To hit the sack and emerge emotionally unattached was an area that men previously laid claim to. But with modern day sexual liberties, women say that they too do not necessarily carry their emotions with them to bed.
Some women now boast of having one night stands, or having friends-with-benefits or strangers-with-benefits arrangements, without becoming emotionally involved.
They say they can handle having sex without forming an emotional bond, and hook up with men in their quest for sexual intimacy without the commitment of a relationship.
Natasha, 35, and a single mother of one, says she does it to fulfill her sexual needs. She says she has never had problems with keeping her emotions under the lid during and after casual sexual relationships.
Natasha enjoys traveling and it is during her travels that she hooks up with men. She would never cling on to a chips funga or so she claims.
“I detach sex from emotions so that I do not feel an urge to hang on to a man after the act. I move on to the next thrill,” she says.
Natasha says that there are men who call her after a night of passion, but she either refuses to pick up their calls or hangs up on them. And she thinks married men are complicated. They have a lot of confidence, but they too get emotional.
“For my friends who think there can be anything more than sex, I tell them outright that I cannot have a serious relationship with them. I just want a no-strings-attached arrangement because it is convenient and there are no side shows.”
The risk of sexually transmitted infections notwithstanding, Natasha pursues her exploits without fear of developing any bond with her prey.
“I am happy with this kind of arrangement because life is about having fun. I don’t have time to fight with a husband, and as long as my sexual needs are met, I am good,” she says without batting an eye.
She offers that with age, it is easier to keep physical and emotional intimacy apart. When she was younger, getting emotionally entangled was much easier but not any more.
“I am single; when I need my desires fulfilled I do not have to wait until I am in a stable relationship or until I get married. I can have my needs met and I keep my emotions in check,” she declares.
Gladys, who is in her early thirties, says sex pangs have driven her to go to pubs with the intention of picking up men for casual sex.
“I go to the pub knowing that I have to leave with a man. He does not have to buy me anything, as I am the one calling the shots. I usually pick out a good-looking one from the crowd and keep enticing him until I get him,” she says.
Apart from those who want their sexual needs met, there are also those who seek no-strings-attached sex because they are looking for sperm-donors. Such women hang around the man until they hit the jackpot of conception, pregnancy and delivery – then they cut links.
No lingering feelings. They get what they need and move on. For others, no-strings-attached sex is the currency they use to pay for what they want in life. The carrot they have to dangle to get to their goals.
Whether it is money, a job, or any other conceivable gain, almost anything is given in exchange for sex. In these kinds of transactions, there is no room for attachment, as soon as the deal is sealed, the parties part ways.
Women rate a man’s physical attractiveness as key when seeking casual sex relationships – the irresistible charm of good-looking men is all the persuasion they need to hit the sack for an episode of no-strings-attached sex. They are adventurous, and want to have “fun” without the baggage of commitment associated with relationships.
The easy picks are male friends and acquaintances, who then get sexual benefits when the need arises, but strangers also get a piece of the action.
Some women say that a “no strings attached” arrangement can work perfectly if both the man and woman involved are mature.
And though some have managed to pull through these no-obligations sexual relationships unscathed, others have found that the possibility of falling in love with the male “friend” and even getting emotionally bruised in the process is real.
Months into having a casual sex arrangement with the same man, a woman who previously imagined that she had her emotions tucked away, discovers they were there all along, waiting for the right time to strike.
Emma*, 29, tried hooking up with a colleague for purposes of sex only but found it hard to keep the relationship purely physical. She had been out of a relationship for a couple of years and was craving some intimacy.
“I thought of hooking up with my ex-boyfriend, but I figured that it would be an act of desperation, bearing in mind the hostility with which we parted,” she says.
But at an end of year staff party she found a suitable match for a sex-only arrangement. In the informal atmosphere of the party, Emma let her guard down and spent most of the party in the company of a colleague from her department.
By the end of the party, and after a few drinks, he accompanied her to her house. That was the beginning of their sex-only relationship, with no room for emotional attachment.
“I wanted my sexual needs fulfilled and I knew it was a mind over matter situation. As long as I could put a lid on my emotions, I could pull it off. Moreover, Mburu (Emma’s colleague) made it clear that he was in a serious relationship, and only needed someone to ‘service’ him since his girlfriend worked in a different town about 800 kilometres away,” she says.
