In Praise of Awkward First-Time Sex
by Alex Sam
This past weekend Yeardley Love was laid to rest, the victim of a violent murder at the hands of her on-and-off boyfriend George Huguely. Several people who knew the couple well have come forward anonymously to add to the profile of a young man who was frequently an angry and belligerent drunk. According to Huffington Post:
A friend of Huguely’s who played lacrosse with him in summer leagues told the Daily News that Huguely “partied really hard and when he was drunk or f—– up, he could be violent. He would get out of control.”
Another friend who knew both Huguely and Love said the couple broke up in part due to an incident during which Huguely attacked Love and could not remember doing it the next day. On the night of Love’s death, the friend reported that people saw Huguely at a party “breaking bottles” and that said he was going to go to Love’s apartment to get her back.
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It seems beyond question that alcohol played a huge role in Huguely’s life, the life of a smart, privileged lacrosse player. Medical professionals define binge drinking as five or more drinks, but in the documentary Spitting Game: The College Hookup Culture, students defined binge drinking as about 12 shots for girls and 20 for guys.
The National Bureau of Economic Research has just released a study called Binge Drinking and Risky Sex Among College Students. Jeffrey DeSimone of the University of Texas studied a nationally representative group, looking for relationships between binge drinking and risky behaviors. He found the following relationships:
- Multiple recent sex partners.
- Less frequent condom use.
- Promiscuity. (No relationship was found between promiscuity and non-binge drinking).
- Promiscuity high among males already in long-term relationships.
In 2006, DeSimone published a study showing that fraternity membership increases binge drinking, and a study at the Harvard School of Public Health also looked at the population most likely to binge drink:
- Students more likely to binge drink are male, white, under 24 years of age, involved in athletics and residents of a fraternity or sorority.
- Student athletes are more often the heaviest drinkers in the overall student population. Half of college athletes (57% of men and 48% of women) are binge drinkers and experience a greater number of alcohol-related harms than other students. College athletes are also more likely than other students to say that getting drunk is an important reason for drinking.
Athletes and men in frats have always drunk heavily, often with the express purpose of getting wasted and bonding with their male peers. However, it seems that among young women, binge drinking serves to get rid of the inhibitions that would otherwise prevent them from having casual sex. In other words, women feel uncomfortable about hooking up. They worry about the general wisdom of it, and they also fear that they will feel too self-conscious to strip for a stranger without some liquid courage. They binge drink to eradicate their discomfort so that they will have no second thoughts when it’s time to drop panty.
A recent study found that almost 50 percent of women prefer to have sex while under the influence of alcohol.
Researchers questioned nearly 3,000 women and found that half would rather have sex after consuming alcohol because it makes them feel less inhibited. Three-fourths of the women said they are able to “let loose” after having a few drinks.
Kathlyn Wilkinson, sexual health education coordinator for Purdue University Student Health Center, said:
It seems that some women who participated in this study may have a negative body image or self-esteem. And in an effort to relieve their anxiety over being naked and engaging in sexual activity with their partner, they seek out alcohol before this experience.
The phenomenon is known as alcohol myopia, said Laura VanderDrift, a graduate research assistant. Alcohol myopia occurs when people experience fewer insecurities and feel increases in self-concept.
The Independent (UK) provided additional details of the study, including the fact that 6% of the women surveyed admitted they had never had sex sober. That behavior is generally considered indicative of a person with a severe drinking problem. “Recovered alcoholic Eric Clapton, for example, once revealed that he did not have sober sex until he was in his 30s. Last year on the Celebrity Rehab programme in the US, model and actress Amber Smith admitted she had reached the age of 27 without ever having sex while sober.”
Research from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis revealed that there was a direct link with high rates of alcohol dependence and an increased number of sexual partners — 41% of frequent bingers indulged regularly in unplanned sex, while this happened to only 8% of occasional drinkers. Heavy drinking leads to reckless and unsafe sex: that’s a given. Alcohol lowers inhibitions and disables a neurotransmitter in the brain which normally causes us to conduct ourselves with reason and rationality.“
Women’s Studies professor Barbara Gottfried at Boston University feels that young women are under intense cultural pressure to be highly sexualized in part due to peer influence. That increases the likelihood that a woman will fortify herself with alcohol in order to go through with an uncomfortable sexual encounter, often with a stranger or acquaintance.
Recent University of Hartford graduate Kathleen MacKinnon agreed, saying, “The social values associated with attending college parties can also boost a woman’s tendency to have sex. Even though fraternities charge everyone at the door of a party for drinks, sometimes they’ll let cute girls in for free. Girls purposely go to these parties to drink for free and then get taken advantage of when they’re intoxicated.”
Even though the situation sounds undesirable, MacKinnon said she thinks the females are the real catalysts to the sexual involvement. “These girls know what they’re doing,” she said. “They want to make it known to the guys that they’re drunk, because they know the guys will take advantage of it.”
In other words, women are lubricating away their natural internal warning system. Once they’re blackout drunk, they’re incapable of giving consent, but they’re also incapable of withholding it. What’s particularly troubling about these findings is that women are willingly relinquishing their own sexual agency, in many cases to a male who has also been binge drinking.
A recent study on alcohol and sexual assault involving 5000 undergraduate women showed:
- More than 11 percent of women had been sexually assaulted while they were incapacitated and unable to provide consent.
- Freshman and sophomore women were at a higher risk for sexual assault than their junior and senior counterparts.
- Almost 30 percent of undergraduate women reported experiencing an attempted or completed sexual assault either before or while in college.
The implications are clear. Binge drinking is dangerous, and it’s far more dangerous for women than it is for men.
Christine Lindquist, Ph.D., a senior research sociologist at RTI and an author of the study said:
“Our research suggests that limiting alcohol intake and not taking drugs are important sexual assault risk reduction strategies, especially within the context of campus social situations.”
Yeardley Love was a victim of the absolute worst possible combination of alcohol, jealousy and anger exploding into violent rage at the hands of a troubled young man. That kind of uncontrolled rage may be rare, but there is little doubt that binge drinking played a role in that crime.
It’s very politically incorrect to suggest that women are asking for trouble when they down a dozen shots, or stumble drunkenly into a fraternity house bedroom at 3 a.m. That doesn’t mean it’s untrue. The frat house setting is bad enough, with its accessory Douchebag Romeo dragging you upstairs.
But make no mistake about it – it’s the drunken stumbling that can really mess you up. Have safe and sober sex, with all the wonderful awkwardness that entails.
