Here’s the Reason Many People Engage in Casual Sex
Trending News: The Unexpected Reason Many People Engage in Casual Sex
Why do people engage in casual sex? There’s the easy-going lack of commitment. The dispensing with troublesome emotions. An opportunity to experiment with your sexuality. Sometimes, it’s just to have fun in the sack with someone new.
But a new study by researchers from Binghamton University, SUNY Broome in New York and Indiana University’s Kinsey Institute suggests another unexpected reason for a quick hook-up: intimacy.
Intimate Hook-Ups
In the study, published in the Journal of Relationships Research, researchers sent a voluntary online questionnaire to several hundred randomly selected college students, asking about their affectionate and intimate activities during sexual encounters in the contexts of both romantic relationships and casual sex hook-ups.
Specifically, participants were asked about acts such as cuddling, spending the night, eye gazing, and foreplay. Students also indicated which of these acts they preferred during casual sex or hook-ups, and which they liked during sex as part of a romantic relationship.
The researchers found, as expected, that partners were more likely to engage in affectionate and intimate activities in relationship sex than in casual sex. But the rate of affection and intimacy in casual encounters was way higher than anticipated.
Women were found to be more likely to engage in intimate acts across all scenarios, as hypothesized. But men were into it too -- in particular foreplay and eye gazing.
Sean Massey, a co-author of the study and a social psychologist and associate professor at Binghamton, said the team was surprised by some of the results.
“Young adults who indicated they prefer casual sexual encounters over relationship sex were more likely to want affection and intimacy from them,” Massey said in a news release. “This suggests they seek to meet their need for intimacy through those casual encounters.”
Reinterpreting Casual Sex
The research could help redefine society’s interpretation of casual sex. Massey said he hopes the study will help to eliminate some of the stigmas that surround hook-up culture.
“We have a stereotype that casual sex (hook-ups) are just about meaningless sex, but this research shows this is not necessarily true,” added Ann Merriwether, a developmental psychologist and lecturer at Binghamton. “It shows intimacy is important and desired by many people, especially those who prefer hook-ups to more traditional relationships.”
Need a gentleman’s guide to hook-ups? We have you covered.
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