METHOD
Participants
The sample of participants were all undergraduates studying Psychology. There were two groups on separate days each consisting of ten students.
There were ten females in one group and eight females and two males in the other group.
Each group then analysed the other group’s discussion.
Procedure
The participants were all informed on the basis of the study and the question that was being asked. The group initially formed pairs and discussed the question of
“ What makes you want to have sex with some-one else?”
The group then rejoined, seated in a circle, and discussed the findings in an open-ended discussion of,
“ What makes men and women want to have sex with some-one else”
The discussion ran for approximately twenty minutes and was recorded with a video camera and a microphone.
The discussion was then transformed into a transcript, with each sentence numbered, and given to the other group for analysis.
Analysis of Data
The discussion was analysed using Grounded Theory Analysis. Each word was analysed by forming associations for that word and the context within to the sentence, (refer to appendix 1-9).
Open coding procedures were used to devise main categories within the data of a broad nature. Further analysis and grouping of categories was performed, by finding links and similarities between certain categories resulting in core categories.
The researcher continued this analysis and moved back and forth between each stage to ensure that precise categories were formed.
FINDINGS
Initially, twenty subcategories were formed, (refer to appendix 10-17), which were grouped together according to similarities and the final categorisation list contains five themes, (refer to appendix 21-22). The effect of societal pressures, the desire to escape, the perception of self, biologically programmed, and fantasy versus intimacy.
Figure 1 shows the links made between each of these categories.
FANTASY
INTIMACY
SOCIETAL PRESSURES
LOSS OF CONTROL
DESIRE TO ESCAPE
SELECTION
FUTURE
The core themes of the discussion are now discussed and justified.
THE EFFECT OF SOCIETAL PRESSURES
This is one of the core themes, if not the main theme that derived from the analysis of the discussion. Subcategories that formed this theme from the first categorisation process, (see appendix 10-17), were competition, pressure, society, choice, control, emotions. These are words, mostly taken from the transcript itself. Each subcategory will now be given justification as to why these words formed the theme of the ‘effect of societal pressures’.
COMPETITION
The words peer pressure are associated with competition as others such as friends and peers put pressure on each other to compete for the opposite sex. This concept came mainly from sentence 19,
“ I think for men it’s like quite a lot of peer pressure involved. For a man it’s really cool to sleep with as many women as they can…”
Sentence number 94 also gave thought to this idea which states that,
“Some people…prefer to go out and sort of like have as many different, you know, sexual conquests…..as possible”
Also women compete with each other to,
“Find a provider for their egg to see it into later life”, (sentence number 7).
PRESSURE
The word pressure appeared on frequent occasions in the discussion. Pressure comes from friends, family, partners and society in general.
Some actions or fantasies are,
“Forbidden, and that’s part of not being able to like, have something…”
Other words from the text associated with pressure are job, age, stereotypes and demanding.
SOCIETY
This is the word that formed the core category. The rules of society state what is right or wrong for the people in the society. This idea is demonstrated in sentence number 24,
“…..whereas men just see a good-looking girl and get a better reputation.”
This is obviously a concept that is maintained by society.
The words “social conditioning” appeared in sentence number 39. These are very powerful words that confirm the fact that there are rules of society, which we follow.
Another subject that is of interest is that of Christianity. A religion, which is a group of people, that follows the ideas and rules of. Sentence 94 is an instance of this occurrence,
“Do you think there’s like the individual…and society, if you like, has a lot to do with your desire……Christian will not want to have sex will want to have sex but feel they cant have sex until they are married and in a proper stable relationship”
CHOICE
The question of whether we have choices aroused from the discussion. Phrase
8 stated that women,
“Therefore make rational choices about their partner”. This indicates that we do have a choice and we make choices.
In sentence 91, the word “looking” shows that we have a choice if we are looking for a mate.
It was stated in the discussion that,
“Men will take it….”. This suggests that women have no choice in the situation.
EMOTIONS
Different sorts of emotions were discussed ranging from excitement to mad feelings.
The words, “relaxed”, “intimacy” and “loving” were associated with relationships and the words “excitement” and “fun” were linked with finding someone to have sex with.
Here is an example taken from line number 91,
“Does that take away the need for intimacy that…..are you still looking to have good sex rather than have intimate sex with someone who you love?”
This part of the discussion is also incredibly illustrative, (line 143),
“It’s the thrill of the chase and the excitement and all those sort of like mad feelings that you get at the beginning….”
THE DESIRE TO ESCAPE
This category explains how the effects of societal pressures and life stresses can sometimes give us the desire to escape such pressures and the class discussion clarified this. It is not a largely talked about theme in the transcript, however this does not mean it is any less important. The key words that demonstrate this are giving out sex, holiday, alcohol, stimulants, lower inhibitions and fantasies. These are classic methods of escape. Here are some examples of this,
“….on holiday and stuff as many women sleep with as many men as will sleep with women, on holiday situations”, (line 67).
“..things like alcohol and other stimulants which will like lower inhibitions and make you feel more desirable and make you have that desire for sex…”.
THE PERCEPTION OF SELF
This category derived from firstly the pressures of society. The diagram below, figure 2, shows how this category was formed.
SOCIETY RULES
PEER PRESSURE
PERCEPTION OF SELF
PHYSICAL
CONFIDENCE ESCAPE
DEMONSTRATIVE SEX
Words found in the scripts which led to this categorisation were, “find attractive”, “good pair of boobs”, “nice ass” and “physical”.
An example if this is,
“It’s possibly more to do with how you feel about yourself, rather than that other person….and how you sort of like see your body and how you feel about it,”(line 86).
This emphasises the importance of ones perception of self.
