"Well,that's a stupid question! Why the hell not?" you may be responding sarcastically as you read the title of this post. But wait; easy, tiger. Apparently this is an area of psychology that has rarely been explored in-depth, until now.

Cindy M. Meston and David M. Buss, two psychology researchers at UT-Austin, have recently compiled what they claim is the most thorough, in-depth "taxonomy of sexual motivation" in the history of psychological study. Meston and Buss surveyed nearly 2,000 UT-Austin students and came up with the most common 237 reasons why humans decide to have sex. What these professors found with their research is that, for the most part, people have sex based on fairly predictable motivations. For example, observe the top 5 most popular reasons people gave for having sex (at least, at the University of Texas at Austin):

1. I was attracted to the person.
2. I wanted to experience the physical pleasure.
3. It feels good.
4. I wanted to show my affection to the person.
5. I wanted to express my love for the person.

Okay. So this coincides with Austinist's notions of romanticism with regard to sexual attraction, however unrealistic they may be. And the next 45 most popular reasons cited pretty much follow this theme of attraction and pleasure-seeking. If this study is accurate, it appears as though most of you out there are having sex based on predictable motivations, ranging from love to simple physical pleasure. This makes sense. Austinist feels relieved and reassured.

But as you go further down the list toward the more uncommon answers, you begin to find yourself in stranger, darker territory, and your romantic ideals fall short in attempting to explain human sexual behavior. Observe the top 10 most infrequently cited reasons for having sex:

1. I wanted to give someone else an STD.
2. Someone offered me money to do it.
3. I wanted to get a raise.
4. It was an initiation rite to a club or organization.
5. I wanted to get a job.
6. I wanted to get a promotion.
7. The person offered to give me drugs for doing it.
8. I wanted to punish myself.
9. I wanted to hurt/humiliate the person.
10. I wanted to feel closer to God.

Now, certainly this is all interesting for the progress of Psychology as a science overall, but what we really want to know is: How representative is this list in explaining why Austinites, as a community, have sex? This study was performed on UT-Austin students - probably the majority of whom are undergraduate students taking PSY 301 and acting as subjects in Psych. Department experiments for course credit. We've been there. We also know how sexually active those hedonistic undergrads can be, and that their responses may not be entirely representative of the way the rest of us Austin folk live. Or maybe they are?

Take a look at the entire study here and tell us, Austin: Why do you do it? For love? For pleasure? For money and professional advancement? For spiteful revenge? For something else that we'd never have thought of (and maybe don't want to)?

Image of swans in love courtesy of mozzercork on flickr. Image of money courtesy of Tracy O on flickr.