It’s no big secret that I watch a lot of TV. I was watching a re-run of Cameron Crowe’s “Vanilla Sky” recently when this thought hit me. One of the fundamental differences between men and women has always been their responses post-sex. Men are infamously touted as being void of emotion and women are accused of secreting oxytocin, a hormone that causes them to emotionally attach after sex. This behavior has existed for a long time and will continue to exist as long as we need to procreate and over-populate the Earth. Now, we’re not talking about relationship, baby-making, put Brian McKnight music on, kind of sex. We’re talking about grown (seemingly) adults engaging in casual sex. Strictly casual.
Of course everything I’m saying are sweeping generalizations but generalizations exist for a reason.
So what happens? Everyone starts lying. Men pretend to care and women pretend they don’t. It’s inevitable that at one point, the lies meet in the middle and everything gets exposed and falls apart. But here’s where the gender difference comes to play again. The men, with the auto-detachment ability, get to walk away with no cares in the world (much like a hero walking away from an explosion in a movie). The women, on the other, became raging, psycho, obsessed lunatics. Now, I feel sorry for the man. He can’t tell from the beginning whether a girl could become crazy even after just one sexual tryst – in fact, majority of these crazy girls are doing their utmost to convince them otherwise – that they in fact, love sex with no strings attached. They harbor the great hope that the sex becomes affection, which could in turn, become love. Not to say it couldn’t, but c’mon girls, get a grip. As for you men, Hollywood has been trying to warn you that casual sex is never casual and in fact, things can go very wrong for you and your pets.
Here are 3 great cautionary tales that you guys really need to start paying attention to!
Vanilla Sky
Tom Cruise plays the quintessential playboy, thinking he’s got it made with his “fuck buddy” (God, can we get rid of that phrase already?) Cameron Diaz. She’s up for anything, sensual and wants no strings attached. Sounds great, doesn’t it? Now, here comes the warning signs: she wants to start spending more time with him, keeps asking him when he’s going to call, turns up uninvited for events and all the time, puts her sexuality up front. So he’s torn between his hard place and his brain and of course, picks the sex… and what happens? She runs the car off the road, killing herself and permanently disfiguring him. But not before saying “Don’t you know when you sleep with someone, your body makes a promise whether you do or not?” It was a great line that completely released her inner voice that she had been stifling by trying appear like everything was copacetic with their casual relationship. It also perhaps revealed more about the female psyche than most are prepared to admit.
Play Misty For Me
I’m a big Clint Eastwood fan, I think he’s super hot. This story is a classic caution against one-night stands. Eastwood, a radio DJ, meets Jessica Walter (yes, Lucille Bluth) at a bar and with the sparks flying, goes back to her place where she reveals she’s a fan of his radio show, he’s flattered, they get it on. The end. Ha! Warning signs again: She shows up the next day at HIS apartment with groceries to cook dinner (she followed his ass home) and still this idiot continues to have sex with her. Frankly at this point, Eastwood is just asking for trouble. And the stalking continues. She turns up at his place constantly, naked (see, the lure of sex is always upfront), with teddy bears and once he goes apeshit on her, she attempts suicide. Then everything goes rapidly downhill to Psycho Town and you get the point. The signs were all there. Hell, she followed him home! That’s damn creepy enough, so I think he deserved what he got playing with fire like that.
Fatal Attraction
Ahh, the mother of all casual sex gone wrong. You can’t do a psycho bitch post without Glenn Close. Started out simple enough – a one-night stand affair with a willing, attractive female. One night became two nights and that was it – she had her claws stuck in him and wants to go to the opera. Now he’s trying to shake her off (triggers attempted suicide), trying to keep it from his wife and what’s next, she’s pregnant! Man, anything that could go wrong for Michael Douglas certainly did. And Glenn Close delivered one of the best, most truthful lines of the movie, “Why? Because I won’t allow you to treat me like some slut you can just bang a couple times and throw in the garbage?“. It perfectly summarised what his intentions for her were. That was literally all he wanted and he never stopped to consider what her intentions might be. He was portrayed as the stereotypical man – the kind that becomes incapable of coherent thought once the option of sex is on the table. Granted he didn’t deserve to have his daughter kidnapped or their rabbit boiled, but he was selfish. And that had to reap consequences.
The moral of this post is:
Men: 90% of the women who tell you they can keep things casual, cannot. (That percentage is completely arbitrary.) If you are lucky enough, you will get the 10% that are actually cool with casual sex and usually that means they’re not that into you to begin with. Pay attention to the warning signs: crazy eyes, insistence of sexual abandon followed by emotional conversations, mysteriously turning up wherever you are (and promising sex), aversion to rabbits… Don’t take “casual” for granted and give a minimum of 5 minutes to actually talk to her – find out her modus operandi, relationship history and read her body language (overly defensive, overcompensating).That being said, there’s no foolproof way to knowing if you picked crazy from the pile. If it starts to get nuts, just put your razor blades and pets in storage.
Women: Get your shit together. Mean what you say, and say what you mean. If you want to be in a relationship, don’t sell yourself short and try to “trap” a dude with casual sex. All that does is turn you into a loony nutball that no-one wants to be around with anyway. You will become the ugliest version of yourself, with a Google-abuse problem. And also possibly homicidal.
Now, are there any movies out there where the men go nuts after casual sex?
(The writer will neither deny nor confirm her oxytocin production)
