I meant to regurgitate this last week when I found it while "sweeping through Microsoft coverage." CNET News.com reports that "researchers" at the University of Texas-Austin have identified 237 reasons why people have sex. The list is boiled down to four major factors --physical, goal-based, emotional and insecurity-based.

According to the study, "Men showed significantly greater endorsement of having sex due to physical reasons...and simply because the opportunity presented itself. Men more than women reported having sex as a way to improve their social status. Finally, men exceeded women on endorsing a variety of utilitarian reasons for sex."

Women exceeded men on only three of the 237 reasons: "I wanted to feel feminine"; "I wanted to express my love for the person"; "I realized that I was in love."

Among the reasons that subjects gave for why they had sex:

• I wanted to feel closer to God.
• I wanted to get a promotion.
• I wanted to feel connected.
• I wanted to keep my partner from straying.
• I wanted to have a baby.
• I wanted to give someone else a sexually transmitted disease.
• I wanted the attention.
• I wanted to break up a rival's relationship.
• It seemed like good exercise.
• I wanted to defy my parents.
• I wanted to change the topic of conversation
• The person was famous and I wanted to be able to say I had sex with him/her.
• I wanted to end the relationship.
• I wanted to communicate at a "deeper" level.
• My partner kept insisting.
• I was bored.

Strangely not listed: "I met a guy named Paolo."