After centuries of digging, archaeologists found the very first piece of writing to ever exist. Though criticised due to its rather unrealistic nature, I promise that it said: Don’t have sex on the first date or you and your relationship will die.
Don’t ask for my sources.
Maybe a couple of the words were different and shuffled around, but the point is that most women have a young memory of their grandmother sticking a menacing cane at their face and emphasizing a similar phrase. Perhaps their grandfather sat humbly by the fireplace, laughing at his only wife’s words, but deep down he agreed with her. Whether or not that is the scenario you encountered, at least once in their life a woman is told they will drive a man away if they have sex too early.
I have a couple of problems with my grandmother’s lectures. I am still reminded of this bothersome notion at least once a month through passive aggressive posts spammed to me by my mother on Facebook. My own grandmother doesn’t miss her chance to tap in as well, asking me semi-regularly whether I’ve ruined my life through horrible decisions yet. I always roll my eyes. I am not about to say that I was wrong and they were right because let me tell you: there is no rule.
Just to swipe this off of the table: I don’t believe that men are uncontrollable horndogs and that it is the woman’s job to chain her lower regions with aggressive titanium ‘keep out’ signs. A woman saying no to sex isn’t the same as denying a stranger who offers you drugs off the curb of a McDonald’s parking lot because the latter is a logical societal expectation of something one shouldn’t do. Most women who are genuinely into a man that they just went on a date with won’t say: “I had sex with him just because he wanted to.” That’s simple logic. And if that does happen, there’s a different problem that I won’t touch on. My mother always says, “Don’t give into the temptations of a man right at the beginning.” And if I do? So what? Most of the time, if a girl has sex with a guy she really likes on the first date, they both wanted to. Who’s to say she wasn’t capable of making her own decisions? And if the relationship ends one week or five months in, chances are sex had nothing to do with it.
There is this perception that in a relationship, the woman is the gatekeeper to the man’s sexual needs and the man is the gatekeeper to the woman’s emotional needs. This is a stereotype I don’t believe is discussed often. I have had friends in relationships where those roles were reversed, and yet someone told the girl they should not have allowed the male to get his way. No one ever tells the guy, “Hey, maybe she’ll lose interest if you sleep with her too fast.” All of the responsibility is on the woman even though the word sex should never be correlated with the word fault. This assumption that girls jump into their partner’s pants too quickly brings a subtle shame to them. We are these weak gatekeepers because the only thing men have on their minds is what is between our legs. This is an ancient mentality, and besides the science behind male versus female initial intentions in a relationship, the blame quickly established toward the woman should not exist.
As a teenager I took my mother’s words to heart. And now, after a couple successful/totally disastrous relationships, I have a couple of my own statistics. In my four relationships, I would say that the results are mixed between those that began with jumping into bed and saving it for later. One relationship lasted around a month and we never did anything of the sort. Another relationship was fun and healthy but started with a bang (pun intended). I have no solid results that are conclusive to the ancient words. In fact, I am in the beginning stages of a relationship where we by no means took things slow, and he still likes me. This isn’t an IN YOUR FACE to any mothers or grandmothers out there, but through my own experiences I have simply found that the results of my relationships never came down to when I unlocked my sacred chamber. There is so much more to a relationship than at what time you first have sex.
I watched a TEDx Talk recently about women falling in love when they decide to get into bed with a new partner (again, why is it the woman?!). The speaker, Dawn Maslar M.S., tells the exact anecdote of her grandmother telling her to keep her legs shut, and she agrees. She dwells into the science behind it and basically showcases that women should focus on what they can control, not what they can’t. This is a valid point, but then she transitions into arguing that once a woman releases oxytocin post sex, there’s no going back and they’re trapped with undying love for the man they slept with. So again, women should lock up their chambers early on because a) once they have sex they’re forever emotionally bound to their partner and never the other way around, and b) the male is just a horndog who is ever so controlled by his raging testosterone.
I call B.S. These lessons are NOT lessons. They aren’t rules, they aren’t a 12-step program to live your life by. If a woman jumps into bed fast, it doesn’t matter. If a man offers sex on the first date, he’s not quaking for a yes, nor is the woman at fault for taking him up on it. To quote OkCupid, “If you like someone and want to date them but they don’t feel the same, of course that’s going to sting. Having had sex with that person might make it sting a little more, but that doesn’t mean having sex necessarily makes another person less likely to want to date you, or that it can single-handedly turn a nice person into a callous one.” Whether someone stops talking to you after the first date or the fifth date, having sex will likely not have changed a thing.
So if you’re about to go on a first date with someone new and you’re really into them, have fun, sister.
Related Articles:
- I Lost My Virginity to a Tinder Hookup and My Only Regret Was Not Telling My Mom
- 101 Ways to Say No to Sex
- “Riding” the Crimson Wave: Demystifying Period Sex
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