Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?
As I surveyed real friends, Facebook friends, Twitter friends, and total strangers about having sex on the first date, the unfortunate cow comparison came up no fewer than five times in my first twelve interviews. Everybody complained about it, bemoaning the lack of nuance, the icky imagery, and the overt transactional implications. And yet, it kept rearing it’s ugly little antiquated head. Are there kernels of truth buried there? Is first-date sex a relationship nonstarter? Are we, as we often claim to be, past the era of plastering A’s on each other’s chests?
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“There’s a lot of pressure on women to control the pace of the relationship,” said 24-year-old Jess, “and not ‘give away the milk for free.’” Ugh, there it is again. “But let’s face it,” she added, “we have hormones and sex drives us, just like males out there. Our generation is in conflict with this idea of restraining from sex to keep a guy interested. It seems to encourage us to find ‘randos’ at a bar to satisfy our urges, so we can be prim and proper in front of the men we actually want to be having sex with.”
It sounds preposterous, but it does make a certain sort of convoluted sense. In front of people whose opinions matter, like potential “relationship material,” we don’t want to seem promiscuous. Imagine you went on 10 first dates, and nine ended with chaste goodbyes. But on the 10th, things click into place, the mood is good, the vibe is there, and you really, really want to get it on. You hesitate, because this person across the table doesn’t know that the last nine got pecks on the cheek or ass-out hugs. He or she thinks that the freaky-deaky version of yourself you just unleashed is your usual M.O. Now you’re that girl, or that guy, the one who puts out “too soon.”
And that’s where the expectation game becomes a big soupy mess of missed signals, false assumptions, and dashed hopes. Rachel is 36, “I’ve definitely gotten into a couple of accidental relationships when someone followed up on what I thought of as a hookup.” Laura, in her forties, added, “The only thing first-date sex triggers is anxiety. If I’m not interested in next steps, I wonder how to extricate myself if he wants to see me again. If I’m hoping for a relationship, I worry that I’ve given the wrong impression, and he’ll think I’m a slut.” How many first-date, post-coital conversations begin with, “I swear, I never do that.”
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Medical risks aside, new partners should mean new conversations about boundaries and preferences, conversations most people aren’t comfortable having right off the bat.
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But of course, for a whole host of reasons, sometimes we do. Harry, a married forty-something, calls sex “part and parcel of the decision making process about whether this person is a keeper or not. Do we have chemistry together? How do our bodies connect?” In fact, he slept with his wife on the very first date, “I think it’s a myth that getting naked too soon means trouble.” For some people, testing sexual compatibility early makes perfect sense. They want to know if there’s that initial physical spark before investing time into the growth and evolution of the relationship.
The reasons not to have sex right away are many and eminently practical. The less time you’ve spent with someone, the less likely you are to know his or her sexual history. Maybe you haven’t yet had (very necessary) discussions about STIs and protection. Medical risks aside, new partners should mean new conversations about boundaries and preferences, conversations most people aren’t comfortable having right off the bat. Leanne is a twenty-something New Yorker in a relationship. “Before I sleep with someone, I want to make sure I trust them to treat me respectfully, and that I trust myself to be assertive enough to make clear what I do and do not want.” Articulating desire is hard enough with people you know well, throw in the pressure-heavy mind games of first dates, and it seems damn near impossible.
Even if the stars align in your favor, and you and your date are both down for a good time, you might hold off. You might not want to risk whatever nugget of potential you two have by jumping into the sack. You might decide, like 22-year-old Cara, that waiting would serve you both well. “I might delay it to develop the initial bond further…. When we have sex, it can be an activity to truly add strength and another dimension to our already complex connection.” Or, no matter how badly you want to go for it, the mere possibility of a “slut” label, spoken or unsaid, just isn’t worth it.
And even those of us who do, from time to time, put out on a first date know that locker room one-upmanship and girl talk over brunch aren’t figments of our imagination. People do gossip, and they do judge. The question is, do we care?
Tom, 40, was shocked when he heard how horribly men speak of women they just hooked up with. Though perhaps times are changing; according to Colin, 24, “Out of the majority of my friends, frat brothers included, there’s very little slut-shaming. If she’s down, then odds are I’m down too.”
