What is the main message of What Do Women Want??

Discover the truth about female desire and the complexities of women's sexual preferences.

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It takes a few hours to read What Do Women Want? The Blinkist summary can be read in 15 minutes.

Who is the author of What Do Women Want??

Daniel Bergner is the author of What Do Women Want?

Sex & Relationships

What Do Women Want? Book Summary - What Do Women Want? Book explained in key points

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What Do Women Want? summary

Name: What Do Women Want?
Rating: 4 (158 reviews)
Author: Daniel Bergner

Daniel Bergner

Adventures in the Science of Female Desire

4 (158 ratings)

18 mins

Brief summary

What Do Women Want? by Daniel Bergner is an eye-opening book that explores the complexity of female desire. Based on research, it challenges the idea of women being less sexual and highlights their desire for variety.

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Table of Contents

What Do Women Want?
Summary of 8 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 8

What’s in it for me? Come closer to understanding what women really want!

Who can honestly claim knowledge of what women truly want? Obviously, no one. Women themselves can’t even say for sure. The question is simply too broad.

So what if we narrowed it a bit? What stands out when we compare the desires and sexuality of women to those of their male counterparts?

If, right about now, you feel like you’re lost in a wilderness of question marks, don’t worry! Most people find this topic baffling at best. But what if we could make more sense of all this mystery?

With What Do Women Want, the author seeks to unveil the secrets of women’s sexuality, claiming that women aren’t actually all that different from men when it comes to those heartbeat-quickening, lust-inducing, brain-befogging… well, things.

In these blinks, you’ll discover

what Freud thought of the stimulation of a woman’s clitoris;
how women feel about copulating bonobos; and
why the sexuality of women has been repressed for so long.

Social norms often dictate women’s sexuality – and inevitably simplify it.

Throughout history, women’s sexuality has never received the attention it deserves. This, in large part, is because the story has always been told from a male perspective. What we claim to know about women and desire, therefore, should be taken with a liberal pinch of salt.

Ancient texts and religions reveal that the repression of women’s sexuality is pretty much coeval with its arrival. Just take Greek mythology, according to which Pandora, the first woman, is responsible for unleashing all of the world’s evils.

Later, in the sixteenth century, male scientists discovered the role of the ovum for reproduction; after this discovery, the female libido was regarded as being of minor importance. Because women could conceive regardless of whether they felt desire, men concluded that there was little reason to pay attention to female pleasure.

As well as being repressed, women’s sexuality was, in more recent history, mislabeled.

Assuming that genes regulated women's behavior, evolutionary psychologists claimed that genes made women desire security in relationships. Thus, evolutionary psychologists developed the parental investment theory, which states the following: because men have unlimited sperm and invest little effort in reproduction, and because women have a finite number of eggs and do more work in the reproductive process, men are programmed to spread their seed, while women must carefully select long-term providers.

Nowadays, such claims go more or less unquestioned. Women are supposedly the more restrained sex, a stereotype that just encourages women to behave in the way we think they should.

The problem is: whether it’s through religion, social convention or science, women are told how to feel and act. It’s a combination of these influences that perpetuate the status quo.

When it comes to sex, men may be animals – but women are, too!

Men and women may not be as different as we thought. Men are sometimes compared to animals tamed by society, creatures that express their true nature in socially acceptable ways: watching pornography, casting predatory glances at women on the street.

They are even said to be easily lured by the lowest regions of their brains, much like animals are. In this regard, women enjoy a far more respectable status, as they’re seldom compared to animals when it comes to sexuality.

Women’s sexuality is complicated by anatomy and social environment.

Many arguments have been put forward to explain the differences between men’s and women’s awareness of their own sexuality.

Anatomy is one factor that could lead us toward an answer. From their teens onward, men can clearly tell when they’re aroused because, typically, penises grow and shrink in accordance with sexual excitement. An erect penis presses against clothing in a way that is impossible to ignore – both for the man and the object of his interest.

Observing animals provides a window into women’s desire.

