Primal Fears, Casual Sex and Emotionally Messed-up Women. Thoughts about the Instinctual Basis of Pair Bonding.

Being a city dweller I rarely have had to experience head-on the primitive unconscious fears that exist within me. But at the age of 34 I finally did as I slept alone in a tent on an area where there were wolves moving around. I had heard about reports of wolves killing domestic animals nearby; a friend of mine had seen a wolf with his own eyes in the neighboring fields; and I myself had a year or two ago seen some likely wolf paw prints in the nearby forest…

While I knew it was extremely unlikely that a wolf would attack me, my possible proximity to quite large pretadors was surprisingly stirring. I came to understand my bodily fragility in a way that I had not before, as I sank into the instinctual structure existing deep within me. This mental space was, in its unfamiliarity, a very intense one to occupy. As a result of this experience I gained some interesting insights into the human condition; of which perhaps the most interesting ones were about human pair bonding and why casual sex can have devastating consequences on women's emotional well-being.

But before I get into those insights, and to the reflections they later brought forth, I need to explain my experience in fuller detail. That way my conclusions will perhaps make more sense to those of us who are unfamiliar with this primal layer of consciousness.

First, let’s take a quick overglance on the actual wolf situation here in Finland. There has been no reported cases of wolves killing humans in here for over 130 years — and in those last cases the unfortunate victims were small children. Wolves are typically afraid of and avoid humans. The most likely reason for a wolf attack would be rabies. Happily, rabies is very rare in Finland and even more rarely it is of domestic origin. This is thanks to policies and cultural values which don’t allow for the abandoned dogs to be left to stray; the effectiveness of bite vaccines in controlling the spread of rabies among wild predators roaming at the Russian border; as well as required veterinary documentation for domestic animals brought to Finland from other countries. All in all, the propability that a wolf would actually attack me was pretty much zero.

While I indeed slept that night alone, I was not traveling alone. My traveling companions — a mother with her three children — were sleeping in a small old cottage nearby. I could have slept there as well, but felt that sleeping outside would be more interesting experience. The mother of three felt more feaful about my situation than I did, but I assured to her that I was in no real risk. Besides, I would take a robust firestick with me into the tent so that if the negligible possibility of a predator attack would actualize I would be armed. Despite these assurances of mine, she for two or three times during that night shouted to me from the cottage's door so as to make sure that I was ok.

Her worried questions didn't wake me up. That was because I didn't really sleep at all. Instead, I was hovering between awakeness and sleep for hours. In this mental state I wasn't intellectually pondering over abstract concepts about bodily survival and human evolution. No; I felt those things in me viscerally.

The primary emotion I felt that night was not exactly fear. I did feel fear and I could have let it overcome me. In that case I would've taken my sleeping bag and quickly ran into the safety of the cottage. However, I decided that I wouldn't allow that to happen. So perhaps my emotional state would best be described as courage.

So there I was, alone in the rather flimsy tent with the forked firestick next to me. The air was cool and fresh; I was feeling relatively warm and comfortable inside my sleeping bag. As I was laying there, listening to the singing of evening birds, I started to plan what I'd do if a wolf would try to attack me. It was clear to me that the biggest mistake I could make in such situation would be to let myself be paralyzed by fear. That would make me an easy meal for a predator. So whatever else would happen, I should not allow fear to overtake me.

Even though the tent around me was by no means sturdy, my guess was that a wolf wouldn't be able to come through it. If it’d try, I would simply hit it through the canvas with the poker I had with me. That would propably be enough to make the animal run away. But...

My mind started to wander further. What would I do in the hypothetical case where a wolf would be suddenly right in front of me, jumping its jaw open and teeth bared? Obviously I would forcefully swing the firestick at the wolf's head so as to redirect the animal’s movement and to cause it intense pain. But then again… Let's suppose that I would not have the time to pick up the poker. What would I then do?

I understood that my instinctual response would be to lift up my forearm between me and the wolf. That way the animal’s teeth would sink into my arm instead of my face or neck. I would then try to fight the animal off me — with the help of the firestick, if I’d manage to grap a hold of it. But… what if I wouldn’t able to reach my armament?

