female sexual motivation

Chapter 2 Prologue: Exploring Women's Hearts (2)
Later, Darwin's nightmares were less frequent, because he discovered a theory of evolution that is crucial to understanding female sexual psychology: the theory of sexual selection.The evolutionary question that sexual selection concerns is not the survival advantage that causes orgasm, but the mate-selection advantage.Sexual selection works in two ways—same-sex competition and opposite-sex selection.Same-sex competition is the same-sex competition for the best of the opposite sex.The typical image of same-sex rivalry is two bucks in the top horns.Darwin emphasized competition between males, but when it comes to humans, females are as competitive as males.Regardless of the species, males are different in terms of appearance, health, resources, genes, etc., so females who win in the competition can obtain excellent opposite sex, thus ensuring their successful reproduction.Fundamentally, the key to this theory of evolution is reproduction, not survival.

The winners of the same-sex competition can pass on most of their genes because they can successfully have many excellent offspring with excellent spouses.And most of the genes of the losers in the same-sex competition were lost in the long river of evolution due to fewer offspring.The competition for dodging between males is more obvious, while the competition for dodging among females is more subtle.For example, a woman's reputation is an important aspect of same-sex competition, so reputation is born and destroyed in people's gossip, in gang formation, and in open and hidden arrows.Evolution—simply put, change over time—is the result of same-sex competition, because the winner gets the best mate.

Heteroselection means choosing a mate that will allow you to reproduce successfully.For example, women who associate with healthy men are more fertile than women who associate with sickly men.First, these women will be relatively healthy themselves and will not be able to catch diseases from their partners.Secondly, the children they give birth to will be relatively healthy. Not only will they not be infected with diseases from their fathers, but they will also inherit their fathers' high-quality healthy genes.Women's mate preferences and preferred masculine traits are the result of long-term evolution, because only those genes of female ancestors who made wise choices in mate selection and long-term mates have been successfully inherited.

Evolutionary psychological mechanisms are a broad topic that goes far beyond the topic of female reproduction to include female sexual desire, types of sexual attraction, mate preferences, affection for love, sexual jealousy, and more.Each element of female sexuality solves an adaptive problem from which women—specifically, the ancestors of modern women—benefited.So when evolutionary psychologists refer to terms like "evolved psychological mechanisms" and "psychological adaptations," they don't mean rigid, robot-like behavioral instincts.In contrast, human psychological adaptation is extremely flexible, extremely sensitive to the surrounding environment, and it only works in specific social environments.For example, a jealous woman may try to please her partner in bed, hoping that her partner will stop being distracted.But only when others threaten their feelings, women will appear jealous, jealous and other psychology.

In addition, when the relationship is threatened, women will take various measures, such as increasing vigilance or giving each other more passionate love.But when women develop a certain sexuality, they don't necessarily act on it.For example, when a woman meets a tall and handsome strange man, she may have sexual desire, but because she does not want to betray her partner, fears that her reputation will be damaged, or has moral or religious concerns, she will control her sexual desire. Instinctive desire.It can be seen that psychological adaptation is not a rigid instinctive reaction, which cannot be fully expressed in actions, but a highly flexible psychological mechanism affected by the environment.

For the past 20 years, the Bath Evolutionary Psychology Laboratory has been exploring human sexuality using a variety of research methods.For example, go to a singles bar to observe how women attract the opposite sex, record physiological changes, ask respondents to imagine their partner having sex with others, ask respondents to describe how they "poach the wall", conduct experimental research on male sexy bodies, research The impact of hormonal changes during ovulation on female libido, etc.Respondents included college students, couples, newlyweds, older couples, and 1 people of various ethnicities from 33 countries.The Bath Lab explores a wide variety of issues: the dangerous psychology of jealousy, the causes of cheating, what parents teach their daughters, the evolution of love, emotional cheating, the impact of ovulation on a woman's libido, the relationship between a man and a woman. Whether there are "pure friendships," personality traits that affect sexual satisfaction, precursors to a partner's infidelity, gossip that discredits a rival, "sex wisdom," and more.

Many elements of female sexuality have an evolutionary function, but this does not mean that all female psychological traits are desirable, or that all female sexuality is beneficial.Quite the contrary, as we will learn in this book, there is something about women that amounts to self-destructiveness, leading to many personal problems and even tragedy in life.Some psychology is too distorted, become a kind of pathology, and then lead to serious sexual dysfunction.From the agony of sexual dysfunction to the passion of a perfect sex life, this book covers all aspects of female sexuality.

