Sexually, my generation was expected to be both experienced and demure. Please don't say that's still the case. Angela Barnett writes in praise of the well-intentioned one-night stand.
The walk of shame was not far. A few blocks from his apartment in the West Village to mine near Gramercy Park. As a New Zealander, recently moved to New York City, my head was full of conflicting feelings; self-judgment battled it out with the liberated messages of Sex and the City. Samantha never felt shame after a one-night stand. So why did I?
But this was 2004. Blame the shame on a hangover from last century when women who had casual sex were thought to be slutty, yet men – with whom women were usually having this casual sex – were applauded. We weren’t talking about gender fluidity then, so it was a cis, heteronormative, narrow view with a heavy dollop of misogyny.
On my way home in New York, I saw a vase made up of thinly rolled magazine pages. I bought it and now sitting on a windowsill in my safe seaside family home in Aotearoa, it still makes me smile. I may have felt shame that morning, but I got a great vase out of it.
I came of age in the late 80s, a strange time when there was stigma and judgment around sex, even though everyone spoke of sexual liberation as if it were a battle already fought and won. Women (and teenage girls) were judged if they had too much sex but were also expected to be experienced and available. The paradox!
One-night stands were especially confusing. If you went into them looking for love or romance and discovered – at around 7am with dishevelled hair and no toothbrush – that the other person had been looking for a shag, you felt used, deflated and – yes – shame.
And then along came the apps
Fast forward a decade or three and dating apps like Bumble and Tinder came along to solve it all. You could spell out in no uncertain terms what you were looking for: a hook-up, a relationship, something casual. Nobody was going to waste anybody’s time and all confusion would be eliminated. Goodbye shame, we all thought. Clarity had stepped in to take its place.
Yet, Gen Z is turning away from dating apps. According to The New York Times the industry has lost more than $40 billion in market value since 2021 with the younger generation not buying into the subscription model — paying to meet someone gives them the ick. And here’s the thing about clarity, it requires honesty, which is not, apparently, always in evidence on the apps.
Then there’s the gaslighting, the catfishing, love bombing, bread crumbing and ghosting. (If we can thank Millennials and Gen Z for one thing, it’s naming all the lonely bewildering experiences we suffered through in the ’90s.) Designed to save time, the apps can also waste time. You might talk to someone for a while and feel good about it, then meet for a date and know in the first five seconds it’s not going anywhere, but still have to suffer through the whole tedious evening. It’s back to real life we go.
The next generation is more open to non-binary conceptualisations of gender, relationships beyond monogamy, speaking up, and setting boundaries, so surely the shame around causal sex for those who identify as women has dried up like an over-baked crouton.
What happened to feminism?
I asked two of my colleagues, aged in their twenties about casual sex and one-nighters. Both were happy to talk to me, but neither wanted to be named.
One, 24, says that while more young people are sex-positive, and having safe consensual sex, “Women who are more sexually active and have one-night stands are more likely to be stereotyped as 'promiscuous, risky, dirty,’ whereas men are more likely to be perceived as ‘desirable, hot, charismatic’.”
Another, 26, believes the judgement is as strong as it’s ever been. “Men gain social capital from one-night stands, whereas women often gain a damaged reputation of being ‘easy’ which affects their social capital. And if women are viewed as easy they are more vulnerable to harassment and abuse.”
Okay that's a small survey, but it seems to reflect the enduring popularity with young men of blatant misogynists like Andrew Tate, and the rise of the "tradwife" and other such regressive social media trends. The patriarchy’s long fingers of control are strong.
I know lots of women from my generation (X) who engaged in plenty of casual sex, myself included. We didn’t advertise it and were fortunate nobody was talking about it on social media. Now we make jokes about it with our partners, daring them to judge us (they don’t dare). But I am free to admit this because it’s in the past. I’m partnered up. I have children. Nobody cares. But it makes my libido roar with rage that there’s still shame around casual sex for women, especially younger ones.
Monogamy is fantastic but...
Recently, poignant words from Joni Mitchel about the beauty of monogamy flew around social media (at least, among a certain age group). She was paraphrasing from an Esquire article, The End of Sex: “If you want endless repetition, see a lot of different people. If you want infinite variety, stay with one.”
That’s true. It sounds boring and sensible but the way to great sex is through good communication and trust, and most of us end up seeking a long-term connection with another. But let’s not dismiss short-lived liaisons with different people. It might not be the best sex but if it’s safe and consensual, you can learn about what you like, what you don’t like, and who you like to do it with. You can explore your sexual orientation, find your edges.
I look back on that vase morning and understand I felt ashamed because of internalised misogyny. I had romantic ideas about where it might go and, when disappointed, I took on the narrative that I had been used, fooled, taken for a ride. I don't blame myself for the feelings. I could blame him for not being clear with me beforehand but I wasn’t either. I prefer to blame patriarchal norms that don’t often have my best interests at heart.
I’d like the members of Gen Z (or any age group) to know there’s no internal shame attached to a one-night stand when you are clear with yourself, and them, beforehand – something Samantha knew all along. When you know what you want and go after it, like men have been doing for centuries.
The best one-nighter I ever had was one where I called the shots. After the end of my first marriage, in my early 30s, I wanted to practise getting naked with someone new. I didn’t want a relationship or a situationship and made that clear. The morning after, I said goodbye, tossing my handbag — with its pre-packed hairbrush and toothbrush — over my shoulder and waltzed out of his life. We both knew there would be no next date and there was no shame. Huzzah.
Long relationships are hard but rewarding. The short ones should be for superficial enjoyment. As long as it’s safe and consensual sex, one-nighters can be good R&D and if it feels like a fail, you can always buy an interesting vase on the walk home that will provide years of pleasure.
Angela Barnett is a writer from Tāmaki Makaurau and co-founder of Like Bodies Like Minds.
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