| Abstract: | The literature on sexual motivation consistently depicts males as primarily motivated by physical and women by emotional factors. Supporting research has been almost exclusively limited to predominantly unmarried teenagers and college aged students, implicitly assuming the absence of age differences in sexual motivation. There has also been a tendency to infer personal values from stated motivations. The present study questions these two assumptions by analyzing two questions included in a survey of 179 adults aged 22 to 57 years, one on respondents' usual motive for engaging in sexual intercourse and anoth6r on their assessment of its most important benefit. An Analysis of Variance reveals significant gender differences in usual motivation but nor in ideal benefits and significant interactions between gender and age in both usual and ideal motivations. Further, we found only a moderate relationship between usual motive for engaging in sexual intercourse and respondent's assessment of its most important benefit. These findings lead us to conclude that caution must be used in making generalizations regarding motives for engaging in sexual intercourse either across age or from sexual realities to sexual ideals. |
