Posted May 2, Reviewed by Devon Frye. American culture has a complex relationship with casual sex. Predictably, the subject has been attracting increasing scientific attention.
One rather consistent finding in the casual sex literature concerns an apparent gender gap: Women tend to report lower motivation forβand lower satisfaction withβcasual sex encounters. In our evolutionary past, having sex meant having babies, and having a baby entails heavy investment and higher risk for women. Thus for them, sex is best considered seriously, not casually.
Yet evolution tends to select for strategic diversity, rather than uniformity, the better to assure a species' survival over changing conditions. A casual sex preference may therefore prove adaptive for some women in certain contexts, such as when looking to acquire needed resources or switch to a better mate.
In addition, we have also evolved to construct complex cultures, the dictates of which may override those of our biological program. To wit: Sex has evolved as a reproductive strategy, yet most of the sex happening right now around the world is not for the purpose of reproduction.
In fact, most people having sex right now have taken intentional stepsβthrough the use of cultural technologyβto avoid reproduction. For example, most people find that pleasurable sex is preferable to non-pleasurable sex. People who find casual sex unpleasant are less likely to want or benefit from it.
