Introduction - What is sexual behavior?

Factors in Human Sexual Behavior

The Three Factors 2

Simple common sense tells us that sexual capacity, motivation, and performance do not always coincide. After all, when it comes to sex, very few people have the opportunity to do everything they can do and want to do. At any rate, sex researchers have demonstrated that in males, for instance, the greatest sexual capacity is usually reached shortly after puberty. However, because of various social restraints, psychological inhibitions, and a lack of opportunity, their actual sexual perfomance may still be low. It may reach its peak only years later, when their opportunities have increased, but their capacity is no longer as great as before. Or, to take another example, it has been shown that in females the sexual capacity is often much greater than the sexual motivation. In some people, one may also find a high level of sexual performance combined with a low level of sexual motivation. Instead, the motivation may be mostly financial (as in the case of a prostitute) or social (as in the case of a tired wife who wants to hold on to a husband).

Possible constellations of factors in human sexual behavior