My mind started to make some calculation. On the minus side, the wolf — with its sharp teeth and strong jaw — would have a clear upperhand in the ensuing combat. I also don't have any fighting experience while the wolf propably would have plenty of it. Further, the wolf would be in a tight contact to its inherent instinctual wisdom telling it what to do. But on the plus side, I’d be phycsically bigger of the two of us. I also have two arms capable of manifold movements and I could kick the animal with my legs. Also, in the highly adrenalized struggle over my life, I would likely be able to muster out much more power and instinct-based movements from me than I normally am. So if the wolf wouldn't be very hungry or angry, I propably would be able to cause it enough pain so that the animal would leave me alone.

However — I pondered — if I would be unable to grasp the poker and the wolf was intent on killing me, I most likely wouldn't survive the attack. But even then, maybe I would be able to cause it enough pain and damage so that it'd think more than twice before attacking another human again. So perhaps my death wouldn't be completely in vain.

All in all, I had now come to the conclucion that I'd propably be able to succesfully defend myself against a wolf. And in the case I wouldn't... Well, I wasn’t actually feeling very worried about dying either, especially if my struggle would help the ”human tribe” to survive further. Although I propably wouldn't feel as carefree if death by laceration would be imminent…

(For some reason, I only considered cases where I'd be attacked by a single animal. Obviously my chances of survival would decrease significantly if there were more than one predator attacking me. Perhaps my unconscious mind assessed that considering the prospect of multiple predators would be too depressing and fear-inducing in the loneliness of the night.)

Going through these different scenarios made me think about our human ancestors living in the wild nature. For the most part of the human evolutionary history, we were quarry for the big predatory animals. The best quarantee for our safety would've been the human herd — or one’s tribe, as it would later evolve to be. Group of humans acting as an organized team, especially with the aid of even simple tools, could with relative ease chase away the predators attempting to prey on them. On the other hand, a non-armed human sleeping alone in the wilderness would be a easy prey.

But once again, my mind started to wander further. What would I do in the hypothetical case where I'd be attacked by a wolf — jumping at me, saliva-covered teeth ready to tear into flesh — but I'd be holding a helpless infant in my arms?

I realized that my instinctual reaction would be to cover the baby with my own body. That, at first glance, seemed like a rather irrational thing to do as it would result into my back being ripped open by the predator. After that I wouldn't be able to defend either myself or the baby. But despite this rational assessment, I was certain in my conviction that letting go of the infant — even for the sake of protecting us from the predator — would not be an option.

While this course of action was apparent to me immediately, figuring out the reasons for that certainty required some later reflections. The first reason, which was the only one I immediately understood, was that a really small baby could die simply from the sudden drop to ground itself. Second reason was that if the baby would be laying on the ground there would be a high risk for him or her being accidently trampled over in the heat of the combat — this again would be lethal to a small baby. Third reason was that if I would not be holding the infant steadily in my arms, the child would become an easy prey for the predator; for if my body wouldn't act as a physical barrier between the baby and the predator, then the predator could simply snatch the infant and quickly run away. So all in all, leaving the child unprotected even for a short moment in a gravely dangerous situation would mean almost certain death for such a fragile being.

Obviously these feelings about the importance to hold on the baby, even at the high propability of my own death, did not arise from any moral considerations about what would be ”the right thing to do”. It was all instinctual. I was glimpsing into the deep seated maternal instincts within me, and they were instructing me on how I could practically protect my baby in a desperate situation.

What I next understood was that my need to keep holding on to the baby would make a lot more sense if there would be someone who'd protect me while I was protecting the baby. Indeed, while belonging to a tribe would be essential for our survival in the wild nature, with an infant I would need specialized protection — an individual who would take it as his task to ensure that me and my baby are safe. That person would need to be a man because he'd need to be physically so strong that he would be able to defend not only himself but us two too. And not just any man would do; because he would need to feel such a deep commitment to his task of protecting us that he'd fight a wild predator head-on if the need would arise. Such a man, it was apparent to me, would be the father of the child.

When I later reflected on this intuition I realized that the essential ingredient would be a deep emotional bond felt towards me and the baby by said man. In other words, the man protecting us could be a member of my birth family — my father, or perhaps my brother. In some cases we might be saved from a danger by a more distant relative of ours; and in even rarer cases by a non-relative man who'd be part of the same tightly-knit tribe. But the latter two cases would likely happen only through luck, as the man happened to be nearby and saw the looming danger, and not because he was dedicatedly protecting us.

