Why Women Have Sex: Understanding Sexual Motivations from Adventure to Revenge (and Everything in Between)

An unparalleled exploration of the mysteries underlying womens sexuality that rivals the culture-shifting Kinsey Report from two of Americas leading research psychologists Do women have sex simply to reproduce or display their affection? When University of Texas at Austin clinical psychologist Cindy M. Meston and evolutionary psychologist David M. Buss joined forces to investigate the underlying sexual motivations of women what they found astonished them. Through the voices of real women Meston and Buss reveal the motivations that guide womens sexual decisions and explain the deep-seated psychology and biology that often unwittingly drive womens desiressometimes in pursuit of health or pleasure or sometimes for darker disturbing reasons that a woman may not fully recognize. Drawing on more than a thousand intensive interviews conducted solely for the book as well as their pioneering research on physiological response and evolutionary emotions Why Women Have Sex uncovers an amazingly complex and nuanced portrait of female sexuality. They delve into the use of sex as a defensive tactic against a mates infidelity (protection) as a ploy to boost self-confidence (status) as a barter for gifts or household chores (resource acquisition) or as a cure for a migraine headache (medication). Why Women Have Sex stands as the richest and deepest psychological understanding of female sexuality yet achieved and promises to inform every womans (and her partners) awareness of her relationship to sex and her sexuality.