What other book might you compare Why Women Have Sex to and why?
Sex at Dawn, where the authors try to expand our concept of female sexuality, but they get the science embarrassingly wrong. Where the writers of Sex at Dawn make the usual mistakes and misunderstandings that come with public misconceptions with evolutionary theory, Meston and Buss get the science right, and back it up with data.
Which scene was your favorite?
Couldn't pick just one, but my favorites were the moments of insight I gained when they hit on the circumstances of my past relationships. I could see many of my past girlfriends described or explained across several motivations they cover. The girlfriend that obsessed over other women and the threat they posed to her, the non-girlfriend that cheated on her husband with me, and the girl that cheated on her previous boyfriend with a celebrity. It's also nice to know I what I did right while pursuing the woman who is now my wife.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
Yes but my bluetooth ran out of juice.
Any additional comments?
I only have two criticisms of the book, the authors rely heavily on self report, questionnaires given to women, and while they get the evolutionary psychology right, it may not be accessible to the layman. Self-reporting is notorious for failing to track the underlying causes of behavior, and really amounts to "How Women Rationilze/Justify Sex" rather than why they really do it. The authors clearly compensate for this by augmenting the data with other studies, independent evaluations and evolutionary psychology, however the distinction between the underlying evolutionary logic and the actual personal logic of the individual woman is not always clear. This can make the book misleading for someone unfamiliar with evolution.