In other words, the weaker the emotional bond felt by the man towards me and the baby would be, the lesser the likelihood that said man would be willing to put his own safety at risk for our sake. Indeed, the propability of being saved by a man with no pre-existing emotional bond to us would be close to zero. The likelihood for a serious injury or death — even for a physically strong and capable man — would just be too high. And even if there would be a noble-natured man who’d be willing to come to our rescue, it would be extremely unlikely that he would happen to walk by just as we'd be under attack.

But, as I was hovering in the primal state of consciusness that night in the tent, it was obvious to me that it would be the father of the child who'd be protecting me and my hypothetical baby from the dangers of the wilderness. If the pair bonding between this man and me would've unfolded correctly, then he would in himself feel a strong need to be near us precisely so that he could protect (and provide for) us. The depth of this bond between him and us would correlate with how unwavering he would be in his felt commitment to be there for us.

If the emotional commitment felt by this hypothetical man would be strong, he would want to come to our rescue despite the hazards the situation would pose to him. In fact, he would likely experience such an intense rush of adrenaline and emotions that he would hardly be thinking about the dangers involved in fighting away a predator from us. Indeed, his actions would not arise from a conscious consideration about the situation at hand but from his instincts instructing him on how he could save us from a certain death.

Of course, these statements about the possible actions of this assumed man are just extrapolations from my part. For I am not a man; I have no personal experience of the instinctual realms of men. But the experience of instinct within me, telling me to protect my infant even at the expense of my own life, gave me a suspicion that similar self-sacrificial behavioral patterns are encoded into the instinctual structure of men as well. After all, if looked from an evolutionary perspective, a human father allowing his offspring to die without a fight would not make very much sense considering the long and resource-consuming childhood of humans.

Let’s now go through imaginary scenarios that could unfold from a sitation where the father of the child would witness the imminent danger looming over us and decides to come to our rescue. If he would be able to chase off or kill the animal before it'd hurt any of us, then that would be a clear victory for all of us. The worst case, on the other hand, would be if he and me both would either die or be seriously injured — then the baby's chances for survival would be almost non-existent, too.

But what about the case where he would be ale to save me and the baby, but would experience serious harm himself? While this would mean his own detriment, he would have succeeded in what his instinctual structure told him to do: to save his child — the carrier of his genes — and the mother of said child. While the child's future would now on be drastically more unsecure than it was when his father was there to provide his protection, at least the mother would be there to take care of the child. The father's sacrifice, then, would have increased the likelyhood that the child would live to see adulthood and, perhaps, one day would move those genes to the children of her or his own.

And what about the case where he would not succeed in protecting me but would succesfully fend the animal off before it could hurt the baby? While this end result wouldn’t be good for me, through my sacrifice I would have succeeded in saving the child carrying my genetic information. And while the father propably would not be the one nurturing the infant from that on — that task would likely befall on my mother, sister or some other woman of the tribe — he most likely would want to continue on with providing resources and protection for said child. And if the child would be able to reach maturity and produce offspring, then the instinctual encodings within me would have worked their magic to the intended effect.

Perhaps it is good to underline here that even though I've written about ”my” hypothetical baby and partner, I obviously don't mean to speak of myself as an individual. I am only using myself as an example — as a particularized expression of the female of human species. Into each and every one of us is encoded the universal human instinctual structure. This encoding is how generation after generation before us has survived; and that tightly-packed information is transmitted to the future generations through procreation.

This elaborate biological-psychological structure is the hardly-earned result of the lived lives of our ancestors. Indeed, most of these structures come from very distant past, from the times when our ancestors were not yet even ”human”. Some of those instincts have become so deeply ingrained to our existence that they are but automatic reactions to stimuli. However, more complex instincts leave room for flexibility in their expression. For example, I can imagine many scenarios where a woman would not sacrifice herself for her infant. She might be so paralyzed by fear that she’d be unable to do so; or perhaps she’d have other children as well and instinctively makes the decision that she cannot afford to let herself die. She could also simply first and foremost want to save herself, or she might even be happy to let the baby die for desperate or malicious reasons. Similarly, there are men who would watch aside as his partner and child are devoured by a wild beast.

