Understanding woman’s interest in sexual activity beyond a narrow window during which sex can lead to conception: The dual sexuality framework

Understanding Women's Estrus and Extended Sexuality: The Dual Sexuality Framework. Steven W Gangestad et al. In book: D. M. Buss and P. Durkee (Eds.), Handbook of Human Mating, Oxford University Press. July 2021. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/352916307

We humans share many homologies with our fellow mammals, such as a single heart, warm-bloodedness, and mammary glands. We have also evolved a host of distinctly human features, such as unusually large brains relative to body size, a developmentally late transition to a reproductive state, bipedalism, and substantial levels of paternal care and provisioning. Unusual features within the hominin lineage are signatures of the niche that humans evolved to occupy, distinguishing us from close relatives. These features demand our attention as we aspire to understand what it means to be human (e.g., Kaplan et al., 2000; Tooby & DeVore, 1987). One such feature is the extension of a woman’s interest in sexual activity beyond a narrow window during which sex can lead to conception, to which female sexual interest is typically limited in spontaneously-ovulating mammals (e.g., Nelson, 2000; Symons, 1979; Alexander & Noonan, 1979).

Women are sexually active across the reproductive cycle, but not necessarily sexually responsive to precisely the same stimuli and contexts across the cycle. In this chapter, we lay out the dual sexuality framework for understanding women’s sexuality. This framework proposes that women’s sexuality during phases of the cycle when conception is possible differs from their sexuality during phases when conception is not possible. This perspective puts theoretical constraints on the ways that conceptive and non-conceptive sexuality can be understood. Within these constraints, multiple, contrasting psychological designs are possible. Research that can adjudicate between alternative possible psychological designs promises to hone our understanding of human mating in ways that extend far beyond the domain of women’s phase-specific sexuality.