What do women want?

A couple of years ago, Noam Shpancer wrote in Psychology Today,

This question, as Freud intuited, is not easy to answer.

On one hand, there is considerable evidence that women seek and place a premium on a sense of intimacy and emotional closeness with their sexual partners. The reasons for this seem clear and logical: Having but one uterus to fill with one fetus at a time, a woman gains no obvious evolutionary advantage from promiscuity. For women, possessing no seed to spread, sex with more people does not result in more potential genetic offspring. Moreover, women are at higher risk than men for sexual violence and sexually transmitted diseases, not to mention the unique risk of pregnancy. It pays for women to be careful in choosing their sexual partners.

In addition, the female orgasm is less reliably achieved than the male’s so their odds of enjoying casual or anonymous sex are lower. A woman who wants to increase her chances of enjoyment and minimize her chances of harm is better off getting to know her partner well before she gets to sex. From this logic follows the claim that women are bio-programmed to want relationships, not sex; that they need a stable, intimate relationship to feel aroused and are therefore built for sexual monogamy and marriage.

Problem solved?

Not so fast. First, more recent studies show that gender differences in reported number of sexual partners are reduced or disappear altogether if women are told that they are connected to a lie detector and that the information they provide will remain confidential. In other words, when women feel safe enough or otherwise compelled to tell the truth about their sexual behavior, the story they tell more closely resembles the male story.

Moreover, if women believe that they will not be harmed and that the sex will be good, their willingness to engage in casual sex equals that of men. The female tendency toward a roving eye can also be inferred, according to the work of evolutionary psychologist David Buss (link is external), from the very phenomenon of male jealousy, which is common in all societies and consistently related to men’s fears of potential cuckoldry. If women really do not want extra marital sex, then why are men so suspicious and jealous? Why put Stop signs on a street with no traffic?

...Moreover, the evidence suggests that women initiate divorce more often than men, and benefit less from marriage than do men on measures of health, happiness, and wealth. Additionally, as is well known to clinical psychologists and marriage counselors everywhere, many women who feel close to a loving partner nevertheless fail to feel passion for him. Australian researcher Lorraine Dennerstein found that the decline in women's libido over the years of adulthood is strongly linked to the loss of sexual interest in their long time partners.

If monogamy, intimacy and communication are the engines of female desire, why do so many women fail to ignite with a familiar and faithful man? Why does their passion fizzle in marriage? Why will they seek to secretly graze in foreign pastures? Why do they not benefit from the monogamous arrangement more? Why do they break it up more readily?

Marta Meana, a researcher at the University of Nevada, has argued provocatively (link is external) that the organizing principle of female sexuality is the desire to be desired. In her view, the delicate, tentative guy who politely thinks about you and asks if this is okay or that is okay is a guy who may meet the expectations of your gender politics (treats me as an equal; is respectful of me; communicates with me) and your parents’ preferences, but he may also put you into a sexual coma—not despite these qualities, but because of them.

Female desire, according to Meana, is activated when a woman feels overwhelmingly desired, not rationally considered. Female erotic literature, including all those shades of gray, is built on this fantasy. Sexual desire in this view does not work according to our expectations and social values. Desire seeks the path of desire, not the path of righteousness. It thrives not on social order but on its negation. This is one reason all religions and societies try to control, contain, limit and re-direct it.

...At the end of the day, the accumulating evidence appears to reveal a paradoxical element at the core of female desire, a tension between two conflicting motives. On the one hand is the desire for stability, intimacy, and security—picture the flame on the burner of a gas stove: controlled, utilitarian, domesticated, and good for making dinner. On the other hand is the need to feel totally, uncontrollably desired, the object of raw, primal lust—a house on fire.

Read more here.