In this post I want to make a few remarks about men who
engage in risky sex. These won’t be
evidence based remarks, more a speculative discussion based on my experience of
working with men who engage in risky sex.
I guess the place to start is to give an indication of what I
mean by ‘risky sex’. I mean any kind of
outdoor sex which contravenes laws of public decency. At a relatively mundane level, there is the
thrill of joining the mile high club, or sex on the beach. Where men can really
get into difficulties, though, is in cruising for sex in dogging sites (for
straight men) and public toilets (gay and bisexual men). For some men, there is something about risk
that enhances their sexual experience... and keeps them coming back for more. Why is that?
I suppose along with risk comes an adrenalin rush. For those men who cruise public places
regularly, this adrenalin rush shouldn’t be underestimated. For one thing, I suspect it is addictive in
its own right. Furthermore, it will be instrumental
in bringing about a shift in mood. This
is important if guys are engaging in risky sex in order to break down the pain
of ordinary living. The risk, and the
adrenalin, can make you feel ‘more alive’.
It should be remembered that for most people who cruise
public places for sex, the majority of the time spent is in the cruising, and
not in the sex itself. Men can ‘chase’
sexual experiences, turning down some offers on route, always looking for the
next ‘ideal experience’. So when it
comes, the excitement can be overwhelming.
What appears to be going on here is what in psychology we call a
variable ratio reinforcement schedule.
What this means is that it’s a bit like gambling. If every time you gambled you won, it wouldn’t
be very exciting. Gambling becomes
exciting because you win infrequently.
It’s the same with cruising for sex.
Most of the time you draw a blank, so when it does occur, it reinforces
the behaviour tenfold.
There is also the link with early sexual experiences. For most men, discovering the pleasures of
our dick was a fraught process, shrouded in clandestine fumbles under the
sheets, and with always the fear of being caught by the parents. Outdoor sex is directly analogous, just the
parents are replaced by the local thugs or the police. This may also be coupled with the declining
sensitivity of men’s dicks as they get older.
As men, we are at our most virile in our late teens / early
twenties. As time passes we find it
harder to get turned on. Risky sex can
remind us of when we first discovered our bodies.
I have also noticed with some men, cruising for sex fills an
existential void. It fills time. The alternative, living a lifestyle full of
friends and fun activities, is beyond them.
What the cruising does is fill time and prevents them from facing the
deeper issues of social anxiety. Of
course the more time they spend cruising, the less able they become to engage
in more productive activity, and it becomes a kind of viscous cycle.
I have also met some men who, paradoxically, use cruising for
sex as a way of coping with anxiety. For
most of us, cruising outdoor places would make us anxious. It does for these men too, but what they are
able to do is attribute their general background anxiety to the cruising and
make the plausible (but false) attribution “I’m anxious because I cruise”
rather than the implausible to them (but
accurate) attribution “I suffer from chronic anxiety which I manage by cruising
for risky sex”.
Before leaving this topic, there is an evolutionary
perspective that can be brought to bear here.
Studies of other primates show that even though where a ‘harem’ system
is in operation, with one alpha male dominating the troop, there is still a tendency
for the subordinated females and males to engage in ‘risky fucking’ (and that’s
a technical term!) when they feel the alpha male is distracted. So perhaps evolution casts a long shadow across
our sexual behaviour, leaving a residual desire for risky sex. Indeed it has been shown that women are more
likely to engage in risky sex on the day they ovulate, and are therefore most
fertile. But that’s a topic for another
post ... and probably a different blog.
Dr Phil Tyson is a Men's Psychotherapist based in Manchester in the UK. He offers:
- Group therapy weekends for men in London and Manchester
- Beginners meditation weekend retreats for men in London and Manchester
- Counselling for men in Manchester
- Psychotherapy for men in Manchester
- Cognitive behavioural therapy for men in Manchester
- Telephone and online counselling for men wherever you live
- Mediation for conflict resolution at work in London
- Mediation for conflict resolution at work in Manchester and the North West
- Supervision and consulative support for therapists in Manchester
