"I was bored", “I wanted to feel closer to God”, and “I wanted to get a promotion” are just three out of the 237 reasons that men and women gave for having sex, according to a study published in Archives of Sexual Behavior which .
After conducting one of the most comprehensive studies on why people have sex, psychology researchers David Buss and Cindy Meston discovered that the "I was attracted to the person" was the number one sex motivator for both men and women.
Researches found that some said they had sex to feel powerful, others to debase themselves and some wanted to impress their friends, others to harm their enemies (“I wanted to break up a rival’s relationship”).
Buss and Meston conducted two studies: in the first, they asked more than 400 men and women to identify reasons people have sex and in the second, the researchers asked more than 1,500 undergraduate students about their experiences and attitudes.
The team identified four major factors and 13 sub-factors for why people have sex.
First came the physical reasons such as to reduce stress (“It seemed like good exercise”), feel pleasure (“It’s exciting”), improve or expand experiences (“I was curious about sex”), and the physical desirability of their partner (“The person was a good dancer”).
For some sex was purely goal-oriented, based on utilitarian or practical (“I wanted to have a baby”), social status (“I wanted to be popular”) and revenge (“I wanted to give someone else a sexually transmitted disease”) considerations.
Emotional reasons such as love and commitment (“I wanted to feel connected”) and expression (“I wanted to say ‘thank you’”) also played a part.
Insecurity-based reasons, including self-esteem (“I wanted the attention”), a feeling of duty or pressure (“My partner kept insisting”) and to guard a mate (“I wanted to keep my partner from straying”) were also reported.
“Why people have sex is extremely important, but rarely studied,” Buss said. “Surprisingly, many scientists assume the answer is obvious, but people have different reasons for having sex, some of which are rather complex.”
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