female sexual motivation

Chapter 1 Prologue: Exploring Women's Hearts (1)
Women's sexual motivations are a hugely important but neglected topic.Because everyone, including scientists, thinks that women's sexual motivations are self-evident-for pleasure, for love, or for growth.Therefore, in order to reveal the mystery of female sexuality, we have spent more than five years conducting a large number of investigations and research, with more than 3000 participants.

In August 2007, the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior published our scientific paper, "Women's Sexual Motivations," which attracted widespread attention from the scientific community.However, what this paper reveals is only the tip of the iceberg. In the investigation and research, we sorted out a total of 8 sexual motives, showing the rich and delicate emotional psychology of women.Motives range from vulgar (“I’m bored”) to solemn (“I want to get closer to God”), from generosity (“I want him to be happy”) to hatred (“I’m punishing him for being crazy”) .In sex, some women seek dominance, others seek to be manipulated, some want to impress their friends, and some want revenge on a rival (“I want to seduce her boyfriend”).Some women are sweetly in love (“I want to be one with him”) and others are full of hatred (“I want to give him an STD”).But all of this fails to explain the reason behind each "motivation".

After statistical analysis, we classified women's sexual motivations into several categories.Then, a large number of interviews and surveys were conducted specifically for this book in order to further understand women's sex life.In the process of research, in order to achieve the deepest and richest understanding of female sexual psychology, we constantly draw on the latest scientific discoveries from our laboratory and other laboratories.

"Women's Sexual Motives" is a book that can give readers a deeper understanding of life.This book specifically describes women's sexual encounters in real life, analyzes the motivation behind women's sexual behavior, and explains women's sexual psychology from a theoretical perspective.This book is the most incisive explanation of women's sexuality.

Tell me about the origin of our two authors' cooperation.Both of us are professors in the Department of Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. We have close offices, and we share a common research field, so we often get together to discuss human sexuality.One day, the topic suddenly changed to sexual motivation, so we started thinking about a simple question: Why do people have sex?

The two of us learn from each other in cooperation.Clinical psychologist Cindy M. Meston is a world-renowned expert on the psychology and physiology of women's sexuality.Evolutionary psychologist David M. Bass is a world-renowned expert on human mating strategies.Our collaboration has enabled us to gain a deeper understanding of women's sexual psychology.

The erotic psychology of women is very interesting from a clinical and evolutionary perspective.Why do women fall in love with some men and avoid others?What strategies do women use to attract their desirable mates?Why do some women confuse love with sex?Why are most readers of romance novels female?Why do some women try to keep a partner in bed, while others try to get rid of a partner they don't like?
The scientific study of sex, or "sex science," is an interdisciplinary field that involves psychology, sociology, anthropology, evolutionary biology, medicine, and many other disciplines.In the past few decades, there have been three core issues in sexuality science: clarify and understand what sexual behaviors, sexual attitudes, and marital relationships are normal or healthy; analyze how biological factors, life trajectories, personal preferences, and living environments affect sexuality. orientation and sexuality; discovering the interplay between sexuality and social relationships.Clinical psychologists are primarily concerned with the extent to which an individual's sexual choices and responses can be altered or improved.Evolutionary psychologists study the evolutionary function of aspects of human sexuality and why sexual motivation sometimes fails in modern settings.

Since the end of the 19th century, there have been three main scientific methods used by sex researchers to study human sexual behavior: case analysis, questionnaires and interviews, and behavioral observation and evaluation.Case analysis is a detailed and in-depth analysis of personal sexual problems or abnormalities.For example, the early sex scientist Richard Craft Ebing (1840-1902) found that most of his patients had masturbation, so he came to the (erroneous) conclusion that masturbation was the root cause of all sexual problems.Based on case studies, psychologist Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) theorized that adult sexual behavior depended on childhood sexual desires.

Survey research pioneer Havelock Ellis (1859-1939) emphasized individual differences in sexuality and wrote a memoir - detailing his "open marriage" to a wife he described as gay.In the 20s and 50s, Alfred Kinsey and fellow researchers Walter Pamloy, Paul Jebhard, and Clyde Martin published two papers on male and female sexuality. The report redefines the way Americans think about sex.In all, Kinsey and his team interviewed some 18000 American men and women—the largest survey of human sexuality to date, asking in detail about their sexual histories—and the questionnaire they designed became the standard for all such questionnaires. template.Kinsey completed 7985 of those surveys himself.

