A one-night stand is a single sexual encounter with another person, regardless of any expectation of further relations. Participants in a one-night stand often have not known each other long and have had minimal time to get acquainted before engaging in sexual activity, and often have little to no contact with one another aside from sex. Many one-night stands occur when both participants are under the influence of alcohol and other drugs.
A one-night stand can occur for different reasons. Examples of one-night stand participants include young adults exploring their sexuality or experimenting sexually; single people seeking to engage in sexual activity without any sort of commitment or relationship; or married people who desire extramarital sex without disturbing their marriage or family relationships through extramarital romantic relations.
Where the people involved have regular sexual relations without romantic involvement, this is generally considered a casual relationship, which is distinct from a one-night stand.
Famous quotes containing the words one-night and/or stand:
“restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“Two wooden tubs of blue hydrangeas stand at the foot of the stone steps.
The sky is a blue gum streaked with rose. The trees are black.
The grackles crack their throats of bone in the smooth air.
Moisture and heat have swollen the garden into a slum of bloom.
Pardie! Summer is like a fat beast, sleepy in mildew....”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)