237 Reasons to Have Sex

[greyyguy]

Some new research out of the University of Texas has discovered that there are at least 237 reasons why people have sex. The paper is interesting to read. And very eye-opening. Many of the reasons are expected, like "being drunk", "it feels good", and "wanted to express my love". But many of them were surprising to me. Having sex in exchange for

Comments

[katishna]

a lot of those are redundant: "i wanted to have a child" is the same as "i wanted to reproduce". I think you could pare the list down to about half!

[greyyguy]

If you look at the paper they give a different weight to each of the questions along the purpose: physical, goal attainment, emotional, and insecurity. Having a child and wanting to reproduce are on the goal attainment axis, but I could see a difference in wanting to "spread your seed" and reproduce, and wanting to raise a child. For many people I think they would be one and the same, but I can see that for all people they would not be.

[tange]

I skimmed the list but it didn't pop out at me: is pity sex on there? One guy I knew said he had sex with a girl he saw in a bar because she looked so "lonely and pathetic" that he had to give her a "pity-f..." He was very into himself and his Sexual Powers of Healing. *sarcastic snerk*

[greyyguy]

There are three that could apply:
64. I felt sorry for the person.
79. I wanted the person to feel good about himself/herself.
116. I wanted to make the person feel better about herself/himself.

[amerk]

Most of these seem weighed towards one-night stand type encounters. An interesting commentary in and of itself.

[greyyguy]

True- but I think there are a lot of reasons to have a one night stand, and only a relatively few reasons that pertain to a relationship. Plus the research was performed on college students, where that sort of thing is much more common.