Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Why women have sex (book)

Brad Pitt and Geena Davis in "Thelma and Louise" (Ronald Grant Archive).

According to a new book, there are 237 reasons why women have sex. And most of them have little to do with romance or pleasure.

Tanya Gold (The Guardian, 9/28/09)

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. More>>