Thinking Like a Man: Can We Actually Do It?

In the pilot episode of Sex and the City, HBO introduced us to Carrie Bradshaw, a single and fabulous newspaper columnist who writes about her and her friends’ relationships and sexual escapades. In her first column, she researches how to have sex like a man, and calls an ex for some casual and meaningless sex. Following the hookup, she recounts her experience in her voiceover: “I’d just had sex like a man. I left feeling powerful, potent, and incredibly alive. I felt like I owned this city.”

While Carrie and her 30-something-year-old friends in Manhattan may be a little far off from us younger collegiettes™ living on college campuses, the idea of thinking like a man when it comes to hooking up may be one thing that we have in common. In the past, finding a relationship during your college years was commonplace, but increasingly, girls and guys are having casual late night hookups instead – much to the dismay of many college girls who were hoping for the hookup to turn into something more. But instead of getting attached, many collegiettes™ are turning to a man’s “no commitment” mentality when it comes to these hookups.  We talked to college girls around the country and relationship experts to get the scoop on having sex like a man—college style.

Sex Stories

“It’s gotten to the point where any guy I hook up with at my school isn’t going to want to turn into my boyfriend or even a steady hookup, really,” says one University of New Hampshire senior. “So I’ve gotten to the point where I want to beat him at his own game. I don’t have sleepovers and I typically won’t talk to the guy afterwards until I want to hook up with him again. Guys do it all the time so I don’t understand why I can’t. It beats getting attached for sure.”

“Frat guys hook up with a ton of different girls all the time. But who said they get to have all the fun?” shares a Syracuse senior. “It’s my senior year and I want to have fun.”

“I was hooking up with a guy for about six months or so,” says a Northeastern University senior. “The more we talked, the more I realized he was a nice, intelligent guy, but mostly self-involved and not exactly my type. He was gorgeous though, and on the rugby team, and when he invited me over to ‘watch a movie,’ I had no problem heading to his place. For the next six months, we slept together on and off. He’d text me, I’d text him. Sometimes it would be every weekend, and other months it would be once every few weeks.”

“There’s a guy that I hooked up with freshman year and started to like,” shares a Syracuse University junior. “He kind of screwed me over, but was super hot, so when I saw him at a party at the beginning of this year, we hooked up again. Since then, I text him whenever I feel like having sex, but only when I’m really drunk. Typically my texts will be ridiculous and say things like, ‘I’m bored, want to bone?’ Immediately after it’s over, I leave and go home. A couple weeks ago, he tried to get me to stay and told me he was really starting to like me, but naturally I was totally turned off by that and left after he fell asleep.”

“There is no one on this campus that I’d want to make my boyfriend,” shares a University of Arizona senior.  “It’s my senior year and I have only a few weeks left before graduation.  Once college is over, having random sex isn’t going to be socially acceptable anymore.  It’s fun and I want to make sure I get it all out of my system now.”

What the Experts Say

While college women seem to do this all the time, females are genetically wired to get attached when they have sex, says Tina B. Tessina, M.D., psychotherapist, author of The Unofficial Guide to Dating Again. “Women are genetically engineered to run on oxytocin, which is the connection hormone,” she says. “Connectedness makes women happy.”

Aside from our hormones, the way we were raised can also make non-committal sex difficult to have.  “Women have been taught by the people around them through religion, the media, parents, and teachers not to desire sex without an emotional component,” says relationship advisor and therapist Dr. Terri Orbuch, author of 5 Simple Steps to Take Your Marriage from Good to Great.  “If you are taught these attitudes and norms throughout your life, it is difficult to go against these attitudes.” Many collegiettes™ are told that sex is only for marriage or for very serious relationships, so they have the expectation that sex equals commitment from the guy.

While the odds are against us when it comes to not getting attached with guys we’re sleeping with, it’s actually possible to keep up a non-committal attitude when it comes to sex.  “There are women who are able to have sex for lust or for physical reasons or opportunity,” Dr. Orbuch says.  “These women can separate sex from love and emotions and they do not drive their self-worth from the quality of their relationship.”  In other words, instead of dialing up your hookup buddy and hoping for spooning and affection, you see the booty call as exactly what it is and appreciate the physical aspect of it instead.