But returning to the night I spent in the tent, I now came to understand why casual sex ended up messing me up emotionally. I suddenly realized that my animal brain doesn't understand the concept of a ”condom”. While my rational brain knew that I wouldn't be having babies (nor diseases) as a result of my sexual encounters, the perspective of my instincts was that I was engaging in high-risk behaviour. For I was having emotionally uncommitted sex with men; and to my animal brain this implicated that upon my possible pregnancy, there would not be a man around who would protect me and the baby — in the very visceral, survival-based sense described above. In other words, my instinctual mind thought that I was placing myself into a very serious and possibly even mortal danger.

This sense of emotional distress can be further elaborated by considering situations where a woman would, in the setting of nature, engage in non-committed sex with different men. Those situation would mostly likely be ones where a woman has no man — either her own father, or a sexual partner emotionally committed to her — who would protect her from the surrounding dangers. After all, being physically weaker than a man is, she is more vulnerable to the predatory wild animals; and she is also vulnerable to the predatory human men who'd like to rape or otherwise harm her if such opportunity would arise. Also, getting enough meat to eat would be more difficult to her — especially if she’d have small children — which could result into a malnutrition for her and her possible children.

In such a situation of constant overshadowing danger, engaging in emotionally uncommitted sex with men could prove to be a viable survival strategy. For even a shallow commitment provides a short-lived safety, and thus is better than having no commitment at all. Similarly, gaining access to short-term resources is better than having no resources at all. So, for the animal brain, the very act of engaging into casual sex could indicate that the woman owning said brain is in a dangerous situation — based on the apparent fact that she is willing to take risks that high. This instinctual calculation could in itself cause an unconscious sense of fear or unease within a woman.

There is one more reason why, in the primitive setting, a woman would want to have sex with a man without prior emotional connection with him. (Besides more personal reasons, such as her being overtaken by her own lust.) It would be because the sexual act in itself can trigger the instinctual protective pattern within a man. While sex doesn't necessarily invoke tender emotions in people who engage in it — rape would be impossible if it would — it does have the potentiality of creating and deepening the emotional connection between a couple having sex. So even though she’d be having sex with a man who is not emotionally invested in her, the sex itself could lead into such investment; which would mean that she (and her possible children) would end up having a proper protector.

Indeed, sex is a fundamental component in the formation of a pair bond precisely due to the emotional effects it has. These effects also help to maintain the emotional connection and commitment between an already bonded pair. Maintaining this bond is highly important because — unlike the cubs of most animals — human children remain weak and vulnerable for many years. This means they will need their parents’ protection and care for quite a long time. Thus, since sex between parents can deepen the emotional bond they share, it in part incentivises them to stay together despite the difficulties they unavoidably will be encountering in life. The continued sexual relationship also functions as a release valve for the sexual instinct itself. If left unfulfilled, it could lead into a search of a new sex partner. This search could result in the already existing children receieving less protection and resources from that on. Shortly said, sex between parents helps to ensure the survival of their children.

The lengthy and vulnerable human childhood might also be one of the reason why human women are interested in having sex even when they are not ovulating. The same reason propably forms a part of the explanation of why the human sex act usually lasts longer than a simple insemination would require; as well as why women can have multiple orgasms during a sexual stimulation. Sex also gives plentiful possibilities for enjoyable social games between the partners, ranging from light-hearted playfulness to intense forms of powerplay; and being the highly social creatures that we humans are, this play in itself feels very rewarding for us. All these aspects of sex seem to incentivise humans to have sex in a more prolonged and frequent manner — in other words, to have sex simply for the pleasure of it.

Interestingly, the aim of these incentives seem to lean a bit more on the sexual pleasures and desires of women than those of men. The pleasure-incentive for women propably exist in part to ensure that they would want to have sex despite the dangers such as childbirth that befall on them as the consequence of intercourse. But, quite contradictorily — it is the fear of pregnancy that is one of the most potent dissolvers for a woman’s willingeness and ability to enjoy sex. Even if she wants to have babies at certain points in her life, for most of the time she likely wants to have sex just for the physical and emotional pleasures it can provide for her (and her partner). And this is where the interesting phenomenon of concealed ovulation perhaps made an entrance to the evolutionary scene.

