Abstract

This paper analyses online texts concerning the supposed rules' and etiquette' of heterosexual casual sex, exploring how ideal' casual sex was constructed - as object and practice. We examine how casual sex was constituted by authors who positioned themselves as knowledgeable and/or expert in relation to casual sex and demonstrate the discourses that their accounts drew on in constructing archetypal casual sex. Our analysis is situated within feminist/critical theorising and debates regarding the institution of heterosexuality and, in particular, construction of monogamy as ideal' when it comes to heterosexual relationships. We argue that casual sex was constituted as not a natural act through the specific instructions of how to do casual sex right'. We outline the construction of an attraction imperative in relation to casual sex, its hierarchies of respectability, and address what an analysis about casual sex tells us about contemporary heterosexuality. This paper demonstrates that although casual sex could possibly offer an alternative to the currently pervasive mononormativity, it fails to provide this in accounts of ideal' casual sex as relayed in the public arena.