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This survey was full of surprises. I posted the link on Facebook with the headline “First Date Sex?” and the first comment I got was from my 30-year-old married cousin, with whom I agree on just about every political and social front. Her comment? “Ew…just…ew.” I was shocked; her blanket statement was so far from my own heavily-caveated, wishy washy, “if”-dominated multi-paragraph treatise on personal decision-making. How did we two, of such similar minds, arrive at such different answers?
My point is this: playing the assumption game regarding first-date sex will get you nowhere. To some, it is a clear indication that the only place this thing is going is to bed, so you might as well take it there. It means, “there’s no future here, but I’m into it, you’re into it, so let’s have some fun.” To others, it’s a sign that you want something more, a nonverbal way of saying “I really, really like you.” Harry called it a “diagnostic tool” in weighing potential. Amelia, 23, left my favorite comment of all, “It’s always a risk letting someone be that intimate with you for the first time, so I feel like it almost doesn’t even matter if it happens on our first date or the tenth.” She’s right, it is a risk, but it’s one we each have to weigh for ourselves. At the bare minimum, you can’t think ill of your date if he or she slept with you right away; after all, you did the very same thing.
—Photo publicenergy/Flickr
About Emily Heist Moss
interesting topic, cant even follow the conversation because half the comments are hidden….
are people really this weak minded nowadays that they allow the opinions of others to determine what is or is not offensive to them????????? pathetic
Fastest way to find out if HE is looking to play or looking for an actual relationship: HOLD OFF ON SEX. Period. If the man is willing to be PATIENT in that department, then has run the race and is now looking for something a bit deeper than a hot night of sexual healing. Women truly control the whole process. Men are built to breed every 10 min, women 2 to 3 times a month. Biologically speaking, women have more patience in that department, since they are built differently. However, if that pleasant garden is given up too quickly for whatever reason, the man might feel the hunt is over or change his perception of the lady from potential MRS to HOOK-UP. It might not, and you all could get married. There are never absolutes in this world. But still, making him hold off on sex until a commitment is had is a sure fire way to find a relationship ready man. And lets be real, you can definitely tell if the two of you are going to have amazing sex without intercourse.
Thanks for chiming in, Christian. I’d hesitate to lump men OR women into homogeneous groups regarding how often they are “built to breed.” I think the range in sexual desire among women is huge, as is the range among men. In fact, the differences between individuals are probably great enough to make any sort of “men want this,” “women want this” dichotomy useless.
Agreed. But we can’t deny the chemical differences in oxytocin, testosterone, and estrogen, and how they intrinsically alter how each gender perceives and interprets sex. It is why I tell the women I work with to be very careful with whom they invite into their beds. They might think they can handle the casual sex with a guy they fancy, but once that oxytocin starts flowing in their system, it will tell their bodies to latch on to that mate, regardless if he is a complete moron or player. Some women can regulate the biochemical reaction, certainly in the 21st Century where we have seen a complete blur of traditional roles and sexual energies, but for others, it can be quite daunting. Men, too, can go through the whole process as well, but more if the man is a heart centered as compared to head center, which gets into boring pop psychology. However, it is not a bad idea to be aware of how these chemicals work in our systems and how they get our minds to interpret sexual encounters. Patti Stenger’s book opens with a chapter just on oxytocin and how women should prepare themselves for finding a decent guy. The best I think, though, is Dr Pat Allen’s take on the issue. Her book, “Getting to I Do” addresses the issues a 21st Century lady takes on while looking to settle down in a role reversed society.
I used to have one-night-stands – I won’t call them first dates because they weren’t really dates. It was a VERY long time ago and that section of my life lasted for about a year until I got very bored with the same-old same-old of new bedmates. I was a student and at the time it was fairly normal behavior back in those days. Only very narrow-minded types thought badly of me as far as I was aware. When I met my husband a number of years later – we slept together on the first day of our relationship – I don’t do ‘dates’. We married five days after that and are still successfully married 21 years on.
No idea how that works on the “What men want and what women want?” question. I don’t think of other people as men or women – just as whether or not they are people I like and respect.
Two words: garbage science.
The idea that women are more biologically inclined to form monogamous attachments through sex has no evidentiary basis. Period. No serious evolutionary psychologists argue that women in prehistory were not promiscuous, up to and including sexual encounters with strangers (a behavior found in most foraging societies and in our nearest primate ancestors).
