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

Meston, Cindy; Buss, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099546639 ISBN 13: 9780099546634

Publisher: Vintage, 2010

Synopsis

Why do women have sex? Is it purely for pleasure or the desire to reproduce?

In their ground-breaking book, clinical psychologist Cindy Meston and evolutionary psychologist David Buss investigate the underlying sexual desires of women and identify 237 distinct motivations for sex. 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, Meston and Buss give us a remarkably complex and nuanced portrait of female sexuality.

They explore the use of sex as a defensive tactic against a man's infidelity (protection), as a ploy to boost self-confidence (status), as a barter for gifts (resource acquisition), or even as a cure for a headache (medication).

Why Women Have Sex explores the deep-seated psychology and biology of female sexuality, and promises to inform every woman's - and her partner's - awareness of her relationship to sex and her own sexuality.

About this title

About the Author

David M. Buss, one of the founders of the field of evolutionary psychology, is a professor at the University of Texas at Austin and the author of several books, including The Evolution of Desire and The Dangerous Passion.

Cindy M. Meston is one of the world's leading researchers on women's sexuality and a professor of clinical psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, where she directs the Sexual Psychophysiology Laboratory, a cutting-edge lab on women's sexual experience.

Actor and voice-over artist Renee Raudman has performed on film, television, radio, and stage. A multiple Audie Award nominee, she has garnered several AudioFile Earphones Awards, a Publishers Weekly Listen-Up Award, and numerous starred reviews.

Review

“Occasionally poetic, always candid. The book is filled with insights with which to start conversations.”—Psychology Today "Why Women Have Sex is an endlessly well informed and irresistibly readable book. The candor of the women’s responses and the authors’ knowledge of all that has been happening in the world of sex research for the past few decades combine to make it the most fascinating and illuminating look at female sexuality since Kinsey’s Sexual Behavior in the Human Female."—Mary Roach, author of Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex
 
"What an excellent book! You will come away from reading Why Women Have Sex with a better understanding of what turns women on or off, the physiology underlying desire and arousal, the likely consequences when sex is undertaken to thwart or titillate a partner, and the complexity of sexual desire. There is not much more one can ask for—to be at once enlightened and entertained by two trustworthy and sympathetic experts."—Sandra R. Leiblum Ph.D., author of Getting the Sex You Want
 
"Why Women Have Sex is full of fascinating research that will help everyone better understand and appreciate their sexual selves."—Christiane Northrup, M.D., author of The Secret Pleasures of Menopause and The Wisdom of Menopause
 
"Why Women Have Sex is a captivating tour of what psychology and biology can tell us about women’s sexual motivation. Meston and Buss are first-rate scientists and skilled writers who actually answer the question that everyone was afraid to ask."—Daniel Gilbert, professor of psychology, Harvard University, and author of Stumbling on Happiness

 

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0099546639
• ISBN 13: 9780099546634
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 336