Casual Sex Doesn't Exist | HELEN FISHER | Big Think
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- Опубликовано: 22 апр 2012
- Casual Sex Doesn't Exist
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In a study that asked 515 people why they went into a hookup, 50 percent of women and 52 percent of men reported that they hoped to trigger a longer relationship.
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HELEN FISHER:
Helen E. Fisher, Ph.D. biological anthropologist, is a Senior Research Fellow at The Kinsey Institute at Indiana University, and a Member of the Center For Human Evolutionary Studies in the Department of Anthropology at Rutgers University. She has written six books on the evolution, biology, and psychology of human sexuality, monogamy, adultery and divorce, gender differences in the brain, the neural chemistry of romantic love and attachment, human biologically-based personality styles, why we fall in love with one person rather than another, hooking up, friends with benefits, living together and other current trends, and the future of relationships - what she calls: slow love.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Question: What are the three brain systems for love?
Helen Fisher: I do think that we’ve evolved three distinctly different brain systems for love. One is the sex drive, the craving for sexual gratification. The second one is romantic love, that elation, the giddiness, the euphoria, the obsession, the craving of passionate, obsessive love. And the third is attachment. That sense of calm and security you can feel for a long-term partner.
And rather than being stages, these three brain systems can operate, really in any kind of combination. I mean, you could walk into a party, you’re ready to fall in love, you talked to somebody, they say just the perfect joke and they’re the right size and shape and height and background, and boom. You trigger the brain system for romantic love. And then, once you’ve fallen in love with them, you feel very sexually drawn to them. Or, you can start out with a sexual relationship with somebody and then fall in love with them. Or, you can know somebody for many years. Maybe it’s a boyfriend of a friend of yours and you’re married to somebody else and then times change, people become available and suddenly you’ve fallen in love with somebody who you’ve had a deep and very nice friendship with. So, any one of these brain systems can happen first; attachment, romantic love, or the sex drive.
Question: What does the brain look like when it’s in love?
Helen Fisher: Everybody’s always wondered what happens in the brain when you’ve fallen in love, and we all know actually how you feel when you fall in love. But actually, what happens in the brain is, a tiny little factory near the base of the brain called the ventral tegmental area become active, and in some particular cells, called the A10 cells, they begin to make dopamine. Dopamine is a natural stimulant. And from the ventral tegmental area it’s sent too many brain regions, particularly the reward system; the brain system for wanting, for craving, for seeking, for addiction, for motivation and in this case, the motivation to win life’s greatest prize, which is a good mating partner.
Question: Can casual sex trigger love?
Helen Fisher: I think that all three of these brain systems can interact with one another, particularly when you have sex with somebody. Any kind of sexual stimulation of the genitals triggers the dopamine system in the brain and can push you over that threshold into falling in love with that person. And in fact, with orgasm, there’s a real flood of oxytocin and vasopressin, other chemicals in the brain associated with the feeling of deep attachment. So, casual sex is really never casual unless you’re so drunk you can’t remember it; something happens. As a matter of fact, in one study of over a thousand people, over 50% of both men and women reported that their first kiss of somebody was sort of the kiss of death. They had begun quite attracted to a person sexually and romantically and then when they kissed them, it was so horrible for them that it turned them off completely. So, casual sex is just plain old not casual. Something can happen. You can either fall madly in love with this person, or you can begin a deep sense of attachment to them.
As a matter of fact, I’ve been working with a graduate student named Justin Garcia, and he and I believe that people go into hookups, or one-night stands hoping to trigger a longer relationship. And in fact, in a study that he did of 515 men and women in a college in the northeast, he asked ...
For the full transcript, check out bigthink.com/videos/casual-se...
I have never believed in casual sex , if you find someone sexy and you sleep with them your going to feel a sense of entitlement to their attention, someone always gets hurt .
Probably, not fact.
I’ve always said this! Either I hurt them or they hurt me. It sucks!
