“No chance you’re awake, is there?” His words lit up my phone somewhere around 6 a.m. I saw them when I woke up fresh-faced and smug after an early night at 8 a.m. My stomach flipped. But it was also one of those rare scenarios where I knew exactly what I was supposed to do next.
Although we’d spoken a little here and there, this man and I hadn’t actually seen each other for a few years. Given the timing, it was likely that he’d been up all night and was still drunk. Also, I was probably the fifth person he’d texted this exact message.
With all this in mind, the only reasonable response was to ignore him completely and go back to sleep. I had far too much self-respect to even entertain the prospect. It was insulting, degrading, and, frankly, a little embarrassing he thought he could pull this off. What an arrogant asshole.
A few hours later, I was in that arrogant asshole’s bed.
In 2023, booty calls aren’t something we hear much about. Even the phrase itself feels archaic, a rhetorical relic that exists exclusively in out-of-touch comedies from the aughts and the dinner party conversations of baby boomers. But the act itself is still very much a core tenet of modern-day sexual expression.
In short, a booty call consists of arranging a one-off sexual encounter. It’s casual, flippant, and almost always coordinated at an ungodly hour. Often associated with the phrase “You up?” (yes, I’m fully aware this is practically a carbon copy of the text I received), it can be metabolized in a multitude of ways depending on your relationship status, sexual confidence, and overall sense of self-worth.
In the canon of sexual escapades, it’s the booty calls that often provide the most salacious stories. You know, the ones you’ll be forced to regurgitate to your bored married friends, who’ll share them at the school gates and thank you for keeping them young. The more debauched and X-rated they are, the better. And ever since the pandemic forced single people into an unprecedented period of celibacy, it seems like these kind of encounters are happening more than ever.
This much was clear after I put a call out on my social media platforms for stories of people’s booty calls and was inundated with tales. There was the woman who booty-called two men at once in the hope of doubling her chances for sex that night, only to find that both arrived at the same time and wound up bonding over football. The gay man whose booty calls defined his single days and nights (“It just hit the spot”) until he got into a relationship. And the woman who booty-called an old flame, only to have fallen asleep by the time he’d arrived, leaving him stranded on her doorstep.
Given the complexities of the contemporary dating landscape, which has now been gamified beyond repair by apps, it’s not hard to see the appeal of transactional sex. Gone are the hours spent wondering why someone hasn’t texted you back. Wave goodbye to the Sisyphean task of trying to define what you are to each other. And stamp out all those little anxieties in the back of your head, making you feel like it’s only a matter of time until they end it. By having a booty call-only relationship, all you’re holding onto is the easy part: sex.
As women, this is something we’re being encouraged to pursue, particularly if we’re straight. After years of being sexually sequestered, our desires usurped by those of our male partners, it feels like our pleasure is finally being prioritized. What better way to take advantage than by engaging in frivolous casual sex on our own terms? Isn’t it about time we reversed the power dynamics that have oppressed us in the bedroom and, in the words of Carrie Bradshaw circa season one of Sex and the City, started having sex like men? Even if it all goes terribly wrong, at least you get a good story out of it.
These were some of the thoughts that led me to travel across London at 9 a.m. that Sunday to have sex with someone I knew I wasn’t remotely interested in. This, I thought, is the sort of sexual experience I’m supposed to be having. It will be fun. Hilarious. Liberating. And it was. For about 25 minutes.
What came next was a nasty mix of emotions that made me question every facet of myself, psychologically and physically. Despite going into the encounter knowing full well it was exclusively about sex, I felt used, discarded like a flimsy fast-fashion sweater that’s destined for landfill. Then came the shame (why did I just let him order me like an Uber?) and existential angst (what does this mean about the way men see me?).
The good news is that I’ve since learned I’m far from the only person to have gone into a booty call scenario as a fledgling Samantha Jones and come out as a neurotic Moaning Myrtle. “Initially, I always view it as an empowering thing to do,” says Maya*, 28. “But I often find that men have a hard time being considerate in casual hook-up situations: The texting afterwards can be very blunt and a lot of them find it hard to believe a woman could be looking for transactional sex without wanting more.”
Another key issue with the booty call is that it’s often on one person’s terms, which can create problems in terms of power dynamics if it’s a repeated pattern. This was the case for Ellie, 26*, who had a “friends with benefits” scenario with someone that often resulted in booty calls. “After a while, I started to realize all of the times we’d slept together had been on his terms; it would only happen if he had the time. I put up with it because it boosted my ego when we did see each other, and it was fun to have someone around to have sex with rather than looking for something new online.”
I have a strong feeling that the anxiety in any and all of these scenarios could have easily been alleviated had there been a healthy level of communication between the two people involved. Because in order to actually enjoy any kind of transactional sex, it’s essential that everyone involved knows exactly what they’re going to get out of it. But this is no mean feat in a dating landscape that consistently rewards insouciance and game-playing—ask anyone who’s single.
In my case, it was probably me that needed to communicate a little better. Not to the man who texted me, but to myself. Had I actually considered the fact I was feeling jaded from some disappointing dates and still reeling from a big break-up, I would’ve realized that I was far too vulnerable to enjoy any kind of transactional sexual encounter. What I needed from men was meaning; anything less was only ever going to make me feel empty. I’d just managed to delude myself into thinking otherwise.
The trouble is that, for a lot of single people today, self-delusion has become a survival mechanism. Trust me, it’s rough out there—sometimes it’s easier to swallow a little bit of pseudo-optimism than confront the harsh truths, no matter how obvious they may be. It’s “he’s just having a really busy work week” versus “he’s just not that into you,” “he’s asking you to come over because you might be the love of his life” versus “he literally just wants to have sex and go to sleep.” And so on.
But we’re never going to get anywhere until we know what we really want and what we’re emotionally capable of having, whether that’s from love or sex or both. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not easy. And the system is very much against you. But I do think it’s possible. It has to be.