Why women have sex

SQ - i agree "rape" is not a motivation it is a description of sex that is forced or coerced. (so the motivation might be fear, physical compulsion, protection of family etc... I suspect rape was not a category in the study but implied in several of the different categories of reasons the women described - but the researchers are not lawyers)

I agree it's a shoddy article, and I have no idea about the book.

But I do not understand this business of rape is not sex.

To me there are two categories that define rape - consent or not consent.

Why complicate with another set of categories 'sex' (active) and 'not sex' (passive) - I think this is really dangerous and unnecessary.

The question of whether the woman is active or passive is immaterial.

So what if the woman is an active participant - if she is too young, too drunk or otherwise intoxicated to really give consent then it's rape. If she is coerced or blackmailed into having sex then its rape.

Yes that's what I thought, wem.

I think I see what you mean as well SardineQueen. It's a logic thing really. Two women have been penetrated, non-consensually. Woman A doesn't call it rape, and if asked when she last had sex, would consider that incident as sex and name it as such. Woman B does define it as rape, and if asked when she last had sex, wouldn't consider that incident as having sex, so wouldn't include it in her response. So, at no point in the survey should the question, 'When did you last have sex?' provide the answer, 'last tuesday, when I was raped.'

Thanks yama.

I felt like I was getting a bit bogged down there so I'm pleased it made sense to some people!

SardineQueen - I don't have time to post properly but I wanted to say that I understood exactly what you meant in your first and subsequent posts.

Hmmm yes I guess you have summed it up there

No, no, I think you've been quite eloquent, was just that sentence that bugged me. This whole thread has been difficult though.

You've definitely been more eloquent than I have in expressing your ideas.

But yes, the whole tone of the article was out. But then, it was a misogynistic, victim blaming, evo psych piece of trash.

can you tell I liked it?

That is all true frothy.

I don't feel that I've expressed myself very well on this thread.

My discomfort came from the idea that "rape" is a motivation for women to have sex. And the tone of the article - it just didn't fit.

I suppose it has been hard to try and explain why I felt the language there was all wrong, that to include rape as a motivation for women to have sex was all wrong.

I do think language is important - and to me "having sex" conveys a different message to "being raped" and I'm surprised that is so controversial I guess.

SQ, I'd argue with people not describing rape in films as sex...

I need to find an example, but I think Waitress may be an example. If we define coercion as "nagging" a woman for sex, using words, force, threats, etc, then there is a scene in Waitress where Keri Russell's character is raped. Yet, so many people I know described it as "sex".

Remember, until 1990, the law didn't recognize that a man can rape his wife. We have this mainstream image of rape pushed in our face, so that once we're confronted with the reality, we don't identify it as such.

It took me ten years to identify my first rape as such. (TBF, I'd suppressed the memories for most of that time) It took me four years to realise my son was possibly conceived through rape. Because the media pushes this image on us that if your rape isn't violent, or carried out by a stranger, it's not really rape.

Neutral or consensual - that's not what I meant - sorry!

I mean the first set of phrases would be used in all consensual situations, whether the situations were an unleashing of 3 months sexual desire, or a quick bunk up with someone from the pub you thought was OK but you probably wouldn't do it again. IYSWIM.

Just different from rape.

Murder = death

Rape =/= sex. Rape = assault.

As for the consent thing. My ex used to coerce me into rape. I won't call it "sex", as I consented under coercion, hence it was rape. I wouldn't enthusiastically participate, though. Towards the end of the relationship, I used to down a bottle of wine before he came home if there was any chance he'd want "sex".

The definition of consent should be active participation, with consent, which hasn't been achieved through coercion of any definition. If a woman is not actively participating in sex, then you bloody well stop, and check she's OK. What if a woman freezes during sex? That's a pretty big sign something is up.

ugh ugh ugh. If there is one thing it hate more than psudo evolutionary psychology it is the use suggestion that it is 'in the genes'.

Which one is that exactly? [bitter knows what they are talking about evolutionary geneticist emoticon]

In my part of the UK anyway, maybe the language is different in other areas.