@@themacocko6311 its a fact that promiscuity is correlated with mental problems, neuroticism, depression and negative self worth.
A sense of 'entitlement'? The fuck is that supposed to mean? Just because you happen to sleep with somebody 'sexy', it doesnt entitle you to anything.
@@NotTodaySatan557You can’t hurt me!
This culture of aggressive sexuality sickens me at my core. I love sex. I am married. However, it seems that sexuality is at the forefront of everything. It is as if we place self worth in how many sex partners we have. Idk y but it bothers me how easy sex has become. Communication has become less mature. People ghost each other more than ever. If sex were that open people would communicate better than they now do.
I couldnt agree more! When people ask you / tell you their "Body Count" is makes me cringe. Just the phrase itself is so dehumanizing! I am much more concerned with having GOOD SEX and forming DEEP emotional connections with fewer or hopefully only 1 person, than I am having empty connections and tallying them up.
"Stop looking for what's wrong with this person, and start looking for what's right."
I don't know about anybody else, but I feel like this lends itself too easily to really unhealthy relationships...
+Melinda Ramsey
Or it would help you create realistic standards? No one is perfect.
+Melinda Ramsey He beats me, but hey sometimes he says sweet things so whatever
It's just a glass half full point of view.
If the glass is more full, then appreciate that.
If it's only a quarter full of good than maybe that should tell you something haha
+Melinda Ramsey I had the same thought... If you ignore red flags, you will pay the price later...
+Melinda Ramsey You're completely right. Focusing on positives is terrible life advice. Yes, people miss out on potentially healthy relationships by not taking the risks to get them, but a far bigger problem, that I see, is people putting too much time and energy into relationships that will never be healthy. And, they do it because they are too focused on the positives, and too busy ignoring the incompatible negatives. The half full perspective has it's place- in a completely different conversation. It is useful as a 'keep your head up' slogan. It is useful in developing your own personal attitudes, which no doubt will effect your quality of life. However, it is not a strategic method for choosing between multiple options. It makes a horrible risk assessment strategy (and yes, that is what any healthy person is doing in every type of relationship- accurately assessing risk and acting appropriately on those assessments). Do you focus more on the positives when you make financial decisions? Do you give priority to the positives when you decide how to delegate responsibility? Do you focus on the positives when determining healthy trust levels? No. The known negatives, or differences, are far more important when it comes to making choices in all of these scenarios. We want to get rich, we want people to help us accomplish our goals, we want to have relationships with people we can trust; but what we want more is to not become poor, to not fail, and to not be betrayed.
She hasn't asked the people on Tinder or OkCupid.
+camelliaruth But she did review some 30.000 cases on some other love network thingie
exactly I'm 27 virgin I don't want or need to be in a relationship with someone right now, I don't want someone to take on the responsibility of giving a house and money because I'm unemployed etc i want to do that myself.😩 also I'll add I have sexual needs like everyone else but can't act until I get my own place.🏠🏡😊😁
+B Sinita Bullshit. If you have them, act on them. Approach, get rejected, get sexual. If you're in a warm climate, go to a park. If you're in winter, make sex angels. It 'happens' when you start making it happen. Don't rape anybody.
B Sinita Honestly sexual needs have nothing to do with all that other stuff unless you make it so. It's just sex after all.
You'd be surprised.
I had lots of casual sex with a certain woman. I wanted for her to fall in love with me and she never did. I told her I loved her and I wanted her to be monogamous to me but she really didn't want to. Casual sex does exist.
That’s because you didn’t fuck her better than the men before you
It wasn't casual for you.
Technically it wasn’t casual sex b/c it wasn’t casual for you. In order for it to be casual, the casualty must be mutual.
Well it wasn't casual for her too coz she wanted to love a lot of people at once.
Really sorry for you, that she didnt feel the same way..
