WHY I GAVE UP ON HOOKUP CULTURE
We’re taught to embrace it as an empowering act, but all I learned was that casual sex is often bad sex, says Georgia Aspinall
‘i think i’m going to stop having sex with men who don’t care whether I live or die,’ was the fateful utterance that led me to 18 months of celibacy. It was 2018, and I’d just given up on a woefully uninspired plan to secure a fuck buddy after three abysmal hook-ups with a guy I’d known from university. It was my last-ditch effort to make casual sex work for me: one-night stands had only proven futile in the orgasm department, and I had naively concluded that at least if I was having regular casual sex with a ‘friend’ who would get to know my body better, then I might actually orgasm.
But I very quickly realised that the friends part of friends with benefits is rarely meaningful, and if it is you’re probably going to end up falling in love, not ideal for a woman determined to stay single. Thus, I came to the conclusion that sleeping with men who wouldn’t bat an eyelid if I were hit by a bus on the stride of pride home wasn’t for me. I gave up seeking casual sex and said hello to more orgasms than I could imagine – in the form of Womanizer’s duo sexy toy.
It does all comes back to orgasms, at least for me. When you’re young, you think being single in your twenties will be a Sex And The City-inspired series of quirky experimentation and mind-blowing climaxes. The reality, at least for women who have sex with men, is much bleaker.
According to research published in the Journal Of Sex And Marital Therapy, more than 80% of heterosexual women do not orgasm from penetration alone. Nearly 10% have never had an orgasm, and at least 60% have faked one. In a world where penetration is considered the ‘main course’ of a hook-up and clitoral stimulation mere ‘foreplay’, it’s fair to say that most of us could be having more satisfactory sex lives.
But when you’re young, you don’t know any of this. You listen to music that sells casual sex as an empowering act and watch shows like Fleabag and Euphoria, believing everyone is having loads of sex and you should be too.
So you go home with a random guy from a bar, meet men off Tinder or embark on a holiday fling. And sometimes it’s fun, but mostly it’s learning that men rarely prioritise female pleasure, some turn cruel immediately after sex, or, on the worst end of the spectrum, don’t understand consent or choose not to. At the same time that you’re trying to have great sex, you’re learning how to set boundaries and wondering why none of this feels as good as you thought it would.
Of course, I can’t speak for all women – I have friends who love casual sex, and those enjoying it certainly should be having as much good sex as they can, in defiance of those who slut-shame us for daring to let our body count enter double figures. But I also have friends who, like me, made it to 25 and wondered: ‘Who am I actually doing this for when I orgasm better alone?’
There’s a stigma in admitting that casual sex isn’t for you, though, essentially leading a sexless life, if single. One man I told even shared sympathies with me as though I were a grieving widow. But it doesn’t have to be embarrassing, I was (almost) celibate for more than three years after giving up on casual sex, and I actually had more orgasms than any woman I knew.
My sexless defiance led to the flippant reputation among friends that I ‘hate all men’. I certainly don’t, but I do need one of them to care about me in order to enjoy having sex with them. Should that really be so revolutionary to say?
For me, at least, it’s true. Last April, I met a man who actually cares about me (certainly revolutionary) and, within weeks of real dating – no casual facade – I was having those mind-blowing orgasms I had expected from strangers. Naturally, I now have to marry him… but if all else fails I still have my trusty Womanizer to rely on.