From June 2007 to April 6, we conducted a study of women's sexual motivations.We recruited female participants through our website and online classifieds.We use a 2009-bit encrypted database to store survey data to prevent hackers from stealing information, while keeping the identities of participants strictly confidential.Female participants first read a consent form asking them to fully understand the content of the survey and assuring them that they could stop participating in the survey at any time.The interview content given in the book is basically the original words of the participants, but the details that may reveal the identity of the participants have been deleted.Additionally, participants were told that if they had any concerns about the survey, or felt depressed after answering the questions or sharing their stories, we had clinical psychologists on hand to help them.

As mentioned earlier, we had previously identified 237 sexual motives.In this interview and survey, firstly ask the interviewed women whether they have ever had one of these motives, if the answer is yes, then ask the interviewed women to tell their specific experiences; if the answer is no, then ask the interviewed women to give a new one sexual motives.The responses of the interviewed women confirmed, deepened, and enriched our original survey findings.Most importantly, this gives women the opportunity to explain their sexual motivations in their own words, thereby giving us a deeper understanding of women's sexual psychology, which cannot be done with data analysis.

在研究过程中，1006名来自世界各地的女性同我们分享了自己的经历。她们来自美国的46个州（阿拉斯加州、蒙大拿州、内布拉斯加州、特拉华州除外）；加拿大10个省（萨斯喀彻温省和爱德华岛除外）和一个区（西北地区）；三个欧洲国家（德国、比利时、法国）；澳大利亚、新西兰、以色列、中国。受访女性的年龄介于18岁（我们规定参与者年龄不得小于18周岁）到86岁之间，包括美国印第安人、亚洲人、黑人、白人（非西班牙）、拉丁美洲人。57%的受访者称自己有宗教信仰，包括基督教（英国圣公会教徒、浸礼会教徒、天主教会教徒、美国圣公会教徒、路德会教会教徒、卫理公会教徒、摩门教教徒、圣灵降临节集会教徒、新教徒、基督复临安息日会教徒）、犹太教、伊斯兰教、佛教、印度教、道教、普救一位神教、异教或者威卡教，26%的受访者是不可知论者，14%的受访者是无神论者。调查是通过网络进行的，受访者来自不同的社会经济背景：17%的受访者的家庭年收入少于25000美元，31%的受访者的家庭年收入在25001-50000美元之间，33%的受访者的家庭年收入在50001-100000美元之间，19%的受访者的家庭年收入在100000美元以上。

Of course, we also asked about the relationship status and sexual orientation of the interviewed women.About 80 percent of respondents said they were in a relationship, and 10 percent were dating but not in an unstable relationship. 93% of the respondents said they were partly or completely heterosexual, 2% said they were bisexual, and 5% said they were partly or completely gay. Eleven percent of respondents selected "Other," including gay, asexual, bisexual, bisexual, bisexual, pansexual, queer, straight plus other, non-fixed, open Orientation, polyamorous, sexually ambiguous, and mixed sexuality, such as "predominantly straight with some homosexuality."

What's most surprising about the research is that there are successes and failures for every sexual motivation.Sex is generally very enjoyable, giving women passion, love, warmth, and novelty:

I found that... two things are very important - being able to have passionate sex with him, and being able to laugh with him and experience different joys with him.It's as if laughter and sex satisfy both physical and mental needs.

—Heterosexual female, 42 years old

Women like physical and mental pleasure.

But if you want to achieve something through sex, sometimes you will inevitably fail.In fact, sex can sometimes leave women feeling lonely and miserable.A woman interviewed couldn't bear the loneliness and went to seek comfort, but things backfired:
The last time I was in love, I had sex with him entirely because I was lonely and felt unloved.It was so silly to do that because I was in a much worse mood afterwards... I regret it now because we didn't know each other very well and the relationship was very unstable.A month later, we broke up.

—Heterosexual female, 39 years old

Although there are failures, there are also examples of success that are shocking to read.One woman interviewed talked about how she used sex to boost her self-confidence:
I've had sex with a couple of boys out of compassion, they were all virgins, I pity them for never touching a woman's body, so I give them.I felt great at the time, I felt like I was riding them, and they were the underdogs who obeyed.Being their sex coach has given me a huge boost in self-confidence and feeling more attractive.

—Heterosexual female, 25 years old

Others see sex as a way to experience God:

I can't describe the feeling...but the pure joy of sex, the connection with another human being makes me feel more deeply the cycle of life and the hidden power between heaven and earth...essentially, God.

—Heterosexual female, 21 years old

This book contains women's true stories, a large number of scientific and clinical discoveries, and our own original research, hoping to reveal to readers the colorful psychology of women's love. In the sweetness, some people experience the love that is not stained with smoke and dust.

We hope this book will help readers make informed choices—when, how, and why to have sex with their partner or lover.Although this book is not a "self-help" book, I believe that readers will be able to learn knowledge that can be applied in life and analyzed with their partners.We hope this book can lead readers to savor women's rich love psychology from a new perspective.

(End of this chapter)