Mating Matters

Dr. Cindy Meston is a clinical psychologist and professor at the University of Texas at Austin. She is also the director of the Sexual Psychophysiology Laboratory there. She may be best known for her research on the female orgasm, but she says her primary research interest is sexual arousal. You know, without arousal not much else happens.

You first heard her in our Mating Matters episode called "Why Women Have Sex."

In this...

Girls with Daddy Issues. Boys with Mommy issues. Dr. Wendy answers a listener's question from our message line! Our relationships with our parents is a key ingredient of how we form attachments as adults. There are a few ways we deal with the abandonment, neglect or smothering we felt as children and no gender is immune.

Have a question for Dr. Wendy? Call 323-207-8277

Further relevant listening: What Is Love?, Mothers, MILFs &am...

Turns out homo sapiens are built for peace, calm and equality. That's right. Our most natural state is peaceful. There actually was very little fighting among bands of hunter-gatherers, and only then when they felt there was no other choice, like when the Spaniards or British appeared with their weapons. The happiest couples and the most cooperative kids develop from a sense of autonomy, equality, and play...and they are at pea...

Dr. Wendy loves her research, but sometimes some of the best stuff doesn't fit neatly in to one of our Mating Matters episodes. In this Quickie, she looks at some of the latest findings in evolutionary psychology and anthropology and shares the gems. She talks about mating strategies of women and men, including how men will often use PDF's (public displays of fatherhood) as one way of impressing women and why less sex after...

The world has been abuzz with the "shocking" news that England's Prince Harry and wife Meghan Markle are turning in their keys to the kingdom. First, this shouldn't be shocking to anyone. There've been rumblings of discord and discontent for several months. Dr. Wendy is here to explain how this all actually makes perfect evolutionary sense. On one hand they're doing what our hunter-gatherer ancestors did. On...

BEHIND THE MINDS is a series in Mating Matters that opens up our expert interviews to anyone who is sciencey and nerdy and curious enough to want to hear it all! Want to know more? Here it is. 

Darryl Gwynne, PhD, was the charming expert you heard in "Pornography Mindf**k." Remember the beetles falling hard for the beer bottles? That's him. He's a professor of biology at the University of Toronto at Mississauga. His ...

We know that laughter is good for our health. It lowers stress hormones which helps our immune system work better. But is this why a sense of humor evolved in humans? Not totally. Turns out humor has been of primo importance in our natural and sexual selection. On this episode, we explore the science of comedy and why women can't seem to say no to a funny mate.

Basically, if you want to woo a woman, work on your wit and word pla...

Love and attachment may come in stages, phases and flavors. Love relationships may involve sex, affection, emotional intimacy, commitment, public displays of love or private trysts. But the order of those stages is changing. If you’re over 40, fasten your seat belts folks, because Millennials are showing us how our anthropological ancestors sampled from the smorgasbord of human relationships, all in the name of good reproductive ch...

Dr. Wendy opened her Facebook page to discover a question posed to her that really rubbed her wrong. Who says modern women still have to live up to some sexual moral code created by society hundreds of years ago? The double standard is that thing that says men get points for sexual experience, but women get judged for it. These are new days and with equality comes freedom.

Have a question, thought or experience you'd like to sha...

Dr. Wendy's sick (yeah, right). I'm not buying it. I think she just wanted to pull one of her favorite interviews of all time with her personal and professional hero, primatologist and anthropologist, Dr. Sarah Blaffer Hrdy. You've heard her name mentioned in many episodes where Dr. Wendy talks about allo parents (Survival of the Gayest and Mother's MILFs and Wives Parts 1 and 2, and others). Allo parents are all th...

A Mating Matters Quickie is a flash episode to cover some general facts. Is monogamy natural? Are we torturing ourselves needlessly? Is pairing up with just one person a social construct forced upon us?? Now, now...so dramatic. Believe it or not there's a really good reason humans evolved to create long term pair bonds. And guess what, guys, you were a really big part of its creation.

Mating Matters episodes related to monogamy...

Why is it that some people struggle with maintaining intimate relationships and others seem to skip through the decades seemingly with no trouble at all? What have they got that others don't? What do they know? What's their SECRET!?!

Well, aside from probably having good models of love as they were growing up, some people literally were born with a genetic advantage. But once again, remember, biology is not destiny! Here'...

BEHIND THE MINDS is the series in Mating Matters that opens up our expert interviews to anyone who is sciencey and nerdy and curious enough to want to hear it all! Want to know more? Here it is. 
In this Behind the Minds episode Dr. Wendy talks to Dr. Maryanne Fisher. You heard her first in our episode called "Mean Girls, Gold Diggers and Sluts." She is a Professor in the Department of Psychology, and a member of the Women a...

We freaked a listener out. We didn't mean to, but we can certainly understand why. So assuming she wasn't the only one, we have recorded Wendy's advice to a panicked PhD candidate for anyone else out there who needs to know: What Do I Do Now?
Yes, it seems there is a mate crunch. That is, more women focusing on their higher education, big careers and personal accomplishments than ever before, while men have maintained th...

Why do women have sex?
Weeeeell....it's complicated.
Let's just say, guys, you're not wrong if you ever feel a little confused. Guess what, so are we sometimes. But truly, when we dive down in to it, it just goes to prove the theory that women are super duper complex. We are cerebral, but emotional; passionate, but defensive; curious, but cautious. And, of course, none of this matters if the garbage hasn't been taken ...

Sexual coercion is not just a woman's problem. It is not something that women just need to learn to deal with, navigate or survive. It is everyone's problem to solve. It is everyone's biological nemesis. With awareness of their own biology, men can recognize triggering situations and avoid them. With awareness of men's slippery wiring, women can recognize dangerous situations and avoid them, if possible.
In Part 1 yo...

Sexual coercion has been part of human history since we were Neanderthals living in caves. As abhorrent as rape is, it is something that has traveled the millennia with us through our genes. It is literally part of us. How do we deal with this horrific fact? We explore it so we can understand it so we can fight against it. A scientist who actually "wrote the book" about sexual coercion helps us get our heads around the trut...

Are we REALLY supposed to be with one person and ONLY one person, like, FOREVER?! Monogamy can be...challenging. Ask just about anyone who's been married a few years. Mating Matters' Season 2 kicks off with an episode about a hot topic many listeners specifically asked for: Polyamory. Polyamory is the practice of engaging in multiple sexual relationships with the consent of all the people involved. In the real world, though...