Around here people would say things like

They had sex
He had sex with her
She had sex with him
They had sex with them

To mean neutral or consensual activities

OTOH

He raped her
They raped her

That means something quite different. People would never use the first set of phrases if they were talking about people being raped.

Because "rape" is not a motivation for women to have sex. That's why.

The legal definition of rape does not include "having sex". It is non-consensual penetration.

Having sex and being raped are different. One is active, one is passive. I am not defining anything, I am simply pointing out that most people do not think of being raped as having sex, and certainly "being raped" does not make any sense at all as a motivation for women to have sex.

In normal conversation, people do not say that people have had sex, when what they are talking about is someone being raped. People do not describe films with rape as films about people having sex. It is just not how language is used.

SQ - I agree "rape"'is the odd one out of the list.

But I still don't get why and how it could have been left out of the study.

If you ask 1000-odd women about their recent sexual encounters and some describe being forced or coerced to into intercourse what do you do: do you say "that doesnt count, we've defined that as not sex that was something else altogether -nothing to do with sex" or do you record it as one of the answers. How far do people have to be pressured for it not to count as sex and be ruled out of the study? It's not a legal assessment.

It's like if you collect statistics on causes of death, some people die peacefully in their sleep at 90, some are murdered. You can put both in the same set of statistics without saying they are 'the same' or being a murder apologist.

I'm flabbergasted that you should define rape not by consent/lack of consent but by whether the person physically participates or not.

I have sex because I enjoy it. My DP gives me sex because he gets enjoyment out of my enjoyment. And, in turn, his enjoyment from my enjoyment increases my enjoyment. Makes sense?

Basically, it's a two way act. I do it and always have done it to gain and give pleasure. I'm very fortunate that I have a partner who prefers to give than gain pleasure. And because of his selflessness, I gain a lot of pleasure from giving him pleasure.

Or did I just rewrite my first paragraph? Meh.

Anyway. I love sex (now. I didn't for the first six months of my DS's life. Which was weird. I did have sex with DP a couple of times out of 'duty' I guess. But once I got myself into I would start to enjoy it, then realised how much I had missed it.) Definitely back on track.

And yes, I do start out sexual acts with DP on the sole intention of getting an orgasm. :o

So the better way of putting it might be

What motivates women to have sex?

Their list +
Fear
Threat of violence
Protecting family
Unconsciousness (not really a motivation either
That sort of thing

Giyadas yes we are. I've been this name for quite a while (except for over Christmas when I was TheFestiveWife). The other one has only been posting under that name since the 12th Jan. Can you tell I'm pissed off.

Oh looking back in fact quite a few people near the beginning had the same thoughts

So this is a bunch of psychologists trying to find out what motivates women to have sex.

To me, rape is not a motivation, it does not make sense to include it.

Someone right at the beginning of the thread had exactly the same thought so it's not just me!

I am surprised that you cannot see what I mean at all.

Sorry to bang on but I don't want to be misunderstood.

It's this: "Meston and Buss have interviewed 1,006 women from all over the world about their sexual motivation, and in doing so they have identified 237 different reasons why women have sex." which sets the scene for the article.

To me, a motivation for having sex is not being raped. Being raped is something that is done to you, it is not something you are motivated to do as part of your sex life. The context is all wrong for rape to be included as a reason women are motivated to have sex IYSWIM.

SQ -

whatever the legal definition I think being forced to have sex is an everyday definition of rape which most people understand.

If a woman goes to the dr for a pregnancy or STD related visit and she is asked when she last had sex, she may or may not want to disclose that she was raped, but it is clear that non-consensual sex is included in the overall category of sex for the purpose of thinking about risk of pregnancy, AIDS etc...

I think this whole discussion is odd. If rape is not related to sex, then you can't talk about consensual and non-consensual sex, since all sex by your definition is consensual.

How can I explain this?

Like I can't imagine someone saying that a film like the accused (which I have never see but I think I know the general story) is about some people having sex. That's just not how people describe it. In the part of the country I live in anyway.

"Reasons women have sex" would generally be taken to mean reasons women decide to have sex, or choose to have sex. And most of the answers reflect that very well. Except for rape, it doesn't fit in that list at all.

If people don't understand how having sex is different to being raped then I don't really understand that TBH.