Because ‘it feels good’
In a report that should surprise no one, University of Ottawa researchers have determined that women have one-night stands for the sex.
In a survey of 510 mostly Canadian women, “the person’s physical appearance turned me on” was rated as the No. 1 reason heterosexual respondents had opted for casual sex.
Although women in committed relationships reported having sex as an expression of love or affection, casual sex was almost purely physical. The No. 2 and No. 3 reasons for casual sex, respectively, were “It feels good” and “I was ‘horny.’ ”
“To my knowledge, this is the first study to specifically compare physical and emotional reasons for casual sex,” said study co-author Heather Armstrong in an email to Postmedia News.
Emotional closeness barely made the list. As per the survey, women are more likely to have casual sex because a man had “beautiful eyes” and “smelled nice,” rather than doing it because they wanted to feel intimate.
Prepared by the University of Ottawa’s Human Sexuality Research Laboratory, the study’s stated goal was to “explore women’s motivations to have sex” — whether it be straight sex, gay sex, casual sex or sex with a spouse. “As expected, women reported more physical motivations for casual sex and more emotional motivations for sex in a committed relationship,” read the study.
Namely, committed women were far more likely to have sex with their partners to “show my affection,” “communicate at a ‘deeper’ level” or solidify “the natural next step in my relationship.”
However, even in marriages and long-term courtships, “it feels good” still held the No. 1 spot as to why a heterosexual woman would take her partner to bed.
Recruited mostly from a “large, urban university in Eastern Canada,” the study’s 510 subjects were 78 per cent Caucasian, mostly non-religious and had a mean age of 21.6 years.
Possibly due to the relative youth of the group, it included a high number of current or recent virgins, as evidenced by the No. 24 reason for having casual sex with a man being “I wanted to see what it would be like to have sex with another person.”
Asked if she suspected her study reflected a change in sexual norms, Armstrong responded rates of casual sex are likely rising — but the reasons for it are pretty much the same as always. “People have casual sex because it feels good and because their partner’s attractive and I think that probably would have been the case in the past as well,” she said.