Back on the horse: sex does NOT make you dirty
A recent column in the San Francisco Chronicle wants us all to know two things.
1. Sex makes you dirty. More specifically, casual hookups "too often" result in "emotional pain and physical disease."
Is casual sex a health risk? Of course. So is sex in the context of a relationship. And eating in a restaurant, and traveling in cars (which too often results in serious injury -- bad things don't have to happen very often to be too often). And emotional risks? Having a relationship is full of them! The bottom line is that we all take dozens of risks every day, and we all take steps we consider reasonable to ameliorate those risks, like wearing seatbelts.
More broadly, I'm willing to consider that sometimes, people hook up and regret it. It seems likely, even. I don't think, however, that telling people sex is dangerous is the solution. Instead, how about trying to change our culture about sex so that people -- men, women, genderqueer, and everyone else -- can have the freedom to figure out what it is they really want without any baggage or bullshit?
2. Women suffer more from hookups (because of a hormone called oxytocin, released during sex, childbirth, and nursing, that may promote attachment), and therefore Real Feminists (TM) should recognize that men and women are just different and "promote protection for women."
As far as I can tell, the belief that oxytocin produces bonding is based on some research done on prairie voles. (Those voles are, by the way, generally monogamous; the same chemicals do not have the same effect on more promiscuous voles, whose receptors for them are in different areas of the vole brain.) You're going to have to give me more than that to convince me that I'm hormonally doomed to fall in love with my sexual partners.
In summary: I don't care if you don't want to have casual sex, Kathleen Parker, but please, cut it out with the claims that I'll be contributing to a mental health crisis if I do.
1. Sex makes you dirty. More specifically, casual hookups "too often" result in "emotional pain and physical disease."
Is casual sex a health risk? Of course. So is sex in the context of a relationship. And eating in a restaurant, and traveling in cars (which too often results in serious injury -- bad things don't have to happen very often to be too often). And emotional risks? Having a relationship is full of them! The bottom line is that we all take dozens of risks every day, and we all take steps we consider reasonable to ameliorate those risks, like wearing seatbelts.
More broadly, I'm willing to consider that sometimes, people hook up and regret it. It seems likely, even. I don't think, however, that telling people sex is dangerous is the solution. Instead, how about trying to change our culture about sex so that people -- men, women, genderqueer, and everyone else -- can have the freedom to figure out what it is they really want without any baggage or bullshit?
2. Women suffer more from hookups (because of a hormone called oxytocin, released during sex, childbirth, and nursing, that may promote attachment), and therefore Real Feminists (TM) should recognize that men and women are just different and "promote protection for women."
As far as I can tell, the belief that oxytocin produces bonding is based on some research done on prairie voles. (Those voles are, by the way, generally monogamous; the same chemicals do not have the same effect on more promiscuous voles, whose receptors for them are in different areas of the vole brain.) You're going to have to give me more than that to convince me that I'm hormonally doomed to fall in love with my sexual partners.
In summary: I don't care if you don't want to have casual sex, Kathleen Parker, but please, cut it out with the claims that I'll be contributing to a mental health crisis if I do.
posted by Sarah at 3:42 PM
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