
Casual Sex: Everyone Is Doing It? - jseliger
http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/casual-sex-everyone-is-doing-it
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Animats
"Sex in America, the Definitive Study" is perhaps more useful.[1] This was
done in the 1990s. They selected about 3000 people in the US at random, using
proper random selection techniques. Each person was both surveyed and
interviewed. They tried hard to convince the selected people to participate,
so as not to unbalance the survey. They went to a lot of trouble to get good
results. The results are thus more meaningful than self-selected surveys and
surveys of college students.

The results are unsurprising, but interesting. The New York Times has a
summary.[2]

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Sex-America-Edward-
Laumann/dp/0446671...](https://www.amazon.com/Sex-America-Edward-
Laumann/dp/0446671835) [2] [http://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/07/us/sex-in-
america-faithful...](http://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/07/us/sex-in-america-
faithfulness-in-marriage-thrives-after-all.html?pagewanted=all)

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legulere
English isn't my first language, so I'm kind of confused by "cohabiting
singles" in the article. Does single in the article just mean not married?

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erikpukinskis
I believe so.

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trepidate
The article doesn't address the question.

The article discusses candid interviews (~2,200) volunteered to an NYU
psychology professor's (Zhana Vrangalova) website
([https://casualsexproject.com](https://casualsexproject.com)).

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pacaro
I don't see why the article needs to be flagged. I found it to be thought
provoking.

~~~
subjectsigma
Fixing the title would be a good place to start.

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superobserver
Nope. Promiscuity is not so frequent as can be attested to in the generally
prevalent pattern of monogamous relationships.

If promiscuity were to increase over a number of generations, that would be
more on account of increased safety practices and/or improved immunological
methods.

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amelius
The most embarrassing of this whole topic is that research about it has only
just started. Sometimes I really feel like we are living in the dark ages.

~~~
formula1
I understand the idea but I worry that perspective doesnt account for the
reality that we live in today.

With studies and experiments you have to ask yourself : who is doing the work?
who is funding the work?

The people who are doing the work may have biases ranging from "how do I get
published?" To "how do I get paid". Additionally, a sample size for a test
costs money. How many samples does it take to consider it worthy of repeating?
How many times should a single experiment be repeated?

Usually people funding think, "how does this help me?" Which can range from "I
have cancer" to "I'll make a profit". The gov on the otherhand may be more
lenient but how much of your taxes do you want to use on experiments that may
be useless?

The concept of "dark ages" doesnt consider what our climate really is. There
are limited resources and few people with those resources believe they should
be stolen to fund projects they dont care about. There is plenty Id like to be
studied such as

\- is education memorization or pattern recognition?

\- at what degree does exercize enable / prevent education

\- what is the zone and how do minds get put into the zone?

But Im fairly confident these will never be studied because nobody wants to do
the work and funders See cern and mars as more interesting ventures

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ZoeZoeBee
If both of you can separate the emotional from the physical and are open with
your true intentions, then casual sex can be a nice way to avoid the emotional
effort involved in a healthy relationship

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ryao
Not everyone is promiscuous. I am a virgin and I intend to remain that way
unless I marry. That is non-negotiable.

~~~
foxhill
please, don't mistake this genuine question as an attack on your opinion - why
have you made this decision? do you feel as though this benefits you some way?
if so, how?

again, i'm not trying to debase you/your beliefs/opinions, i'm just curious.

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ryao
The only reason I posted was to state that I am a counterexample. That is all
that I wish to say here.

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odonnellryan
You know you can rape your spouse too, right?

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theonemind
Clickbait. Betteridge's law of headlines. etc.

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jondubois
I tried it once. The tactile and auditory feedback was excellent - Great user
experience!

My main concern with it is accessibility...

~~~
forgotpwtomain
I down-voted this entire thread. Not because I didn't chuckle, but because
thid is exactly the low-quality reddit style conversation HN has been able to
successfully avoid so far. The risk isn't the isolated comment, it's every
thread becoming a gag.

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justinlardinois
I think this is off topic for Hacker News. Most people here don't have a lot
of first hand experience with the subject.

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supercoder
Of course everyone is doing it ?

