Last Sunday, when I was woken up by the sounds of my neighbors at my Antwerp hotel (nope, not the Indigo), clearly having some fun, I realised just how few times I was woken up by others having sex. Time for a few words on hotel sex.Despite spending over 200 nights per year in hotels, I think the number of times I have been woken up by my neighbors getting ‘it’ on, I can actually count on one hand, maybe two. Only a few noisy interventions were memorable. That one time in a hotel in Amsterdam that the couple next doors literally spend all night having sex. That one time I stayed at the Kimpton Fitzroy in London, I was walking the hall and a young lady was clearly enjoying herself.This struck me, as there seems to be quite the giggly vibe (and facts) around hotel rooms – maybe there’s more talk than action about hotel room sex.On one end, I know from all my hotel school friends and acquaintances that you really do not want to hear the stories about used condoms lingering around hotels rooms and bathrooms. Or just stories in general – it pays off to ask your hotel friends for their remarkable stories, whenever you have the time. Or not. You also probably don’t want to check your room with a UV-light looking for little soldiers. I actually wrote a blog post on that and keep a list of horrible hotel screw-ups.On top of that, at least what I experience from time to time myself, is that quite some people expect boy + girl + hotel = hotel sex. If I got a penny every time I got an (awkward) remark about my wife and I having sex when we would go out for the weekend without the kids or people who though it is super funny to make fun of my solo business trips and potential female company on my room … clearly, hotel sex is “a thing”.The hype is in the science. According to Ian Kerner, a licensed psychotherapist, sex counselor and best-selling author, having sex in a hotel room instead of your own bedroom causes a rush of the neurotransmitter dopamine to come out and play. Dopamine is what controls the reward and pleasure center of your brain, and your brain gets to enjoy a nice dopamine cocktail when you have novel experiences. “The novelty of the hotel room is going to stimulate dopamine transmission in the brain, which pays a big role in arousal and sexual excitement”.So, hotel sex – all the hype, but -in my experience- mostly talk.
