In the popular media, casual sex is often portrayed in a negative light, with writers focusing largely on the physical and psychological risks of having it. But is this activity really so deserving of such a negative reputation? If you look at the research, what you’ll see is that casual sex isn’t an inherently bad or good thing. Instead, it turns out that casual sex is something that can affect different people in very different ways.

In the brief video below from our friends over at Science of Us, they explore some of the research demonstrating that the effects of casual sex are complicated. In particular, if you want to determine how casual sex is likely to affect someone, you need to look first at how they feel about the idea of having sex outside of a relationship in general.

To learn more about the psychology of casual sex, check out this article.