Abstract

Evolutionary Psychology www.epjournal.net – 2010. 8(2): 275-283 ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ Book Review Why it’s interesting why women have sex A review of Cindy M. Meston and David M. Buss, Why Women Have Sex: The Psychology of Sex in Women’s Own Voices. Times Books: New York, 2009, 306 pp.,US$25.00, ISBN 978-0- 8050-8834-2 (hardcover). J. Brett Smith, Evolution Working Group, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487, USA. Email: j.brett.smith@gmail.com (corresponding author). Christopher D. Lynn, Ph.D., Department of Anthropology, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487, USA. Email: cdlynn@ua.edu. A joke holds that women need a reason to have sex, whereas men just need a place. While the reality of male sexual behavior is at least slightly more complex, research in evolutionary psychology over the past two decades has confirmed that the joke contains a kernel of truth—human females, as predicted by straightforward evolutionary logic, do seem to be the more picky sex when deciding to have intercourse. However, as Cindy Meston and David Buss argue in their new book Why Women Have Sex, the varied reasons actual women give—rather than statistical representations of them—are numerous, their range of associated emotions wider, and the implications for evolutionary models potentially more complicated than has been outlined