Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Casual versus Anonymous

I came across a post where you answered a question about casual sex. Isn't it true that casual sex and anonymous sex are not the same thing? 

Absolutely true. Casual sex is a one night stand, a bar pick-up, or it can refer to sleeping with a person you are acquainted with, maybe even friends with [a fuck buddy, or as straight people say "friends with benefits"], but aren't in love with. There's no romance, no angst, no jealousy, none of the tortured, joyous emotions of a full-fledged love affair. Just good, clean sex.

Anonymous sex, on the other hand, is where you not only never get to know the person with whom you are having sex, you may not even get to see what they look like, and there's definitely little, if any, conversation. This is --in my opinion -- old-fashioned sex, more prevalent in the days before Stonewall, where gay men would meet anonymously in dark parks, men's rooms ["tea rooms"], movie theaters, and other trysting places where there was not only no wining and dining or cruising before sex, there was no anything -- the two would just get right at it for instant gratification.

Before AIDS, there were many darkened back room bars where anonymous sex would go on. Men would follow a guy they saw and liked in the [brighter] front room of the bar and hope that if they hooked up with him in the back room they were getting the right guy! But with all those bodies, and shadows, who knows?

Frankly, in my opinion, sex is a much more satisfying experience in a bed and after getting to know someone even a little bit. Still there are people -- gay and straight -- who like the no-frills action and slight edge of danger to anonymous, often public sexual encounters.

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