That was brilliant, Ma'am. Crickey, I wish I had watched this eight years ago. My life is not necessarily filled with regret, in as much as I still have a glimmer of hope, but I do have "If Only" syndrome. This was an "If Only" moment for me. Thank you, very well presented.
When she says you can learn to love someone that you would initially reject if you saw them on paper or looked at their picture has to be a sad state for the Grindr/Tindr and Work from Home generation.
"unless you're so drunk you can't remember it"
I've been dealing with a bad break up all year over just that. I'm sick to my stomach. And no it didn't start before it happened
Thank you for saying this. So helpful.
The narrator gives a story of a married woman becoming close with her friend's boyfriend, then "things change" meaning the marriage falls apart. Then later the woman "falls in love" with her friend's boyfriend. Now what do you think is really going on there? Simple. The two are sexually attracted but acting on it is prevented due to undesirable side effects. Then the side effects go away, and surprise it's sack time.
What some like to call love is probably just instinct with some logic layered on top of it. I'm not sure there is a way to discern between "I did not sleep with her because I love my wife" and "I did not sleep with her because my wife might find out. Then she would stop being kind to me, which I like. And she would stop having sex with me, which I like. And my friends and family would think poorly of me, which I don't want. And I might get divorced which would be very painful and difficult. And I would feel much guilt even if no one found out, which would be a very negative experience."
I know this is an old post but, dude totally on point.
True love makes you care about your partner enough to not do other things. Have you ever questioned jumping off a tall height when you're up there? Finding a woman sexy outside your partner is not proof you should have sex with her or will be happy.
Not true, it is very possible to grown attraction to someone you never "noticed" because of your relationship.
Porn industry doesn't exist.
Those people were in love you see.
Those people in porn industry end up falling out of love because having s*x with multiple people results in one being confused about who they're attached to since they have physically attached themselves to multiple people. That's why even when they plan to settle with one person, they find it really difficult
Good talk, I agree, recently I was envolved in casual sex with someone who I became romantically attached to, who because of this dumped me. It was very emotionally hard on me. I felt this occurs due to a lack of good open communication, no phone, only text messages which was a poor way of expressing things.
Or the lack of free, open communication occurred because they wanted to avoid emotional attachment (no matter whether the avoidance stemmed from wanting it or not).
Baby don't hurt me... don't hurt me... no more.
🤣
Also if you are not happy with someone or there are more things you don't like about them than what you do like about them it is a horrible idea to just "focus on the good things" because if you settle for someone one day you will meet someone better and it's gonna fuck your life up.
"people become available".....are you talking meat market shopping, everyone has their eye on someone else just waiting for a better 'opportunity to come along? Sex as a commodity, a trade off for 'security'......."hookups", "onenight stands" ??? Our use of language betrays a shallow desperateness which defines contemporary Western society. As a species human kind is in trouble, I am afraid the existential nightmare which engulfs our sexual drives for fulfillment and meaning is only going to worsen. Everyday I am amazed at how those around me make it through day to day.... maybe through the routine and drudgery there is hope after all.
Very very interesting. I was so engrossed in that video
Most love seems like a crummy drug effect like meth except its method of ingestion is infatuation. It also often comes with a hangover and hair of the dog. Comedown feels like the dopamine deprivation of over exertion after a drug binge. Maybe then if one finds the right person the love experience is less superficial and more like LSD sans hallucinations. Sans ego
Wow your comment sounds like poetry well written
@@laurendelane6361
Thanks the writing is too pretentious but the idea is still true
Thank you very much !
Evolutionary, sex exists to connect people... but in a larger group, like it used to be over 10 thousand years ago. No wonder nowadays it's a mess, since sex gets confused with love. But sex is a tool to make people feel connected anyways, you want it or not. Not necessarily to fall in love, just liking/respecting someone. You don't have to cram love where it doesn't have to be.
No wonder I'm so connected to my hand. It all makes sense
This comment is bs. Some species do it, but I don't think this applies to humans.
