Relationships2 min(s) read
Published 15:18 03 Apr 2026 GMT
Woman who embarked on a year of 'casual sex' reveals the devastating effect it had on her
A woman who embarked on a year of 'casual sex' to liberate herself has opened up about the shocking encounters she experienced that ultimately left her 'traumatized.'
Kitty Ruskin has written a book, Ten Men: A Year of Casual Sex, where she speaks about the year she spent casually dating.
This was something Ruskin previously thought she'd missed out on, having lost her virginity at 22.
But what Ruskin found during the course of this year was shocking, and she warned that many modern men have been negatively influenced by pornography.
What devastating effects did the year of 'casual sex' have on Kitty Ruskin?
Ruskin said the original inspiration for her year of casual sex came through the medium of TV, with the show Sex and the City and one of its central characters, Samantha Jones, who was famously a proponent of both casual sex and casual dating for women.
However, Ruskin shared that during this year, she was raped twice.
Writing in her book, Ruskin remembers a date with an unnamed man where she was sure she was spiked during the date.
Afterwards, her date took her to his house and had unprotected sex with her, despite the fact she was "too drunk to consent."
"My mind was slow to accept that my body had been raped because of self-defense,” she admitted. “After something traumatic happens, you don’t want to acknowledge that it’s happened. You don’t feel ready to face it, or capable of admitting it.”
Ruskin says that, after this experience, she decided to only date men who "had regard for my feelings," but she then went on a date with another unnamed man who forced her to have unprotected sex, despite her asking him to put on a condom.
She described this second assault as giving her "an almost unbearable weight of grief."
What happened to Kitty Ruskin after her year of 'casual sex'?
Ruskin says that her year of casual sex left her "broken up and dishevelled," and that she was inspired to write a book about her experiences to expose the "burden" women will face while dating casually.
"Men: let’s take the problem of rape culture off the back burner,” Ruskin writes.
“Let’s pull it down from the shelf and look at it, even though doing so might make you feel uncomfortable. Guilty, even.
“It may make you feel uneasy, but women are tired of shouldering all this fear and trauma.”