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27 - The Enigmatic Urge

How Sexual Desire Works

from Part VII - Sexual Selection and Human Sex Differences

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 March 2020

By
Frederick M. Toates
Edited by
Lance Workman ,
Will Reader  and
Jerome H. Barkow
Lance Workman
Affiliation:
University of South Wales
Will Reader
Affiliation:
Sheffield Hallam University
Jerome H. Barkow
Affiliation:
Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia
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Summary

This chapter explores how motivation theory (Chapter 15) set into an evolutionary framework can illuminate sexual desire. As implied by its title, some features of sexual desire appear to be enigmatic. However, a study of the combination of causal processes and evolutionary psychology can make them less so.

Examples of enigmatic and seemingly inexplicable features of sexual desire are to be found at numerous points along the wide spectrum of sexual responses that people exhibit. These range from something all-embracing and even addictive, including homicidal sex-linked violence, through to the absence of desire: asexuality. Some men spend hours absorbed in the biologically nonfunctional activity of watching child pornography, thereby risking their freedom, marriages, and careers. Others require a fetish object, such as rubber, to be present in order to feel sexual desire.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Behavior , pp. 330 - 341
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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