Her Campus Logo Her Campus Logo

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.
[pagebreak]
Is Sex Like a Man a Good Idea?

In the end, Carrie switches back to her old ways and still gets ‘Carried Away’ by relationships – she constantly obsesses over her relationship with Mr. Big, overanalyzes why Aidan won’t have sex with her, and gets extremely upset when Berger breaks up with her on a Post-it. Having sex like a man didn’t work for her, and Dr. Tessina says that this behavior typically doesn’t last. “Many women who are afraid of commitment wind up getting attached to wildly unsuitable men,” she says. “That’s why women who try it are often very unhappy.”

Still, Dr. Orbuch maintains that if a woman has the right mindset about the hookup, having casual, non-committal sex can be okay.  “I think it depends on the woman.  She needs to ask herself 3 questions,” she says.  “Is she able to differentiate sex from emotions?  Is she open and honest with her partner about her intent and attitudes?  Is the ‘no commitment’ sex still safe sex?” If the answer to each of these questions is yes, the sex in question is fine.

How Can Collegiettes™ Have Sex Like a Man?

Of course not all men are non-committal and enjoy casual sex, but why let the stereotypical college guys have all the fun?  Here’s how to have sex like man.

  • “I basically don’t talk to the guy after,” says the senior from Syracuse.  “There’s very little communication involved.”
  • “Go into the situation knowing that it’s purely sexual, assuming the guy is actually good in bed, and make efforts to think like that and remind yourself of that throughout the hookup and especially the day after,” says the Northeastern junior.  “It also helps not to make the guy your whole world- if you’re busy and dating and constantly hanging out with friends, it’s easier not to think about him and make the situation more than its not.”
  • “I hook up with a lot of different people,” says a University of Massachusetts junior.  “That way, it’s clearly nothing serious between me and any of the guys.”
  • “Don’t spend the night, but if you do, leave really early in the morning- there’s no pillow talk or anything,” says a Syracuse senior.  “The next time you see him, act like you’re just friends, and never approach him first to talk.”
  • “I once told a guy there was two-hour parking at my apartment so he wouldn’t sleep over,” says another Syracuse senior.  “It was really effective at getting him out.”

And another word from the expert: “When women are able to differentiate sex from love and emotions (there isn’t a connection between sexuality and emotional commitment), and they focus on sex as a physical act (as an experience-seeking or pleasure-seeking behavior), then a no commitment attitude toward sex can develop,” says Dr. Orbuch.

Maybe it’s just a college thing and the male mentality will pass upon graduation, but this mentality seems to be thriving.  Have you ever had sex “like a man”?

Sources:

College women from across the country

Tina B. Tessina, M.D., psychotherapist, author of The Unofficial Guide to Dating Again, and also known as “Dr. Romance”

Dr. Terri Orbuch, relationship advisor and therapist and author of 5 Simple Steps to Take Your Marriage from Good to Great

Her Campus Placeholder Avatar
Nancy Mucciarone is a senior at Syracuse University, majoring in magazine journalism and minoring in psychology. Along with writing for HerCampus, she is the fashion and beauty editor of Equal Time magazine, a freelance writer for Studio One Networks, as well as the public relations vice president for Alpha Xi Delta. She is the former web editor for College magazine, and this past summer, she was loving life in New York City as she participated in the Condé Nast Summer Intern Program as an editorial intern at Footwear News. When she's not making detailed to-do lists or perfecting the grilled cheese sandwich, you can usually find her watching Animal Planet or trying to curb her Milk Dud addiction. She aspires to one day be the bachelorette.