When you’re single, you can really have the time of your life. You can do whatever you want, whenever you want to, and you don’t have a significant other trying to change your mind. But, being single means you don’t always have the same sexual partner on hand, and it makes appeasing your hormones more difficult.
So, what are your sexual options when you’re single? Anyone can probably tell you that one of your main options is a random hook-up. Said bluntly, hook-ups may not seem appealing, but there’s more going for this option than you’d immediately think.
People often think of one-night-stands, but this isn’t always the case. Just because you had sex with someone, it doesn’t mean you took advantage of him or her, or that you’re a “whore.”
If you go about a hook-up in the right way, it can become a mutual agreement between yourself and your “friend with benefits.” When you consistently have sex with the same person, sometimes there is a gray area of what either person really wants. However, if you decide neither of you want a relationship, but you enjoy having sex with one another, you can successfully maintain a “benefits” partner.
In this situation, it is likely you will only hook up with each other, even though you’re not dating. This is the safest option if you want to be with someone because you’ll feel less uncomfortable learning his or her sexually history, and you minimize your chances of contracting a sexual transmitted infection (STI).
Having sex with more than one person isn’t fodder for gossip nearly as much as it is in high school. In college, it becomes far more normal to hook up with several people, so long as both parties understand the rules equally.
It’s possible you may make out with someone and decide he or she is a horrible kisser. Would you continue being with that someone if you hated it the first time you kissed? Probably not. In a situation like this, your friends will likely encourage you to go with someone else, instead of hooking up with the bad kisser again.
Depending on your execution, it’s possible to casually make out with several people without your friends considering you a slut or whore. Say you have three consistent buddies. If they’re all in different circles of friends, and you don’t hook up with all of them every day, there should be no conflict of interest, and no one should have any reason to gossip about you if you’re honest and handle matters maturely.
The dangers of hook-ups occur when you do it with many people and don’t know their sexual backgrounds. Meeting someone at a frat house and immediately sleeping with him or her probably isn’t the best idea. For all you know, the person can have a significant other or an STI. If that’s the case, you’re getting far more than you bargained for when you drunkenly stumbled into his or her bedroom.
If you’re looking for love, it is possible to find your next significant other through making out. Just because you’re fooling around with someone, it doesn’t mean you’ll stay emotionally detached, and you’ll start spending more time with him or her. It is possible to hook up with someone randomly and come to realize the two of you would make a great couple.
Ask around. Each of your friends probably knows of a relationship that started as a hook-up.
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Reading this girl’s article always makes me embarrassed for her.
Are you KIDDING me with this article? This is probably THE worst sex advice I have ever read. These are the messages I got from this column: 1. Go sleep around, that’s totally cool in college. 2. You can sleep with a few people at a time, that’s cool too. 3. It’s probably better to have random hookups than to have one person you regularly sleep with, because friends-with-benefits might receive mixed messages. 4. Making out with random people at parties (while weeding out the bad kissers) is a great way to meet your next significant other. 5. Oh yeah, there are STIs out there.
These are NOT messages we should be sending to college students. This is NOT good or safe sex advice. Indulging in any issue of Cosmopolitan will tell you that hooking up does NOT usually lead to successful relationships. I’m not sure where that idea even came from.
I don’t know who decided that Lauren Gurry knows enough about sex to write a column about it, but if this is the quality of “advice” that she is going to produce, she should not be writing this column. Sex advice should be, at the very least, grounded in fact, even if it is controversial. This article struts on past “controversial” right into “ridiculous.” Stop publishing this nonsense.
This article is absolute nonsense, and speaks to the embarrassingly low standard of writing that The Signal apparently keeps. You should be ashamed.
I’m sure this crazy message is not what this girl meant, but it sure does come off that way. I’m all for entertaining sex talk, but this is a little over the top. Embarrassing? Yeah, probably
There really isn’t anything wrong with this article. I think it is important to note that she is just explaining the sexual options of single life, not rallying for college students to sleep with multitudes of people. This is the message that I got from this article: 1) Sex while single is okay, as long as both parties are on the same page. 2) It is okay to “play the field.” After all, you want to enjoy hooking up. 3) You should be careful, since there are STIs out there. 4) It is possible to meet a significant other, and enjoy an emotional relationship through hooking up.
To those that commented bashing this article: I actually laughed a little at how unfounded, and how judgmental your comments were. Honestly, calling this girl a slut based on one sex column… That is way over the top.
I agree that it’s way out of line to call the author a slut based on this column. I think that a sex column is appropriate for a college audience. However, this column was frivolous and really a bunch of nonsense. The mention of STIs was more of an afterthought than anything else. I don’t think it’s necessary to get all fire and brimstone with STI talk, but at the same time, to talk about going out and sleeping around and saying, “It’s possible someone might have an STI,” is just not a sufficient discussion of STIs when hooking up randomly. This article encourages folks to satisfy their hormones by finding someone at a party. Everyone in college already knows this is an option, and this article offers meaningless and unsafe “advice.” The mention of “drunkenly stumbling” into a bedroom is concerning, as well; drunken sex, by law, is not consensual, and could be considered sexual assault. Are we telling students to go to parties, get drunk, and hook up? That’s how this article reads.
As an aside, I completely disagree with the statement “Having sex with more than one person isn’t fodder for gossip nearly as much as it is in high school. In college, it becomes far more normal to hook up with several people, so long as both parties understand the rules equally.” I assure you that if you are sleeping around, people are going to talk about you and make assumptions about you, whether behind you back or not. It may be “normal” in Lauren Gurry’s eyes to sleep around with several people, but your friends and your not-friends will be gossiping about your promiscuity. And yes, it is still considered promiscuity to sleep around with several people, whether in college or not.
This is always terrible. Just stop. Lauren Gurry doesn’t know this stuff.