I have had a casual sexual relationship for years that did not lead to any romantic stuff, even though we enjoyed our time together and always had great sex. There was never a risk for long-term stuff since we were both convinced it would not work. We were both looking for a serious relationship during this time. No one got broken hearted, we only had fun. :()
+soumonism In other words pregnancy did not occur.
+Joe Schmoe Sorry, from godless sweden here...
"casual serial partner for years" sounds long term to me lol
+soumonism
Sweden YES!
+soumonism swedes don't believe in God?!
Yeah I think I'm done with this place. It started out good, but it's devolved into a bunch of clickbait and propaganda.
+Josh Hunter I was just thinking exactly the same thing. I've forgotten why I initially subscribed.
I remember why I had subscribed now. It was all Bill Nye. Shame he doesn't have a separate channel.
+Sabazios of Thrace what is cultural marxism?
Where here is the propaganda? Since three years have past maybe you will not be able to detect it anymore.
Ignoring what you don't like in favour of seeing the positive is terrible advice especially if what you don't like in another person are indicators of potentially dangerous and antisocial behaviours.
Love is fleeting like your life. Narrative of abundance
What was that sound tho 0:27 ô.ô
That was her unconscious mind trying to warn us all of the manure she was shoveling.
I really liked Fisher's first TED talk years back, but after looking further into her work, I was disappointed to find out that her hypotheses of brains systems, and especially many of her conclusions don't really check out.
Back up your 'theories' with some genuine proof please?
2 ducks falling in love sounds delightfully adorable
how can you arrive to a general conclusion with small sampling, neglecting the variables? what makes the decision of falling in love, the brain or the mind? the mind isn't the brain by the way.
lol, the ultimate prize is a great mating partner? Really?
+No Simp Zone From an evolutionary perspective it's true, which is what she's referring to
+AppleCupcakes Well, from some evolutionary scientists' perspectives it's true, but science itself doesn't make such an assertion of truth. Darwin wasn't such a reductionist as to make that claim. To make that claim is to enter into metaphysics and you no longer have, at that point, the tools of scientific inquiry to prove or disprove the claim about the "ends" or "goals" of a species. This claim of a "drive to survive" is deeply complicated by the emergence of the animal that has the capacity to reflect on the meaning of its existence, especially considering this animal's life is radically mediated, not simply by biology, but by complex cultural symbols. Rarely does an evolutionary biologists take this into account. They prefer to make reductions about human nature. It makes for easy explanation.
what he said :)
Sexual infidelity is still the no1 reason for murder. Enough said.
I love the people I have casual sex with. Doesn't mean a relationship is in the cards.
That sounds rather painful 😅
You love them yet you don’t want a relationship with them makes sense huh
Yeah it does....
How would polyamory fit into all this?
One study only... so easy to publish is nowaday "Science", huh?
Multiple different studies which last many years can also collectively be called one study.... It's so easy nowadays to question anybody even after not knowing anything about that subject themselves...
Wait, if I don't feel attached to someone I have sex with, does that mean this is utter opinion-based bull?
casual sex can be casual.
I wonder what results they'd get if they study different cultures. Just saying that casual sex doesn't exist sounds like that person has never experienced it.
I- I- searched flight
hedonism is best, says the commenters.
DAYTON DAYTONA
Clearly the consensus
That reaction she had at 0:28 was her body's unconscious gag reflex over the manure she was feeding everybody about long term commitment to one partner.
Lol 😂
...said the guy with VD.
You'll probably stay single forever
The fuck??
Are you polyamorous?
wow
5:05
The caption only describes 50% of the population. So what about the other 50%? In fact, in all the studies she describes, only 50% of the data supports her ideas. In addition, for a scientist, she says 'I think...' a lot, without giving us a lot of numbers to the data. Personally, I think she's wrong, and that casual sex does exist. It seems true casual sex is not very common, but does exist. I've personally known a few people who've had such a relationship without getting romantically involved with that person later.
