Loneliness and coercion: what drives women to casual sex

For women, casual sex is more often associated with anxiety, regret, depression, and other experiences than for men. However, the reasons for this are not entirely clear – great risks (for example, a possible pregnancy) and stigma from a society that condemns women to one-night stands, and other factors, for example, the motivation itself to enter. may play a role in such contacts. .

Researchers from Monash University in Australia decided to take a closer look at what exactly motivates people to have casual sex, and what emotions it causes. They published their findings in a journal article. Sexuality and Culture.

The researchers note that the prevalence of casual sexual intercourse is difficult to measure because one has to rely on volunteers’ own reports.

However, research shows that casual sex has become more socially acceptable in Western societies – the availability of birth control methods has led to a sexual revolution, the concept of the norm in sex has expanded, and sex for pleasure has become less welcome.

“The growing popularity of online dating seems to make short-term relationships more accessible to both men and women,” says psychologist Ryan Anderson, one of the study’s authors. “Also, we are now in the midst of an era where normative gender roles are definitely changing and perhaps different from what they were 20+ years ago. Although this topic has been studied many times before, it is very interesting and informative to review the phenomenon of participation in casual sex in the light of these circumstances.

Researchers asked 701 men and women aged 18 to 82 about their recent experience of casual sexual interaction. Sexual interaction included both direct sexual intercourse and kissing and other sexual activities with people with whom the participants were not in a relationship. As a possible motivation for casual sex, the researchers suggested options such as “Physical attraction to another person”, “Getting into a relationship to start a relationship”, “Entering a relationship to end an existing relationship”, “Dissatisfaction with the current situation”. partner” et al. The influence of social factors such as alcohol exposure or coercion was also evaluated. Intrinsic motivators included self-doubt, feelings of loneliness, love seeking, physical pleasure seeking, and sexual satisfaction.

Study participants then described how they felt after casual sex—whether they were happy, whether their mood had improved, or perhaps nothing had changed for them.

Men and women equally reported being driven to have sex with a casual acquaintance because of physical attraction or pleasure-seeking—that is, attenuation of the social stigma associated with female sexual activity, as the study’s authors did.

“While this topic has been extensively researched in the past, we are probably in an age where gender norms and expression of sexual orientation are different from any time in history,” Anderson said.

At the same time, women reported that they started a relationship more often than men because they felt unhappy, lonely and under pressure from another person.

Also, women reported negative emotional outcomes more often than men—feelings of loneliness, regret, disappointment, rejection, condemnation from others. Conversely, men were more likely than women to report positive experiences such as sexual satisfaction, happiness, increased self-confidence, satisfaction, and improved mood.

Certain motives to engage in sexual relations were associated with negative outcomes. Therefore, casual sex designed to overcome feelings of loneliness, frustration and irritability often led to negative emotions. At the same time, the researchers found no motivation to correlate with positive emotional outcomes.

“It is very difficult to predict exactly when we get positive emotions from engaging in casual sex,” Anderson says. “We certainly found motives that could indicate a high probability of an adverse outcome, and it was pretty clear that there were significant gender differences here. Consistent with previous research, we found that casual sex generally resulted in more positive outcomes for men than women, and nothing we looked at predicted positive outcomes for women.

From the data it can be concluded that if you have casual sex to reduce emotional difficulties or stress, it is unlikely to lead to a positive outcome.

The majority of the respondents (75.8%) stated that they were heterosexual, 15% – bisexual, 8.4% – homosexual. Previous observations have shown that gay men are more likely to have casual sex than heterosexuals, regardless of gender. The authors emphasize that, in general, the effect of sexual orientation on the propensity for casual sex, motivation for it, and the consequences of such events have not yet been studied.