Why Women Have Sex (32 page)

In the 1993 movie
Indecent Proposal
, the character Diana, played by Demi Moore, is motivated to have sex for a single night in exchange for a million dollars. The movie spurred debates across the country, with women discussing the hypothetical question of whether they would sleep with a stranger for the same amount of money. A joke circulated in which a woman was asked whether she would sleep with Robert Redford, who had played the propositioning sexual partner, for a million dollars. After a long pause, she replied: “Yes, but you’ll have to give me some time to come up with the money!” The punch line highlights the fact that women, too, deem some men to be valuable sexual resources—high-status, handsome men, such as Robert Redford, who is a verifiable sex (and status) symbol.

Not surprisingly, women in our study reported having sex not only for money but also as a means of getting a job, a raise, or a promotion. This phenomenon is known as the “casting couch,” a euphemism for a situation in which an actress trades sexual favors with a producer, director, or other executive with decision-making authority in return for a movie role. Marilyn Monroe admitted to having sex with powerful men to break into Hollywood and secure key starring roles, although these episodes apparently caused her great emotional anguish. After her sex sessions with studio bosses, she reputedly took hour-long showers to
wash away the defilement she endured at the hands of “wrinkled old men.” The casting couch is still alive in Hollywood today, as documented in Oscar winner Julia Phillips’s book,
You’ll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again
. Nor is it limited to the United States. In India, the TV show
India’s Most Wanted
documented casting-couch incidents in the country’s blockbuster “Bollywood” musical film industry. And in 2006, the Chinese actress Zhang Yu released twenty graphic sex videos taken from a video camera she kept hidden in order to verify her claims that she had had to pay for many of her starring roles through sexual exchanges.

Although most women who trade sex for professional advancement suffer through rather than enjoy the sex act, this is not always the case. Some women willingly exchange sex for positions and privileges in the workplace. One woman, for example, reported that she did not consider the expectation that she have sex with the foreman at her workplace to be sexual harassment, since she was able to get “easy work” as a result.

Nor are the hallowed halls of academia exempt from the basic laws of sexual economics. Offering sex for a good grade was all too common during the 1960s and ’70s, prior to the enactment and enforcement of sexual harassment rules on college campuses. The offers can come from either party—and can be consensual or threatening in nature. Perhaps the most flagrant case came to light when it was revealed that over a thousand women allegedly secured better grades from Italian professor Emanuele Giordano in exchange for their sexual favors.

Women’s sexual attraction to a man is sometimes influenced by the nonmonetary resources he has at his disposal. One woman needed the help of a handyman:

A guy I dated would do handyman work around my house and instead of money, I paid with sex. When my common sense and dignity returned, I fired him and began doing my own handyman work. I have more pride in myself and achievements and respect for myself now.

—heterosexual woman, age 44

But cold, hard cash is another inducement:

A wealthy ex-boyfriend of mine knew that I was having some financial troubles so he offered me $20 for a blow job. It was a very basic exchange of services; he helped me out, I helped him out. We’re on friendly terms and have been for many years. Anytime I need money, he offers it again. It’s more or less a joke between us at this point.

—predominantly heterosexual woman, age 24

As this example illustrates, there may be no crisp demarcation between prostitution and gift giving. “Gift giving or even cash payment for sexual intercourse,” one scholar writes, “cannot be used as criteria to define prostitution, for these occur in courtship or even in marital situations.” As the prominent evolutionary biologist Nancy Burley notes, “Since prostitution and courtship exist as a continuum, the vast majority of copulatory opportunities involve costs to males in terms of time and/or material goods.”

A significant difference, however, is the psychological meaning that the women themselves attach to the gifts they receive. Women often interpret gifts not for their literal material value, but rather for the symbolic meaning behind them—as evidence that the sexual partner is interested in her for a deeper enduring relationship rather than a single moment of passion. That is why the thought that the person puts into the gift is often more important than its dollar value. And in some sexual transactions, neither money nor gifts are exchanged at all. Rather, what is exchanged is sexual pleasure, as occurs in relationships termed “friends-with-benefits.”

Historically, people have viewed friendships as mutually beneficial nonsexual alliances, involving trust, loyalty, and mutual personal regard. But a sexual component has been added to some friendships in the modern world, particularly on university campuses and among young urban adults. Research reveals that roughly 60 percent of American college students have engaged in a “friends-with-sexual-benefits” relationship at some point in their lives and that roughly 36 percent currently
have a “sex buddy.” Indeed, when women have casual sex, most prefer to have it with a friend (63 percent) than with a stranger (37 percent).

These sexual connections emerged in our study of why women want sex. One woman who had been separated from her boyfriend during her college years said she sought a friend-with-benefits “because life is too damn short to be waiting four years to have sex again.” Another woman in our study described it this way:

I was attracted to the guy . . . and even though I couldn’t see us together in the long term and didn’t think he was really “Mr. Right” for me, I felt like having sex but didn’t want to wait until Mr. Right came along, if Mr. Right was ever going to come along at all.

—heterosexual woman, age 21

Romantic relationships are typically characterized by high levels of passion, intimacy, and commitment. Friends-with-benefits, in contrast, have moderate levels of passion and intimacy, but low levels of commitment. Nonetheless, unlike traditional one-night stands, a friend-with-benefits relationship typically involves mutual respect, longevity, and some measure of affection. Although more women (18 percent) than men (3 percent) expect the beneficial friendship to turn into a romantic relationship, more than 80 percent expect no romance to be imminent.

