Boredom & 236 Other Reasons to Have Sex

Ah sex. You can’t live with it and you can’t live without it. At least for some people who responded to an extensive survey on the reasons they do the wild thing.

Beyond boredom, there’s pleasure and procreation, feeling closer to God and, all too predictably, showing off, getting revenge . . .

New research published in the August issue of Archives of Sexual Behavior by two University of Texas psychologists includes a list of 237 reasons that motivate people to have sex.

Said co-author Cindy Meston in what seems to be a thoughtfully clever pre-emptive strike against the kind of criticism that sex surveys get:

"You need to know why people are having sex if you're trying to put into place a safe-sex program. If you assume people have sex because they're in the heat of the moment, then [you tell them to] carry condoms. But if they're doing it for revenge or because they want to enhance their social status, that will require a different strategy."

Click here for the thoughts of Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés, a psychologist friend, and here for the study. And you can volunteer your own reasons here.