Hannah 

CONTENT WARNING: Contains graphic sexual content.

There is romance in casual sex. Not casual sex as we have come to accept: meet, greet, fuck selfishly, do things that you wouldn’t let a partner do to you in bed because you’re in too vulnerable of a position to say no. Feminist writer Andrea Dworkin argued that all [heterosexual] sex is rape, and while I don’t believe that it’s all-encompassing, I agree that much of sex we have come to accept as a society is, indeed, rape, and detrimental to our wellbeing. Yet true casual sex is romantic to me. 

Casual sex presents an oxymoron to many, for we are largely taught that sex is anything but casual. It is this very idea that has caused so much harm in society: religious trauma and the breakdown of relationships and the abuse of power in sex. Casual sex here refers to sex with someone who you are not involved with apart from the act of sex itself. Bear with me. 

Sex is everywhere. I have found it in unexpected places. And with each of these interactions I have had a visual, something that Spanish musician Rosalía once painted a picture of in an interview: 

“When two people have sex, at times, the image for me in nature is that classic image of waves crashing onto rocks. It gives me the sensation that like, when two bodies meet, and also rocks are always eroding and losing a bit of themselves, you know? [It’s] Within that process. And sometimes, I feel in a real connection, when there’s a real, profound connection with someone, from one person to another, there’s always a part of you that I think you lose, because the other person has it, and I think you take a little something from that person as well. That person will never get it back. And it’s beautiful that way”.

From each interaction I take something with me, I let it shape me, I feel the full force of intimacy. 

One of the first men I met in this city was tall, handsome, Brazilian. We exchanged numbers but not last names and never saw each other’s Instagram. He was amused by my rudimentary Portuguese, a young Australian girl who’s never been to Brazil telling him about her love for Pabllo Vittar, Brazilian drag queen. Because there was no prior stalking, the slate was clean. He asked what I do for a living. I always lead with writing, even though it is something I do out of love more often than I am paid for it. He asked what I write about. I told him about the technical stuff and we discussed modern Brazilian politics in depth. Later, post-intimacy and after we had fallen in deep, I mentioned something I had written in my personal musings after he confessed that he felt nervous whenever I was silent because he could see in my eyes that I was always thinking a thousand different things. In my head I am constantly writing, formulating thoughts and seeing the words in front of me. 

We were nothing alike yet he saw me clearly. He asked if I would write about him. I said yes – not now, but one day in the future, inevitably, for it is always when looking back on 

something that I can write about them and never when it is happening in the moment. I asked if he wanted to read any of it. He answered “no” firmly. He didn’t want to know the past versions of me. I respected this greatly. He gave a chance to the new me, the one trying actively to not be so angry about everything. He had an inclining of what I was like before. His judgement was so good it was scary.

He and I no longer speak but I think about this interaction often. We were brought together by mutual attraction, bound by sex and nothing more, his insights I wouldn’t have been privy to if they didn’t come from the foot of my bed, my thoughts shaped by him as I bore them in Portuguese for the first time, the words coming out slowly, his non-judgement reassuring. He was delicate and open and patient with me. He said things that I needed to hear but couldn’t be told by anyone else. 

Sex is deeply important to me but not in the ways that it is for many. I can make myself cum whenever I please. I can kiss a stranger and be satisfied with that alone. Previously, when my misandry was at its strongest, I flirted with the idea of celibacy then contemplated my sexuality. But I can’t deny myself this type of intimacy. 

I need sex more than I need an orgasm. I need conversation and connection and attraction and the feeling of skin on skin, the trust you can feel with a stranger, the joy exchanged, the longing. For a while I resisted it, my shame deep-seated, yet recently I am more at peace. I love beautiful men and being intimate with them. At age 24 I feel feminine for the first time in my life, no longer the teen in boxy shirts and hair cut straight across, never a thought cast about my body, actively resisting the expectations placed on women. Now I am completely in love with myself and gender has become an outward expression of that love I possess. I love performing femininity, doing things like painting my nails and lining my eyes not because they are expected of me, but because they outwardly express how I feel within. This is, after all, why drag exists. This performance is at its strongest in casual sex, and I am not ashamed of it. 

I scarcely interact with [heterosexual] men outside of sex. I have no reason to. I do not turn to them for good conversation independent of intimacy. For me, it does not exist. Only when a man is stripped down in front of me and has given himself over to a moment of vulnerability in exchange for a moment of intimacy that I feel like there is something worth saying. Another guard is let down too: for a very brief moment masculinity is diminished, man and woman stand before each other as equals, and it is after that moment if a man cannot accept that vulnerability then he will act out, that he will dominate to show his strength and power. I’ve been a victim of this display more than once. I no longer hold those experiences close to my chest because from them I only learnt. Now, often as soon as I lay eyes on a man, I know whether he will give in to that vulnerability. My judgement is clear and it hasn’t failed me. 

There is romance in giving in to a stranger, perhaps more than with a long-term partner, because it is the ultimate celebration of our shared humanity. We are all thinking about the same things, we all crave intimacy, it is what makes us human. In sex with strangers I am 

reminded of this. My hate and anger dissipates. In sex with strangers I have learnt languages and seen grief and come to know things about my body and its wants and abilities. There is no shame in these things when it is with a stranger, because the moment is fleeting. My guard is higher when I have existing romantic feelings for the other. 

In the Everything is Romantic belief, romance is separated from romantic love. Instead, it is believed that romance is the beauty of the unknown, of the every day, of the love that exists in so many forms all around us. Is it therefore difficult to think of casual sex as romantic because our society conflates sex with romantic love. I blame religion – specifically Christianity and its notion that sex is reserved for marriage – for this. 

It is important for me to write this doctrine not just so that others may practice what I preach, or that it may give words to the feelings I know many of those around me already possess, but to remind myself that there is no guilt and shame surrounding what is romantic to me. The battle is ongoing and I fight it constantly. When one is reminded of the romance of life it makes easier the whole process of living. I am not looking for romance in casual sex – something else that is easily conflated with the process, or weaponised against women accused of using casual sex with men in hopes of developing something romantically. You don’t need to look for romance because it is already there. You just need to feel it. 

Copyright Hannah, June 2025. All rights reserved; this intellectual property belongs solely to Hannah.