How Many Reasons Are There To Have Sex? At Least 237

Why do humans have sex? To many, the answer to this question might seem obvious—but the truth is that our reasons for sex are many and varied, and some of the reasons people cite might very well surprise you!

For this episode of the podcast, I spoke with Dr. Cindy Meston, a Professor of Clinical Psychology and Director of the Female Sexual Psychophysiology Laboratory at the University of Texas at Austin. She has studied humans’ motivations for sex extensively and is the author of the book Why Women Have Sex: Understanding Motivations from Adventure to Revenge (and Everything in Between).

Some of the topics we explore in this episode include:

• What are the most common reasons humans have sex?
• What are the least common reasons?
• How do reasons for sex differ across men and women?
• Do our reasons for sex change as we age?
• Why is it that genital arousal and psychological arousal don’t always line up? And what does this mean?
• What effect does Viagra have in women? Are there any women for whom it can offer therapeutic benefits?
• How does sexual arousal change sexual decision-making?
• How do you build and maintain a career studying sex when there’s very little research funding for it?

To learn more about Cindy and her work, visit her website at mestonlab.com and check out her book, Why Women Have Sex!

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Credits: LEGIT Audio (Podcast editing) and Shutterstock/Florian (Music). Image created with Canva; photos used with permission of guest.