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 ...

That Saudi Arabia is a country of double standards based on ridiculous religious laws that rob women of basic rights is a widely known fact.

So women in Saudi Arabia are generally not allowed to leave the house without their husbands or an equivalent male chaperone because of the strict, religious moral code governing the interaction between men and women, especially unmarried women.

One would think that is in order to avoid any lewd behaviour that could lead to, oh my god, two people just falling in love or following their natural urges.

Of course women are generally not allowed to work because they belong in the home (according to Muslim clerics). However women still shop. And as any other woman they shop for underwear.

Of course a male dominated society might not be aware of this, but underwear shopping for women is a slightly different affair for women than for men.

Men discover their size (adjust it up with time) and choose the underwear type they prefer and that's pretty much it. They can shop blindly or even have other people do it for them. They don't really care.

Women have it harder of course. The look is very important and let's not even go into sizing. Every woman seems to have a unique body shape that only one of 1492654 brands caters for.

Ergo this requires a lot of discussion with the sales person to find out which brand that is, not to mention how the product actually looks.

Yet, in Saudi Arabia, because women are not allowed to work that easily, they have to contend with discussing their lingerie needs with a man.

So, unmarried women are generally not allowed to be in the same room with male strangers, but it's OK for them, under supervision of a male relative, to discuss their bra sizes and knickers?

Once again, I'd say that works out nicely for male sales people, although to be fair they have to be careful too so their job doesn't land them in jail for lewd talk with a woman.

It's a strange, strange world out there, but what do you expect from a country that forbids Valentine's gifts and roses?