Women in the throes of what society calls the “hookup culture” came up with a name for the men behind their broken hearts – fuckboy.
Fuckboy (noun): a man who has sex with women without any intention of developing a relationship with them outside of the bedroom.
Some men make it clear from the beginning that they want a no-strings-attached (NSA) relationship, so if they’re ever called upon in court they can point to that early verbal contract for defense. Others keep their intentions to themselves until the girl asks to define the relationship (DTR) and another portion will go radio silent after a few hookups to shake an overly-attached bootycall.
Ladies, raise your hand if you’ve ever been personally victimized by a fuckboy.
Alright, now put your hands down and take notes.
It usually goes like this. Girl meets boy, boy charms girl, girl sleeps with boy, girl tells friends she met a new guy. Boy and girl sleep together a few more times, girl falls for boy, boy sleeps with three other girls. Boy loses interest in girl, girl drunk texts boy, boy ignores texts, girl cries to friends, friends dub boy as “fuckboy.”
Wait, but why isn’t “fuckgirl” a thing? I mean, sure, there are definitely girls out there who lead boys on and ultimately break their hearts, but anyone reading this article can’t deny that womanizers are way more common than maninizers (which isn’t even a real word – point proven). The fact is that fuckboys earned their title because they break girls’ hearts way more often than the other way around.
Second semester sophomore year of college I met a guy in the dining room of my sorority and I drunkenly offered him a yogurt. I fucking love yogurt. He refused it, which should have been the first warning sign. Fast forward a few weeks of FB messaging and adding each other on social media and I was walking to his fraternity house a few nights every week to do the nasty.
I took him to my formal and we had a blast, so I was surprised when he didn’t ask me to his date party, which happened to be the following week.
“What the fuck?” I asked him.
“I thought you knew what this was,” he said. “We’re just fucking.”
Even though we hardly saw each other outside the confines of his room, we had hung out so many times that I expected us to progress into something more than just a late night arrangement. That fantasy quickly crumbled when he gave me a reality check and told me what was up - three months after the fact.
Two years later and I was still a fish hooked on this fuckboy’s reel until I learned about the science of love and realized I didn't have feelings for him, my body did.
If you don’t believe there’s a neurobiology behind feelings, you’re not the only one. In fact, Dr. Alfred C. Kinsey, AKA the OG pioneer of sex research, taught Indiana University students in his 1938 marriage course that love couldn’t be taught, because it wasn’t possible to scientifically study it. During the time the course was taught society was ruled by prudish, Victorian morals which condemned premarital sex. 90 percent of all marriages that ended in divorce were due to sexual maladjustment, Kinsey told his students, affirming that sex was the “glue” holding society together. While happiness and emotions were also important to a happy marriage, he just couldn’t teach that in his class – so he stuck with sex.
Anyway, in 1947 Dr. Kinsey created an entire institute dedicated to sex research. His goal was to collect a huge sample of sexual case histories to normalize previously considered abnormal sexual activity.
With a baseline for American sexual behavior, he could show people that there wasn’t just one way to do anything. 70 years later, the institute that bears his name is taking a new direction towards studying the science of love, something Kinsey never thought possible.
So… what the fuck am I talking about? What does science have to do with getting over your fuckboy? I’ll tell you if you give me a freaking second, holy shit.
Years ago, Dr. Sue Carter, the current director of the infamous Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction, discovered that oxytocin, a hormone known for playing a role in social cues, childbirth and maternal bonding, also facilitated monogamy among prairie voles, meaning they are among 3 percent of mammals that form bonds with their partner that last after mating.
When injected with oxytocin, female prairie voles formed even stronger bonds with her partner. Another hormone, vasopressin, was found to promote pair-bonding in male prairie voles. The surprising thing is that these rodents are socially monogamous, not sexually. In lament terms, that means that a father will raise his babies and live with his wife forever, but will still have sex with other female prairie voles. Before you go off on these voles for their infidelity, remember that thanks to contraceptives, humans are the only mammals who have sex without the sole purpose of procreation. To a prairie vole, being socially monogamous is more important than being sexually, because a life-mate matters more to them than their bastard children.
Essentially, the biological explanation behind these rodents’ human-like lifelong bonds points at oxytocin, the “love hormone.” No, this doesn't mean that having sex with someone will result in an immediate attachment. Duh. You're reading an article about why the boy you've been fucking doesn't want to date you. But, it does help explain why sex is an important part of keeping a long-term relationship strong and in tact.
I think all of us women can agree that when guys are skillful enough to help us achieve orgasm it feels fucking amazing, which in turn makes them fucking amazing. And the more we have sex, the more we attribute that euphoria to them.
But if dudes also release oxytocin during orgasm, how come fuckboys don’t feel the same way about us?
Because testosterone, aka the “fuckboy hormone” lowers their level of oxytocin response.
RUFK?
While we’re out here orgasming and attributing euphoric feelings of love to them, their bodies aren’t telling them to feel that way. Pretty fucked, right?
As Trump would say, the game of love is rigged. So sad.
[Side note - if this attachment bond is only lowered in dudes, I wonder if a). lesbians have an easier time forming romantic relationships and b). if gay men fuck around more than heterosexuals]
But wait! All hope isn’t lost – there’s a way out of this vicious cycle.
You now know that there’s something in your body telling you to trust and attach to the person you just had sex with – it’s biological. So, if you can remember that the next time you twitch with glee, you can take a step back and realize that you don’t love the dude who made that happen, you love that it happened. You’re in love with the orgasm, not the person.
Back to being hooked on my fuckboy’s fishing reel. God, I love that metaphor. When I learned all about the effects of oxytocin, I realized that I wasn’t really infatuated with him, but rather enamored by the sex. I accidentally overly attributed my feelings because my body tricked me into it. Damn you, body! When I took a step back and evaluated our relationship with oxytocin in mind, I could see everything from his POV. It was just sex and nothing more than that.
Understanding the neurobiology behind one of the most intimate aspects of our lives helps us take reign of our emotions. Don’t be a slave to your fuckboy, and relish the best parts of the hookup culture. 80 years ago Dr. Kinsey was teaching students how to have sex because they asked for it, while today millennials complain that too much sexual freedom and activity is the backbone of the death of dating.
But, it doesn’t have to be. We are lucky to live in a sex saturated society that doesn’t condemn us (for the most part) for having sex before knowing your partner’s favorite color (mine’s blue, for the record. But I’ve been dabbling with purple and green too).
So give the fuckboys some leeway – it’s not their fault testosterone inhibits an intense oxytocin release. And if you can remember all this and separate your bodily responses from your emotions, you can reap the benefits of an NSA relationship and orgasm without planning your wedding.
And thus, the fucked-over-girl can become the fuckgirl.