Emma says that it worked for the first three months. But after a while Emma, would get jealous of any woman she saw being friendly with Mburu.
“I was not jealous of Mburu’s girlfriend, because I felt he was more mine than hers. I had never met her and Mburu rarely went to see her. But whenever I saw another woman near him, I would get so angry and feel like telling her to keep off my man,” she says.
Emma went as far as threatening female colleagues to stay away from Mburu. She says that her saving grace was when Mburu was transferred to another district and their interactions halted.
“I think I got entangled because we were spending too much time together. If we did not work in the same office, it would have been easier for me to avoid getting emotionally involved,” she remarks.
28-year-old Diana has also been on the no-obligations-sex train and speaks with ease about how commonplace these types of liaisons are.
“Most of my friends have slept with long time male acquaintances and even strangers. They wake up the morning after without the slightest feelings of attraction towards the man they just had sexual relations with.” Diana, a relationship manager at a local bank is enjoys her successes as an educated career woman.
But she says there are times when not even her successes can give her comfort from the sexual itch.
But the single career woman says that only a handful of women can handle no-strings attached sex.
“It is not that easy to detach physical from emotional intimacy. There are women who still remember men they had one-night stands with. Now imagine if such women sleep severally with the same man…they will become seriously attached to him,” she says matter-of-factly.
Diana had a casual sex escapade with a male friend last November. But the outcome was not what she expected. She was in a steady relationship with her boyfriend then, but that did not stop her from trying the sex-without-obligations act with a mutual male friend.
One night when her boyfriend was out of town, Diana accompanied her male friend to a party and they decided to have sex for the fun of it.
“It was just sex and I thought we could remain friends after that. But it changed everything – I could not look at him the same way as before.”
What disappoints Diana about this liberal attitude by women toward casual sex is that now the men she meets want to be friends-with-benefits.
“I am now single and I would like to settle down and raise children but most men just want to be the friend who meets your sexual needs and nothing more. If you say no, the man moves on to the next woman and there are many women who will readily give up sex without second thought,” she says.
There have been attempts to disprove the idea that women develop an emotional bond towards men they have casual sex with due to the hormone oxytocin released during sexual activity. This hormone is associated to bonding and its release encourages a woman to form a monogamous pair bond with her sexual partner.
Moreover, in an interview published on http://www.bigthink.com Helen Fischer, a human behaviour researcher and anthropologist, who researches on romantic, interpersonal attraction, asserts that casual sex does not exist.
“Casual sex is never really casual unless you are so drunk you cannot remember it; something can happen. You can either fall madly in love with this person, or you can begin a deep sense of attachment to them,” an excerpt from the interview reads.
But not every woman agrees with the assertion that it is difficult to separate the physical from the emotional. There are women who insist that their emotions have never stood in the way of seeking out sexual encounters without any further expectations from men.
Dr. Chris Hart, a Nairobi based psychologist concurs that women can handle the no-strings-attached relationships as well as men do. He says that those who develop feelings do so because they are subconsciously seeking emotional intimacy with the men in the picture.
Dr Hart attributes these kinds of casual sex liaisons to the new breed of self-reliant women who have completely taken the initiative away from men.
He explains that women now choose their partners in a typically male way – with an emphasis on appearance, rather than social status or financial success.
“Women pick out a man and make a decision about whether to go to bed with him in much the same way as a man might. And they have similar attitudes towards infidelity. They’re treating the time before marriage as a time to play the field. Just as men have always done,” he adds.
Dr Hart says that these arrangements are common among single women in their late 20s through to late 30s and beyond. “These women are educated, career-oriented and financially independent, and are looking to have some fun,” he says.
He adds that these attributes have led to a shift in women’s attitudes towards relationships, where women have adopted the casual sex strategy preferred by young men.
“They are not looking for a spouse, they are just having fun. They are independent, make their own decisions and want to have sex on their own terms. They are happy choosing to have sex the way they want it. Just for fun – and without guilt.
However, eventually some of the women settle down. They decide to start looking for a long-term partner and raise a family. When that happens, they go back to the traditional rules and start to care less about a partner’s appearance and more about his status and wealth.
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