“一夜情”这些年已经成为一个司空见惯的词语和社会现象，而且可谓是不分中外。许多人想当然地以为，“一夜情”在英语中的说法就是one night sex或者是one night love。查询Google之后发现，输入one night sex之后出现的排序最前面的三个页面显示的并非是one night sex，而是one night stand。输入one night love之后的结果是，虽然这一说法确实能够找到一些相关网页，但是，类似的说法还有one night of love, one night love affair；看来对于把“一夜情”表达为one night love，这一说法并未得到广泛的认可。相反，倒是输入了one night stand进行检索之后发现了大量的相关页面，还有一位名叫张震岳的歌手有一首歌就叫做One Night Stand。

有一些页面对于为什么“一夜情”叫做one night stand进行了解释，如著名的网络词典维基百科的释义是A one-night stand is originally a single night theatre performance (usually a guest group on tour), and today more commonly also a single sexual encounter between a man and a woman。上述英文释义其实已经说的很明白了。

“百度知道”提供的解释如下：“一夜情（One Night Stand），顾名思义是指发生在一夜之间的情事，有的认为英语世界里的‘一夜情’One Night Stand，通常是指发生在两个陌生人之间，短暂的亲密接触，无须了解，也无须责任。在中文世界里，一夜情最确切的解释应当是：一夜性。即“一夜情”是一种偶发的性行为，通常仅只一次，也可能是有限的两三次，强调双方均基于性欲求的特点，拒绝感情与责任，常发生在并不熟悉的人之间。 而Stand本身就有短暂的驻留，停留之意，它不需要留念也不需要感情付出。”

据说，我们现在所接受的“一夜情”的英语对应说法其实来自于One Night Stand这部由著名影星娜塔莎•金丝基主演的片子，它讲述了典型的一个一夜情的故事：因为一次商务旅行，广告导演与有夫之妇发生了一夜情，谁知以后便越来越想念，以致自己的婚姻也岌岌可危……

当然，在中文世界里，尽管有些“一夜情”也许并没有性的成分，“一夜情”已经被许多人看作等同于“一夜性”，因此便有了把“一夜情”翻译成one night sex的说法。其实，从地道英语角度来说，“一夜情”就是one night stand或one-night stand，其复数形式就是one-night stands，下面这篇路透社的新闻报道就是一个最好的佐证，同时也可以让我们了解英国女性对待性和婚姻问题的态度，她们其实是很谨慎很保守很忠于家庭的。

One-night stands immoral¹, say 9 in 10 women

By Nic Fleming, Science Correspondent

(Filed: 31/03/2006)

Samantha of Sex and the City, it is fair to say, would not approve. The casual attitude to sexual relations embraced by the most liberated² of the characters in the television series turns out not to reflect the views of 21st century women quite as well as widely imagined.

Researchers investigating female attitudes to sex and their sexuality were surprised to find that most women have rather more traditional, conservative views on one-night stands than they expected.

Women expressed concerns about casual sex

Around nine out of 10 of those questioned felt casual sex was immoral and that those women who engaged in it were not doing so primarily for pleasure.

They said they felt sorry for women who hadone-night stands, that they were lacking something in their lives and if they had not simply lost control through drink and drugs they were seeking emotional rather than physical connection.

Dr Sharron Hinchcliffe, a psychologist from the University of Sheffield, presented her findings at the annual conference of the British Psychological Society in Cardiff yesterday.

Dr Hinchcliffe said: "Our results did not fit in with the image we have of today's independent woman who can go out and get sexual fulfillment without the ties of a relationship.

"There was a view that if women had one-night stands they were doing it for reasons other than their own pleasure, more out of a feeling of being desperate, needy⁴ or looking for something, or that they had lost control through drink or drugs.”

"They said they did it for reasons that were different to those of women in relationships - which they said were for pleasure and to express their love for their partner. They defined it as deviant behaviour.”

"They referred to the women as emulating⁵ male behaviour. It was certainly the view that it was not the way women should behave.”

"Some of the respondents said these things even though they admitted they had had one-night stands themselves. I was surprised at how judgmental they were.”

"It makes me question whether women have really gained all the sexual freedom they are supposed to have gained since the Sixties."

Dr Hinchcliffe and colleagues carried out in-depth interviews with 46 women selected from the electoral roll aged³ 23 to 83, with an average age of 48.

Around 10 per cent of the sample disagreed with the majority view of "no strings⁶" sex as immoral. Dr Hinchcliffe said that if anything the women in their early thirties were more negative about one-night stands than those of women in their fifties.

Some of the participants also expressed concerns about women having casual sex exposing themselves to sexually transmitted disease.

A survey of 1,095 men and women carried out on behalf of Amnesty International UK and published in November found that more than a third of people believed a female rape⁷ victim was totally or partially⁸ responsible if she had behaved in a flirtatious⁹ manner with her attacker.

Dr Tuppy Owens, of the Sexual Freedom Coalition¹⁰, a group that campaigns for sexual freedom between consenting adults, said: "I don't like the expression 'one-night stand'.”

"Two people just banging away at each other can be pretty meaningless and an empty experience, unless there is some passion, care and feeling towards the other person. However, if you go out wondering what might happen, ready to give as well as receive, you might have the most wonderful adventure.”

"Perhaps if they had asked the questions in a different way they would have got different answers."

Norman Wells, the director of Family and Youth Concern, said: "It shows that most women are seeking more than the fleeting¹¹ gratification that temporary sexual relationships can offer.”

"Sexual intimacy¹² was never meant to be engaged in outside the context of lifelong union between one man and one woman.”

"By divorcing sex from marriage in our thinking and in the sexual education given to children and young people, we are promoting something that runs contrary to our basic longings¹³ for stability, permanence and commitment."