PROGRAMMED
This category is the core theme along with society pressures as to what makes men and women want to have sex.
PROVIDER
SELECTION
CHOICE
FREEDOM FINDF
COMPETITION FUTURE
RESOURCES
EVOLUTION
PROGRAMMED
Other words which led to the category of biologically programmed were “biological”, “genetically”, “evolution”, “predisposed”, “find a provider for their egg” and “hormones”.
An opinion taken from the discussion is that,
“ the simple biological point of view of evolution where I think genetically a man is more predisposed to sow his seed……….women…want to find a provider for their egg to see it into later life……”(line 1)
FUTURE SELECTION
The quote above is also relevant for this sub-category of future selection. Words such as “age”, “married”, “love” “relationships” and “long-term” led to this categorisation meaning that we select a mate or partner for the future, the future of out egg and ourselves.
FANTASY VERSUS INTIMACY
This category is the most obvious reasoning as to why men and women want to have sex with some one else. It could be that the wish to fulfil a fantasy drives one to the desire to have sex or one could be searching for intimacy. The two diagrams in figure 4 and 5 show the two paths found for intimacy and fantasy.
INTIMACY LOVE RELAXED
RELATIONSHIP HAPPINESS
--------------------------------------------------------------
FANTASY
FORBIDDEN
LUST FUN/PLAY
SEXUAL CONQUESTS ROLE PLAY
FREEDOM
Other words that have arisen for this category were, “thrill of the chase” and a particularly salient sentence has been taken from the discussion,
“It’s the thrill of the chase and the excitement and all those sort of like mad feelings that you get at the beginning and then its like you said, its sort of like reaches a plateau, then it’ll just sort of like moves into something else…….intimacy…..”(Sentence number 143).
CONCLUSION
These five core categories were formed from firstly analysing each word from the transcript, (app 1-9), then twenty categories were found, (app10-17), which were reduced to ten categories, (app18-20). The similarities between the categories were found which left the five core categories.
This then led to looking for links between each category to try to produce a hypothesis. Whilst the hypothesis was trying to be identified, it seemed to lead to two different paths, figure 6 shows the main path that influenced the hypothesis.
PROGRAMMED / BIOLOGICAL
FIND A SUITABLE MATE
DO THIS THROUGH SELECTION
WE COMPETE FOR A MATE
‘SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST’
FOR THE FUTURE
WE WANT INTIMACY
AND HAPPINESS
WE ENJOY MATING/SEX
WE HAVE FUN
LEADS US TO FANTASISE
ABOUT SEX
SEXUAL CONQUESTS
(MANY MATES)
MEN SPREAD THEIR SEED
Figure 6 shows how the main categories are all linked together. The analysis has shown how we are all programmed to find a suitable link, through evolution and natural selection. In doing this, we compete for a mate to find the ‘fittest’ that we can.
We also select a mate to see our egg/sperm into the future and whilst doing this we are searching for intimacy and happiness. We enjoy having sex, which leads us to fantasise about sex. This can be demonstrated through many ‘sexual conquests’ or through using role-play in relationships.
Men are thought to want to spread their seed, however they do not have the pressures of getting pregnant, as do women. Society states that if women want to have many sexual conquests they are promiscious as women can only fertilise one egg at a time.
Figure 7 shows the alternative path as to why men and women want to have sex with some one else.
SOCIETAL PRESSURES
NO TIME
TIRED
NO EFFORT
LOSE SELF CONTROL DUE TO STRESSES OF LIFE
WANT TO ESCAPE (alcohol etc)
LOSE INHIBITIONS
SUBVERSIVE/PROMISXIOUS/INDISCRIMINATE
CHANGES ONES PERCEPTION OF SELF
Societal pressures such as work and peer pressure lead us to a lack of time. This makes us tired and we sometimes cannot be bothered to make an effort to have sex.
We lose our self-control due to the stresses of life and this leaves us wanting to escape from these pressures.
We escape life stresses through alcohol and other stimulants. In doing this we lose our inhibitions and become subversive and indiscriminate of who we have sex with.
The result of such behaviours makes one change the perception of self, which in turn leads us back to the wish to escape.
DISCUSSION
The practical implications of this study are that the sample may not have been representative. There were only two men and eight women in the sample therefore the discussion itself may be bias towards a woman’s point of view.
The participants in the study were all undergraduates studying Psychology meaning that it does not represent people from all walks of life. There were a variety of ages in the sample, which was good.
The Grounded theory analysis was used, however, the abbreviated version of Grounded theory was used as there were time constraints.
This is not preferable to the full version of Grounded theory therefore each word and line were fully analysed to ensure that the data was truly grounded.
The theoretical implications of the present study are that the subject of desire is incredibly broad which made it difficult to identify a short hypothesis. The research question was answered, however there were numerous points to be made as to why men and women want to have sex with some-one else.
The initial research question was valid, it did not make specifications which could possibly be the reason for such a broad hypothesis, however, as this subject is under researched, it is fair to obtain an overview before making further assumptions and theories.
It would be worthwhile, now that the initial question has been answered, to focus on a more specific question, such as “Are we predisposed to want to have sex with someone else or do we do it simply because it is enjoyable?”
It would also be useful to conduct numerous discussions between men and women and people from all walks of life to obtain a more representative sample. This could take a lot of time and could possibly be the subject for an entire project.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Pidgeon, N and Henwood,K. 1996:Grounded Theory: practical implementation. In: Richardson,J.1996.
Strauss,A. and Corbin,J. 1990: Basics of Qualitative research. London.Sage.
Wahl et al.2002. Living with psoriasis. Qualitative Health Research, February 2002.
Willig,C. Grounded Theory. Chapter three.
