237 reasons for sex

In this morning's Chicago Tribune Judy Peres reports on a survey conducted by University of Texas researchers that claims to have identified 237 reasons why people have sex.

I'll pause until you're finished snickering.

The study, published in the August issue of Archives of Sexual Behavior, was conducted in two phases. First, 400 volunteers were asked to identify every reason for having sex that they could think of, or that they've heard of. Over 700 reasons were advanced, but when overlapping reasons were weeded out, 237 were left.

Then another 1,500 students were asked to "rate how important each of the 237 reasons was in their own sexual behavior."

Here's a chart showing how the responses broke down:

Physical
●My hormones were out of control
●I was attracted to the person
●It seemed like good exercise
Goal-directed
●I wanted to get a raise
●Because of a bet
●I wanted to change the topic of conversation
Emotional
●I realized I was in love
●I wanted to say 'thank you'
Insecurity
●I didn't know how to say 'no'
●I felt obligated

It seemed like good exercise? No wonder Bally Total Fitness filed for bankruptcy protection yesterday. How could Bally hope to compete with this?

I wanted to change the topic of conversation? What were you talking about before? Couldn't you switch to talking about the weather? Maybe a book that you'd read?

I wanted to say 'thank you'? Wouldn't a nice card have sufficed? Although this could cause a radical upswing in common courtesy....

You're snickering again, aren't you?