Why People Don’t Have Sex

On July 31st of 2007, John Tierney wrote an article in the New York Times on the 237 reasons that people have sex. He was writing about a study done by psychologists at the University of Texas at Austin. These researchers asked approximately 2,000 people for reasons why they had sex and came up with 237 reasons.

Some fairly interesting, unexpected reasons emerged. Number 173, according to Tierney, was “to get rid of a headache”. Another was to “change the topic of conversation” and still another “because I was dared to”.

At the end of the article, Tierney invites readers to post additional reasons on his blog, or, alternatively, to post reasons why not to have sex, or, as he writes, reasons for saying “no way!” He postulates, however, that the list of reasons not to have sex will not be nearly as long as the reasons for doing it.

As I read this I thought, hmm, I’m not so sure. Not long ago I was turned down by a woman and the reason she gave was “you’re too much like a Brazilian beach.” Unfortunately, while I sat there trying to figure out whether this was a good thing or a bad thing, she got out of the car and disappeared forever.

I’m still not sure what characteristics I have in common with a Brazilian beach, or why these characteristics might be negatively looked upon, but nevertheless, it made me think there might just be more reasons to say “no way” than Tierney thinks.

And so I decided to do some investigating. I asked the first and second year medical school classes at UCSF to anonymously share reasons why they have been turned down and/or reasons that they have turned someone down.

The most often stated reason, and this will come as no surprise, was some version of “I wasn’t attracted to them”. And, interestingly, though perhaps not surprising either, women tended to emphasize not being attracted to the man’s personality while men stressed not being attracted to the woman physically. Of course, prior knowledge of the person’s sexual history played a role, as one respondent wrote that her top reason not to have sex with someone was “because they’ve slept with everyone you know”.

Both men and women gave the response “I was afraid of ruining our friendship”, although it was a man who followed this reason with his own editorial statement: “what a crock”.

One respondent, perhaps having too recently seen the movie “Rounders” said “because in the poker game of life, women are the rake, they are the f-ing rake.”

Interestingly, both “because I am gay” and “because I’m not gay” were reasons cited.

There was no statistically significant difference between responses from the first years and responses from the second years. Except that only first years gave the reason “I already had a copy of Netters” (referring to the essential anatomy atlas “Netter’s Atlas of Human Anatomy”).

Other interesting reasons that emerged for why people had been turned down were “I was too nice”, “I reminded him of his sister”, “He said I was the kind of girl you marry, not the kind of girl you date”, “She said I talked too much”, and “She said I didn’t look like a cuddler”.

Reasons that people turned down others were slightly different in tone. They ranged from “I had already had sex that day” to “It had been so long since I last did it that I was afraid I’d make a fool of myself”. Also, “His breath smelled like fecal matter”, and “She was hairier than I am”.

Time together was a factor on both ends of the spectrum, they went from “It was only our first date” to “We weren’t married yet.”

Some other interesting reasons included: “He was a confederate. In the course of our date I learned he had 2 confederate flags (one in his room, one in his truck bed).” And one of my personal favorites: “he was afraid of bees (in a very non-masculine sort of way) and he snatched celery out of my hand and waved it at a cow (we were at a petting zoo).”

It was only after collecting this data that I decided to take a look at John Tierney’s blog to see if anyone had taken him up on his offer to send in reasons why they said “no way”.

Sure enough, he says that over 3000 readers submitted reasons for this new list, and that the data was being compiled by the authors of the original study to see which list actually has more reasons.

Some of the reasons that his readers gave were: “Because if I want to feel badly about myself for being an overweight, out of shape single mom, I can just call my mother (and keep my clothes on too!)”, “The guy kept leaping out of a coffee shop I passed on the way to work playing a guitar and singing Portuguese love songs”, “His pick up line was ‘hey, you look just like my ex-girlfriend’”, and finally “The reason I said “no” to her invitation was her father’s job; police chief. I didn’t need his harassment when he found out I was only interested in his daughter’s body.”

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that was probably a good call. Of course, Tierney’s sample and mine are not exactly interchangeable. He probably didn’t, for example, get the response “I just have two words for you: Candida Albicans”.

If you’ve made it this far, maybe you’re hoping to find a gem of a clue, here at the end, as to how to navigate your way onto the list of reasons “why I did” and away from the whole “no way” thing. I would be happy to share that knowledge, dear reader, but unfortunately I have run out of column inches. And besides, I have a plane to catch to Sao Paulo to see just what exactly it is that goes on at these so called “Brazilian Beaches”.

Related articles:

1. 5 Common Reasons Why Men Lie To Women
2. 7 People You See When You Go Home For Thanksgiving
3. Male Dominance? Really?
4. Psychology of Attraction