Let's talk about...casual sex

I was browsing my FB page and this article came up as a top story. It is a piece published in the online version of Psychology Today. It is by Stanley Siegel and it is entitled Why I advocate for casual sex. It is in fact a sequel to his previous In defense of casual sex which attracted dozens of comments, not all of them flattering.

"The more I practice psychotherapy" says Siegel "the more I appreciate that healing the mind and spirit is as much art as it is science...Sex is the window into our psyche". He then goes on to say that "when practiced intelligently and generously, sex has the capacity to help heal emotional wounds and rectify unmet childhood needs" and that he has often found that many "truths" about sex, and especially about casual sex, are none other than "entrenched myths". He goes on to list them:

1. Casual sex is devoid of emotion

2. It is reckless

3. The best sex is in committed relationships

4. Casual sex is sexist

5. Casual sex is dangerous because it spreads diseases
I will not repeat here Siegel's arguments in detail except to say that he manages to make a good case in defense of casual sex, countering each one of the above mentioned objections. So casual sex is not devoid of emotion, it is not reckless, it is not sexist, it is not a way to spread diseases - it is unsafe sex that does it, not casual sex, though I have to admit that sometimes the two conflate.

I was very intrigued by the responses to both the articles and I would like to invite you to read the comments - beware, some comments are quite insulting.

I remember some time ago Vena Ramphal's podcast in which she said that to pretend no emotion whatsoever was involved in sex was a fallacy and went on to disabuse us of the notion of a soul mate. I wrote about it in my post The myth of the soulmate. I am mentioning this again because ultimately the idea that there is such a thing as casual sex goes hand in hand with the myth of the soulmate. In other words to have a hierarchy in terms of one's sexual experiences leads to negativity.

Siegel is not saying anything so different from what certain spiritual teachers have also said. Monogamy is after all nothing more than a social construct. It should be a choice rather than an imposition.

Photographer: Charles Fennell

The word casual sex does have negative connotations and personally I would avoid using it, precisely because it is so open to misunderstandings. But the crux of Siegel's arguments resonates with me, to a great extent.

Ultimately I go along with Franklin Veaux's comment: "The fact is, if the people involved are healthy, then casual sex between them can be healthy as well; and if the people involved are unhealthy, then even sex in a committed relationship can be unhealthy. It's not committed vs. casual that makes sex healthy or alienating; it's the folks involved, their integrity, and their choices".




Wise words. Belated Happy Solstice Greetings and Merry Christmas, everyone!




(All photos unless otherwise stated are modelled by Alex B)

Comments

  1. Apologies to James! He wrote the following comment and I mistakenly deleted. Here it is:
    I have no particular opinion on this other than one must always be safe and always aware that one party may have or may develop feelings for the other and to be sensitive and kind should that occur. Often with 'casual sex' there is no recognition or acknowledgement of feelings or emotion and people can feel empty after a while.
    Be kind should be the motto in sex as in everything else.

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  2. Having recently been dumped, I think I begin to see a certain positivity in casual sex.

    I have never been on good terms with the ideas of either 'friends with benefits' or 'no strings attached' sex, because in my experience, both experiences tend to be rife with self-deception and occasionally a sort of abandon and disregard for the emotional importance of sex.

    Which is to say that I consider sex to be an intimate act, and not something that should be 'wasted,' in as much as an activity can be wasted.

    However, that is not to say that I think that sex outside of the context of a monogamous or long-term relationship is all bad. I would advocate for sex between friends who share a kind of love that isn't romantic so much as it is... I want to say familial, but that's quite a bag of worms.

    As I was saying, about having recently been dumped, I had a conversation with a friend about rebounds and their value. She was of the opinion that part of moving on is to have sex with someone new. After months or years of having sex with just one person, there's a threshold that needs to be crossed in order to make it okay to be with another person again. And once that threshold has been crossed, it makes it much easier to move on without being mired in the grieving period.

    Like I said, I wouldn't advocate for the one-night-stand or anything of that nature, but an agreement between friends, who understand the emotional value and the context of the sex ought to be free to do so.

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