We humans are quite clever. It thus doesn’t seem unplausible to me that our ancestors of distant past made the connection between an overt ovulation and pregnancy. And just like today, our foremothers often wanted to have sex simply for pleasure of it. This interest in more frequent sex but fewer babies resulted into a decline in the numbers of offspring the openly ovulating women of distant past were having. Then, at some point in time, the phenomenon of hidden ovulation emerged. The evolutionary result of this was that the number of offspring for women with concealed ovulation first outnumbered, then genetically triumphed over, the offspring of those women whose days of ovulation were obvious. After all, the women with hidden ovulation still had the incentives to have sex but didn’t know the exact days when they were fertile, meaning more unplanned pregnancies.

To summarise my speculations above: the concealed ovulation is a scheme by evolution to ensure that women won’t be able to both ravenously enjoy sex and avoid getting pregnant. If evolution was a person, (s)he would think along the following lines: “How to incentivise human women to have sex; despite them understanding the consequences of intercourse; while simultaneously ensuring that those consequences will come to be?” So perhaps the perks of women’s sexuality are a fascinating result from a tug-of-war between the evolutionary forces and the intelligent human mind.

However the case with the hidden ovulation might be, it is quite clear to me that it wouldn’t make much sense if these pleasure-incentives would primarily exist for women to be impergnated by (half-)strangers. The costs-rewards balance would be tilted too strongly on the wrong direction for her. Even if all the possible dangers of such behaviour for her were not taken into account, the sexual pleasure itself would not guaranteed for her in such sexual encounters. After all, a woman’s sexual pleasure during an intercourse depends quite a lot on the skills of her partner and a new man might be lacking in those skills.

It would make more sense if the evolutionary aim of her sexual enjoyment is to strengthen the emotional bond she already shares with a man. The continued sexual pleasures with said man will also result in him fathering subsequently children for her. This is a quite secure way for her to ensure that her and her children’s needs will be met. And on the pleasure side of things: while an established sexual relationship is not a guarantee for sexual enjoyment, the longer time span of such relationship gives for the man (and for the woman!) more opportunities to learn how to pleasure her.

Maybe at this point it would be good to discuss some of the terminology used in this essay. For if some reader hasn't already understood what I am implicating with the phrases such as ”pair bonding” and ”emotional commitment”, then let us for a moment use more direct language. I am not using these phrases only so as to name certain existing processes of nature — such as the forming of a relational unit between a male and a female in a way that will be beneficial for the survival of their offspring. I am using this scientified language to hide the depths of experience that is involved in the phenomena discussed. The usage of emotionally flat phrases makes the content of this essay more accessible to the intellectually oriented mind than the usage of the emotionally highly charged word ”love” would.

Perhaps some readers think that the word ”love” is but a meaningless noise uttered to prettify either selfish pleasure-seeking or mechanical movements of soulless nature. On the other hand, others might feel this association between the exalted experience of love and mere instinctual responses is blasphemous degradation. But in my personal view, instincts and spirituality are not contradictory to one another. In fact they often go hand in hand. Borrowing from the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, it can be claimed that it is precisely the ”divine animal” within us — our instinctual nature — which holds both the most vicious and most noble aspects of our being.

But I must halt these considerations and hastily return to the main topics of this essay — otherwise we'll get lost in the thick forests of philosophy. So let us now return to casual sex, but change our perspective on it and consider the point of view of men.

For men casual sex is relatively low in risk. He is physically stronger than she is, so even if she would behave violently he could subdue her. (Woman is physically in much more vulnerable position when having sex with a man.) He is also almost guaranteed to experience the encounter as physically pleasurable. (He isn’t as dependent on the social-emotional-sexual skills of his partner as a woman is for hers.) And most importantly with regards to the contents of this essay, there isn’t any risk of him getting pregnant.

