelier and more miserable. To the other end, some women in a bad relationship have sex and it gives them the confidence to leave the relationship. Just the dramatic impact that sex has on women's self-esteem is particularly interesting.
Cindy Meston: There were lots of things we were surprised by. We were expecting it to be diverse, but we were surprised by the diversity of motives for having sex—everything from sympathy sex to the darker side of competition and revenge; to mate-poaching and wanting to get closer to God. I was also surprised by the lack of substantial gender differences. Women dohave sex for love, and love was a big theme in our research, but what was surprising was that physical gratification was frequently endorsed as a reason. Women were just as likely as men to want to have sex because it felt good—they wanted the pure physical pleasure. That was refreshing in a lot of ways. It's nice to know that the majority of women are having sex because it brings them pleasure.
Buss: It's not like women have to have love or feel that emotional connection for every reason that they have sex. Some women have sex for exchange or simply because it feels good, or for economic gain.
iVillage: So the idea that women see sex as an expression of an emotional commitment isn't necessarily true?
Meston: For some women, when the partner wanted emotional commitment, it was a turn off. They wanted sex for the adventure and the experience; to test out the partner, to try men of different ethnicities, financial statuses, penis sizes.
iVillage: What about the idea explored in your book of using sex as a trade-off for something else?
Buss: We have a whole chapter in the book called "Barter and Trade" which deals with the exchange aspects of sex. These range from having sex so he'd take out the garbage to a husband getting a promotion at work that made the woman feel more in the mood for sex. Another reason [why women have sex] had to do with mate-switching. Women in a relationship will have sex with someone else to either test the waters to see if there's a better mate out there; to segue out of an unhappy relationship; or boost her self-esteem to give her confidence to leave a relationship. The other thing we found was the mate-poaching: women having sex with men who were already in relationships either for short-term sexual encounters or to lure them out of the relationship.
iVillage: A woman's sense of duty is also fascinating—84 percent of wives you surveyed said they usually or always comply when their spouse wants to have sex and they don't. Do men experience those feelings?
Meston: They do. Quite a high proportion [of men]--I think it's as high as 50 percent--say they comply when they don't want to have sex. Women just do it with a much greater frequency. The outcomes of having "duty sex" were vastly different. For some, it led to resentment and anger, and for other women it wasn't a big deal at all. It was keeping the peace in the relationship.
iVillage: You say in the book that for women, foreplay starts long before the actual love-making begins. How so?
Meston: With men, physical cues are very prominent. If he views his partner as looking sexy, it's going to trigger a desire to have sex quite easily. What this means is it's easier for men to be turned on visually. For a woman, she wants to know that things are good in their relationship, the kids are taken care of, the house is clean...
Buss: Women are more sensitive to context and personality—if he has a good sense of humor, if he's confident, if he caresses her a certain way—all of these things have a larger impact on women's sexual attraction. That's not to say the physical characteristics aren't important for women—they are.
iVillage: What do you think about the idea proposed in VoiceMale—that there's a correlation between men who do housework and the amount of sex they have?
Meston: The reason is simple: If a man is helping out with the household chores, the woman feels like her part of the marriage is being appreciated. It's not just expected that he comes home and she does all the housework. It's partly team-building, it's partly empathy, it's also a nice gesture—he helping you as opposed to expecting this to be done. So of course it feels better when someone wants to be a part of your job.
Buss: There is some research that suggests that if the housework is seen by the woman to be submissive, it's not a turn on. That gets to the issue of mate-value discrepancies. It's another layer of the nature of the relationship between the two and whether the housework is seen as a sign of cooperation or submission.
Meston: If it's seen as a manipulative strategy to get sex, that's not going to weigh on the positive side of things either.
iVillage: Sounds complicated. Should your book be required reading for both sexes?
Meston: Reading all these women's stories, our hope is that women will reflect more upon their own choices and the times they've had sex for different reasons and how they felt afterwards. I don't think women spend a whole lot of time on why they are having sex. They don't reflect too much upon their choices, and once they do that, they can make better decisions for themselves.
Buss: I actually think that the book has a lot of implications for men.
Meston: It should be required reading before a first date!
Buss: One reason women said that they had sex was that the person was a good kisser. It turns out that kissing is much more important for women than for men. Eighty-five percent of women wouldn't consider having sex with a man unless they kissed first; only 46 percent of the men said the same. Kissing and the quality of kissing is an important thing. Knowledge like that would help men help women have a better sexual relationship.
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