5 plus 1 reasons to have casual sex
Posted by: Haley of London. Click to visit my page
Casual sex is often presented as negative. But it could be a good path to discovering vital things about your sexuality.
Casual sex and one-night stands are almost always framed as harmful to women, mainly young women. In recent years some people have issued grim warnings about the suspected dangers of sex outside of dedicated relationships.
Let’s call this expression what it is: a tired repeat of the sexist double standards that have haunted women for centuries.
The thought that women are so delicate that a bad one night stand leaves them scarred —or in confusion, as some suggest, is unhelpful.
With consensual, no-strings-attached sex so regularly under fire, the positive aspects of ‘hooking up’ hardly ever come to light. Here are six ways that having (safe) sex outside of a monogamous relationship might truly be good for you.
- Asserting your desires can create a remarkable sense of power.
The word empowerment is so burdened as to be nearly useless. But for girls who are regularly bombarded with the message that they need commitment before enjoying sex, there’s real power in freeing their sex drive from conservative norms.
Some women don’t need a deep holy connection in order to enjoy carnal pursuits; the old stereotypes aren’t useful in navigating your own needs, and breaking out of date expectations though experience could lead you to a better understanding of your own sexuality.
A substantial survey of sexual experience and attitudes—12,871 respondents (10,990 women, 85% casual sex participants)—shows many women have sex outside of relationships for that very reason: 80% of respondents chose ‘to find out more about my sexuality’ as a motivation for having casual sex.
Similarly, almost 80% said their desire ‘to feel free and uninhibited’ which leads us to the next point.
- It might help you rise above your inhibitions.
When most of us embark on a new relationship, we’re immersed with anxieties. We typically want to please the other person and we want them to think well of us, because we think highly of them and we want to make the relationship last. Above all, we absolutely don’t want to creep them out with our weird fantasies and turn-ons. We save that type of honesty for much later, when we feel safer. Lots of couples don’t share at all: lack of ‘confession’ is normal for married couples in many ways, whether the issue is finances or hopes and dreams. In a 2001 poll, only 48% of male respondents and 56% of female respondents told their spouses about their sexual history.
There’s less at stake emotionally with a casual partner. This is the very target at which critics aim their arrows—how can women enjoy sex without an emotional bond?!—but this lack of investment can be freeing. It’s the same relative anonymity that causes some people to reveal their deepest secrets to a stranger. When we’re with someone who isn’t a fixture of our daily life, our egos relax enough to let a little realism come through. Rather than worrying about impressing the other person, you can be more self-assured about what satisfies them in bed. And in doing so…
- You’ll learn more about your sexuality
Through encountering new tastes and holding back the urge to self-censor, you’ll start to identify what brings you the utmost amount of enjoyment as well as what utterly turns you off. In an ideal world, this type of study can take place with someone you’re in love with. But many men and women have had the miserable experience of falling in love with someone who refuses to indulge in naughty sex or whose preferences are completely at odds with their partner’s.
The heart and the libido are by no means certain to be well-matched. In another survey it was found that 15% of marriages were sexless, meaning the couple had not had sex in six months to a year. Casual sex bypasses this by concerning itself above all with the libido, which is characteristically regarded as a basis of embarrassment and dread, but can offer up its own deep and revelatory moments.
- You might learn about yourself emotionally
The dread and misinformation around one-night stands isn’t just sexist, it’s irrational. Bad long-term relationships concerning miscommunication, unmet potential, and lies are just as likely to harm participants as any sexual disillusionment on a short-term scale. Both men and women are only as helpless as they allow themselves to be, and provided they’re with someone who won’t take advantage of it, weakness can be a beautiful thing whether in the limitations of a conventional relationship or not.
A string of hook ups might lead you to the conclusion that you’re enjoying single life and not ready for anything longer-term, or may prove to you that you feel the best sexually and emotionally when you’re serious about somebody. Either way, it will be a truth about yourself that you’ve tested out, not something you supposed out of fear.
Everyone’s had some sort of sexual familiarity and they all think they’re experts on it. But no one other than yourself can be the expert on your sexual experience.
- You might be a better partner in a dedicated sexual relationship
Reasons for engaging in committed sex: almost 90% said impetus due to ‘feelings of obligation’ and 86% listed ‘to earn something from my partner’. Surely this can’t be the utopian sexual experience we’re supposed to hold out for?
Should a monogamous dedication appeal to you, your awareness about yourself and sexuality in general will be a priceless tool to bring to the table. If you’ve experienced sex as a vehicle for fairly emotionally uncomplicated enjoyment, you may even be less likely to go along with sex you don’t want, or to seize hold of sex as a tool for manipulation.
You may get more than you bargained for. Contrary to conventional assertion that sex before emotions renders an emotional relationship not possible, sexual familiarity so impressively fosters emotional closeness that partners sometimes end up dating the person they thought would be a one night stand. An extraordinary 82.5% said that one or more of their casual sex relationships became long-term and/or serious.
If you need even more persuasion that casual sex won’t ruin you, consider this. Another recent study, one conducted on 1,563 service users between the ages of 20 and 35, found that there was no connection between emotional or mental anguish and casual sex. This may ‘shock you’ as the conventional perception is that casual sex is damaging.
- You’ll learn more about sex
We’ve all heard the stories about undereducated, traditionalist marriages in which the partners never realised that sex is possible in a position other than missionary, or that a woman can orgasm. With schools throughout the country refusing to offer young people with precise, helpful information, people are frequently left to educate themselves through the oldest and questionably best form of learning: experience.
If women’s mags like Cosmo are to be believed, sex is a pretty unsurprising occurrence, more like operating a basic machine than learning the unique tastes of a person. Given our culture’s compulsive endorsement of constricted prettiness aesthetics and even narrower sexual practices, one may never think that people have wildly differing preferences, stimulation triggers, and responses to touch. Diversity in partners makes it nearly impossible to sustain the ‘one size fits all’ state of mind, while never experiencing more than one partner might in point of fact reinforce it.