Casual Sex Is Not Starvation
Let's ditch the sexist false binaries of dating in 2025.
Early on New Year’s Day, I stumbled across this Instagram post from popular dating and relationship coach Jillian Turecki:
In a recent profile of Jillian Turecki in Bustle, a writer said that “nothing about Turecki is annoying.” Well, I beg to differ. This advice is annoying. It makes silly and sexist assumptions, perpetuates a worrisome false binary, and denigrates casual sex. When I saw this on New Year’s morning, I knew I wanted to address it here and share my own dating goals for 2025.
The first bone I have to pick is with Turecki’s post is her implication that casual is synonymous with meaningless, and that situationships are devoid of connection. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not a relationship expert and I’m new to the world of post-divorce dating, but even as a fledgling I know that her characterizations are grossly over-simplified. Of course, situationships can be devoid of connection. But they certainly don’t have to be. I’ve made wonderful connections with some of the men I’ve slept with over the past few months.
Turecki goes on to say that women who “settle” for casual sex and situationships “crave to be seen” and are “too afraid to open up,” and then implies that they are also boring, inauthentic, and dishonest. Jillian, I would like to show you to Door Number Three, behind which you will find that casual sex can be exciting, authentic, open and honest. I’ve been more open and honest with men about my needs and desires over the past few months than I ever was in my decade-plus-long marriage.
But also — do we really need sexual relationships to be our primary sources of emotional connection? The idea that casual sex leads to “starvation” is antiquated and misogynistic. As a divorceé, I can honestly say that my friendships (as well as my relationships with my kids) are my deepest sources of connection. I’m single, but I don’t feel starved or that I have an emotional void that only a man can fill. The idea that women need men to make themselves whole is just, well, garbage (and we all know who it serves). As is the notion that there is nothing valuable or nourishing about physical touch or pleasure. Lady, go get yourself a good vibrator.
I particularly recoiled at the word “settle.” With that word I knew that she was not just judging, but moralizing. “Settling” implies a hierarchy — and I’m guessing that in her view, casual sex is at the bottom, and serious, committed relationships (dare I say marriage?) are at the top.
In the next sentence she drives it all home, emphasizing the importance of voicing desired relationship outcomes from the getgo. “Be honest about what you want from the first date,” she writes. But why and how can we know exactly what we want from a person before we even know them? Why does our goal need to involve a particular outcome or type of relationship that we’ve decided in advance we must have or achieve? (Again: let’s consider who heterosexual partnerships typically serve.) Why can’t we meet the other person, see how we jibe, and do what feels right, whether that’s nothing at all, a fling or a situationship, or something more “serious”?
My point is, there are infinite outcomes, arrangements and relationships out there, all of which have value. (For more on all that, read The Ethical Slut.) Sometimes we have to deprogram ourselves a bit to figure out how to sustainably maintain them, but we can build new kinds of fulfilling relationships from scratch. We shouldn’t feel pressure to define what we want in advance according to preconceived notions that other people have forced upon us. I’d argue it’s better to be fully present on a date, tune into our senses and observations, and do what we want and feel is best in the moment.
Look, I get what Turecki is trying to do. She’s trying to encourage women to advocate for their needs and to not “settle” for men who aren’t interested in meeting them. I believe that deep down, she wants women to recognize their value and demand to be treated with respect. But in making these points, Turecki also inadvertently undermines them. She implies that there are certain things women “should” do and strive for, and certain things that they should avoid. She decides for her readers what is and is not valuable and acceptable. But maybe she should let women make these judgments themselves. Situationships don’t have to be something women only “settle” for, and they don’t have to be meaningless or one-dimensional. On the flip side, women won’t “starve” if they choose not to build emotional connections with the people they’re sleeping with — there are plenty of other people they can form these bonds with. There are infinite possibilities out there; let’s ditch the sexist clichés and false binaries.
My own dating goals for 2025 are a little different from Jillian Turecki’s: I want to listen to my desires and needs and try to rid myself of sexist expectations about what I should want or do. I hope to have the courage to let things get a little messy — in all senses of the word, please.
Thanks for this! I am sick to the back teeth of having to explain that my relationship goals depend entirely on who I meet. I hate the idea of predetermining what I want from another human being and think that as divorcées we confuse people because that one goal of marriage no longer applies (not that it ever should have!) Here’s to open dating goals and human connection, no matter the relationship structure!
I’ve been monogamous for a very long time, but back in my 20s when I was dating, I was always so annoyed and confused by the convention everyone seemed to obey of having something they were “looking for,” in advance of meeting any actual people they might look for it with. Like, “looking for a relationship” or “not looking for anything serious” or whatever. I just wanted to meet people and see what happened. Have adventures. Have sex with someone as many times as we both wanted to. Have experiences. Have a full-blown relationship IF I met someone I wanted to have one with. How can you know what you want someone to be to you before you get to know them?
In the same vein, I’m troubled by what I read about how today’s young (teenage/college-age) people approach sex and relationships: TERRIFIED of seeming like they think a hookup “meant anything.” They get preemptively drunk just so they can have deniability. If they express interest in ever seeing the person again after they hook up, they get excommunicated from the hookup scene because “obviously” this means they want to marry the person. And women are, of course, the prime suspects for this crime, since that’s “what women want.” So both parties make a big show of ignoring each other when they see each other. As if there were no middle ground between “meaningless” and “lifetime commitment.” As though a hookup can’t “mean anything” other than lifetime commitment. Hookups mean lots of things. They mean you were attracted to each other. They mean you vibed on some level. They mean something happened that night, as opposed to nothing. But there’s an unspoken contract to pretend none of these things are real. It’s crazy.