Sociologist Eva Illouz argues that casual sex presents itself as liberation while quietly reorganizing intimacy according to market logics, which are never gender-neutral. Modern sexuality, in her account, isn’t only the shedding of repression but a political-economic project that coincides neatly with late capitalism’s preference for flexible, self-managing, emotionally autonomous subjects. When capitalism no longer primarily needs families to reproduce disciplined workers but rather individuals to circulate endlessly as consumers, entrepreneurs of the self, and portable bundles of desire, intimacy must be stripped of friction. Sex becomes portable. Attachments become optional. Feelings become, at best, private hobbies and, at worst, design flaws.
Straight women are consistently asked to inhabit a sexual economy designed around male fantasies of frictionless access while continuing to shoulder the social reality of care. They are told that freedom means detachment, but they still live in a world where they are expected to be attuned, responsive, nurturing, and emotionally literate. They are punished for both roles. Too attached and they’re needy. Too detached and they’re cold. Casual sex intensifies this double bind.