On the other hand, evolutionary speaking the casual sex can be extremely high in its possible rewards for a man. For in an emotionally uncommitted sex he gets a chance to shoot his semen into a woman without the demand that he'd take on the taxing responsibilities of fatherhood. He gets to fulfill his instinctual need for a sexual release without having to carry the heavy consequences of said action. Of course, in the harsh nature the offspring from that kind of sexual encounter might not live for very long — but if the kid would survive, then the man got to spread his genome fowrards in time with very little effort on his part. For the ”selfish gene”, this is quite irresistible possibility. It is no wonder that men often are quite interested if a prospect for emotionally uncommitted sex arises.

But what about the ”unselfish gene”? Do men carry instinct-based, negative emotional consequences from engaging in emotionally uncommited sex? Again — being a woman I don't know. I am able to see, of course, scenarios where a man would not feel emotionally good after casual sex. For example, he might feel fearful that he might after all have to take on the responsibilites of fatherhood. He might feel that his dick is in control of his life more than his head is, and that could make him feel a sense of unease. He could also feel guilt, shame or powerlesness in a situation where the woman he had sex with became a mother, but he isn't with her and thus can’t ensure that the needs of his child will be met. And before the birth of modern society — where a lone woman with children is not in any inherent danger — he could have felt as a burdensome weight on his conscience the knowledge that the baby and the mother would be likely to live harsh and difficult lives, possibly meeting a premature death, precisely because he fucked her but isn't there to protect her.

This kind of thinking, however, seems to require relatively complex conscious considerations on the man’s part and so it is not the answer I am looking for. Instead, I make the following guess. If a man feels instinct-based emotional unease due to the casual sex he has engaged into, it would be because his instinct to protect and provide for his sexual partner and his child was left unfulfilled. Along with it, he lost a chance to fulfill his need to create emotional bonds to them; in other words, he lost a chance to love and be loved. (The emotional pain resulting from unfulfilled instinctual needs could lead into emotional hardening on his part, which makes having further casual sex easier but pair bonding more difficult.)

But let's return to women and their emotional difficulties arising from having had casual sex, using my personal experiences as an example. For before the night when I entered into the primal state of consciousness I had reflected quite a lot about my past sexual and romantic history. I had already come to the conclusion that my experiences with casual sex had contributed to the wrecking nervous breakdown I experienced in my late twenties. Obviously, there were many other reasons for my psychological meltdown besides those experiences; but they did contribute to the emotional instability that eventually led into my internal collapse.

Some time after that psychologically painful life event, I entered into a long-term relationship with a man. Said relationship was full of emotional turmoil, misery and instability; eventually we broke up. But contradictorily enough, I simultaneously experienced a relieving sense of basic emotional security. This feeling I had was, in part, related to the fact that he was my sole long-time sexual partner. And the longer we were together, the more secure I felt. The best way to describe that sense of security is that, psychologically, I felt as if my partner was gently yet steadily hugging me.

Like I wrote earlier in this essay, it was the experience of primal fear of predating large animals which made me understand the reason why casual sex had had such a destructive effect on my emotional life. My animal brain was making assesments of its own about the sexual relationships I was in — and those horrified conclusions differed from those made by my carefree conscious mind. This resulted eventually into my meltdown which was the point where my previously unconscious instinctual needs sprang up to my consciousness. In other words, I realized that I wanted to seriously commit to a man and have his children. The strange emotional security I experienced in the following long-term relationship came from my inner knowledge that I was now with a man who — despite all our difficulties — was of such character that he wouldn't leave me if I'd get pregnant.

While the emotional turmoils in said long-term relationship had other reasons than just the inner chaos I was in, my mental state certainly made things more agonising. I myself was perplexed by my own behaviour, of which I was only poorly in control of. I was constantly throwing emotional tantrums at my partner and had an irrational sense of mistrust towards him. As I now attempt to think my behaviour through the lens of my instinctual brain, I belive it was partly a result of my unconsciousness letting out a long sigh of relief. I was finally safe; and that meant that I could start to let out the bent-up emotional energy that had been building up in me in my previous mental state of verging the edge of primal fear.

Now — if we were to suppose that these considerations about the instinctual roots of pair bonding and the primal fears that can result in a woman as a result of those insticnts are not simply fancy imaginations I built upon the delusions of my half-sleeping mind — then what societal consequences these instinctual forces could have? Manifold, that is obvious. But let's speculate on just one.

