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Ummm… Duh?
Mundane: Check
Pointless: Check
Shared: Check
At least they were spending their own time and money.
Any other studies/surveys that discovered the blindingly obvious?
Did they seriously expect a different result from 237 college kids?
A friend of mine is twenty-eight, divorced, and has two kids. His cow-orkers have asked why he had the second child when the marriage already going downhill. His answer? “Sex feels good and sometimes I think with my dick.” I might pass this study on to him.
This just in: Water found to be wet.
Somewhere out there, beyond the banging of headboards, the creaking of floors, and the snap of latex, Ric Romero is cursing a blue streak that he’s been scooped yet again.
The research is a lot more interesting in terms of the infrequently cited reasons.
It seemed like good exercise. Guess this person would also be interested in kickboxing and roller-blading.
*I wanted to end the relationship. * Now, THAT makes me feel special.
I wanted to change the topic of conversation. We’re not talking about sex. Let’s talk about sex. Can we talk about sex now?
I did think of the SDMB when I saw this study.
Take a very complex subject and try to look at the intricacies of it and every poster can think only to say, “Duh, it feels good.”
The main surprise for me was that no one seemed to respond, because I was forced/ coerced/ drugged or otherwise manipulated.
Or how about, I feared for my life.
Couldn’t be, it’s just because it feels good.
The study does include “I was afraid to say ‘no’ due to the possibility of physical harm,” so that counts. Thankfully, it isn’t a frequent choice of reason.
Actually, the interesting conclusion was that men and women have sex for the same reasons. In other words, the frequently proclaimed idea that men and women seek vastly different things from sex was not in evidence.
Well, damn. I’ve only been having sex so much because I never get enough time otherwise to think of England.
I had sex once. As I recall, it did feel good. Then I got old.
Actually, it was about 2000 people surveyed. 237 reasons.
I just figured it out. They needed an excuse to talk to random strangers about sex.
I have sex because I thought it was the answer to “what would Jesus do?”
You’re all wrong. The researchers’ conclusion is in error. The respondents have misreported the data. The finding is invalid. More to the point, the finding is wrong.
Assuming we’re talking about sex with other people (and in the vernacular use, that’s what it means to have “had sex”), the explanation “it feels good” just doesn’t cut it. It does, but if we’re talking about sensation alone it doesn’t substantially outperform the sensations attainable from masturbation (and for many people never attains that level). So given the dangers, complexities, and frustrations inherent in negotiating sex with another person, I suggest there is and has to be an explanation that goes far beyond “it feels good” to explain why people seek out and engage in sex with other people instead of just taking matters into their own hands.
And, I might add, if we’re talking about something beyond sensation alone, that requires a bit of unpacking and can’t so easily be juxtaposed against “to be in love”, “to get social fulfillment”, “to make someone else have feelings”, or a host of other factors that may have represented the alternative hypotheses.
Hardly random.
On a different tack, I think you make some good points, AHunter, but I think the conclusions were simply a statistical accounting of the responses. The researchers didn’t conclude that sex feels good. (There are easy and better ways to prove that!) They seemed to comment mostly about similarities beween men’s responses and women’s.
You’re not doing it right. 
Didn’t Lewis Black have a bit about an expensive study to determine why “prisoners want to escape from prison”?
You know, a few years ago, I ended up explaining to a group of 8th grade girls that the reason people have sex is because it feels good. I like to think that their astonishment was more due to the fact that an adult was being truthful with them about a controversial topic.