Meetings just for sex

Two things have changed the picture of our sexuality over the past twenty years or so. The first is that the population has increased markedly in cities: you can meet a person and never see him again. The second is the Internet: it makes it easy to negotiate sex with the security that comes with anonymity.

“She protects against judgment and noticeably alleviates the fear of rejection,” explains family psychologist Inna Shifanova. There are more and more new applications and sites for sex dating, and this indicates that such services are in demand. Meetings in them are appointed not by sex professionals, but by ordinary people of different professions and different ages, and completely free of charge.

However, a partner can be found not only on a specialized website or application. 26-year-old Vadim regularly offers dates for sex on social networks, where everyone has their own interests: who is looking for friends, who is looking for a job, who is watching movies. The young man does not hide his intentions and claims that in most cases he receives consent.

Agree or refuse

“I’m not looking for a partner for marriage and I prefer to meet married people,” admits 49-year-old Lyudmila. – First I correspond, find out what kind of person. A lot of young people aged 18 to 30 dream of meeting an “experienced” woman. I don’t even answer this. My daughter is 26 years old. I hate to think that I might end up in bed with one of her buddies.

I am rarely the initiator of dating. There is no time to sort through the possibilities. And then you think for a long time whether he suits you, and then it turns out that you yourself do not suit him. It’s more convenient for me when a man starts, and I decide whether to agree or refuse. Three to five messages give me enough information about the applicant.

Those who want guaranteed sex for the first time, I immediately “close”. This does not mean that sex on the first date is impossible for me. It usually takes five minutes to feel the desire – or lack of it. I, as an experienced doctor, can easily make this diagnosis for myself!”

“For me, it is important not only how a person looks, but also how he speaks,” continues Lyudmila. – I broke up with one, because he lisped: “let’s go to bed”, “sweet little thing.” This irritated me terribly, and it didn’t even help that he was physiologically ideal for me, completely satisfied me. I regretted this, but I irrevocably refused to meet.

Some of the people I met online are still friends with. We call up, discuss our lives, give each other advice. On sex sites, people feel more relaxed knowing that they will not be judged here – and this helps to speak freely about everything, not just about sex.

Claim your gender

“There are a lot of girls in my company,” Vadim continues. “But we have common friends, established relationships that are superimposed on our communication. And surely someone will be in the know, will give advice, be interested in how we are doing, whether we intend to stay together and for how long. And with a stranger, only one thing is important: do we like each other right now. I don’t have to try to impress her friends or family. It’s… liberating! Everything is like in the song – “you are my woman, I am your man, if you need a reason, then this is the reason.”

Such impersonal sex, on the one hand, deprives the participants of individuality and history, on the other hand, reveals what belongs to the sphere of sex. We seem to become archetypes: Woman or Man.

Sigmund Freud believed that the development of personality is directly related to the development of sexuality. Perhaps, knowing our sexuality, we touch something deep.

“The social roles of men and women have changed a lot today,” recalls sexologist Irina Panyukova. – And the ideas about male and female style in communication and even in appearance turned out to be blurred. Therefore, for someone, the situation of purely sexual interaction with a partner can become a way to confirm their gender, to strengthen their idea of ​​themselves as a man or a woman.

bed as medicine

27-year-old Elina believes that the sexual adventure helped her survive unhappy love. “A colleague from another city often came on business. Once I stayed at his hotel for the night – it was a fairy tale! But when I later wrote to him that I would like to come to his city to see him, he replied that he was busy, sick … It became clear: he was not ready to continue. On his next visit, we talked only about work. And the desire drove me crazy! And then I responded to a sexual offer on the site.

According to Elina, her partner turned out to be a wonderful lover, but two meetings were enough: “It was a medicine, I recovered, and it was no longer needed.” She still does not mind continuing the affair with a colleague, but she takes it more calmly: “Relationships become easier when sexual hunger is not mixed with them.”

Irina Panyukova recalls that the power of attraction varies from person to person. “When it is great in a woman, she, explaining to herself the energy of her desire, often takes it for love and connects it with some special qualities of a man. Sometimes, having received satisfaction with another partner, she, like Elina, more realistically assesses her chosen one and prospects.

save the family

For some, meetings for sex become a way … to keep the family together. 48-year-old Konstantin, in his words, “tightly married.” He considers dating on sex sites safe. “The wife is sure: I am clean! And all my friends can confirm this without prejudice,” says Konstantin. – I would never do this in my environment. I don’t like ambiguous situations.”

The reality of married life sometimes differs from the ideal. Attachment, friendship, gratitude, mutual understanding are not always accompanied by sexual attraction. “There are many reasons why sexual desire is not realized with a permanent partner,” explains Irina Panyukova. – The dissimilarity of temperaments, different fantasies and preferences, changes in the life situation associated, for example, with a new job or the illness of someone close – all this affects our sexuality. But the loss of attraction is not a reason to destroy the family.

Many men, like Konstantin, do not consider meeting “on the side” a betrayal if only sexual needs are realized in them without emotional intimacy.

New impressions

“The connection between love, sex and family from the point of view of women is much stronger than in the view of many men,” notes Irina Panyukova. “But women sometimes seek satisfaction of their desires outside of marriage. True, there is a difference. Men are more attracted to novelty and variety of stimuli, they perceive a new partner as a challenge for themselves. And a woman is not so much concerned about her partner as such, but about the reaction of her body to new, unusual caresses. Sex with a stranger is one of the most common female erotic fantasies.”

At the risk of making a generalization, we can say this: a man explores the world, a woman explores herself. Although the motives are infinitely varied: increasing self-esteem, escaping loneliness, confirmation of attractiveness, relaxation, entertainment … In addition, “among us there are travelers, gourmets – those who value the constant change of impressions – just the same there are those who love new erotic experiences “, – says Irina Panyukova.

Traditional morality encourages condemnation of “erotic travel”. But before judging, it is necessary to take into account that “usually in such sensual adventures, both men and women are looking not only for sex as a mechanical action, but also for strong positive emotions in relation to their partner,” emphasizes the sexologist. “The Internet facilitates this possibility by allowing direct negotiation of sex.”

repression of love

Sigmund Freud discovered the psychological mechanism of repression by analyzing the sexuality of his patients: it was attraction that they most often hid from their own consciousness. Today we see the opposite picture. Some change partners, trying to avoid attachment. Others value family life, a well-established life and are looking for “only sex” on the side, not daring to tell themselves that they lack not only physical, but also emotional intimacy.

39-year-old Elena met with Mikhail to fulfill a complex fantasy that she did not dare to confess to her husband, but “just sex” turned into something more: “I have been looking for a person for a long time to whom I could open up. And finally found. However, it turned out that sex is not the only thing in which we successfully complement each other. We have many common interests, we are good together. We seemed to have gone the other way: we started in bed, and then we began to meet to go to an exhibition or sit in a cafe. I can’t imagine what will happen next. Both have families and children. But we just don’t have the strength to leave. So we live a double life.”

“Physiologically, a person is able to independently take care of his sexual satisfaction,” continues Inna Shifanova. “But we are looking for a partner, it is important for us to share our experience with another. No matter how we explain our intentions to ourselves, we always seek first of all a meeting with another person.

Sex just for the sake of sex simply does not happen. Soul and body are an inseparable unity. We can turn to the soul – and the body will respond to this. And what we do with our body is always reflected in our soul. Leaves its mark.”