Why men want sex and women need love by Allan and Barbara Pease

Some time ago when I browsed around the book shop, I encountered this book on the shelf. I saw it, not once, but few times and only after some time, I daringly took it out and flip it around. Actually I was quite shy to take it out seeing the title like that, and that's why it required some time for me to finally have a look on what was inside. Hahahaha.... :D

My first thought that appeared when reading at the title, "That was what I had been curious about and wanted to find out 'why??'."

I read lots of posts written in people's facebook. Most women claimed that they need love despite they had been experiencing hurt and betrayal. But some people I know had given up love and lose their trust on men after few same betrayal happened to them again and again.

In the past, I had conversation with some of my guy friends, and I found similarity on what they usually look for in women. First and foremost, most of them told me that they would love to see and to have beautiful women with them. Their answers made me curious to hell. Why? Why they loved to have beautiful woman and not a woman with beautiful heart?

I was wondering you know... What if that beautiful woman had a cruel heart and they were only going after your money, status, and power, for example, if you are rich enough, and then they left you once all you had has gone? Would you still choose that beautiful woman? I didn't really ask them that question, but I bet, their answer would still be 'yes'. Hehe.... *my assumption though :P

But I asked them back by telling them that 'beauty is impermanence'. Eventually people will grow old. The beauty that you see now, it will change over time. Then, what would you do when the beautiful girl has turned ugly due to old age? They answered simply, 'Find another beautiful one...' ^^"

I didn't buy the book because I didn't know if it's good. So I decided to find it in library since who knows I might find one. And last weekend, I really found it on the book shelf inside library. Lucky me!!! Finally I read it and still reading it (halfway).

First chapter of the book explained how men and women rate the opposite sex attractiveness differently and how the hormones and brains react differently to both sexes. It really answered my curiosity.

- What is the difference between men and women?
"A woman wants one man to satisfy her every little need.
A man wants every woman to satisfy his one little need." -

In biology of love, the book mentioned, "that 'Love is about chemical reactions in the brain'. It's none other than dopamine and norepinephrine (which created effect of love at first sight), oxytocin (also known as 'cuddle hormone', hormone that made people falling in love, gives us the warm, fuzzy feeling we have for the person of our desire), testoterone and oestrogen (sex hormones that cause an urgent push for physical gratification or sex drives, creating lust and sexual attraction to occur)."

"Having higher levels of oxytocin than men is a major reason why women fall more deeply in love at the start of a new relationship than men. The more oxytocin they produce, the more nurturing they will be and the deeper they will bond with someone. Just hearing their lover's name, an odour associated with them, fantasizing about them or hearing a song associated with them raises oxytocin levels. If she feels loved and adored, her hormones push blood into her cheeks, making her 'glow', and she will radiate warmth. If she feels unloved and ignored, however, that's easy to see, too." Lol!! :P

And the study by David Buss below is very interesting to know: "When couples are in the falling-in-love phase, men's testosterone levels decrease, while their oxytocin level rise to make the bonding process quicker. This makes men softer, gentler and more easy-going. At the same time, women's testosterone levels rise with the new excitement and confidence they feel at the start of a new relationship. This increased testosterone makes women hornier, giving the couple the illusion that male and female sex drives must be the same. When this 'shagathon' period ends, about three to nine months into a new relationship, their sex drives return to the 'default position', leaving a man with the idea that she's gone off sex and giving her the impression that he's a sex maniac. Many relationships end at this point."

Interesting, isn't it? Have you experienced the above yourself before? I just didn't understand why man would behave and think like that. And it explained clearly and logically the cause of it and now, I really wanna say it loud, 'Blame it to the hormones!!!' (And not the weatherman :P) hahaha...

So, what do you think how men's brains rate attractiveness in women? Research said when men were shown images of attractive women, they found men showed higher activity in two regions in the brain: the visual stimuli (explain clearly why men loves to see beautiful women), and the other, penile erection (gee, who would have guessed!) They did that as the look at woman to size up their ability to produce healthy baby to keep the species going - also explain why men are more likely than women to fall in love at first sight. Wow! Logical ah?

How about women then? Studies said in women, the brain areas associated with memory recall became active when evaluating men for attractiveness. Means, it's an adaptive strategy to remember all the details of a man's behavior, which she construct a mental composite based on the men she knows --> Woman will evaluate man's behavior and see if he's honest and trustworthy, if he shares his resources with her, and so on.

And now you know why women never forget and man are always being caught ogling women. Lolx!!

Chapter two told us why being loved and being in love are so important and there is a relationship between being in loved and good health or longer life. It also mentioned seven basic types of love that human always encounter, which are: romantic love, pragmatic love, altruistic love, obsessive love, brotherly love, common love, and familial love.

There are total of 11 chapters in this book. It really added my knowledge in this matter and it has answered lots of my curiosity. As the author, Allan and Barbara Pease has put up their findings based on research, it made the content of the books more logical and can be trusted.

The second impression that I had when I saw this book, I thought the book was too westernized as perhaps Asian people didn't think much about it when it came to love. They will usually just follow their gut, intuition, and feeling to find out if this is the right person for them and as long as they are happy when they are being together with their loved one. Because too much theories might as well create confusion, and most importantly, in love, we need to experience, live, and feel it. Bad experience gave us lesson and good one gave us happiness.

Personally, I never thought the importance of knowing about it much before, although I've been married for quite some time as my mind was so simple when finding the person to grow old with me. Perhaps, most criteria chosen based on what my father has shown to my mom and us, as until now, he and my Mom has been married for more than 44 years.

Anyhow, the book is very interesting to read. I recommend you to read it, just to add your knowledge and maybe it will 'WOW' you, as what it has happened to me hehe... :) Hope you all have a great day!