237 Reasons

When I was a junior in high school I dated a girl who told me she loved me, but wasn’t in love with me. This meant she wouldn’t have sex with me until she changed her love to “in love,” or so I thought. I had spent every moment of the past four years trying get a girl to like me enough so I could finally lose my virginity. Surely I hadn’t come this close only to be denied. If I tried hard enough, she would start to fall in love with me and sex—even if just once—would follow. After the completion of my mission, I would be free to figure out what the rest of my life was about. Back then I bought into the idea that women need to have an emotional connection in order to enjoy having sex, but science has now proven what my girlfriend knew all along: this is all just convention.

A study conducted by researchers at the Sexual Psychophysiology Laboratory at the University of Texas at Austin and published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior lists 237 reasons why men and women have sex. The study, called “Why Humans Have Sex” and compiled by professors Cindy M. Meston and David M. Buss, lays out an exhaustive list of reasons why we choose to have sex. The top 10, including reasons such as “I was attracted to the person” or “I wanted to experience an orgasm,” were nearly identical for both men and women. These findings smash the myth that men’s reasons are purely physical while women’s are emotional.

Hearing this made me think of all the time I wasted in the library, becoming well-rounded so girls would like me for my personality. I should have spent that time in the gym because all the flowers and candy in the world are no substitute for rippling biceps and toned abs.

I took the researcher’s computer-generated survey at www.mestonlab.com to see what questions they asked. After filling in radio buttons about my sexual preference and experience, I was asked if I ever had sex as a way to make myself feel degraded and if so, please explain. I answered yes.

For many of my early years, I thought the most complicated thing to sex was having sex in the first place. After my first few sexual encounters I came to realize that it only grows more complicated with time. Many of the 237 reasons listed play out in a single sexual encounter, such as “the person made me feel sexy,” “I was drunk,” and “I wanted the experience.” I’m perfectly capable of admitting to feeling the need to posses or conquer a partner through sex while still caring about her a great deal, which also made the list.

Unfortunately my next sexual escapade will probably be haunted by an array of un-sexy questions. No longer will I simply ponder if she finds me attractive, or worry if she wants a relationship to follow, I will have to scrutinize whether there are more insidious motives at work, like getting back at a cheating ex.

I will also wonder: if she will be sleeping over afterwards, does she snore? Will she sleep on her half of the bed? Are we going to take a shower together in the morning? At the end our experience could she please fill out this short survey rating me against former partners?

It wasn’t until the beginning of my senior year in high school that I ultimately lost my virginity. When it did occur it wasn’t something I could plan for, owing nothing to how likeable I was and everything to do with physical attraction and the heat of the moment. My girlfriend from the previous year was totally out of the picture. Her parents shipped her off to some school for crazy girls in Switzerland, but not before she managed to have lots of sex with some other guy who I know she wasn’t in love with. I suppose she wasn’t that into me or just didn’t find me as attractive. She also could have been using the lure of sex to hold onto me (reason 74).

Knowing what I now know about sex and attraction, I still think I would have gone about things the same way: with innocent wonderment and a bloodhound’s determination. Who knows, the time may have come to start going to bars with golf pencils and a survey of my own.

The author is a student in the School of General Studies.