Does casual sex have a shelf life?
In a comment on The First Time, I wrote, "Casual sex does, I think, have a shelf life, at least for people of substance. I'm curious to see what my timeout is."
One of my readers (who may or may not choose to identify himself here) disagreed with me, saying that he's been doing casual sex for about a decade and doesn't see the end of that for himself. There are a couple of issues at work on this, though.
The first is the question of monogamy. Most people practice it, but not everyone. if you don't practice monogamy, it's possible to engage in casual sex and committed relationships simultaneously. So, yes, when I wrote that I think casual sex has a shelf life, I was thinking from a monogamous point of view, in which, by my thinking, if you're the sort of person who grows in experience, casual sex will eventually lose its appeal, because it is naturally limiting in terms of the depth of relationship you can develop within its confines. In fact, that very thing is part of the appeal of casual sex, and it simply depends on the practitioner to decide for him or herself if that is a feature or a bug.
Let's say, however, that you're in a situation where you can have both casual and committed relationships simultaneously. Even then, I think that many people will not choose to have casual sex forever. I, for example, expect to tired of casual sex at some point, and possibly soon, even if I choose nonmonogamous type partnerships. I wasn't a practitioner of casual sex last year at this time, and though my adventures have certainly changed my point of view on casual fun, I don't expect to find myself engaging in quite the same fuckfest of the last year in, say, five years. On the other hand, I'm more likely to have friendly sex in a free-form, casual-looking way, and I can imagine that continuing over time.
So, obviously, the lifetime of casual sex depends on you.
