I wasted one out of my 10 free articles on the New York Times website this month (I’m so cheap that when I donated money to typhoon victims this week, my bank emailed me a fraud protection notice to confirm it was really me) for the largest mastery of the obvious yet:
Despite hooking up freely, women still enjoy sex more when they know the guy.
The info ran in the Times, but it’s all over the Web now, from the snarky to the disturbingly photographed to the tl;dr.
Seriously? This was documented research? Why don’t we spend less time discovering things we already know, and more time aiming for breakthroughs on figuring out new algorithms so OkCupid doesn’t suggest your ex, or precisely how long you should be dating someone before it’s acceptable to poop in their bathroom? That’s the research the people need!
Also, the population they sampled for this survey is totally skewed: college students. Come on. How much good sex can you have on a mattress the width and firmness of an iPad mini? And the chance of your roommate walking in despite your “signal” on your doorknob (in my era it was a scrunchie; what is it these days?) is much higher than any chance of you making a genuine “O Face.”
When you’re in college, you’re still learning about what you like, let alone how to convey that to someone else. Sex makes you make funny faces and funny noises and you really need to be laughing at certain points because sometimes it’s just hilarious. I think it’s a rare college student—male or female—who is capable of understanding that sex is fun, but it’s also funny.
While I applaud women for taking control of their sexuality, I’m not sure it’s a numbers game. I don’t think that frequency of hooking up is truly significant. Because while the definitions of feminism vary, I’m pretty sure that wasting your time for a ho-hum time isn’t why your grandmother burned her bra.
Is it a lonely thing? That’s why you get a cat instead. Or a really beautiful sex toy.
Because here’s my advice, single gals: You should be spending your time not with multiple mediocre lays, but by spending the time you have sex trying to have the best sex possible, and if there is no chance of having it with that person, then find another. College is good for that. Or I’ve been told by men and women who do online dating that the sheer volume of people available makes them feel like they have unlimited opportunities (until you find your ex on there, but whatever).
Life’s too short to waste on lame sex.
Carin Moonin is a writer living in Portland, Ore. Sometimes she’ll even tweet about things she hates at @carinwrites.
Photo via Jean KOULEV/Flickr