The Myth That Casual Sex, Sans Emotional Connection, Is Satisfying For Women -- And The Reality
Caitlin Flanagan writes in The Atlantic about the Aziz Ansari story I blogged about on Sunday. It's a piece about a woman, "Grace," who went on a date with the comedian and ended up in a casual sex clinch that wasn't working for her...yet stuck around for it anyway for quite a while.
Note this passage from Flanagan's piece:
Eventually, overcome by her emotions at the way the night was going, she told him, "You guys are all the fucking same" and left crying. I thought it was the most significant line in the story: this has happened to her many times before. What led her to believe that this time would be different?
There are people who can have casual sex and people who can't. And the people who tend to feel the worst from casual sex are those who have vaginas.
We don't discuss that.
Well, that is, most of us don't discuss that, because it's part of our ginormous denial of biological sex differences.
Biological sex differences and how they play out are a subject I write about all the time in my science-based column.
Here, in short, is anthropologist John Marshall Townsend from one of those columns:
Because women can get "impregnated and abandoned," anthropologist John Marshall Townsend explains, female emotions evolved to act as an "alarm system" to monitor the "quality and reliability" of male investment and "remedy deficiencies even when (women) try to be indifferent to investment." In a study of Townsend's I've referenced before, even when women wanted nothing but a shag from some dude -- basically seeing him as useful meat -- they often found themselves fretting the morning after about whether he cared about them or only wanted sex.These women aren't mushy-minded idiots. Chances are, they've been roofied into these feelings -- by their own bodies. Oxytocin -- a hormone associated with emotional bonding -- gets released in both men and women through cuddling, kissing, and orgasm. However, men's far greater supply of testosterone -- especially when they aren't in a committed relationship -- can act as a sort of nightclub bouncer, blocking the uptake of oxytocin.
Here's a more comprehensive column on the subject:
"Sex and the City's" Samantha isn't a completely fictional character in how, after sex, she brushes men off herself like large, penis-equipped crumbs. However, in that column you mention, I referenced research from anthropologist John Marshall Townsend, who discovered that Samantha's post-sex detachment is pretty atypical -- that many women who intend to use and lose a guy often find themselves going all clingypants the next morning.Understanding what allows the Samantha type to escape this takes separating the women who have casual sex from those who feel okay about it afterward.
Women have casual sex for various reasons. For some, it seems the feminist thing to do -- to prove they can do anything a man can do, whether it's working on an oil rig or dragging home strangers for a little nail-and-bail. Townsend notes that women hook up because they aren't ready for a relationship, because they're trying to punch up their sex skills, or -- as with rock groupies -- to get some small piece of a guy they know is out of their league. Other women see hookups as the "free candy!" they can use to lure some unsuspecting man into the relationship van.
There's a widespread belief, even held by some researchers, that higher testosterone levels in women mean a higher libido, but testosterone's role in female desire is like that Facebook relationship status: "It's complicated." Research by clinical psychologist Nora Charles, among others, suggests that "factors other than ... hormones" are behind which women become the Princess Shag-a-lots.
Personality seems to be one of those factors. In looking at what's called "sociosexuality" -- what sort of person has casual sex -- psychologist Jeffrey A. Simpson finds that extraversion (being outgoing, exhibitionistic, and adventure-seeking), aggressiveness, and impulsivity are associated with greater willingness to have an uncommitted tumble.
However, once again, all the reasons a woman's more likely to have casual sex don't stop her from getting tangled up in feelings afterward. The deciding factor seems to be where she falls on what the late British psychiatrist John Bowlby called our "attachment system." According to Bowlby, how you relate in close relationships -- "securely," "anxiously," or "avoidantly" -- appears to stem from how well your mother (or other primary caregiver) sussed out and responded to your needs and freakouts as an infant.
If she was consistently responsive (but not overprotective), you're probably "securely attached," meaning you have a solid emotional base and feel you can count on others to be there for you. This allows you to be both independent and interdependent.
