Casual sex

[BradParticipant]

@Mandalee “I would get way too attached and try to create something where nothing is, and have my heart broken.” Yup, exactly.

[Addie PrayParticipant]

oh come on, 6 hours?! just for that, i’m gonna make it I’M TAKING A BREAK FOR A HUGE WHILE. NOT JUST A REGULAR WHILE. IT’S THAT KIND OF AWHILE.

[SherBearParticipant]

I think that casual sex or no string-attached sex can totally work, but the key is that you need to be completely honest with yourself on what you want/need. I am currently sleeping with a very hot specimen of a man one or twice a week and it’s just what I need for this summer! After breaking up with my boyfriend in March I am really not interested in a relationship. I am 27 but don’t have any type of biological clock ticking (don’t really want children) nor do I have much interest getting married anytime soon so it’s not like I’m “wasting” my time. And even if I did want an actual relationship, I don’t think this is the guy I’d want one with. But he’s hot with a banging body and we play flag football together – between practice, games, team parties etc I see him up to 4 times a week and with our mutual attraction I knew that sleeping with him was inevitable. It’s been a few weeks – the sex is still phenomenal and I feel like we have a mutually respectful friendship so why not enjoy the summer

[Jessibel5Participant]

Nooo, AP don’t go!

I’ve always found that for me, casual sex meant that I couldn’t achieve the desired outcome from a sexual encounter: the big O. So then what’s the point, right? I’ve tried casual sex, but in my experience the guys you end up having casual sex with just don’t care what does it for you, and don’t care to put the work in, because hey, it’s just casual. So they get themselves off, but couldn’t care less about your getting off. It’s the man that loves you and/or cares about you who is going to be concerned with your pleasure, and puts off his pleasure to make sure you achieve yours.

Also, I’ve found that guys who are interested in having casual sex try to have sex like it is in porn. I don’t know how the rest of the ladies feel, but I find most porn almost a turnoff, (although I’ve definitely found stuff that I like as well) since the moans from the women are so fake, and the guys are doing things to them that I know I would find painful if it was a real life situation, and there’s no way some of these actresses are actually getting off. So there’s these guys having casual sex, that are trying things they saw in porn, and I’m thinking “wow, I’m really thirsty” or I’m rolling my eyes at their attempt to do something hot, because it’s the exact opposite.

[CarisParticipant]

I dont think AP would last 6 hours :S

[AKchic_Participant]

Sometimes, for some people, casual sex just isn’t for them. It’s not an indictment on that person. It’s all part and parcel of the “different strokes for different folks” axiom (and yes, the pun was sooo intended).

To be able to successfully bedhop, you need to be able to shut your emotions off and enjoy what you are having in the moment, without overthinking, and without considering the idea of any kind of attachment whatsoever. It’s a purely physical thing. Many cannot (and do not want to) consider that kind of sexual encounter. It is neither good nor bad, it simply is.

We all have our own moral compasses. As long as you are true to yourself, then you have nothing to be ashamed of or feel ashamed by.

[bagge72Participant]

Yeah I have always felt the same way as you about this, and didn’t find my self having a whole lot of the naughty stuff unless I really wanted to be with somebody, until I was about 28, and I was like, well my friends are always having sex, and not giving a fuck, so I was like I will try it, and it was pretty fun, but didn’t last that long because then I got into the relationship I am in now. I did notice that it was easier to find girls that actually wanted to date me when I wasn’t giving a fuck, and trying not to be romantically attached to all of the girls. I don’t know if I just was more laid back, because I didn’t care?

[HmCParticipant]

Casual sex is not for me, but I know people who pull it off well and neither party gets hurt. And I disagree with this from the article:

“If someone says, “This is only physical,” my translation is: “I don’t care about you.” Forget casual. The more accurate word is heartless.”

There’s grey area in between being in love with someone and not giving a rat’s ass about them. Any successful FWB relationship I’ve been aware of, the couple did respect and like each other. It was more like a friendship with sex, than strangers using each other like dish rags.

[AKchic_Participant]

HmC – you are so right. Yes, there are times where I felt absolutely nothing for the other person I was with (be it male or female). With clothes on, I honestly could not stand the individual, and we both recognized the sex for what it was – a mutual “using”.
Others, they were friends or acquaintences that I genuinely liked as a person, but would never date. There was just an itch that both parties needed to scratch, so to speak.

[caitie_didntParticipant]

I never thought I could do casual sex, and I still really don’t think I’d make it a regular thing in my life, but my first week at school I met a guy at this grad student orientation event and broke my own “no casual sex” rule. We hit it off right away and ended up doing a dance floor makeout (because I am nothing if not pure class). Anyways, we hooked up for a while and also tried out real, actual dating while that was going on. It didn’t work out, but I wasn’t that upset when it ended- disappointed, because he was a super cool, really nice guy and a lot of fun but certainly I suffered no lasting emotional trauma. The hooking up was fun while it lasted, because we liked and respected each other, could have an honest conversation about our preferences and actually enjoyed each other’s company when we weren’t naked. And, when we realized that a relationship wasn’t in the cards, we didn’t continue to see each other in any capacity.

