Here, here. As I’ve said before, I can think of few things people are more likely to lie about than a study of their sexual habits. Yes, even an anonymous one. Some truths people don’t want to face, even if only with a piece of paper.

Nope, it’s not even that: It’s a study of what students at UT Austin report about why they had sex. As far as I could tell there was no internal or external validation conducted in order to judge the veracity of the responses.

Junk in, junk out. And so it goes.

I do think that a list of clipped, one-sentence reasons will not adequately explain a nuanced social phenomenon like homosociality. Take the “pleasing your partner” reason, for example. Amongst some guys I knew in college, pleasing their female partner was important partly (I assume not wholly) because they bragged to each other about it. If subjects were questioned further on their one-sentence reasons for having sex (say, a semi-structured interview instead of just a survey) further rationale based on homosociality might or might not come up for lots of those reasons.

I think I agree with you. The survey doesn’t strongly support the notion of homosociality. The reasons listed in it lack depth, so I don’t think they’d support many social theories of sexual behavior at all. If I were a researcher on that project and still had some grant money left over, though, homosociality would probably be a fruitful area for further study to clarify some of the survey findings.

If anything, the “good” part of the study was the commonality among men and women for the main reasons to engage in sex — and I’ll go out on a limb that most people would claim those reasons as “appropriate” (for lack of better term at the moment). However, that point barely rates more than a sentence in the article.

Now, whether the survey population support making any broader claims is a good point — a point that cuts both ways in looking at the data to make more generalized statements.

That’s not a study of why people have sex, it’s a study of why college students, specifically at UT Austin, have sex. For a lot of us the sexual culture in college was different from other times in our lives, and even from university to university there can be differences.

I think it’s interesting, definitely, but with the narrow demographic they survey I see it as an interesting pilot study, basically.

First, the “n” was not 2,000 - “A total of 1,549 undergraduate students (503 men, 1046 women)”

Second, the study used a ranking scale (so it wasn’t a yes or no I had sex for this reason)

“None of my sexual experiences (1), A few of my sexual experiences (2), Some of my sexual experiences (3), Many of my sexual experiences (4), and Allof my sexual experiences (5).”

From the study -

Table 2 presents the 50 most **infrequently ** endorsed reasons for having sexual intercourse out of the possible 237 reasons. The least frequently endorsed reasons for having intercourse could be categorized into five broad themes. One theme involved wanting to harm another person, ither a partner (e.g., ‘‘I was mad at my partner, so I had sex with someone else’’), a rival (e.g., ‘‘I wanted to hurt an enemy’’) or a stranger (e.g., ‘‘I wanted to give someone else a sexually transmitted disease (e.g., herpes, AIDS)’’. A second theme involved attaining resources such as a job, a promotion, money, drugs, or gifts. A third common theme revolved around enhancing social status (e.g., ‘‘I wanted to be popular’’; ‘‘I wanted to have more sex than my friends’’). A fourth theme centered on having sex as a means to a seemingly unrelated end, such as getting rid of a headache or menstrual cramps, and a fifth theme involved having sex out of duty or pressure. (NOTE - Four percent of the women and 2% of men were married. Six percent of women and 5% of men were living with a sexual partner)

Yes, the study did say there was a “statistical” difference between men and women about having sex for ’status’ gain. However, the mean numbers were the following:

I thought it would boost my social status

Women: Mean - 1.07 SD - .35

Men: Mean - 1.20 SD- .61

So, even within that narrow range, going to the extremes of 1 SD, most UT undergraduate men (and women) reported that none to “a few” of their sexual experiences were for social status.

The closest you get to over 2 (so into the “some” range) — and just barely at 1 SD are

The person was famous and I wanted to be able to say I had sex with him/her (** and what does “famous” mean?)

Women : 1.10 .44

Men: 1.26 .79

I could brag to other people about my sexual experience

Women - 1.14 .53

Men - 1.30 .76

I note the NYT did not report this one that perhaps could also be a “stereotype” myth –

I wanted to please my partner

Women - 2.79 1.32

Men - ** 3.11 ** 1.35

I thought the good part was the following:

The most frequently endorsed reason why both men and
women reported engaging in sexual intercourse was because
they were attracted to the person. As can be seen in
Table 1, out of a pool of 237 items, 8 of the top 10, and 20
of the top 25 reasons given for engaging in sexual intercourse were similar for men and women..

and that items such as “to give a STD” or “initiation rite” was at the most infrequent end of the reasons.