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

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).