Science: Casual Sex Is Good For You, If You Want It

Having seen what draws casual traffic to our servers — and it’s terrifying how many people seem to be looking for a Weird Al sex tape — I feel confident in stating that the Internet is very interested in sex. And as a society, we argue about it a lot. Is casual sex good? Is it bad? Is it neither? And now, scientists have analyzed the data and come up with a definitive “Eh, it depends.”

This study needs a caveat or two, starting with the fact that it focuses on undergraduates, not exactly the most emotionally stable or together people. But the study is interesting in that it determines that, basically, if you’re OK with other people having casual sex, having casual sex yourself is a positive for your health:

As predicted, sociosexuality moderated the effect of casual sex on well-being on a weekly basis across 12 consecutive weeks, over one semester, and over one academic year. Sociosexually unrestricted students typically reported higher well-being after having casual sex compared to not having casual sex; there were no such differences among restricted individuals. Few gender differences were found.

Or, summed up simply, if you don’t wanna go out and have sex with somebody you barely know, don’t. If you do, do! That said, there is such a thing as the biological urge; premartial sex is damn near universal in the civilized world, even if some people won’t admit it. Pretending that you’re not interested in sex would seem to be a bit unhealthy if you’re going out and doing it anyway.

The real takeaway here is that people freak out about sex too much. Everybody’s had that moment in their life where they really believe everyone is getting laid but them, and that can really mess people up. Really, what we need to do as a society is teach people their choices and what they want to do with themselves are valid and generally healthy as long as they don’t hurt other people.

Unless you’re looking for the Weird Al sex tape. That’s just wrong.

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