Exploring New York

This post is sponsored by Trust Massage Oil.

by Globetrotter

What’s your gender? Woman
How old are you? 21
What’s your race/ethnicity? Hispanic / Latino/a
What continent do you live on? North America
What country and/or city do you live in? US, Las Vegas
Highest education received: College degree (eg., BA, BS)
What’s your occupation? Educator at Non-Profit
What’s your current relationship status? In a serious relationship (monogamous)
Religious affiliation: Agnostic
How religious are you? Not at all
What’s your sexual orientation? Heterosexual
How many sexual partners have you had in your life (including oral sex)? 8
How many hookup stories have you here posted before? 0

Exploring New York

How long ago did this hookup happen? 6 months ago

What was your relationship status at the time? Single

How would you best classify this hookup? One-night stand

How long did you know the person before this hookup? For less than a week

Tell us about your PARTNER(S). What did they look like? How well did you know them, had you hooked up before? How/Where did you meet them? How did you feel about them before the hookup? I took a trip to NY with one of my high school friends of a long time, and we stayed with his cousin and family. The cousin is the man I hooked up with. He was around my age, perhaps a year or two older, and he was the most aesthetically pleasing body I have encountered. He was Colombian, green-eyed, deep tanned olive skin, long hair down to his shoulder, and athletic. He played soccer his whole life into college. To add to the charm, he had a very outgoing and warm welcoming personality. Not boastful, but self-aware of his charm. I met him and knew we had no intellectual ground to connect on. He was sporty, athletic, social, but not focused on his studies. I’m an introvert, avid reader, love the arts, creative hobbies, and my life is focused on my teaching career. I connect emotionally with very specific kinds of people. Most of my friends have majors in the humanities, liberal arts, the sciences, and our deepest conversations center around politics and social justice. I seek for long term commitments with similar people, but had recently also realized that I felt sexually repressed by this very narrow dating pool. I had never explored my sexuality, given my very narrow focus of people to date. I also had recently broken up with a short term boyfriend-fling, about three months ago, so I felt that this was a good time to have casual sex for the sake of self-exploration. I knew from the moment I met him, that I would only be able to have a sexual encounter, without any emotional connection. I decided at that point given the chance, I’d have sex with him. He was a good human being at his core, in spite of any lifestyle differences we had. I didn’t feel threatened or unsafe around him, just being around the house.

How/where did the hookup BEGIN? What led to it? Was planning involved? Who instigated it? I asked my friend to go to bars one of the nights we were there, and his cousin offered to drive and go with us. I knew at that point I would try to hook up with him that night. We went out, and from the moment we got in the car, sexual fetishes became a discussion topic. We arrived to the bar, and he shared some of his success stories hooking up with a really beautiful girl he had just met, or more than one girl at a time. Since I had no feelings for him, these stories just enticed me to pursue sex with him. By the end of the night, I had drunk enough that I felt tipsy and uninhibited, but still conscious of my actions. I began by flirting with him in the car, kissing him to say thank you for the ride and bars. We came home and I did the same thing while we ate drunk take out food. We were alone in the living room, so I tried to make out with him at that point. He was willing, and eagerly pulled me onto his lap. We began making out and he said, “I just want to point out you started everything.” I initially thought he was judging my forward attitude, but he was simply stating that he didn’t want to feel responsible for instigating sex with someone who was drunker than him. I acted drunk, because I would never flirt so openly with someone I’m not familiar with, unless I could blame the alcohol for it. I made him get a condom from the store prior to us having sex.

What happened DURING the hookup? What sexual behaviors took place (e.g., oral, vaginal, anal, kinky stuff)? How did you feel during it? How did they behave toward you? Were they a good lover? What did you talk about? How did it end? We had vaginal sex, and no oral. I feel strongly about oral being a committed relationship thing. It feels unsafe otherwise. I felt relaxed, self-conscious that I hadn’t shaved my legs, but otherwise it was a pleasurable experience. It was a very short hookup. People were sleeping in the house and any noise made me feel that someone was coming down the stairs. He was energetic and dominant, which are traits I look for in sex. He was not self-involved or self-serving. We talked about what felt right and what movements felt weird. We giggled a couple times over certain positions, like me riding him. We made deep eye contact throughout the entire experience. My partner was “a good lover” in the sense that I appreciate rough sex, and respond positively to any firm grab, quick turn, and fast thrusting. It ended with him cumming and us laying there for a second. It was a quickie, given the lateness of the hour and the other people sleeping in the house. We both said goodnight and went into our separate bedrooms.

How sexually satisfying was this hookup? Somewhat

Did you have an orgasm? No, but I was close

Did your partner have an orgasm? I don’t know

What happened AFTER the hookup? How did you feel about it the next day? What are/were your expectations/hopes for the future with this person? How do you feel about them now? I felt accomplished after the hookup. Here was this really really good looking man I wanted from the moment I saw him, and instead of forming some unhealthy emotional attachment to an ideal of him, I had possessed the physical being for a moment. It had no consequences, and no emotional dilemmas I had to work on understanding. I didn’t contemplate having any form of emotional relationship with this person, but was happy I got to know them over beers at a bar and during sex. It felt vulnerable for both, and I did have a feeling of closeness at the very least. I understood this person’s life a little better, and I realized how different and distant our lives were. The thought of being with him ever again, in any way, was not a thought. I would leave NYC in two days and preferred if we avoided seeing each other. Mainly because my friend I traveled with had not taken well the news of me having sex with his cousin. Other than that, if I ran into him again one day, I’d probably be happy to say hi and see how he’s doing now. He was a good person with a lot of charisma and love for people. He stays as a positive memory. I kept a picture of him for a while to show my friends how hot he was, because no one believed my friend had such a good looking cousin.

