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Casual Sex

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Clarissa

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I don’t believe in casual sex. I mean I don’t believe it exists. We can tell ourselves as many times as we want, “Oh, this will be completely casual because this is precisely the kind of person I always said I’d never date and, besides, I’m moving into another country in 15 minutes.” And then you find yourself married to this person, living with him in Southern Illinois, and fantasizing about walking around the assisted living facility, holding hands with him 50 years from now. In the meanwhile, your friends are peeing themselves with laughter because of all the times you ranted about the impossibility of limiting yourself to a single person even for one year, let alone a lifetime.

While we try to control reality with our labels and categories, life happens.

22 responses to “Casual Sex”

  1. Melissa Avatar
    Melissa

    Too cute 🙂

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  2. Fie Upon This Quiet Life Avatar
    Fie Upon This Quiet Life

    I don’t really believe in casual sex either. Unless you just have sex one time with the person, you will get attached somehow. And even with a one-time encounter, it can mean an awful lot!

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  3. Danny Avatar
    Danny

    Maybe people tell themselves its casual in order to give themselves permission to fulfill a desire for sex without getting attached?

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      I think it’s mostly about the need to feel in control of what’s happening. Sexuality can be scary in that it can not be controlled by reason or a force of will, so these attempts to script sex beforehand are soothing.

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    2. Z Avatar
      Z

      @Danny, yes, I think they are taught that it’s “casual” (unimportant, throwaway, etc.) if you haven’t checked out the marriageability factors yet, and so on. It’s “casual” if it is not an “expression” of “commitment.” This all seems to be based on the idea that sex is some sort of reward you get for settling down, which concretely only makes sense if it’s an old fashioned question of raising children the father can know are his for sure.

      It seems they think you either love someone and commit to them and sex is a side effect of this, or you want to have sex with someone, are not too picky about whom, and are in fact kind of hoping not to like them so you won’t end mixed up with them.

      I, on the other hand, would say you can meet someone, not investigate them 100% for compatibility as a life partner, have *magical* sex without determining ahead of time where it will lead, and have many possible outcomes including marriage.

      In sum: I think there are a lot of patriarchal assumptions behind the concept of casual sex, and a lot of misinformation about how sex works. I think that if there’s an attraction strong enough to act on, you do *not* know where it will lead. Also, I don’t think that “attraction” means recognizing that someone is generally attractive; I maintain that it means *feeling* attracted.

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  4. Titfortat Avatar
    Titfortat

    Sexuality can be scary in that it can not be controlled by reason or a force of will(Clarissa)

    That is a pretty generalized statement. I think there are people who have no issue with casual sex. Obviously there are many who do but it is not the same across the board for everyone.

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      ” I think there are people who have no issue with casual sex. ”

      – If you read the post before commenting, you’d realize that I’m one of those people.

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  5. Titfortat Avatar
    Titfortat

    So does casual sex exist or not?

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      The post is right there, in front of you. I just checked. 🙂

      For the people who take too long to wake up in the morning: the point of the post is that we never know what sexuality will bring and where it will take us.

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  6. marc2020 Avatar
    marc2020

    Clarissa speaks of the sometimes thrilling sometimes scary unpredictability of the human experience.

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      Thank you, Marc2020.

      I had no idea this would be so complicated. 🙂

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      1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
        bloggerclarissa

        I should have known that this would lead to people deciding that I aim to criticize their sex lives as amoral.

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  7. Miriam Avatar
    Miriam

    BUT YOU’RE SLUT-SHAMING. BUT BUT.

    Just kidding. I know what you’re saying. I know people who claim they have “casual sex,” but that’s never been possible for me and I can only really speak to my own experience.

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      The only slut here is me, so please, don’t give the title to anybody else. 🙂 🙂

      I’m kidding, people. Everybody can be a slut. irrespective of age, gender and neuro-status.

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    2. Z Avatar
      Z

      When they claim this they mean one of 2 things: had sex knowing it would not lead to a relationship for whatever reason, but were interested in the person; or, more or less used someone to get off (as one uses prostitutes). It is this last that I am repulsed by. I have no objection to the former situation, but I wouldn’t call it “casual” just because it is non marriage oriented.

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      1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
        bloggerclarissa

        “When they claim this they mean one of 2 things: had sex knowing it would not lead to a relationship for whatever reason, but were interested in the person; or, more or less used someone to get off (as one uses prostitutes).”

        – Or the sex was not good. Nobody walks away from mind-blowing sex, no matter what they plan beforehand. The only alternative I see to bad sex is when the person turns out to be so annoying that even the sex doesn’t compensate for that.

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      2. Culture club Avatar
        Culture club

        Nobody walks away from mind-blowing sex, no matter what they plan beforehand.

        This is oh so true. This happened to me once, where we both went for a “casual sex” romp, and it turned out that we were extremely sexually compatible. This quickly lead to a relationship before we could even figure out who the other person was.

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      3. Titfortat Avatar
        Titfortat

        The only alternative I see to bad sex is when the person turns out to be so annoying that even the sex doesn’t compensate for that.(Clarissa)

        No, but some will endure the individual long enough to get the sex. 😉

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  8. Z Avatar
    Z

    Oh yes, those are good translations, too. Mistake sex. (I still want to get rid of the term “casual,” it covers too many different things and seems to now mean, sex with people one does not care about and so on … whereas in my theory, casual as opposed to formal or official could in the past include all kinds of interesting romances.)

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      I agree, I think the terminology of “casual” is very misleading here. The only time in my life when I THOUGHT that it would be casual led to marriage. But there were times when I thought it was going to be something special and they just fizzled out.

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  9. lamestllama Avatar
    lamestllama

    I have seen casual sex with my own eyes, albeit nearly three decades ago.

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      Oh God, maybe it’s in a museum somewhere these days! 🙂

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A conservative literary critic and college professor

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