Human Parts

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Sex With Strangers Is Good for You

6 min readDec 12, 2017

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Photo: bagi1998/Getty Images

NNothing makes you feel mature and sophisticated like a one-night stand. Think about it. Alcohol. Bad judgment. Spontaneous sex. Maybe drugs. Possible regret with a drop of anxiety about which STDs you might’ve caught. Pregnancy scares. It’s everything our parents promised.

That’s what a lot of people think, at least. They envision a steamy montage of naked bodies, ending with a double hangover and a missing kidney. But what if I told you that was a myth? What if some meaningless sex with a stranger was just what you needed to start recovering from a bad breakup? Take the red pill. Come with me.

MyMy first one-night stand happened midway through grad school. Even fledgling academics enjoy more chances for one-night stands than the general population. We fly across the world and stay in luxurious hotels, courtesy of our credit cards. We meet new people all the time.

We like to drink.

But most importantly, we spend most of our twenties and thirties in a state of fear and dread that triggers a constant need to reproduce.

So we’ll jump practically anyone who looks twice at us and can tell a good joke. That’s not true. Actually, it kinda is.

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