Want healing and satisfaction after a breakup? Then get in bed with a friend – just be sure to keep it casual.
That was the gist of the conversation when HuffPo Live contributors got together on Monday night to advocate casual sex [1]as “the best medicine after heartbreak.” Their consensus after the half-hour promotion of hook-ups? Sleep around enough and you’ll eventually find love.
“If you want true love, have lots of casual sex!” host Abby Huntsman agreed at the close of the program. “That’s what I learned from this segment!!”
The panel of “relationship experts” and authors declared bed-hopping a "welcome relief” that helped them "redefine" themselves after divorce. The key is to be casual, they said. “There’s no obligation or expectation to be accountable or necessarily involved or sharing your plans or your needs with this other person,” insisted Dr. Jane Greer, a “relationship expert.”
Commitment? Trust? Love? Who needs those before getting into bed with a partner?
“Divorce coach” Cindy Holbrook eagerly recommended finding “a good friend that you can have a casual love affair with, that you know is not going to go anyplace else.” Greer proposed casual sex as a great way to boost your "sexual self-esteem,” your health, immune system, and ego. There’s “nothing wrong with it” as long as you’re using “safe sex practices,” they concurred.
But remember: “sex first, love afterwards.” Getting “too attached” to your casual sex partner isn’t the best idea, they said. But Greer admitted that “meaningful sex” involves “emotional connection,” while Michael Solomon, a post-divorce casual sex experimenter, was more oblivious: “I didn’t realize we were dating and we’d been having sex for months!” he laughed about his now-wife.
Solomon seemed to think it perfectly normal for a new casual sex partner to be “the first order of business” on a divorcee’s mind. “I think that’s a healthy attitude to have,” he declared. The panel all nodded in agreement – but that’s not surprising, since none of them batted an eyelash when Solomon said that “People are animals! Especially when it comes to sex!"
“We love the truth here at HuffPost Live!” Huntsman exclaimed during the program. Well, clearly nobody told HuffPo Live that casual sex brings emotional destruction and harm. [2] Maybe they’ve never heard of oxytocin, the hormone that forms a bond in sexual intercourse to fuel “feelings of attachment and trust,” [3] – a bond that causes psychological and emotional harm when broken. Or maybe they aren’t aware that casual sex often results in the spread of STDs [3].
So no doubt HuffPo Live will “love” it when someone reminds them that casual sex hurts and is often just the result of lowering standards [4] and pleasure-hunting. Surely they’d “love” that little inconvenient truth … Right?