To men it's a mystery.

Even to women it's a mystery!

Countless music, poems and novels have been written about it and still, no one's quite sure about it:

What turns on women? What fuels their desires?

Any woman reading this now will throw up her arms in the air and exclaim in shock

"But no, I DO know what I want! I want this, this and this ..."

But if you asked two ladies who have just thrown up their arms to compare what they want, they'd probably be astonished about the gaping differences.

And that's exactly the issue! Different women want different things and what turns on one woman, has no effect or might even be a turn off for another.

Why's that?

Nobody quite knows, but they sure as hell are trying to find out!

Scientits are now actually doing studies where they compare subjective and objective arousal (yes, there's ways of measuring objective arousal in women!) and with women there are interesting results (quelle surprise!).

Women are actually turned on by a much wider variety of stimuli than men.

Gentlemen, the good news is that a lot of women are turned on by other women (even though they don't admit it).

The bad news is that there's no sure way that will work on every woman.

What's very well documented is that it's far more of a mental thing for women than for men. But that's good news too because it explains why very attractive women often go for less attractive men (and it's not just the ones with mountains of cash).

Another interesting fact they found is that in desire being a mental thing for women, one key aspect creating arousal is "being desired". Again, in one way no real surprises there. Women like to be found pretty! But that it's a turn on for them? Now that's news!

One resulting theory therefore is that the reason why women's sex drive in steady long term relationships deteriorates over time is that they don't feel as desired compared to when their partners were courting them.

This, of course, is in stark contrast to the well known courting technique of reverse psychology, whereby the less you're interested in your object of desire, the more she will try to get your attention. I suppose the ultimate aim is to make you desire her, although she doesn't have to know that you did right from the start.

Still, so far they've only been scratching the surface of what's lurking in this deep ocean of unexplained female desire and scientists concede that they might never find out all of it.

Why?

Because women are just too complicated!

And that's why we love them ...

Love is tough. Yet great. But also a lot of work.

And that is something a lot of us choose to forget.

A study from the university of Edinburgh found evidence that romantic comedies can spoil your love life.

Why?

Simply because they create the unrealistic expectation that "... if someone is meant to be with you, then they should know what you want without you telling them".

This very much reminds me of the standard line "Well, if you don't know what's wrong then there's no point in telling you!"

You'd think it's common sense that communication is key to a healthy relationship. Yet many of believe in the unspoken word.

Ladies, here's one word of advice from a man:

Men don't understand hints, allusions, signs or whatever you can come up with to avoid telling it straight.

Of course there's always diplomatic or more or less tactful ways of expressing something (esp. when it's hurtful), but overall saying it straight will get you better results.

It should work both ways.