Let us suppose that engagement in emotionally uncommitted sex with men has the tendency to create in women a state of emotional distress. If this presupposition holds true; then in a society where it is common for women to have casual sex, large numbers of women would tend to experience lots of emotional insecurity in their sexual-romantic relationships. This would be because they’d feel more and more distrustful towards men due to their repeating experiences of being “left to be eaten by the wolves”.

(It doesn't matter that much whether it was him or her who actually didn’t want the relationship to continue. We are speaking of the instinctual mind, not the rational and logical one.)

With some women this sense of emotional distress could result into a vicious cycle of casual sex. For they would have the instinctual need for an emotional commitment from a man they are sleeping with, while simultaneously having a real or perceived belief that such commitment is not available for them. Thus, a woman might attempt to fulfill her need for protection and resources through having sex with multiple different men. This could give her a short-lived sense of safety. And perhaps sex would incentivise one of those men to continuosly protect and provide for her; perhaps, even to love her...

The sense of mistrust felt towards men would often leak into the emotionally committed sexual relationships as well. For having been repeatedly emotionally hurt in her past, she would on some level be expecting yet another painful betrayal. As a result of that fear she might experience intense bouts of negative emotions — such as jealousy, anger and resentment — towards her partner. While those emotional reactions might or might not be justifiable by the behaviour of the man she is in relationship with, in their essence those emotions would arise from her primal fears. And, unfortunately, even those relationships aiming at commitment would tend to break down relatively easily. This would be both due to the excessive and exhaustive amounts of emotional drama; as well as due to her own sense of mistrust, which would create a self-fulfilling unconscious belief that the relationship she is in is not based on a true emotional commitment. In fact, said emotional drama might be a way for ther to test how emotionally committed he is to her.

If a woman has the perception that she can't have a relationship with a man who is committed in protecting her, she will likely feel the need to fend for herself. She can no longer be vulnerable, because vulnerability attracts predators (both literal and metaphorical). Instead, she needs to become self-sufficient, emotionally tough, competitive and combative. In other words, she needs to behave in a more masculine way so as to compensate for the lack of a man's protection. This emotional hardening also serves as a way to avoid paralyzation due to the terror she might be unconsciously feeling. But this kind of masculine behaviour is unlikely to trigger the protective instincts of men — after all, the need to protect arises from the perception that the other person is vulnerable and thus in a need of protection. So her need to protect herself might end up self-perpetuating that very need.

What seems quite obvious is that the women engaging in emotionally uncommitted sex would also tend to feel fearful of pregnancy and childbirth. While the latter especially can be very dangerous, the unconscious basis for her fears would be more due to the worry of being left alone with the baby than about the natural processes in themselves. Because of this any rational knowledge about the effectiveness of contraceptive methods or the miracles of modern medicine would not ease her sense of distress. In the case of unexpected pregnancy, she might feel the need to get rid of the baby inside her. Indeed — abortion is a modern-day, clean-cut version of infanticide which is an ancient way of solving the problems that an unwanted baby would create.

The overall result of all this would be that women would tend to have children later in life. Often the children would not come into being as the natural unfoldment of succesfull pair bonding. Instead, her pregnancy would happen under the heavy pressure of her biological clock — under the strong instinctual need to have children before its too late.

While I think these kinds of speculations are quite interesting, it is obvious that attempting to explain certain social-cultural patterns only through the instinct-based responses to unstable sexual relationship would be grossly insufficient. Human behaviour, including the human sexuality itself, is far more complex and nuanced than only the instincts to procreate and/or pair bond. However, these instincts do form an essential part of the biological and psychological foundation upon which the complexities of human relationships — and thus the society itself — are built upon. Not taking into account their influence seems, actually, quite foolish. Besides; perhaps our instincts could ”explain it all”, but the meaning of the word ”instinct” would need to explicitly have the Nietzschean connotations mentioned before.

It is also important to point out that many women do enjoy casual sex. If they didn't, the phenomenon of casual sex wouldn't be as common as it today is. I personally engaged into casual sex because I wanted to; those encounters happened because I wanted them to happen. And while these experiences turned out to have negative emotional consequences in my life, as experiences in themselves they were not unpleasant.

