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| A conversation with Cindy Meston, psychologist |
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| Written by Chelsea Wald | |
| Monday, 09 November 2009 | |
 Cindy Meston studies sex. Really. Her new book is titled, Why Women Have Sex. For it, she and co-author David Buss surveyed more than a thousand women and found that there are 237 reasons that women have sex. We're not going to get into the details here, but suffice it to say that very few of the reasons are all that racy (No. 173: “To get rid of a headache”).Cindy, a psychologist, got her bachelor's and Ph.D. at the University of British Columbia in Canada. She did a clinical internship at the University of Washington in Seattle, followed by two postdoctoral fellowships. She's now a professor at the University of Texas at Austin. After giving a talk in Austin recently, she sat down with Under the Microscope to chat about her unusual route into sex research and what it's like to publish a popular book. Under the Microscope: Did you always know that you wanted to study sex? Cindy Meston: No, definitely not. When I graduated from high school, I was 16 and I wanted to be in fashion merchandizing and design. So I started a degree in fashion merchandizing and design, and after one year I lucked out and got my dream job in a design studio. So I quit college, ... moved to Vancouver -- which is the big city in [British Columbia] -- and worked in a fashion design studio for a number of years. And then [I] got a job with a sewing-machine distributor, … and I was the promotion and educational director of western Canada, … I traveled 250 days a year, putting on sewing seminars and radio talk shows, and I had a TV sewing program. [I] did that for a long, long time, and then out of general interest I took a night-school course in introductory psychology at the University of British Columbia and found it so absolutely fascinating [that I] decided to take another. It turned out that the professor that taught the first course just by chance … was also teaching the second class. So I kind of got to know him and he invited me to do a study in his lab. … He's a biopsychologist who studied serotonin rat receptors and rat sexual behavior -- looking to see what this brain level of [the chemical] serotonin had to do with sex in rats. So that was my introduction to sex research and to psychology.I decided I loved it so much I decided to do a psych degree, but I worked full time, so I took four night-school courses [from] 7:00 to 10:00 at night, Monday to Thursday, and summer-school courses. … [I] got into graduate school, quit my job, and by this time I was fully enmeshed in the field of sex research, having read a lot about it and [having done] an honors project on serotonin receptors in humans. In the process of doing all of that research, [I] really felt that there had been so little research in women's sexuality really since ... the 70s. Most of the research dollars were going toward male sexual function and not women. And so it seemed like both an important area and an understudied area. [It was] an area that had some downsides, in that it was harder to get funding to do sex research and there's some taboos associated with being a sex researcher, [but] you get over [them] quickly when you're in the field. UTM: Has it been a challenge for you to be taken seriously as a woman scientist working on a women's issue? CM: Actually, no. I was worried about that, of course. [But] I came to the University of Texas in 1998, so this is my 12th year, and I've felt nothing but support from my colleagues, from the department, and I've been very lucky to get two consecutive 5-year NIH grants that have covered me my entire academic career. I think that's a good sign of things have changed. I think science is much more open to women … and recognizing that [in] some areas women maybe have more expertise -- certainly knowing about the woman's body. UTM: What is it like to publish a popular book? CM: I don't know if you're ever going to get me to write another science article, it was so much fun. ... It took me a really long time to write that first chapter -- I don't mean the first chapter of the book, I mean the first chapter that I was kind of responsible for. … It was finding a writing style [that was hard] – it's so different than writing for academic journals. But once I got it, then it just flowed, and it was so much fun because you can just say … what's on your mind and you can give interesting tidbits of information. You're not so confined to a structure. And it's also nice to know that this will reach a broader audience, much more so than a scientific article. … My hope is that this will actually be helpful to some people in the real world. UTM: Did working in the fashion industry give you insights into sexuality that you have carried over? CM: I would like to say yes, but I don't think so. I think what I learned in all my years in the sewing machine field is I did a lot of public speaking, so … that has certainly helped me along the way to feel comfortable talking in front of groups. But the two seem somewhat unrelated; I don't know if they've really transferred over, career-wise. But it's made it fun; it's like I have had two completely different career paths, and I don't foresee there being a third, but you never know. UTM: You seem awfully glamorous... CM: No, no, I'm not, I just polished up well for the talk. UTM: Well, you do. Is there anything about being a scientist that is glamorous in the way that you might have been looking for in the fashion industry? CM: You know, I don't think I was looking for glamor, I was looking for creativity. And I like making things with my hands. ... Science is very creative, and you're making things all the time -- that's what I love about my job. I have no tolerance for boredom, so if I want to suddenly study something very different, I have the academic freedom to do that. What a glorious job to really just have some idea and have the freedom to snoop into finding the answers, you know? UTM: Do you have any advice for people who are looking to get into science? CM: [My] advice really is, if you can, to work in different research labs, as a volunteer if that's the only way you can do it. … And then you'll really get a first-hand experience of what goes on in science, because a lot of it is boring, monotonous, hard, labor-intensive work -- there's not a lot of glamor behind the scenes. It's long hours, determination, and some frustration, and it's good to know that. But I can't imagine doing anything else, I just have the perfect job, I can't believe I'm paid for it. Photo courtesy of Janis Franklin.
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