Robert Rato Dickinson (1861-1950), a gynecologist in New York, USA, invented a glass tube for observing physiological changes in women, thus opening a precedent for observing female sexual activities in the laboratory.Kinsey also used direct observation methods to study human sexual response, but the laboratory sex studies of the present era began with William Master (1915-2001) and Virginia Johnson (1925- ), who Married in 1971 and divorced in 1992.Unlike past researchers, Master and Jonsson recruited nearly 700 men and women to participate in a study in a laboratory where they recorded physiological changes in sexual arousal and orgasm.They found the role of vaginal moistening on arousal, physiological changes in different orgasms, and similarities between vaginal and clitoral orgasms in women.

In 1966, Master and Jonson published a landmark book "Human Sexual Response", and since then a new discipline of laboratory research has emerged: sexual psychophysiology.Sexual psychophysiology is the study of the interrelationships between the psychology (feelings, moods, thoughts) and physiology (hormones, chemicals in the brain, genital swelling, vaginal moistening) of human sexuality.

Mental sexual arousal is generally measured through questionnaires, such as asking respondents whether they have "sexual interest" in a certain situation, whether their emotions are high, etc.In the early days of sexual psychophysiology, researchers favored measuring physiological arousal in humans using modified animal measuring instruments.For example, the erection monitor dates back to a device used by grooms in the late 19s to prevent stallions from masturbating!In the early 20s, two doctors invented a probe to measure the thermal conductivity of sheep's vaginas.They say the probe "caused no discomfort to the awake sheep" during the four-hour-long experiment.The device was too large for women, but it bears some resemblance to modern vaginal probes.

Now, researchers have several ways to measure physiological responses, especially genital blood flow.Physiological responses in women are measured using vaginal photoplethysmography (a light-sensitive instrument), pulsed Doppler ultrasonography, magnetic resonance imaging of the pelvis, sensors that detect temperature changes in the vagina and labia, and thermal imaging of the thighs and genitals.In addition, the sexual psychophysiologist records heart rate, respiration rate, body temperature, blood pressure, and sweat gland activity.These can reflect physiological changes during sexual arousal, but are not necessarily related to sexual response, because emotions such as anger, fear, anxiety, and even laughter can also cause these physiological changes.Not long ago, researchers began using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to analyze brain regions that control sexual response and behavior.

Researchers at Maston's Sexual Psychophysiology Laboratory and around the world use these modern techniques to study all aspects of sexual response.For the past 11 years, Maston's lab has studied the following question: How are physical and mental sexual arousal related?How do early traumatic sexual experiences affect mental and physical sexual arousal in adulthood?How does a woman's body size affect women's sexual function and satisfaction?How do cigarettes, along with other drugs, affect sexual arousal in men and women?How do antidepressants affect a woman's sexual arousal and how to avoid the side effects of these drugs?Can sexual intercourse cause hormonal changes in the body and thus affect a woman's libido?Why does anxiety sometimes increase and sometimes reduce sexual function in women?
Researchers have also used psychological and physiological methods to test hypotheses about the evolution of female sexuality.Some people think that it is inappropriate to analyze women's sexual psychology from an evolutionary perspective.In fact, until the 20s, in the field of biology, it was considered disreputable to say that behavior is the result of evolution, and biologists focused only on anatomy and physiology.But the science of evolutionary biology has changed dramatically since then.Sex organs are designed for sex after all!Therefore, anatomy, psychology, and physiology cannot be separated from sex behavior.

When it comes to evolution, many people think of cruel concepts such as "nature with bloody teeth and claws" and "survival of the fittest".Although the struggle for survival is the content of the theory of evolution, it is not the most important content.In fact, Darwin himself was often troubled by phenomena that could not be explained by the theory of "survival choice".For example, the theory of "survival choice" cannot explain the gorgeous feathers of peacocks.How could dazzling feathers be the result of evolution?Because these feathers consume energy and are not easy to avoid predators, this is not conducive to survival.Darwin wrote in a letter to a friend that he had nightmares whenever he saw a peacock because he could not explain the peacock's gorgeous feathers with the theory of evolution.

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