Less emotionally connected and more sexually casual are “booty calls,” a slang phrase made popular by the 1995 dance song “Booty Call” by Fast Eddie and the 1997 movie
Booty Call
starring Jamie Foxx. The label derives from the mode of initiation—typically, a phone call, e-mail, text message, or instant message made by either friend for the sole purpose of proposing sex. Booty calls are made to people with whom a person has already had a casual sexual relationship, although sometimes they occur with ex-mates or in the context of more serious relationships. One study found that among twenty-two potential reasons for accepting a booty call, women ranked second “because the person did
not
want more than just sex from me.”

There are exceptions, of course. In our study, one woman implied that she hoped for more than just sex:

It was a relationship called “fuck buddy,” someone that you are not dating but just have sex. . . . It was kind of living a secret life that no one knew about. . . . He did not want to date but wanted to have sex, so I had sex with him. I knew he was fucking other females other than me, but I still did it because he told me to and I wanted or hoped that it would turn around.

—heterosexual woman, age 23

So what motivates most women to have sex in these various friends-with-benefits relationships? The primary answer appears to be the reciprocal, trusting exchange of pleasure for pleasure among equals. Sexual pleasure is a major motivation for women’s sexual activity, and sex with a friend provides women with a greater sense of trust, security, and safety than sex with a stranger. Many women said that low-commitment sex with a trusted person discharged them of the commitments, complexities, and entanglements typically entailed by a romantic relationship. Some women, perhaps those focusing heavily on school or a career, report that they do not have the time or inclination to form an emotionally committed romantic relationship. So a sex buddy provides a mutually beneficial sexual exchange that can meet a woman’s sexual needs, and sometimes even her intimacy needs, without the time burden entailed by a long-term emotional bond.

Most women, though, do not generally view a friend-with-benefits relationship as an alternative to a more traditional romantic relationship. Some use these sexual exchanges as good-for-now interludes while in the process of searching for romance. Some use them as a sexual testing ground for evaluating what they might want in a long-term mate. And others have friends-with-benefits as a sexual supplement to an ongoing committed relationship.

Not all friends-with-benefits relationships result in unmitigated, mutually beneficial sexual bliss. Women who have these relationships also report some disadvantages. These include developing romantic feelings for the friend (65 percent), harming the friendship (35 percent), causing negative emotions (24 percent), and risking negative sexual side effects such as sexually transmitted diseases (10 percent). Interestingly, the vast majority of women, 73 percent, never explicitly discuss the
ground rules or expectations for these relationships. Of those who did talk explicitly, 11 percent say they came to a mutual agreement about the sex-for-sex exchange, and only a tiny minority of women, 4 percent, indicated that they “set the rules,” to which the friend agreed.

Only one scientific study has explored how sex-buddy relationships fare over time. That study, involving sixty-five women and sixty men, all college students, found that in 36 percent of the cases, the sex friends remained friends but stopped having sex. Another 28 percent remained sex buddies over a longer period of time. In 26 percent of the cases, the relationship ended entirely. And in 10 percent, the friend relationship blossomed into a romantic relationship—a happy outcome for this minority, but not the primary motivation for women who enter into a sex-for-sex exchange with a friend.

Many exchanges of sex for resources are more subtle and unspoken, occurring implicitly in the context of ongoing relationships, as exemplified by this account from one woman in our study:

My boyfriend bought me a car a few years back. I wasn’t in the mood for sex, but he was, so we had sex whenever he asked . . . for at least a couple of weeks!

—heterosexual woman, age 22

Or, following the adage that “time equals money,” because not doing so would inconvenience the person:

I wasn’t that into him and he had driven five hours to come and visit me; I felt bad [that] he had come all that way to see me and that I realized I didn’t like him as much as I thought I did so I figured what the heck.

—heterosexual woman, age 24

In these cases, no explicit exchange of sex for resources occurred. Rather, the woman felt motivated to have sex not out of sexual desire,
but rather out of a sense of reciprocity in repaying, or balancing out, a material or nonmaterial debt.

Here is how another woman described using a sexual exchange to build up a debt with her partner:

Sometimes in a relationship you do things because you know that if you please your partner they are happy, which helps jump-start a deeds process. For example, if the house really needs cleaning and you want some help, the person is more open to helping when they are in a good mood. Also, if you need a favor such as building something your partner is more likely to say yes if you return a favor in the most pleasurable of ways!

—heterosexual woman, age 25

Other women are more direct in their description of sexual economics:

[I have sex] to get my way or to persuade my husband into something I really want and he might be opposed to.

—heterosexual woman, age 31

I will often use sex as leverage in my relationship to get what I want.

—heterosexual woman, age 27

You know the situation with your spouse where you really want to please them sexually because you want to have your own way on something. Little things like choosing [where to eat] dinner.

—heterosexual woman, age 25

In hunter-gatherer societies, women are sexually attracted to men who have the ability to provide meat through hunting. This attraction occurs whether a woman wants to become a wife or a mistress. Among the Siriono of Bolivia, for example: