
I feel like this has more to do with your view of heterosexual sex and less to do with the actual hookups. The two parties are grown and equally involved. Why would casual sex be one party pandering to another? Unless your friends have shown behaviour that’s actually pandering (pick me behaviour and all that), their pursuit of casual sex isn’t that.
I kinda agree on the cheater part but just that (especially because that doesn’t have much to do with single people pursuing casual sex). We’re not all living the same lives. There are people having sex with the people they love and people having sex with people they don’t love (because unfortunately, love is harder to find than sex). I feel like both work and can be healthy if you’re honest with yourself about the reasons you engage in either. I’m gonna use myself as an example…
…I’m currently not looking for a relationship right now. My degree is stressful and taking a toll on my health so I genuinely cannot handle a relationship right now. I have my friends so there really isn’t an emotional gap that needs filling. I don’t mind if it comes along but I’m not looking for it. But I like sex and I can’t sleep with my friends so I pursue casual sex when I can to fulfill that need. That’s not the case for a lot of my friends though. And that’s fine. We’re all different.