Oddly enough, I remember the first time I had sex completely drunk. It was at a friend’s pool party, and I had just won a beer-pong tournament. (Translation: I was hammered.) After being crowned victorious, I drunkenly whispered to the girl I liked, asking her to meet me in my friend’s mom’s bedroom for a celebratory hookup. I put a lot of pressure on our first time because I’d liked this girl since, well, forever. The booze afforded me a disguise— the mask of confidence. And we did it—sort of. I was clumsy, fumbled into areas I didn’t belong and eventually faked orgasm. At one point, she uttered, “You find it, you’re the guy!” By the end I was defeated, sweaty and felt as tired as a Lana Del Rey record. My friend’s mom later found my underwear and hat in her bed and hand-delivered both (washed, strangely enough). I’m nothing like the confident Christian Grey—that day, I was fifty shades of red.

Sex is a blade that cuts open our insecurities, both physically and emotionally. And booze serves as a handy excuse for singles. A “Whatever, I was drunk” defence. A getout- of-humiliation-free card that is used so often that we simply nod our heads in a “Been there, friend” way. After all, we millennials are known to be selfish beings (#FirstWorldProblems). Nothing’s our fault.

I can honestly say that for 80 percent of my sometimes brief, sometimes agonizingly long sexual encounters, I’m intoxicated. And I’m not alone (despite how I feel in the morning). Almost everyone I know in their 20s is anywhere from tipsy to “white-girl wasted” before sex. If not, they’re in a relationship and spend their weekends streaming docs about the fast-food industry on Netflix. For singles, being drunk is—knowingly—the easiest way to get through “it.” I brought this up with my closest guy friends: Why are we seemingly addicted to sloppy drunk sex when it can be so embarrassing? “It’s always rougher, I last longer and I feel like a champ,” said my friend Kris—who, when not committed, hooks up often as a result of his persuasive, buzzed booty texts—before adding “and I feel less uncomfortable naked.” Another friend, Dan, our primary “drinker and doer” and resident ladies’ man, later announced: “Admit it: We all get a little nervous about the situation. I drink to relax. I don’t want to let her down.”