What she has done is show us that what we call 'love' is little more than a biological reaction. This makes perfect sense as it's a way of our bodies encouraging us to find a partner to have children with and continue the species. It's also why different things trigger the feeling of love in males and females.
Now it does.
...baby don't hurt me.
+Nebulous Enigma Pardon, I meant to say:
...BABY DON'T HURT ME. WOoOoOOOOOooooOOOOOoooooOOOOO.
Lmao at the fox analogy. I bet you anything after that fox got what he wanted from the lady fox, those intense emotions dissapeared. That's lust, not love.
You could argue humans are just like that too, but indeed as this woman illustrated, there are physical differences in the brain that are active when a person is in love, and guess what, also in animals. So youre saying animals are not capable of love and affection? Because its been damn well proved they are capable of it. Its not so clear cut as you people like to think. Animals arent just animals, they are capable of emotions humans have too, as humans are animals too.
Casual sex doesn't exist with woman
Exist with pain as a consequence
Aromantic people exist!
👍
Yes, height.
🙏🙏🙏🙏
I guess you have never talked to the S&M or kink community. I know two women who are close friends with similar interests and they both perform a certain "service for one another". They trust each other enough to carefully select groups of 2-4 guys (different each time) and then arrange for them to meet their other friend anonymously at a public place such as a bar where they find each other based on description. They never say a word to each other. The men follow the other woman home to her house or a hotel and then act out a violent gang rape with only the universal safe word "red" as a real means of communication. They never learn the names of the men and don't discuss their identity with the other woman or how they met. Sometimes sex is just about sex..... not to mention the countless schizoids and psychopaths who engage in ridiculously promiscuous sexual behavior and absolutely abhor the notion of being involved in any kind of relationship with another human being.
+Mr. Pommel One word to defeat your whole argument-AVERAGE-there are always outliers, she is talking about all humans on average
+Mr. Pommel - I don't think she denies that sex does not always trigger love. She only says it is one factor that can trigger love, if other factors are right as well. One must not refer to masochists to make plausible that sex can be just sex.
+Chris Duncan which is meaningless because if it exists for 1 single person...then it EXISTS!
***** S&M folks aren't exactly that radical of an outlier. My example was simply the most radical example I knew. In any major town/city you will have a kink community that regularly engages in entirely anonymous sex if not multiple sex clubs for exactly that purpose. And again I reiterate that there are many different atypical but not radically atypical cognitive types such as schizoids, the autistic, ect. who entirely abhor relationships but do engage in anonymous sexual activity.
NuntiusLegis No but the title clearly states that casual sex does not exist. Her premise as I understood it is that people engaged in "casual sex" are participating unknowingly in an evolutionary system designed to find a long term partner which is generally true of most people but entirely untrue for a solid chunk of the population.
She doesn't get that her 'OWN' views and feelings are not everyone's. What's love got to do with it?
I call bullshit
She's cloaking plain old relationship advice in brain-system language. Grief. And it isn't particularly good advice.
Trite
Love should never be the aim to enter any relationship. The purpose of relationships imo is for the procreation and the rearing of a child, nothing more nothing less.
You go into relationship for "love", that's selfishness, that's misdirection.
When you fall out of "love", you end up hurt, the other person ends up hurt and god forbid you have children together.
First and formost relationships should be based on the future, the potential life together with kids, if its not based on that, its based on foolishness.
Replace the word relationship with"piv sx" and l agree with you
to me it sounds like she is talking from a female perspective, not the objective perspective of a researcher
How so? She mentioned various studies her and people she
knows have done in this video.
And that would be masculine? And that, you think, would make it scientific and universal? LOL
@@terrylaguardia6838 Nope and nope.
Magnus Leuthner Great argument, pal! LOL
...nonsense
LOL! Causal sex doesn't exit for YOU!