“…men exist in a state of perpetual confusion about when, exactly, human females are receptive to the idea of having sex”

What it tells us is this: Women are interested in sex.

This may be obvious to women, but, trust me, it is not obvious to men. In fact, it is contrary to everything men are led to believe, dating back to puberty. When a young man goes through puberty, he basically turns into a walking boner. He would happily have sex with any receptive female or room-temperature vegetable. He thinks about having sex all the time, but the only person he knows who wants to have sex with him is himself. He would be very interested in having sex with an actual human female, but he has no earthly idea how to accomplish this. Generally he spends years in this frustrating state before he manages to find a woman willing to have sex with him. Some males become so desperate that they resort to paying for sex, or even running for Congress.

As a result of these experiences, men come to believe—and this belief is reinforced throughout their dating lives as they get shot down more often than the Egyptian Air Force—that women are nowhere near as interested in sex as they are; that women are capable, somehow, of not thinking about sex for entire minutes at a time.

So men exist in a state of perpetual confusion about when, exactly, human females are receptive to the idea of having sex. Men wish that women had some kind of clear signaling mechanism, as is found in other species.

Unfortunately, human sexuality does not work this way, except on Jersey Shore. Human females are less obvious, which means human males must be able to pick up subtle cues, and unfortunately we are terrible at this. So we tend to assume that women just aren’t that interested.

This is why the immense popularity of Fifty Shades of Grey is actually great news for men.

Dave Barry, “Dave Barry Learns Everything You Need to Know About Being a Husband From Reading 50 Shades of Grey”, Time (4 March 2014) [http://time.com/3030375/dave-barry-50-shades-of-grey/]