[painted_ladyParticipant]

HmC and AK, you both make amazing points that totally speak to my experience. There are a million shades of gray (fuck you, EL James, for making me think of your stupid book every time I use that phrase now) between “committed, monogamous relationship” and “total stranger,” and the vast majority of my sex partners fall somewhere between those two extremes. There’s something of the Madonna/whore complex in the mentality that sex can only be one of those two things, actually, and I think to a certain degree women internalize that more than men, though I also think the people who say that they can only have sex within a committed relationship have very valid reasons for doing so as well. I don’t know why I think differently – maybe because I waited till I was 23 to have sex and had become a little more jaded by that time about romance and love.

For me, sex is fun. It’s this really fun thing I love doing, and I spent a lot of my formative years around people who enjoyed it for the pure pleasure, without any impressions of it being this metaphysical connection, or inherently scary and therefore requiring a huge amount of trust. Do I enjoy it more with my boyfriend? Hell yeah. But I also like cooking for my boyfriend more than I enjoy cooking for other people. His presence makes both of those things more fun…and also, because we know each other so well, as with cooking, I know what’s going to work for both of us. If I cook for someone I sort of know, I stick with four or five recipes that I know most people enjoy, and it’s good, but with him I can go, “Wait, you love rosemary, so
I’m going to try rosemary instead of thyme here,” whereas with a stranger it’s sort of guesswork, and with him I can play around with completely new stuff I’ve never tried and he won’t judge me as being an overall terrible cook, or bad in bed, or whatever analogy works.

Confession: I’ve never had a true one-night stand. As in, pick someone up at a party or a bar, go home with them, never see them again. Most of my sexual experiences have been people I’ve been friends with for a bit, and the timing worked out just right so that I’m feeling frustrated or hot and bothered and suddenly, hey, look, where did our pants go?! I’ve ended up in awkward or painful situations where it was someone I really did like (or in one case, someone I could not stand when I was sober) and it went south because my expectations were different, but with someone who’s genuinely just a friend, one night only, let’s never speak of this again? Kind of unbelievably liberating for me.

[quixoticbeatnikParticipant]

painted_lady – you said what I was thinking very well. I’ve always thought that I could never be the kind of person to have casual sex. Maybe I could be, I don’t know. I just recently had sex for the first (well, couple) of times and I was glad that it was with my boyfriend. We know each other very well, we know what we like and we’re comfortable with each other. He was understanding if I had to stop from leg pain or any other kind of pain. He took the time to make sure that I would be happy with the experience and to make sure that I was enjoying it, which made it a lot better. I just feel like I wouldn’t get that kind of experience from casual sex. Maybe if I wanted wild, raunchy sex…but I don’t necessarily need a stranger for that. For me, the person makes it better.

[AnnaParticipant]

Thanks for all of your input. I’m glad to see that I’m not a complete oddball for having the old school views that I do, and even more glad to see that even some guys think like me. I definitely don’t look down on anyone for the things they do privately. I agree with AKchic’s “different strokes for different folks.” Love the pun too

I guess I’ve really been worrying about if and how I’ll approach dating and sex in the future when I’m ready for that. It seems like the only guys you meet in bars are ones who want a drunken one night stand and won’t remember your name in the morning. So where do you meet the ones who want to go on dates and don’t mind waiting for sex until the relationship is official? I mean, besides church because that’s absolutely not my style.

[ZeppParticipant]

No anna you aren’t odd at all! I actually think that the vast majority of people aren’t into casual sex. After all, the avg lifetime # of partners for women in the USA is 4 isn’t it? Just casual sex is in the media more bc it makes for more interesting story lines in shows and sex is interesting to everyone.

As for meeting guys I’ve always heard “Do the things you love and you will find the love of your life” so, just explore your hobbies and interests.

[painted_ladyParticipant]

@quixotic: That’s so awesome – he sounds like a really considerate guy and exactly the kind of person everyone should have as their first.

One thing I have noticed – at least in my purely anecdotal experience for whatever that’s worth – is that casual one- or two-time encounters with friends or at least friendly acquaintances tend to almost be more considerate in some ways than someone you’ve been with for awhile. With a boyfriend, SOMETIMES they can get a little complacent, a little selfish, because, you know, you’re there, it’s not very likely you’ll leave, and if this time isn’t so great, there’s always next time. Not every boyfriend I’ve been with, but several of them. The casual ones, though, seem so thrilled that they hit pay dirt, and also, want to make sure you won’t grab your clothes and go (have!), that sometimes they try a little harder to make sure you’re enjoying yourself. Although I’ve been really lucky that the majority of guys I slept with were really good guys, and my boyfriend now is incredibly considerate and GGG.

@Anna – I don’t see that being a huge issue for you. Obviously, I would avoid picking up guys in bars (though I don’t think giving out your number is a bad thing – sometimes guys in bars are there doing the exact same thing you are and aren’t looking to hook up). Just be honest pretty early on that you’re not anti-sex but that you don’t have sex without monogamy. I can’t think of a whole lot of guys who wouldn’t date a girl just because they might have to wait a little longer to get it on. And the ones who would? You wouldn’t want to date them anyway. I sometimes wished I weren’t such a horndog and would hold out a little longer just so I could filter out the user-y douches, but the ones who were awesome would have waited a little longer anyway.

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