What precautions did you take to prevent STIs and pregnancy? (Check all that apply) Condoms, Birth control pill / patch / ring / injection / implant, Fertility awareness (days counting, temperature)

What were your motives for this hookup? Fun, pleasure, horniness, Attraction to partner(s), Learning new things, experimenting, Thought it was an important experience to have

How intoxicated were you? A little tipsy/high

What substances did you consume? Alcohol

How intoxicated was your partner? A little tipsy/high

What substances did your partner(s) consume? Alcohol

How wanted was this hookup for you at the time? Very

Did you consent to this hookup at the time? I gave enthusiastic consent

How wanted was this hookup for your partner at the time? Very

Did your partner(s) consent to this hookup? They gave enthusiastic consent

To whom did you talk about the hookup? How did they react? My friend, the guy I traveled with, was not happy to hear I had sex with his cousin. I think he felt that it detracted from his masculinity for his cousin to know that he and I were not having sex although traveling together. He wanted to keep up that front of him potentially having a sexual relationship with him. He tried to shame me into saying my consent was not real consent, because I had alcohol in my system. While for me, consent meant that I initiated, I premeditated the experience, and I even went as far as using protection during our encounter. Consent was clear to me. I also talked to my friends upon my return, but many of them were not very supportive. In part, it is because of our hookup culture. I realized quickly that my female friends were not eager to hear it, but curious as to how I felt about it. I don’t think they expected me to feel so satisfied by it, so they listened skeptically. Some of them didn’t want to hear details. It was surprising that it was more so my guy friends and queer friends who had a positive response. They were more open to the idea of casual hookups and asked me questions to hear more about it. It sparked some interesting conversations with them.

How would you best summarize people’s reactions about this hookup? Mixed (Some positive, some negative)

Did you get emotionally hurt as a result of this hookup? Not at all

Did your partner get emotionally hurt as a result of this hookup? I don’t know / I’m not sure

Do you regret this hookup? Not at all

What was the BEST thing about this hookup? It was casual, sexy, spontaneous. I didn’t have to worry about seeing this person again, or dealing with difficult emotions. It was a selfish thing at the end of the day. I could walk away from it and move on with my life, looking back at it as just a fun experience.

What was the WORST thing about this hookup? Hurting my friend’s feelings. I didn’t expect a negative reaction from him, the one I was traveling with. I don’t have guilt over it, because I dislike the idea of him thinking I owed him an explanation for what I did with my body. But I still don’t like that I hurt someone’s feelings.

Has this hookup changed the way you think about casual sex, sexuality, or yourself in general? Absolutely. I became far more open to casual sex, knowing it doesn’t have to lead to a negative feeling or regrets. You can have safe sex for the sake of pleasure and exploration. It also has helped me cope with understanding my monogamous long term relationships. I am better at understanding the reasons I love my now monogamous partner, separate from the sex. I view these as separate realms. I don’t have a sexual attachment to the person I love, and I am in it for more than just sex or having someone there. I realized that I could find pleasurable sex anywhere, but only my partner can give me comfort, security, engaging conversations daily, loving supportive companionship, and a sense of connectedness. My partner and I have many things in common when it comes to ideals, life goals, our values, our beliefs, and so when sex fails or feels artificial, we are able to think of it as a healthy thing. It’s just our bodies learning from one another, rather than a failure of our relationship as a whole. In that same way, it doesn’t make me afraid of being single, because I know I can continue to explore my sexuality through casual sex, without compromising my search for a long term partner.

All things considered, how POSITIVE was this experience? Very positive

All things considered, how NEGATIVE was this experience? Not at all negative

Anything else you want to add about this hookup? I wish I had hooked up with someone sooner in my life, and it would have saved me from a lot of negative long term relationships.

What are your thoughts on casual sex more generally, the role it has played in your life, and/or its role in society? What would you like to see changed in that regard? I would like to see less shaming of women in particular and less pressure on males. I wish more than one narrative existed. The predominant narrative being that women never enjoy hookups, this being measured by orgasms in many studies. I personally didn’t have a full blown orgasm, but the pleasure came from the things I learned from this experience and how satisfying it was to just be with a person I really wanted to be with. I want there to be more narratives of highly educated women seeking sexual pleasure for their own sake, and not out of loneliness or inability to conform to a patriarchal hierarchy. Most women who do seek out causal sex are stigmatized as “old maids” who can’t keep a partner around for their “bossy” ways.
As it refers to men, I hear from a lot of my partners and friends that they don’t actually enjoy have a drive for hooking up with many girls, in part because they fear stds, in part because they just don’t care for it. Some of them are even religious, and that keeps them from the idea. But even frat boys I have met, tell me that their frat culture affords them the chance to meet many girls and be in situations where sex is an end goal, but they themselves choose not to engage out of lack of interest. But I would like to see less pressure on men to conform to that, as they are often pressured into those predator stereotypes. I want it to be okay for males to have fewer partners, while a high number of partners for women is not a taboo either. I want to eliminate the expectation that men need to go into their sexual encounter with their first partner knowing everything about sex, and being as efficient as possible.
I hope couples can also move towards understanding sex as a continuous learning process, devoid of any past experiences as necessary for successful monogamous sex.

What do you think about the Casual Sex Project? I think this project is really helpful in telling a greater variety of narratives. I hope that more people can find out about it, in order to change unrealistic taboos of casual sex. I really am a big fan of this, thus why I spent so much time explaining my story.

You have a hookup story to share? Submit it here!