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Lượn lờ trên cnn đọc tin về bão ở Việt Nam thì thấy bài này nằm trong cột được đọc nhiều nhất trong ngày: Love, pleasure, duty: Why women have sex ? Lẽ dĩ nhiên là phải tò mò nhảy vô xem.

What makes a woman want to have sex? Is it physical attraction? Love? Loneliness? Jealousy? Boredom? Painful menstrual cramps?

It turns out that woman have sex for all of these reasons and more, and that their choices are not arbitrary; there may be evolutionary explanations at work.

Psychologists Cindy Meston and David Buss, both professors at the University of Texas at Austin, decided that the topic of “why women have sex” deserved a book of its own. They’ve woven scientific research together with a slew of women’s voices in their new collaborative work, “Why Women Have Sex,” published September 29 by Times Books.

“We do bring in men occasionally by way of contrast, but we wanted to focus exclusively on women so that the complexity of women’s sexual psychology was not given the short shrift, so to speak,” said Buss, a leading evolutionary psychologist.

The authors conducted a study from June 2006 to April 2009 that asked women whether they had ever had sex for one of 237 reasons, all of which had emerged in a previous study. About 1,000 women contributed their perspectives.

It turns out that women’s reasons for having sex range from love to pure pleasure to a sense of duty to curiosity to curing a headache. Some women just want to please their partners, and others want an ego boost.

Buss said he found it surprising how dramatically and variably sexual experience seemed to influence women’s feelings of self-esteem.

“Some sexual experiences that women in our study reported just had devastating effects and long-lasting negative effects on their feelings of self-worth,” he said. “But then for others, their sexual experiences provided the soaring height of euphoria and made them feel alive and vibrant.”

Meston said some 20-somethings defied the gender stereotypes that women should be more chaste than men and not sleep around as much.

“Many of the women were having sex purely because they wanted the experience, they wanted the adventure, they wanted to see what it was like to be with men of different ethnicities,” she said. “Some women said they wanted more notches on the belt. They simply wanted to get rid of their virginity.”

Some women have sex to make money, and not just in the conventional manner of prostitution. A woman from California who goes by “Natalie Dylan” garnered national attention this year with her campaign to sell her virginity and said in January that her top bid of $3.8 million came from a 39-year-old Australian.

There are more factors that influence a woman’s sex drive than a man’s, the authors said, and the factors that make men attractive to women — personality, sense of humor, self-confidence, status — are less important considerations for men when they are choosing women.

There is also evidence that sexual arousal is more complicated for women than for men, the authors report.

A study from Meston’s lab showed a strong correlation between how erect a man’s penis is and how aroused he says he is. By contrast, the link is much weaker between a woman’s physical arousal (as measured inside her vagina) and the arousal she says she feels, the researchers found. This is why drugs to treat erectile dysfunction such as Viagra don’t work as well in women, the authors said.

That makes sense from an evolutionary perspective, even though men and women may not consciously think about their choices that way, the authors said. If the goal of a man is to spread his genes, he would need to look for signs of fertility in a woman, which are historically associated with physical cues, Buss said.

“The adaptive problem that women have had to solve is not simply picking a man who is fertile but a man who perhaps will invest in her, a man who won’t inflict costs on her, a man who might have good genes that could be conveyed to her children,” he said.

In this context, women must also be more selective, because wrong choices can lead much higher costs than for men: pregnancy and child-rearing.

In studies, women have consistently shown preferences for men with symmetrical bodies, a subtle mark of genetic fitness and status, the book said. In fact, simply by smelling T-shirts that men had worn for two nights, women judged the odors of symmetrical men to be the most attractive, and the asymmetrical men’s odors the least attractive, in one study.

Still, symmetry isn’t everything, Meston and Buss said. They pointed to singer-songwriter Lyle Lovett as someone with other positive attributes, such as musical talent and personality, who has clearly done well with women despite asymmetrical features.

“Women are evaluating men on multiple attributes,” Buss said.

Kissing also turns out to be more important for women than for men in some respects: In one study, 53 percent of men said they would have sex without kissing, but only 15 percent of women said they would even consider sex without smooching first, the book said. For women, kissing is “an emotional litmus test,” the authors wrote.

The medicinal value of sex also comes into play for some women, the book said. Sex can help a woman relax and sleep better, and it can ease the pain of menstrual cramps and headaches — and some survey participants cited these as reasons they’ve had sex.

A study from Rutgers University found that, during orgasm, women were able to tolerate 75 percent more pain. Though Meston has not studied the phenomenon in men, she said she would expect sex to have the same effects of reducing headaches and other pain.

The authors collected stories from 1,006 women from 46 states, eight Canadian provinces, three European countries and Australia, New Zealand, Israel and China. Participants came from a variety of ethnic and religious — as well as non-religious — backgrounds and socioeconomic statuses. About 80 percent of the women said they were in a relationship at the time, and 93 percent said they were predominantly or exclusively heterosexual.
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The book also explores how women’s perception of sex may change over time, according to whom they’re with and whether they are married.

A 26-year-old heterosexual woman wrote, “When I was single, I had sex for my own personal pleasure. Now that I am married, I have sex to please my husband. My own pleasure doesn’t seem as important as his. I believe he feels the same way.”

