Casual Sexual Relationships

On Monday, I ran into a friend who recently wrote a really good piece on friends with benefits.

I’m sure you’re all familiar with the term fuckbuddy – someone who’s a friend and you also sleep with. This arrangement is supposed to come without much emotional attachment. However, Not Only Sex attests that sex creates some sort of emotional link even if you weren’t planning on it.

I’m not a sexologist, but I do have some practice in this area, so here’s my take on it. In my experience, there are three types of casual sexual relationships.

Type 1: Frida Kahlo (Salma Hayek) + Tina Modotti (Ashley Judd), Frida

Type 1: One-Night Stand. You meet someone in a bar/club/gym/biochemistry conference. We make a judgment on whether someone is attractive within minutes of meeting them. However, if you meet someone at a biochemistry conference somewhere in the middle of rural France, you know it’s unlikely you’ll ever get to know them well on a mental/emotional level. Maybe you don’t even want to get to know them because you have commitment issues, or your pet bunny went to live on a farm, or who knows. So you go to your hotel/bar bathroom/rooftop in Buenos Aires and hook up. I would classify this as similar to masturbation. Sometimes you just need a release. Sexual chemistry or sexual frustration needs to be very high in order to take on the risk presented by an unknown partner. If for some reason the intended hook-up doesn’t happen, you’ll be disappointed for the rest of the night (worst case scenario) or until you meet a new attractive enough barmate (best case scenario). Emotional commitment: 0% – 5%.

Type 2: Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) and Faith (Eliza Dushku), Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Type 2: Fuckbuddies. This is a continuous sexual relationship with someone you don’t have an interest in getting to know all that well. Sexual chemistry and/or sexual frustration can be medium. This is more of, “well, I don’t have anything better to do tonight, so I might as well” situation. I’ve seen this happen with co-workers on long business trips that have very few common interests but are equally frustrated, or between people who were planning on having a one-night stand but then decided, “hey, that wasn’t too bad, I could do that again”. However, people tend to start caring about the well-being of their fuckbuddies at least on the level of asking how work went that day. Under this scenario, when a fuckbuddy refuses you, it’s a bigger psychological disappointment. Typically you’ll start evaluating your own attractiveness, reflecting back on the last sex you had together, etc. The next morning you’ll wake up and forget about it, though. Emotional commitment: 5% – 35%.

Type 3: Santana Lopez (Naya Rivera) and Brittany Pierce (Heather Morris), Glee

Type 3: Friends With Benefits. Again, a continuous sexual relationship. The difference between this scenario and the earlier ones is that here, you actually cared about the person as a friend before you started hooking up. This typically makes for the most emotional sex, somewhat similar to what you would have in a relationship. But this is also where the problems may arise with one of the parties feeling more than the other. It can work if both parties, for example, just got out of relationships and still have romantic feelings for other people but need both sexual release and friendly affection. But, this scenario is the trickiest to make work. Emotional commitment: 35% – 60%. Anything higher – beware.

Be aware which type of a casual relationship you are entering and ensure that the other person feels the same. Then, enjoy! 🙂

Manual To Straight Women

As straight women are the kryptonite to the lesbian community, I thought some of you may find this useful. Or maybe you’ll just have a laugh at how silly/dedicated I was when younger.

This Can Be Your First Step...

Skype conversation with a friend from a year ago. 

LesInTheCity: when i was young and stupid and had sex with straight girls

LesInTheCity: i measured their readiness for sex by how they were breathing

LesInTheCity: you know, girls have a different respiration rate when they’re aroused?

LesFriend: as if they were a bit nervous?

LesFriend: faster?

LesInTheCity: deeper

LesFriend: ohh

LesInTheCity: and slower

LesFriend: ive never noticed thatt.. how did you figure it out

LesInTheCity: and some muscles tense

LesInTheCity: well i slept with tons of straight girls 😀

LesInTheCity: i had to learn to read the signs

LesInTheCity: i didn’t want to hit on the wrong friend you know

The Bookshelf

Whenever I go over to a new girl’s house, there are two places that I check out.

The first one is the kitchen. Alcohol facilitates new… friendships, and the type of alcohol stored in the pantry (hard vs wine vs beer, vodka vs tequila) says a lot about the owner of the kitchen. The gay girl’s kitchen deserves its own separate entry.

The second one is the bookshelf. What you read is what you are. That doesn’t mean that a Harvard-educated woman can’t read a Cosmopolitan or that a shelf full of Nietzche implies an IQ of 180. But in my personal experience, the summary of the reading material reflects quite a bit.

Actually, I’m a bit of a book thief.

My Philosophy

I look through the books, I pick out something I haven’t seen before, look at the girl, bat my eyelashes, and say, “I’d like to read this”.

In the morning, I take the book with me in my purse. Sometimes I return them. If they ask for them back.

From The Ex’s house, I took Chuck Palahniuk’s Choke. She had certain family issues, was very thoughtful and attentive, and began her sex life early. When we were dating, she was in a strange place in her life and unsure of where she was going. She hasn’t actually read Choke.

From The Bartender’s house, I took Milan Kundera’s Slowness and Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, among many others. She had the best book collection of anyone I’ve met so far (to my taste). She had a nihilist philosophy on life and a jealous loser faux-philosopher sort-of-boyfriend. We understood each other without talking much. In fact, we almost never talked.

In BlondeGirl’s house, I found Vita Sackville-West’s Challenge. She has the fastest mind of anyone I know, overthinks, overplans, overcalculates, and is a master at running away from herself.

From The Architect’s house, I took John Boyne’s The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. She’s idealistic and needs to get a girlfriend. Someone sweet, young, and supportive.

From La Azafata’s house, I took a manual by Walter Riso, Amar o Depender, on dependency issues in love. We have really good physical chemistry. She is in the process of sorting herself out, which is good. Unfortunately, it took her a move to another country to start doing so.

My latest acquisition is Eduardo Mendoza’s Sin Noticias de Gurb. Sarcastically intellectual and easy to read. We’ll see what that means, if anything.

Roles and Eye Make-Up

I think sometimes we subconsciously decide to play out a certain scenario and then fit certain people into the prescribed roles. I see that in my friends who suddenly decide they need to get married rightthisminute and get hitched to the first guy who fits the explicit requirements (for example, tall/dark/a doctor). They want to star in the show “perfect housewife”, and that’s totally fine if that’s what makes them happy.

However, playing out past scenarios can happen in the most innocuous situations, too.

Several years ago, I had just met The Ex. We were going out for Halloween with a large group of people, we were just getting to know each other, I felt a little awkward. I wasn’t sure if she was interested.

We were both standing in front of the big mirror in the bathroom. I was supposed to be a sexy zebra (don’t ask), so I was wearing a striped zebra nightie. I was screwing up the make-up, though. So she turned to me, dipped her finger in the white paint, and started outlining my eye. I closed my eyes. She traced the contours of my face. I remember exactly how I felt in that moment: vulnerable, emotional. Connected. Letting go.

Eye Shadow Lesbians

This June, it was gay pride. I went out with La Azafata, with a large group of people. We had just started getting to know each other. It was a little awkward. I wasn’t sure if she was interested. We were standing in front of a big mirror in the bathroom in a gay bar. I was trying to fix my rainbow make-up. She turned to me, dipped her finger in the blue paint, and ran her fingers from the bridge of my nose to the edge of my forehead. And I had that similar rush of feelings.

Funnily enough, she reminds me a lot of The Ex.