Moya O’Sullivan | Contributing Writer
I don’t think I’m alone in thinking this generation seriously needs to examine how it approaches one-night stands. From personal experience, I can only comment on the double standards and bad manners I’ve witnessed from men, but I can imagine that quite a few women could improve their casual sex decorum as well. Sex is meant to be a positive experience for everyone, and few things feel worse than regretting your decision during the next day’s walk home.
I’ll begin by stating the obvious. One-night stands are about getting sexy with another person. The making out in the alley outside the nightclub, the covert slipping off of underwear in the same place (sometimes), all the things that feel right in the moment but may not be appropriate in the light of day. I remember so well the first guy I slept with when I came to college, but even more than the sex I remember the way he charmed me and made me feel special. Luckily for my memories, that level of hotness was maintained when we got home. This was primarily due to his basic awareness that you cannot behave like no-one is watching during a one-night stand.
But in more than one recent partner, I have found this sexiness to be grossly lacking. It can be accidental, but it is too often because of an audacious lack of consideration and what could reasonably be called double standards.
We are all human, of course, and obviously the workings of the human body are far from pristine. We go to the toilet, grow body hair, burp and fart. Trust me, though, when I say that your partner will appreciate an honest attempt to contain the more brutish mechanics in the interest of satisfying sex. Not the type of sex, for example, that leaves your conquest feeling compelled to write an angry article for the college paper.
It should be obvious that one-night stands demand the same decorum as sex with someone you care about and really want to impress and retain. Casual sex involves people, and people have standards. No one deserves to feel indignant or disrespected after sex. It’s not vanity or pretense to refrain from farting or loudly pooing within earshot of your partner. It’s basic manners. You could even consider this from an entirely pragmatic point of view – what if you decide later on that you may want to sleep with this person again? The task will prove far more difficult if their dominant memory of the night is of you awaking them with your bowel movements.
Your partner will appreciate an honest attempt to contain the more brutish bodily mechanics in the interest of satisfying sex.
The issue of double standards in the bedroom often underlies this issue. I’m too petrified to try, but I can imagine the reaction I would get if I farted, or burped, or did literally anything else outside of acceptable “lady-like” behaviour. Maybe it’s just my paranoia, but probably not. I feel safe in saying women are expected to preen themselves far more stringently for the bedroom – female pubic hair is very much out, for example, but for men the natural look remains the default (in my experience, at least).
There are clearly a number of reasons, both pragmatic and selfless, why we should all think a little more about the way we present ourselves when getting down to business. It’s about sex, so why make things unsexy?
