How To Improve Your Hookups
There’s a lot of discourse around hookup culture — is it good, is it bad, are people forgoing relationships, is it contributing to cheating, is there a fear of commitment. We’re not here to answer those questions. Instead, we’re here to help make your hookups better, if you’re choosing to partake. As long as everyone involved are actively consenting and enjoying themselves, there’s nothing sexual that is inherently bad. Hookups can be a great tool depending on your season of life and what you’re looking for.
Risks and Rewards of Hookups
People hookup for a variety of reasons. They can be great when you aren’t looking for a relationship, are wanting to embark on some sexual exploration, while you’re traveling, and ultimately getting to have sex with other people with (generally) no strings attached. All of these are completely valid and normal reasons to partake in hookup culture. But with reward comes some risk.
The core purpose of a hookup is that it’s often a one time or string of one-off situations, sometimes with strangers and sometimes with people you know. Unless you’re an in-depth planner, hookups are often unplanned. This spontaneity, while fun, leads to some risks. First, STIs are always a factor anytime you have sex, no matter if it’s a hookup or not. But in the case of hookups, there’s an even greater risk because it’s unlikely that everyone has their latest STI panel results on hand from their doctor. Even if you have a conversation with someone about it before having sex, they may not know they were exposed or could be untruthful. Second, especially if you’re with a stranger, there’s always a general safety element. Sex is vulnerable and so is being alone with someone you don’t know. While there is a much higher likelihood of violence toward women and trans people, every person can experience a dangerous situation during a hookup. Last, no matter how hard we try, sometimes people get attached. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, and it’s not something that we can really control. But even if everyone is on the same page about wanting to stick with “no strings attached,” a string might actually make its way in there.
While hookups are usually spontaneous in nature, there are a few factors that can set you up for success to lower the risks and improve your game play.
Hookup Mistakes and How to Fix Them
Mistake #1: Misaligned Expectations
Hookups start way before and go way beyond the time when you’re actually having sex. Especially with the post-sex scenarios, there are hundreds of ways to finish off a hookup, and not everyone has the same idea for what they want.
Are you spending the night together? Are you getting breakfast in the morning? Can you fall asleep together or should actually leave in the middle of the night? Do you exchange numbers or social media handles? Should one of you text the other? Are you open to going out afterwards? Is this a one-time thing or do you want to keep this going for a little while?
What may seem like obvious answers to you, it might be completely different for whoever else was involved in the hookup. This misalignment puts you on a fast track to someone being disappointed, hurt, or confused.
The Improvement: You don’t need to have a fully-fledged document of answers before jumping into bed with someone, but think through what your ideal is. Are there any non-negotiable items, like spending the night? Before you’re too deep, take a brief time out to get on the same page. The perfect time to slide it in is when the suggestion of going somewhere gets brought up. It can be as simple as “Are you ok if I don’t spend the night? I don’t need to leave immediately after, but I wasn’t planning to sleep over” or “Are you cool with keeping this a one-time thing? I’m definitely down and excited, but I’m traveling a lot and am not looking for anything beyond tonight.” A quick check in can get everyone aligned and leaving without feeling like they were misled.
Mistake #2: Unrealistic Expectations
The next type of expectations is for yourself. Sex and hookups can be great, but they’re not always as “life changing” as we think. Everybody is different. We all have our own likes and dislikes, ways we move, communicate, and interpret other people. It’s impossible to expect that without practice, sex would be perfect the first (or even tenth) time. That doesn’t mean that a hookup will never be good, it just means that there is a little more guesswork involved. You haven’t had the opportunity to know what turns the other person on, what sounds mean they want more, or how to know when to change things up. The same goes for them.
The Improvement: By no means should you go into a hookup expecting it to be bad, and we hope that every time you have sex, it is truly life changing. But consider slightly shifting the scale of how you evaluate sex when you don’t have as much background with a person. It may not be the best sex you’ve ever had in your life (or it might be), but that doesn’t inherently make it bad. Good sex can mean different things for different people. Did you learn a new position, like the way they kissed, explore a new kink, or build confidence? All these things can be indicators of good sex, beyond the sensations themselves.
