Sex on the First Date
I can’t believe I’ve never written about this before - it’s maybe the most well known dating rule for women in heterosexual interactions and I have many thoughts on it. The rule is simple:
Don’t sleep with him on the first date if you want him to stay interested.
The logic behind this is straightforward. If you sleep with a guy too early, then there’s no chase for him, and he’ll lose interest quickly, dashing any chance of a longer term romantic relationship. But this premise is built on two assumptions that I find deeply troubling:
This assumes that men have no interest in women other than for sex. AND
This assumes that sex is something women allow men to do to them, not something women want for themselves.
Both of these are problematic. First of all, it’s pretty unfair to men to suggest that they can’t have interest in a woman beyond sexual relations. Contrary to popular belief, men are complex individuals as well, and while some men are only after sex, there are also a lot of men pursuing all sorts of other relationships, and have their own sexual and relationship baggage to factor in.
The second assumption is even more troubling to me. It postulates that the power at the outset of a relationship lies with the woman because she controls whether or not the couple has sex. It implies that men must earn sex and women should only allow sex to happen when the man has earned it - thus giving up some of her power. This ensures that the man has invested some emotional energy into the relation so that when his chase for sex eventually ends, he still has reasons to interact with her and the power remains balanced.
There are so many things horribly wrong with this. Sex is not an exclusively male pursuit and withholding sex is not a woman’s only source of power. A woman can want to have sex for herself and for her own pleasure, not merely as a reward for the man.
But he’ll lose interest you say? Maybe, but personally, I’ve experienced the exact opposite.
I’ve had three boyfriends in my adult life. I slept with two of them on the first interaction, and the third one I slept with on the second interaction. The relationships themselves lasted 6 months, 2.5 years, and 1 year respectively. For me, there appears to be no correlation between sex and whether or not a guy is interested in me enough to pursue a relationship.
And no, to answer your inevitable follow up question - I don’t sleep with every guy that quickly, if even at all. But, if I’m on a date and it’s going well, there’s chemistry, and I feel safe, comfortable, and attracted to him? Yes, it’s going to cross my mind as an option. And I’m not going to withhold something that I want out of fear of upsetting the potential for long term interaction. If he likes me, he’ll see me even after we have sex, and if he doesn’t - then I didn’t have to waste too much time getting attached.
I’m definitely not saying this strategy works for everyone or that it should be used by everyone, but I am saying that the rule itself is hopelessly obsolete. For me, physical and emotional intimacy are two very different things. So I have no expectations of emotional intimacy even if we’ve already crossed some physical barriers. However, I recognize that there are people who do tie sexual and emotional intimacy together and for those people, engaging in physical intimacy without some kind of emotional investment might not even be possible for them to do in a healthy way -- And that’s totally ok too.
Every person is different, and every date and interaction is different. But we love trying to squish all those variables into a set of first date rules so we can increase our chances of a favorable outcome. And maybe some of those rules are good (you should definitely shower), but some are completely ridiculous and far too dependent on the individual to be useful across the board.
People date for sex, companionship, long term relationships, all sorts of reasons. On a date, especially a first date, you should constantly be assessing what you’re feeling, and what your boundaries are, and enforce those.
If those don’t include sex, then stick to that, but if they do, you shouldn’t feel constrained by an external expectation. The important thing is to do it for yourself, if you want it. Definitely don’t do it because you feel pressured to be something you’re not, or that you get the feeling he wants to. If you do it for yourself and only for yourself, then you can’t lose. Because even if you never ever see him again, you still got what you wanted.
No, I have never looked like this on a first date.