However, casual sex has been and continues to be heavy-handedly promoted in the popular media as well as in the never-ending streams of the internet (porn). These imaginal realms affect the perceptions of what is seen as a normal sexual behaviour. Indeed, it was from observing these media sources that I, like many others, came to the conclusion that casual sex was ”normal”, ”cool” and I would ”miss out” if I didn't experience such things.

Perhaps even more importantly these sources of information laid a part of the philosophical-psychological basis from which I viewed sex and especially the sexuality of men. On some level I thought most men to be emotionally cold and nihilistically focused on selfish pleasure-seeking. This opinion had formed unconsciously, and quite early on in my life. I came to understand this as, some years ago, I found pictures I had drawn around the age of 12: they depicted scenes of alcohol-drinking men in a bar hitting on women who had big breasts and wore revealing clothes. Since I come from a rather conservative Christian family these images were not a result from actual situations that I had come to witness. No — I had copied the concept straight from the television. My child’s mind had absorbed like a sponge ideas from the media I consumed. This realization was actually quite terrifying, for it revealed to me not only the roots behind some of my personal views but also the power that the media has on our minds; and especially on the rapidly learning minds of children.

While there indeed are many men who — often or sometimes — engage in emotionally cold or distant sex, my over-generalized belief that “men are like that” made it harder for me to notice and trust in the more noble and emotionally tender sexual-romantic aspects within men. Without such trust, forming a healthy and lasting pair bond becomes quite hard. But it should also be noted that I was not only making observations or assumptions about the nature of men, but also projecting certain not-so-noble parts of my own psyche onto them.

For the sake of clarity, I should perhaps tell that my experiences with casual sex were actually very few. Certainly the sample size is not large enough to conduct any kind of statistical analysis! In fact, the number of samples is so low that it is questionable whether drawing any generalizing conclusions from them is even logically defensible. Indeed — perhaps the connection between my casual sexual experiences and the ensuing states of emotional distress came to be just because I happen to have a weaker or more delicate nervous system than many other women do. It also could be that the reason for that distress was the unconcious effects of my Christian childhood. Perhaps all along I was carrying a sense of guilt due to the “sins” I was engaging in; and thus the ensuing psychological crash was but a result of me not being sexually “liberated” enough.

While I think these explanation do have a kernel of truth in them, I don’t think they are in contradiction to the content of this essay. My own estimation for the evidential power of my personal experiences is that, once they are combined with the observations made about the state of the world around, they serve as an anecdotal evidence for further reflections.

If we, then were to suppose that the generalized propositions and suggestions I make in this essay are true; should the way casual sex is currently culturally viewed be changed? How could we better take into account our inherent instinctual needs, both in our personal lives as well as in the collective culture we inhabit? In what ways should the cultural narrative change, so that more people could live according to those instinctual patterns that increase their sense of well-being instead of those that hinder it?

I'll leave the reader to ponder these questions by him- or herself. I will only note that I am certainly not advocating for a return to a societal system where women are ”protected” through the oppression of their individual freedoms. And now I'm finally ready to quit all this abstract babbling and end the essay by returning to the night I was half-sleeping in the semi-wilderness.

I am happy to report to the reader that I was not eaten by the wolves. The only predatory animals I faced that night were the ones in my imagination. And in the end, I slept in that tent only until 2. a.m. At that time the woman I was traveling with came to ask me if I would go to sleep into the nearby car along with one of her children. Said child was reacting badly to the mold in the old cottage and, as the night had progressed, the child's breathing had become increasingly raspy. The mother felt that the child shouldn't stay any longer in the cabin — but because of her other children, she herself had to stay there. I agreed to the proposed action plan and spent the rest of the night in the sturdy safety of car.

I was both disappointed and relieved that my alone-sleeping experiment was at its end. However, I felt quite worried for the health of the child especially as the night was relatively cold. I now again found myself to be occupying an untypical state of consciousness — hovering between awakeness and sleep — as I was keeping an eye on the child in her sleeping bag. But the thoughts and internal experiences I had in that car had nothing to do with the ones I explored in this essay; thus, they shall remain unspoken.

It was not until the Sun was rising that the child's breathing returned to normal and I finally fell asleep.