Being "anxiously attached" comes out of having a caregiver who was inconsistently there for you (perhaps because they were worn thin) or who was overprotective. This leads to fear and clinginess in relationships (the human barnacle approach to love).
And finally, being "avoidantly attached" is a response to a cold, rejecting caregiver -- one who just wasn't all that interested in showing up for you. Not surprisingly, perhaps to avoid risking all-out rejection by being too demanding, the avoidantly attached tend to adapt by becoming people who push other people away.
It's avoidantly attached women who social psychologist Phillip Shaver and his colleagues find can have casual sex without emotional intimacy -- and, in fact, tend to see their "discard after using" attitude as a point of pride. (It sounds better to be a "sexual shopaholic" than a person with unresolved psychological problems.)
Other women -- those who didn't have a really chilly caregiver -- are likely to have that "sense of loss" you feel after casual sex. As Townsend notes, female emotions evolved to act as an "alarm system" to push women to go for male "investment" -- that guy who'll go to the ends of the earth for you...and actually come back afterward instead of growing a beard, getting a passport in a fake name, and starting a new life in some remote Japanese fishing village.
The reality is, women who aren't ready for a relationship (or who can't find the right guy) would be wise to find a regular fuckbuddy.
This has a bonus to it -- the fact that women often don't have orgasms from casual sex.
As I put it in a tweet about women and the ideal casual sex partner being a regular dude:
Strangers are like a burglar in a pitch-black china shop.
Hi! This blog comment will be about the inconsistencies by which accusations and resentments have been applied in this ongoing social disruption.
(1.)
Haven't read the Flanagan piece yet, but let's remember that a curt fascination with "believing women" has been a leitmotif in her writings for a number of years.
(2.)
See this piece which compares Letterman's shenanigans with those of Louis CK, and considers their relative timing.
I dunno, maybe we're all imagining a uniform standard of decency where such a thing is neither desirable or possible.
Or maybe celebrity culture isn't the place to look for it anyway.
Crid at January 15, 2018 1:39 AM
Okay, that Flanagan piece was under-edited (or at least insufficiently proofread), and she was drinking a glass of wine when she wrote it. (Takes one to know one.) It was a rush job, perhaps so that she could include the "twenty-four hours ago" line.
Crid at January 15, 2018 1:50 AM
Crid, can you explain Flanagan's "curt fascination with 'believing women'"? I haven't paid attention to this, though I read her pieces when I see them. (Also, maybe I'm just not very awake.)
It was a rush job because this just happened days ago and the piece was out on Sunday (I believe).
Have to go check the "twenty-four hours ago" thing.
Amy Alkon at January 15, 2018 5:20 AM
Well, it's curt because Flanagan never tried to build an entire essay around it. I can't review everything she's ever written or tweeted, but I've seen the word "believe" a handful of times over the last eight years or so (since I figured out that she was worth reading every time), in contexts that make me nervous... Basically, I think she's been right on the knife edge of being a (smirkingly) reactionary feminist or a thoughtful student of human nature, as have we all. The word appears eight times in this piece and four times in this one. (We might concede that these two columns came during the mist-shrouded blossoming of this, um, whatever-it-is... Revolution, or witch hunt, or Hollywood scandal or etc.)
Here's the thing about justice:
…Which, in jurisprudence, happens in courtrooms in front of 12 somewhat diverse jurors. It's hardass. It's where quibbling goes to die. It's the best-ever place for a woman, or anyone else, to be taken seriously.But in lesser deployments, with the odor I detect a couple of times in those columns, "believing women" turns into something smear-y and virulent, with no recourse to considerations of context or motive or even kindness.
Again, I think we're all going through this, and a comprehensive standard in such matters may exceed our grasp. Age-wise, Flanagan and you and I are all within snotty-sibling range of each other, the youngest of the boomers. So I think I recognize in her writing some struggle in her perspective on how feminism goes best, informed by observation of the preceding generation (which got so much accomplished), her own (which enjoyed tremendous rewards and made a few mistakes) and the generation of her children (which appears to be wobbling).
