Abstract
Recently, scholars from a variety of disciplines have begun to investigate passionate love, sexual desire, and sexual behavior. Specifically, they have begun to investigate questions profound questions as: “Why do men and women engage in sexual liaisons?” “Why do they avoid such liaisons?” In this paper, we will review what theorists have learned about the motives that encourage people to engage in (or to avoid) sexual encounters, focusing specifically about what is know about the influence of gender, personality, and social context on sexual motives. We will close by speculating about the impact of such differing motives on sexual functioning and the prevalence of STIs and AIDs.
Highlights
Scholars from a variety of disciplines have begun to investigate passionate love, sexual desire, and sexual behavior
Other social historians have speculated about the impact of shifts in the balance of power between men and women on shifts in sexual behavior (Hatfield & Rapson, 1993, 2005)
Paul Nelson (1978) developed the first personality measures designed to assess a wide variety of sexual motives
Summary
Theorists from a variety of intellectual disciplines have speculated about the factors that lead young people to seek out (or to avoid) sexual encounters (Hatfield, et al, 2010a and b). We will argue that it is the cultural and biopsychosocial perspective that gives us the best understanding of the impact of diverse sexual motives on people’s sexual attitudes and behavior—especially risky sexual behavior
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