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Alyallen

Why people have sex: It feels good By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer
Wed Aug 1, 7:35 AM ET

WASHINGTON - After exhaustively compiling a list of the 237 reasons why people have sex, researchers found that young men and women get intimate for mostly the same motivations. It's more about lust in the body than a love connection in the heart.

College-aged men and women agree on their top reasons for having sex � they were attracted to the person, they wanted to experience physical pleasure and "it feels good," according to a peer-reviewed study in the August edition of Archives of Sexual Behavior. Twenty of the top 25 reasons given for having sex were the same for men and women.

Expressing love and showing affection were in the top 10 for both men and women, but they did take a back seat to the clear No. 1: "I was attracted to the person."

Researchers at the University of Texas spent five years and their own money to study the overlooked why behind sex while others were spending their time on the how.

"It's refuted a lot of gender stereotypes ... that men only want sex for the physical pleasure and women want love," said University of Texas clinical psychology professor Cindy Meston, the study's co-author. "That's not what I came up with in my findings."

Forget thinking that men are from Mars and women from Venus, "the more we look, the more we find similarity," said Dr. Irwin Goldstein, director of sexual medicine at Alvarado Hospital in San Diego. Goldstein, who wasn't part of Meston's study, said the Texas research made a lot of sense and adds to growing evidence that the vaunted differences in the genders may only be among people with sexual problems.

Meston and colleague David Buss first questioned 444 men and women � ranging in age from 17 to 52 � to come up with a list of 237 distinct reasons people have sex. They ranged from "It's fun" which men ranked fourth and women ranked eighth to "I wanted to give someone else a sexually transmitted disease" which ranked on the bottom by women.

Once they came up with that long list, Meston and Buss asked 1,549 college students taking psychology classes to rank the reasons on a one-to-five scale on how they applied to their experiences.

"None of the gender differences are all that great," Meston said. "Men were more likely to be opportunistic towards having sex, so if sex were there and available they would jump on it, somewhat more so than women. Women were more likely to have sex because they felt they needed to please their partner."

But this is among college students, when Meston conceded "hormones run rampant." She predicted huge differences when older groups of people are studied.

Since her study came out Tuesday, people are coming up with new reasons to have sex.

"Originally, I thought that we exhaustively compiled the list, but now I found that there should be some added," Meston said.

http://tinyurl.com/2ol7wg

Big_Bird · Posted: Wed Aug 01, 2007 9:01 pm Post subject:

Alyallen · Posted: Wed Aug 01, 2007 10:05 pm Post subject:

Atavistic · Posted: Wed Aug 01, 2007 10:12 pm Post subject:

Alyallen · Posted: Wed Aug 01, 2007 10:18 pm Post subject:

OneWayTraffic · Joined: 14 Mar 2005

Why not have sex?

twg · Joined: 02 Nov 2006 Location: Getting some fresh air...

Alyallen · Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2007 1:42 am Post subject:

yushin · Joined: 14 Oct 2006

only "good" you have to be joking!!?

Adventurer · Joined: 28 Jan 2006

I don't think this study is very important in my opinion. It has nothing really new to offer or something that really shatters peoples' experiences. The genders are very similar, but they also differ. Of course, people want to sleep with people they are attracted to somehow. That goes without saying. However, men and women tend to look for different things and so many studies have mentioned that. This study doesn't refute those differences...

Atavistic · Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2007 3:41 am Post subject:

Paji eh Wong · Joined: 03 Jun 2003

Adventurer · Joined: 28 Jan 2006

Atavistic · Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2007 5:43 am Post subject:

Atavistic · Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2007 5:48 am Post subject:

http://homepage.psy.utexas.edu/Homepage/Group/BussLAB/pdffiles/why%20humans%20have%20sex%202007.pdf

page 6 has the table of 50 most infrequent reasons men and women have sex.

Women:
1) I wanted to give someone an STD
2) Someone offered me money
3) I wanted to get a raise

Men:
1) The person offered me drugs for it
2) I wanted to give someone an STD
3) I wanted to punish myself

Page 8 has gender differences in answers such as "I wanted to relieve blue balls." One of the options is "I wanted to change the topic of conversation."

I'm thinking this list could be a new version of the Purity Test. Check off all the reasons you've ever had sex...