Mistake #3: Unpreparedness
There’s an episode of New Girl where Winston is heading to someone’s house to have sex. They get to the bedroom and he doesn’t have a condom. He throws his pants back on and runs out the door to buy condoms at the store, only to realize he put on her sweats and left his wallet and phone at her house. He races back to his house and grabs condoms, makes his way back to her apartment complex, and has absolutely no idea which unit is hers. Without a phone, he’s left calling her name, hoping she hears him, until neighbors start yelling at him to go home.
Don’t be like Winston.
There is nothing worse than to be moments away from having sex, only to realize you don’t have a condom or even lube. Especially with hookups, condoms are essential. They are the only form of protection that keeps everyone safe from pregnancy and STIs. Lube is also more than just a nice perk. It can completely elevate the experience for everyone involved. Plus, if you were ever in the boy scouts, you know that you should always Come Prepared.
The Improvement: Keep a few Champ Condoms on you, so that you not only have them available, but you won’t have to settle for using a brand that you don’t like. Leave a couple in your jacket pocket or your bag. A bottle of lube isn’t always as discreet and travel-friendly, but it’s easy to keep a bottle or two in your house for when things come back to your place. Having both water-based and silicone-based options are even better. This way you can adapt to the use of sex toys, shower sex, anal play, and more.
Mistake #4: Staying Silent
It can feel awkward to communicate during sex when it’s just a hookup. It may feel like it’s coming off as telling someone what to do or making them think what they are doing isn’t good. But communicating can make things better (and get you closer to that “life changing” sex). Staying silent means that sex becomes a guessing game for everyone involved. It makes you feel less confident that you’re doing what they like and in the worst-case scenario, causes you to fake your way through some pretty un-enjoyable sex.
The Improvement: Be vocal during sex, in whatever way that means for you. This could be masked as dirty talk and telling them how good something feels or that you like it when they do that. You can utilize sounds to emphasize what is hitting the spot. Or even just tell them you want something specific. If you’re worried about it coming off as correcting them, use the tried-and-true compliment sandwich — “It feels so good when you do that. Could we try this also? Oh yeah, that’s amazing.”
Mistake #5: Lying (to Yourself)
We’ve all been in a situation where we want one thing, but need another. This happens all the time with hookups. We might want to keep things disconnected, unattached, and purely sexual, but our emotions get involved. There can be a lot of shame around emotions and sex. It’s easy to put hookups or friends with benefits on a pedestal as the goal. To get the benefits of sex without putting in the emotional work. And sometimes this is achievable and a great fit for where you’re at in life. Other times, it’s not in the cards. We may even try to trick or gaslight ourselves into thinking that we aren’t catching feelings, that we won’t get attached, or that we only want sex. But if there was a trick to turning emotions off, someone would have definitely discovered it by now.
The Improvement: Unfortunately, our improvement is not a tip on how to get those emotions to go away, instead, it’s to embrace them and listen to yourself. Emotions and attachments are not a bad thing. That connection to others is actually what makes sex so good. Even if we don’t feel it deeply, we are experiencing hormone releases, vulnerability, and intimacy with each person we have sex with. If you’re having hookups without getting attached and you’re loving it, great. If you’re finding yourself in a tug-of-war instead, it’s time to reevaluate the costs and benefits.
Mistake #6: Substance Use
Using alcohol and drugs can be a big part of the lead up to hookups. People can feel more relaxed, open, and outgoing with substances. But things can get a bit tricky for a number of reasons. The relaxed, open, and outgoing feelings can cause people to make decisions that they wouldn’t when they are sober. Even if someone said “yes” in the moment, it could feel like a “no” in the morning. Drugs and alcohol can also lead to an overall inhibited sexual experience. It can cause premature ejaculation, trouble getting an erection, muted physical sensations, or trouble finishing.
The Improvement: There’s no singular guide for how to integrate drugs and alcohol into your sex life, especially with hookups. The safest practice is to not have sex with anyone who is under the influence of any substances. We also recognize that so many hookups come from evenings out at bars, clubs, or parties. If drugs or alcohol are involved, don’t have sex if you or someone else is actively high or intoxicated. If either of you wouldn’t be confident sending an email to your boss in your current state, you may want to reconsider the hookup.
If you remember one thing from this article, let it be the boy scout motto of “always be prepared”. Keep those condoms and lube in stock so that you don’t miss the winning shot in the final quarter.