It’s Sunday morning and there’s a man lying next to me in my bed.
My head is throbbing, my throat is dry, my phone’s on 13 per cent battery. I know that after about 20 minutes, when this man leaves, I’ll probably never see him again. And that’s okay with me. It’s exactly what I wanted.
Most weekends, it’s the same story. Get dressed up on a Saturday night, go out with friends, down a few shots, dance, go home with someone.
Since I became single last year after a two-year relationship, I’ve wanted nothing more than casual sex. For me, it’s the best kind of arrangement. You have the sex, you have the cuddle, then you go your separate ways and don’t talk to each other until you want it again. Watch: Amy Schumer in her movie Trainwreck loves casual sex. (Post continues after video.)
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a sucker for romance. But as a successful woman in my mid-20s, I don’t want a relationship. I don’t even want to date, necessarily. I just want sex.
A Vanity Fair article recently addressed the new age of men who use dating apps to sleep around as ‘fuckboys’. These men, the article explains, view women as something to house their dicks – just for a night, or on a casual basis, until they got bored of them.
But forget fuckboys. I’m a fuckgirl. And proud of it.
For myself, and others like me, dating apps like Happn and Hinge are my hunting ground. I’m not on there to find a boyfriend. I’m on there to meet someone who I am attracted to – and who is attracted to me. Someone who wants to go for a drink, maybe dinner, then go home with me. It doesn’t have to happen right away, but it does need to happen for me to remain interested.
I’ve ruined many potential relationships with this tactic. Most recently, I was speaking to a guy I sorta liked, we went on a date and hit it off. That was Thursday. By the time Saturday came around, I was like a wolf. I was clingy, practically begging to see him. But it’s not because I liked him. It’s purely because I wanted him in a physical sense. After we slept together, he stopped speaking to me. I was told by my friends this was because I went too fast. I should have waited, used my vagina as bait for him to want to keep seeing me. But in my mind, I was fine – I got what I wanted out of him.
There’s a new era of women who want no-strings-attached sex. We want the cuddles without the commitment. We want the sex without the fighting. We want someone who will reply to our texts, but won’t hound us. We’re single, independent, sexual beings.
Casual sex makes me feel empowered, but the men I’ve slept with don’t tend to play by my rules. They’ll view my keenness as wanting a relationship, when in fact it’s the exact opposite. They’ll wait days to text back, not realising that I’ve already moved on by that stage.
A friend of mine summed it up best when she said:
“The idea that women want more than sex from every man they meet frustrates me. I’ve spent a year dating men I only want to sleep with. I’ve had times where I’ve been on a date, slept with the guy, we both enjoyed it and then we moved on. No feelings were hurt.”
When I first slept with my ex-boyfriend, I thought I had an epiphany. I thought sex was only good when you were in love with the person. But after the relationship had fizzled out and sleeping with him felt like a chore, I realised how wrong I was.
Of course, there are Sunday nights when I long for the company and security that only a boyfriend who loved me could provide. But then I turn on Netflix and the longing goes away.
I know one day I’ll be ready to date exclusively again. I know I’ll be ready for a relationship and all the things that come with it. But for now? Leave me and my casual sex alone. We’re perfectly happy together.
*Editor’s note: The author of this post is known to Mamamia, but has chosen to remain anonymous.
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