Cindy Meston

She is a Full Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, Director of the Female Sexual Psychophysiology Laboratory,[2] and author of Why Women Have Sex [3] (with co-author Dr. David M. Buss).

She completed most of her postgraduate training at the University of Washington Medical Center in the departments of Sexual and Reproductive Medicine, Psychiatry, and Urology.

[6] Meston is also a co-author (with Irwin Goldstein, Susan Davis, and Abulmaged Traish) of the book Women’s Sexual Function and Dysfunction, [10] which was published in 2006.

Meston has conducted numerous follow-up studies examining how these results vary in women with autonomic impairments as a function of anxiety,[20] post-traumatic stress disorder,[19] and antidepressant usage.

[21] Most recently, Meston has explored the overall balance between the SNS and PNS (i.e., heart rate variability) as an important marker and treatment target for female sexual function.

Together with evolutionary psychologist David Buss, Meston questioned the simplicity of these assumptions and conducted a large-scale study of sexual motives, finding that women actually report 237 distinct reasons for having sex that range from experience-seeking to mate-guarding.

[23] Meston has also conducted a series of follow-up studies finding that such motives vary based on sexual satisfaction levels [24] and age.