Why Women Have Sex Women Reveal the Truth About Their Sex Lives, from Adventure to Revenge (and Everything in Between)

by Meston, Cindy M.; Buss, David M.

• ISBN13: 9780312662653
• ISBN10: 0312662653
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-12-07
• Publisher: Griffin

Summary

Do women have sex simply to express love, experience pleasure, or reproduce? When clinical psychologist Cindy M. Meston and evolutionary psychologist David M. Buss, both at the University of Texas at Austin, joined forces to investigate women's underlying sexual motivations, what they found astonished them.Using women's own words, and backed by extensive scientific evidence, the authors delve into the use of sex as a defensive tactic against a mate's infidelity, a ploy to boost social status, a barter for household chores, and even as a cure for a migraine headache. Meston and Buss offer a revelatory examination of the deep-seated psychology and biology that often unwittingly drive women to have sex, sometimes in pursuit of joy, and sometimes for darker, more disturbing reasons.Why Women Have Sexstands as the richest and deepest psychological understanding of women's sexuality yet achieved and promises to inform every woman's (and her partner's) awareness of her relationship to sex.

Author Biography

Cindy M. Meston, Ph.D., is one of the world's leading researchers on women's sexuality, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, and director of the Sexual Psychophysiology Laboratory. David M. Buss, Ph.D., one of the founders of evolutionary psychology, is a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, and is the author of The Evolution of Desire and The Dangerous Passion.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Inside the Sexual Mind	p. xi
What Turns Women On?
Scent, Body, Face, Voice, Movement, Personality, and-Yes-Humor	p. 1
The Pleasure of it
Sexual Gratification and Orgasm	p. 28
The Thing Called Love
An Emotional and Spiritual Connection	p. 50
The Thrill of Conquest
From Capturing a Mate to Poaching One	p. 78
Green-Eyed Desire
From Guarding a Mate to Trading Up	p. 99
A Sense of Duty
When Responsibility or Guilt Calls	p. 117
A Sense of Adventure
When Curiosity, Variety-and Mate Evaluation-Beckon	p. 145
Barter and Trade
The Value of Sex-Literally and Figuratively	p. 167
The Ego Boost
Body Image, Attention, Power, and Submission	p. 191
The Dark Side
Sexual Deception, Punishment, and Abuse	p. 211
Sexual Medicine
The Health Rewards of a Sex Life	p. 236
Conclusion: Women's Sexual Complexities	p. 261
Notes	p. 265
Acknowledgments	p. 291
Index	p. 295
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