A quick note — Over at Lady Smut, Alexa Day posts her blogs on Sundays. My responses to her posts are often the length of full blog posts, because she puts these really great profound topics out there, and there’s just so much to say in response. So, f*** it, I’m just gonna start posting my responses here. Why not, right?
Okay, so this week Alexa Day posted on
Easy Come, Easy Go: Are We Good With One-Night Stands?
In which she advocates for them, and bewails America having issues with a single woman who only wants to get it on, yo.
Yeah, I agree with her, a single woman who’s got the itch to boink and wants a one night stand should be able to do so, and walk away without taking a hit from society. I also agree that the neurotic complex America has around women and one night hook ups is multi-layered and profound. Here are FOUR REASONS WHY society shakes it’s heads over women and one night stands:
#1 WOMEN WHO BOINK UNDER FALSE PRETENSES CAUSE THEY REALLY WANT MORE:
Some women don’t really want a one night stand–they want more of a connection with a guy but they’ll boink right off the bat simply to get his time and attention. This I’ll-take-what-I-can-get-and-hope-for-the-best happens perhaps out of loneliness, or perhaps on the oft-deluded hopes that the sex will be so ravingly wonderful the guy WILL call them the next week, etc. So when their secret hopes are disappointed, then chagrin, upset, and scorned-fury follows. Men sometimes experience this too. At any rate, I think some tsk-tsking over one night stands is due to feeling that some (most) women are setting themselves up to be hurt, to get the short end of the stick, etc. It’s a protective response.
Men and women like this should just stay away from the one night stand world–clearing the field as it were.
QUESTION: is it the man’s or woman’s ethical responsibility to appropriately vet partners and avoid the women/men above who deep down — or not so deep down are expecting/wanting more? The real conundrum is this: would the vetting time it takes to ethically clear someone take longer than one night, thus defeating the purpose of a one night stand?
At any rate, a lot of guys and some women know they’re gonna get burned with the false pretenses kind of one night stand partner mentioned above, and yet they never learn. Sigh.
#2 SOME PEOPLE DON’T WANT MORE, BUT THE BOINKING STILL ISN’T ABOUT SEX
Then there are women and men out there having one night sex for other reasons. Competitiveness is one I think. The younger generation often wants to show she’s bad-ass. She wants to show that she can f*** just like the guys do. That she can f*** just like her girlfriends and earn her equal bragging rights. She wants to show she’s not all talk and no action, so she sucks it up and puts it out there. But that doesn’t mean she’s getting off, and come Monday even though she’s bragging she’s not cringing a little on the inside. I’m not saying all women go through this, but I’d bet at least 25% do. Guys too. The worst of the worst is having to have sex with someone because your wing-girl/guy has dragged you along, and you’re stuck at someone’s house over night in someone’s bed, and there are expectations on the part of three other people that you’re going to put out and you cave rather than make a fuss for everyone. This makes me cringe.
Alexa would greatly benefit by all these women just clearing the field. Another problem Alexa mentioned is safety. But there’s a problem for one-night-standers that lies somewhere between the perfect one night stand experience and escaping a serial killer. I’m talking the skeeze-ball in hiding.
#3 THE PROBLEM OF MR. SKEEZE:
You connect with a handsome guy over pricey drinks –a single doctor no less, and a liberal, animal-loving, beemer-driving stud. But the next morning you wake up in bed with a married, part-time car salesman,who doesn’t remember your name much less what political party he said he voted for last night, and asks you to crawl out the door past all his hunting trophies before his wife comes home with the kids from visiting her folks. Next week you get a call from him next week because he’s got an STD and passed it on to you. Yes, I’m talking the Mr. Cringe. Some of us are more sensitive to Mr. Cringe than others. Some no doubt, see Mr. Cringe as merely the price of doing business.
#4 YOU DRANK THE ROMANCE COOL-AID:
Finally — I myself just never reached that place of sexual sophistication, maturity, and self-sufficiency until looooooong after I was in a committed relationship to handle anything like a one night stand. I mean, some people–like me–just can’t handle it. We’ll walk away feeling empty.
On top of that, I’ve yet to be able to contemplate physically wanting a guy to the point where I didn’t care what he was like on the inside. Fantasizing about a guy’s outsides is one thing, actually rubbing my sensitive bits against him when I don’t know what’s going on behind those eyes is another. I’m too over-sensitive and overly vulnerable to handle it. (Which is not to say that people who have one night stands aren’t sensitive and vulnerable. Just not in this way.)
Nor have I ever reached a place where I don’t care that a guy doesn’t care what I’m like on the inside. Back when I was available I had a perception problem. I felt like I was SO different on the inside from what I looked like on the outside, that a guy being attracted to me based on my looks just left me cold.
Now I see that sometimes people can be cool and humane with each other and boink just for boinking’s sake and that’s enough. But ultimately, I’ve always been challenged with simple interactions like that.
I’ll admit that I’ve drunk the romance cool-aid, ladies and gents.
I’ve been talking about Anne Calhoun’s LIBERATING LACEY here lately — which folds right into this discussion. In this book, Lacey, goes out to have a one night stand and boy does she ever — with a younger guy who’s a cop. But she wishes it would go on, and it does! Then she wishes it would go even further–and it does! Then she hits that point where she realizes that a) she’s never going to be able to have another one night stand–clearly she’s the kind that needs attachment to go through with sex and b) she worries that if the relationship doesn’t continue to grow and deepen, she’ll get really badly hurt.
Not to fear — because this is a romance fantasy and this guy wouldn’t begin to dream of letting her go. LURV IT! The book’s resounding popularity speaks to the fantasy I mentioned above–where the guy who has a one night stand with you and just can’t quit you cause the sex is so hot. The book’s success shows this fantasy is alive and well throughout the heartland. The more people realize this IS a fantasy and act accordingly in their best interests, the better.
Come Play in the Shadows... 