1. Bài dựa trên cuốn sách cùng tên của hai giáo sư thuộc đại học UT Austin -> nguồn tin cậy: nghiên cứu được tiến hành trong 3 năm (2006-2009), tham khảo ý kiến của khỏang 1000 phụ nữ.
2. Câu trả lời thì hết sức là đa dạng và phong phú, từ muốn cảm giác hưng phấn, vì nghĩa vụ, cho đến vì tò mò, và muốn chữa bệnh nhức đầu :-O
3. Nhiều người quan hệ chỉ để phá vỡ định kiến xã hội về vai trò của người phụ nữ, muốn vứt bỏ gánh nặng của “trinh tiết”.
4. Ham muốn tình dục của phụ nữ phức tạp hơn, và bị chi phối bởi nhiều yếu tố hơn đàn ông (có ai chưa biết điều này nhỉ (H)  )
5. Những yếu tố làm cho người đàn ông hấp dẫn trong mắt phụ nữ: cá tính, hài hước, tự tin vào bản thân, địa vị xã hội. Những yếu tố làm cho người phụ nữ hấp dẫn trong mắt đàn ông ? Đơn giản hơn thế nhiều
6. Mối liên hệ giữa cảm giác và biểu hiện sinh lý ở đàn ông cũng đơn giản hơn. Mức độ cương cứng của bộ phận sinh dục nam hầu như tương quan 100% với cảm giác hưng phấn mà đàn ông bảo là họ đang có. Mức độ kích thích của bộ phận sinh dục nữ chỉ tương quan rất yếu tới cảm giác của người phụ nữ. Đó là lý do tại sao thuốc kích thích như Viagra rất ít có tác dụng đối với phụ nữ.
7. Hôn là một bước rất quan trọng trong quan hệ tình dục đối với phụ nữ. 53% bảo họ sẽ quan hệ tình dục mà không nhất thiết phải hôn, trong khi số đó chỉ là 15% ở phụ nữ.
8. Nếu phải chọn người làm người tình 1 đêm, 63% phụ nữ chọn một người bạn, còn 37% chọn một người lạ (ví dụ gặp ở quán bar).

Thấy nhiều điểu cũng thú vị, google thử xem cuốn sách này có ở thư viện không, thì lòi ra link này: Everyone is having sex in the library, but me … Xem ra làm người yêu mình được: 25 tuổi, đang học tiến sĩ (over-educated), nhan sắc trên trung bình, đi nhiều nơi, biết cách ăn mặc (đi Anh kì vừa rồi thấy mê cách mọi người ăn mặc/trang điểm quá), dễ làm bạn, nhưng khó yêu, thỉnh thỏang bị chê là nói chuyện “nghiêm trọng” quá. Tiếc là bài này đăng trên mạng, từ năm 2007 (nghĩa là người đó 27 chứ không phải 25 tuổi )

25 year old girl that hasn’t had anything past a 2nd date in 6 years, what is wrong (if anything) with me?

So I will try to give you some background in as few words as possible. I’m a 25 year old girl in grad school. I’ve only ever had one very short lived and intense relationship when I was 18. My ex was the only guy I’ve ever had sex with and because the majority of our short lived relationship was long distance, I’ve only had sex a few times.

Since then I’ve gone on a pretty large amount of first dates, a few second dates and really nothing past that. I hook up with guys maybe once or twice a year on average (although I admit it has been happening a lot lately, never sex just generally making out and little more sometimes).

I’m usually described as being cute and while I’m rarely the hottest girl in the room, I think I’m generally above average and that isn’t really my issue.

I have a sort of unusual background and unusual interests, I’ve traveled everywhere, I’m really overeducated, my family is such a disaster that it’s actually funny at this point. I’ve suffered from depression on and off my whole life, but I have it pretty under control now. I have a pretty extreme sense of humor and while this makes me a lot of friends, I don’t think it really attracts the guys. (the whole men want women with a sense of humor to laugh at their jokes, not make them laugh) I’m pretty smart and a really good debater, but these are also things I think are more valued in guys than girls. Although, I have to say some really hot lesbians have hit on me, so if anyone ever comes up with a pill to switch sexualities, I’m set.

I find myself relegated to the friend zone with a lot of the guys I meet. I used to have this self esteem issue where I assumed it was because I wasn’t pretty enough, etc etc, but now I realize that really isn’t the case at all. I tend to meet guys, befriend them and then they end up dating one of my friends. On the other end of the scale, I occasionally hook up with guys I meet at parties (generally I vaguely know them through a friend/school) and usually I will see them again, but generally it fizzles out pretty quickly. When I meet a guy these tend to be the only outcomes, the friendships never develop into more.

There are two guys who I have had intense friendships with that I can probably best describe as platonic relationships. The first was my roommate who was in a very unhappy long term, long distance relationship. And the second was an extremely promiscuous guy, who was in his late 20’s and had never had a relationship. I no longer talk to either, which I think is a good thing, but I’ve had this dynamic to a much lesser degree with other guys.

The guys that generally are interested in me for a relationship tend towards the very geeky/socially awkward. Unfortunately, I have yet to meet one that I was attracted to. I have tried with one guy this summer, who wasn’t my type, but who I thought I should give a chance because maybe my problem was that I was being too superficial. It had disastrous results (no idea what he was doing with women and didn’t understand the word no in bed). I don’t think he’s a bad guy, it was just really clear that he thought real life was like the movies and had no clue what he was doing. He then wouldn’t stop calling me for 2 months. So I think there does have to be some physical attraction. I have to say I’m not that picky, I’ve liked a wide range of guys, but I feel like I was the geeky/awkward girl in high school and now I’ve grown up and found myself and I would like to find someone that was the same more or less.

I’ve dabbled in internet dating on a variety of sites. I admit I’ve never gone more than a month on any site, but it would usually go that I would be flooded with messages from guys, I would then start messaging a few. Most of the promising ones would drop off quickly and I went on quite a few first dates that ranged from the guy being a total freak, to him being nice but boring to kind of cool with zero chemistry. Essentially none were even close.

So the question is: Am I doing something wrong? Is there something wrong with me? Or do I really just need to accept that this is the reality for a lot of professional/smart women nowadays?