Why do women have sex? Is it purely for pleasure or the desire to reproduce? In their ground-breaking book, clinical psychologist Cindy Meston and evolutionary psychologist David Buss investigate the underlying sexual desires of women and identify 237 distinct motivations for sex. Drawing on more than a thousand intensive interviews conducted solely for the book, as well as their pioneering research on physiological response and evolutionary emotions, Meston and Buss give us a remarkably complex and nuanced portrait of female sexuality. They explore the use of sex as a defensive tactic against a man's infidelity (protection), as a ploy to boost self-confidence (status), as a barter for gifts (resource acquisition), or even as a cure for a headache (medication).Why Women Have Sex explores the deep-seated psychology and biology of female sexuality, and promises to inform every woman's - and her partner's - awareness of her relationship to sex and her own sexuality.