Genetics Reveal Women Regret One-Night Stands, But Men Like Them

When it comes to casual promiscuity or one-night stands, females are more sensitive to the issue than males. Although feminists have striven to emancipate women sexuality, this time, evolution may be blamed.

A study suggests that women are "evolutionary programmed" to regret one-night stands. Meanwhile, men have evolved to regret "not having" more of them.

According to Telegraph, a study by Leif Edward Kennair at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology said women regret agreeing to one-night stands while men regret passing up the chances more.

His study asked 263 Norwegians, aged between 19 and 37,  how they felt about recent one-night stands. Results show that onlly one in three women said they were happy about their experiences, compared to more than 50 percent of men.

Although far more men regret saying no to one-night stands than women. Around 80 percent of women were glad they said no to such an opportunity, versus only 43 percent of the male participants. Kennair said it's not that there aren't men who regret casual sex, but it is far more common for women to regret agreeing to them. 

There may also be a ton of other reasons that may make women more unhappy about the encounters. Women tend to worry more in general about making spontaneous decisions and mostly do not engage in risky decisions. Women also worry about getting pregnant, getting diseases and even bad reputation.

Male participants in the study said they also achieved more orgasm than women and got to enjoy more.

However, according to their study published in the journal Evolutionary Psychology, evolutionary psychology may be to blame. For thousands of years, men and women have adopted "opposing strategies" because women have to carry and care for children.

Men and women tend to regret different aspects of the decision: having casual sex with the wrong partner versus missing the opportunity per se.

In theory, men can father thousands of children and are only limited by the "supply" of wiling and fertile women. This "scatter-gun" strategy means the quality of a sexual partner for men isn't as high than that of women. Men who moved from woman to woman would have scored "best" in the evolutionary race of the time.

David Buss of University of Texas, a collaborator in the study, said women and men differ in their sexual psychology. Primarily on a key limitation on a man's reproductive success, which has historically been access to fertile women. For women, quality of the partner is more important.