Crid at January 15, 2018 6:26 AM
So, I logged on to come here and make this comment, but first I stopped by Drudge, where the headline presently is:
So, yeah, the thesis is affirmed: This crisis has taken a weird turn, where all these little stories & accusations come with gratuitous details... Narratives and descriptions and things that you might not need to know if you were just trying to figure out if he raped her, or if he took advantage of his authority, or if he's just an asshole.I don't think this is inflammation of interest is purely salacious gossip, or pornographic fascination. The Computer Internet has *plenty* of data servers devoted to those things.
And I don't think American culture is fecklessly puritanical.
But it seems like a lot of people seem to have grown into adult life without realizing that our sexual nature is weird and intrusive and risky. It's like these folks never had anyone in their family or circles of friendship who spelled it out for them in as many words. Neither the Bible-thumpers nor the righteous feminists made the effort to comprehend & integrate our awkward infrastructure... They glossed straight over to their impersonal pamphlet points. So now, mildly obtuse people are sharing all these stories, even the ones composed from lesser discomforts, and they're asking 'So this isn't just me, right? Sex is weird and intrusive and risky, right?'
Carry on!I am no expert on these matters. But if you feel any confusion, let me, a distant stranger preparing to exit middle age, straighten this out for you:
Crid at January 15, 2018 9:38 AM
Part of the problem is communication. In the old days (60s say), it was given that the girl would be a little reluctant and the boy had to be a little persuasive without being a jerk. Slow and steady, with lots of pauses. Multiple dates before any real action. But now, it is quite likely that a guy will get lucky on the first date if he is good looking or famous, and quite logically believes that if she comes up to his apartment or invites him to hers that it means sex. It is not a wild idea since it happens so often. So when a girl goes up to his apt, what does she think she is signaling if not willingness? What especially does she think it means with a stranger from a bar? This is nothing but self-deception to claim that it doesn't mean anything when the cultural expectation is that it does. If you want it to not mean anything, meet someplace neutral (parties, concerts, the park, restaurant) and then take your own cab home.
And by the way, getting to know someone and maybe even being in love first are not bad ideas.
cc at January 15, 2018 11:30 AM
Heather MacDonald covers changing sexual mores at City Journal:
And that has led to:
Conan the Grammarian at January 15, 2018 1:47 PM
Apologize for being a sexual hamsterer, you say?
A victim victimizing other victims with verbal victimization.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at January 15, 2018 2:27 PM
Excellent cite, Coney
Crid at January 15, 2018 3:30 PM
Really wanted to read more comments for this one, because I think Amy's post is spot-on... And no sane person would call her prudish or prim, even though she's plenty proper.
Fifteen years ago there was this nonfiction book by a young Jewish woman —surprised to have forgotten the name of the book and the author— discussing this difference in the way men and women look at such things, and how the 1960's feminism had crippled many women's dearest hopes in romance. Google time!
[googlegooglegoogle]
I can't even find it. It was published circa 2001, and everyone was talking about it for that month or summer or whatnot.
But it's weird how these socially conservative ideas come around every few years, no matter the presumption that sophisticated America has moved beyond such constraints.
Crid at January 15, 2018 8:34 PM
This is a great line. Maybe it isn't, but guys who get old like to think the kids aren't rilly having fun.
Flanagan retweeted this.
A twitter feed & the NY Times are terrible tools for measuring the world, but there seems to be a substantial body of thoughtful opposition to the MeToo'ers in the Ansari, um...
thing. Event. Case. Crisis. Story. Sitch. Betrayal. Kerfuffle.
Crid at January 15, 2018 8:42 PM
Trump's a Category Seven Foaming Doofmundus, but it's true that pink and red are best.
Crid at January 15, 2018 8:47 PM
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