Warning: Hooking-Up May Lead to You Having Sex with Lots of People
Scientists did a study, and they found a surprising fact: If you are in a "friends-with-benefits" situation rather than a serious relationship, you are more likely to have sex with multiple people! Sometimes we have to wonder why scientists exist.
The study, which is mentioned in theTimes' Styles section on Sunday, is called "The Contexts of Sexual Involvement and Concurrent Sexual Partnerships." So, a group of scientists at the University of Iowa was wondering what's up with these people having "concurrent sexual partnerships" i.e. doing it with more than one person at the same time? (Not exactly at the same time. Get your mind out of the gutter.) They wondered if, maybe, people who engaged in random sex with their friends, acquaintances, neighbors and babysitters were more likely to have "concurrent sexual partners" than those in serious long-term relationships.
Guess what: People who "hook-up" are more likely to sleep with multiple people! Or, as the study put it, charmingly: "sexual involvement in nonromantic contexts, such as sex with friends, acquaintances or strangers, was associated with increased risk of concurrency for both members of sexual dyads."
We present this study as another reason why people should stop treating "hooking-up" as anything more than annoying label pasted over the human ape's age-old pursuit of the raw and joyless hump.