How much do you think sex among monkeys resembles sex among people? Perhaps it’s similar, with the male initiating sex and the female displaying hesitancy? Well, actually, these roles are sometimes inverted in the animal kingdom.

Often, it’s the females who go after sex and display bullying behavior, coercing males into sex. Take the rhesus monkey: in the 1950s and ’60s, rhesus monkeys were sent into space to see if humans could survive the journey in orbit. These monkeys were under scrutiny for years, and what researchers found was that female rhesus monkeys select males and invite them to copulate until their interest dwindles and they dismiss them. In addition, they don’t just mate when they’re ovulating – they have plenty of sex, regardless of their hormonal state.

Social norms regarding women’s sexuality may explain the development of certain types of fantasies.

The complexity of women’s desire can be explored through their fantasies. The author claims that, as shocking as it may sound, women sometimes fantasize about assault and coercion – a trick that triggers arousal.

Over the last four decades, nine different surveys asked women if they ever fantasized about being overpowered or coerced into sex. The latest results were published by sexologists J. Bivona and J. Critelli, from the University of North Texas, in the Journal of Sex Research (2009). Gathering testimonies from 355 college women, the study revealed that about 62 percent of these women had had such fantasies at least once.

Women’s desires have deep psychological components, and monogamy might not be their ideal form of relationship.

Men have Viagra, but what do women have? With pharmaceutical companies making billions from assisting men with erectile dysfunction, the industry has since been scrabbling to find an equivalent drug for women.

Exploring the psychological and physical issues surrounding desire, researchers have uncovered some fascinating results. They found that women’s sexual issues are usually more psychological than genital or hormonal. One Australian study even ruled out the assumption that women’s loss of desire is hormonal. It showed that the thrill of a new relationship could easily cancel out hormonal effects, and concluded that the reason for a woman’s lack of desire may simply be that she’s been with the same partner for a long time. In addition, a German study of committed relationships found that women’s desire tended to fade more rapidly than men’s.

Both psychological and physical phenomena surrounding women's sexuality are heavily debated.

Women’s bodies and sexuality have been at the center of many discussions and studies throughout the twentieth century. And until Freud’s theories on the topic were challenged in the 1970s, women’s sexuality had been largely connected with psychoanalysis.

Freud compared female clitoral stimulation to burning pine shavings and vaginal stimulation to a hardwood fire, claiming that women focused only on the clitoris have an immature approach to their sexuality.

Speed dating offers interesting insights into the mechanisms of seduction.

Dating events are fascinating opportunities for researchers to study seduction patterns. One such event is speed dating.

Speed dating appeared in the 1990s in Los Angeles, when a rabbi had the idea to make it easier to match potential partners. The setup is simple: you need a large room, tables and chairs and a group of men and women. Each woman sits at a table. Each man then sits at a table for a four-minute conversation. When his time is up, he stands up and moves to the next table.

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What is What Do Women Want? about?

In What Do Women Want? (2011) Daniel Bergner casts doubt on common preconceptions about women’s desires. Drawing on history and recent scientific research, Bergner exposes the myths about, and the ingrained societal norms that often dictate, women’s sexuality. We may only just be beginning to uncover what women really want.

What Do Women Want? Review

What Do Women Want? (2013) explores the complex and often misunderstood world of female desire. Here's why this book is worth a read:

With research-backed insights and thought-provoking interviews, it unveils the hidden depths of women's sexual desires, challenging conventional wisdom.
By delving into taboo topics and debunking myths, it invites readers to question and reevaluate their own assumptions about female sexuality.
The author's engaging storytelling and candid approach help to demystify female desire, making the book entertaining and enlightening.

Who should read What Do Women Want??

Anyone who wants to understand women better
People seeking different perspective on sex and relationships
Women with questions about their own sexuality

About the Author

Daniel Bergner is a writer for The New York Times Magazine, and has authored several nonfiction books, including The Other Side of Desire and In the Land of Magic Soldiers: A Story of White and Black in West Africa. His work has also appeared in The New York Times Book Review, Harper’s Magazine and The Atlantic.

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