CASUAL SEX

noun (Health and Fitness) (Lifestyle and Leisure) (People and Society) Sexual activity between people who are not regular or established sexual partners. Etymology: Formed by compounding: sex which is casual. History and Usage: A change in public attitudes towards sexual activity was the essential prerequisite for sexual activity to be described as casual sex, since the description implies that sex with a diversity of partners is conceivable--a view which, however much it may have been held by individuals, was not much aired in public before the 'swinging' sixties. During the seventies significant numbers of people began to question the conventional wisdom that only husband and wife, or those in a 'steady relationship', should have sexual intercourse. However, the idea that sex could become a transaction between any two (or more) otherwise unacquainted people remained controversial, despite the existence of such long-established forms of casual sex as prostitution. Use of the expression steadily increased, possibly indicating more widespread acceptability for the concept, and by the late seventies casual could also be applied to sexual partners. What brought the phrase to unprecedented prominence during the eighties was the Aids crisis, which made non-judgemental plain speaking about the reality of people's sexual behaviour essential. The length of the list might suggest that Auden was in the habit of 'cruising'--picking up boys for casual sex. Humphrey Carpenter W. H. Auden (1981), p. 97 The advice is to either avoid casual sex or to use a condom. New Musical Express 14 Feb. 1987, p. 4 See also safe sex