The Love Files No.17 // Casual Sex

I have not had casual sex in many years since I was in a relationship and I did not miss casual sex at all, quite the opposite. Now after I had casual sex this weekend I exactly remembered again what I don’t like about casual sex. Pretty much everything that comes with it. Of course the weekend with the ‘no strings attached sex’ served as a great distraction from my breakup but now I feel exactly as lonely again as I did before.

We both wanted it, I said to him that if we have sex now after just having met and not knowing each other that this will probably lead to nowhere since it is creating a kind of fast forwarded intimacy that can never be kept up when we finally ‘get to know each other’ I was straight forward and said that I cannot commit to anything serious at this point since it is too early after such an intense breakup that came out of the blue but that I am fine with sex at the moment. He said that he was looking for something serious but also did not want to miss out on the sex, so we went for that on Saturday and Sunday.

When you don’t know someone, then sex changes everything and can lead to lots of confusion and irritation. If you have sex after knowing each other better, when you are trusting each other, being able to talk about everything and you can be honest with each other, then sex won’t create this kind of confusion and fear, instead it helps you to get deeper together, to bond and to grow as a couple mutually - but really only once you have reached that stage of really taking the time to know each other and to be sure that you want to be together which in my experience takes about 3 months more or less. Skipping this crucial stage of getting to know each other usually only leads to hurtful and unwanted outcomes I can attest. Because you got intimate before finding out that you are incompatible and that can be painful and feels like a ‘bad emotional investment’.

V told me on Sunday night after we had sex that in the past after having sex he had the strong desire to escape immediately, that his instinct was to get out as quickly as possible and to be by himself again, just be as far from the woman he just slept with. Saturday night he left afterwards and Sunday night he gave me that explanation and then also left even though I thought before that he’d stay overnight, because that is how it sounded like to me before. But I was wrong. Truth is, I would have preferred if he had stayed both times and spent the night with me instead of leaving.

His explanation led me to do some research about this topic and I found out that it is quite common for men to pull away after sex while women have the desire to become closer. Apparently this is all about biology. The hormone Oxytocin is released when women orgasm and this hormone plays a role in social reproduction, social bonding, child birth and the period after child birth according to Wikipedia. In other articles before already months or years ago, I also read that Oxytocine is the hormone that makes you feel comforted and happy through human interaction like cuddling, human touch and so on which goes in-line with what I read in all the other articles and studies that I read today.

So after being intimate with a guy, after having slept with him and when it felt good and women feel good around him they want him to be closer and to stay with the man, women are more eager to get an emotional bond afterwards when they like the guy they just got intimate with. Women tend to be more emotionally vulnerable after sex with a guy. This apparently goes back to evolution when sex only had the purpose of reproduction and then safeguarding the offspring. Oxytocin enhances the desire to further connect with him, to be around him and just to feel comforted through his presence from what I have read.

Men on the other hand experience a decrease in testosterone which makes them want to pull away and stop chasing the woman they were just intimate with. Apparently they also release Oxytocine but it does not have the bonding effect on them as it does on women. Once the testosterone levels go back to normal a man might come back though for more sex or just look for a new partner from what I have read.

I found it quite interesting how different casual sex affects men and women. The more needy a woman becomes afterwards, the more the guy will pull away. It is a cycle made up for disaster when not being clear what you both actually want and when not communicating it. I think a lack of communication is the biggest problem between men and women anyways, especially in the early stages of a relationship or affair. I might have seemed a little needy on Monday, even as much as I not wanted it, but I felt so much confusion and fear or maybe he also just felt pressured too quickly. I think real problems occur quickly if two people who don’t know each other and who both have problems with commitment, intimacy, closeness and distance come involved so quickly.

It was my fear that exactly this is going to happen but I still could not hold myself back from getting into this because at that point I really wanted it so much and apparently so did he. I got my distraction, that is for sure. I just really hoped this will be an easygoing kind of affair without any commitment at this point. End of the story is that casual sex can be good to distract yourself from your past relationship but that it certainly creates new kind of different problems when there is a lack of communication and the game of blowing hot and cold, pushing and pulling and I seriously hate these games, I can’t stand them. It is just too draining.