Citing biology to support social norms is fairly typical among people who are looking for reasons to believe the narratives they’ve been fed. It’s a huge impediment to progress in understanding gender. Please don’t be part of the problem.
cant agree more. Speaking of women, but it applyes also to men. Women who are monogamous is mostly because their culture and education have implanted them the idea that multiple partners is bad. Women who are free sexually, have a good time.
So basically its not a harware issue, but a software. A obsolete software who needs a update
The chase can be so fun. I’ve generally held longer relationships with guys when we waited because the anticipation becomes so intense. It’s easier to get bored earlier or caught up in just the hook-ups when sex happens immediately. That being said, it’s not a dealbreaker either. My current long term, live in partner and I had drunken sex very early, before we even dated, and things are still hot after years. (No, being drunk does not take away consent, there’s a difference between being passed out and raped and having a healthy, or even sloppy, buzz and sexing it up). It’s too situation dependent to really analyze properly. This cow thing is tired. Just stop. I’m sick of metaphors that compare women to animals or inanimate objects. People do this constantly when talking about SlutWalks. Why is that?
Thnks, for everyone and i am use this information as single men for find a sex partner and this different type of topic is very helping me ….
What a refreshing article! I say do whatever works for you, as long as you can look yourself in the mirror the next day and own it.
I think this is one of those things that is basically a bad idea. You don’t know the person well enough to trust them the way you need to before having sex. That should apply to guys, too – you don’t want to end up getting an STD or making a baby, etc.
As for finding out if you’re sexually compatible, it’s not like dating a few times is going to use up all the time you have left in life. Anyhow, you can probably tell if there’s chemistry just by how you feel, but a kiss would work without sleeping together. In fact, you might rush things and have terrible sex because you don’t know/trust each other and do better if you’d waited.
“At the bare minimum, you can’t think ill of your date if he or she slept with you right away; after all, you did the very same thing.”
Thank YOU! The number of time I’ve heard “she/you slept with him too quickly” as a reason for a relationship failure is ridiculous. It’s that double standard – I might have slept with you too quickly but what, I did it all by myself and you had no say in the matter?
Well, I wish I had done it. Sexual compatibility does matter and it should be verified before going too far, emotionally speaking. Trust me. So, if the guy thinks you’re a hookup, it’s his problem not yours, so move on to the next guy, the one who’s a sexual match for you. You don’t want to be stuck with someone who does not match you in that area…
I would rather be considered a slut, being called that does not make me one (he would be one too, right?), that having to go through what I did again. So, I met this guy and *I* decided to wait, because I saw him as a potential boyfriend. So, we began a relationship. Later, *I* decided to wait some more time so he could have STD’s tests done. The problem is that in those three months I fell in love… I truly became emotionally involved.
The bad news? The guy has erectile dysfunction, has premature ejaculation and he’s plain bad in the sack. Next thing I learned was that his last relationship had ended in part because of his performance and that he was afraid of losing me so he simply hoped his problems wouldn’t return. Why does it matter so much? Because I consider sex an integral part of a romantic relationship, otherwise it would be called a friendship.
Being bad in the sack can be improved. People can get better and they do over time. You can teach someone and they can teach you. It is possible. Even premature ejaculation can improve significantly and be eradicated. Well, yes, but with ED things are different. Psychological issues, that are not your fault, prevent some guys from learning at all. Some issues are so rooted that they taint every area of the relationship.
I felt cheated, guilty, sad, so sad… I went ahead and tried to be supportive (I told you I was in love) and it did not help. My self esteem was bordering next to a cliff. And I understood in my head that it was his problem, not my own, and yet the emotions involved can play tricks on you.
Long story short, I got out of that relationship way too late, I was brokenhearted, injured in my self esteem, feeling guilty and in deep sorrow. Not to mention all our mutual friends and his family think *I* broke his heart.
So, yes, maybe sex on the first date is not your thing, but if I can share my hard-earned wisdom with anyone, please don’t fall in love either (if you can help it) before testing sexual compatibility. BEWARE. You may get lucky and be compatible, or you can get to live my sad story.
I completely agree. Sex is not the only important in a relationship, but it is one of many important facets of being with someone. I have had first-date sex, and I have waited quite some time, and have dated men in both categories. In both situations, time & shared experience dictated whether or not we were made for each other and for how long (one night vs. months/years vs a lifetime). I’m not married yet, but I know I need someone who enjoys sex as much as I do, and is compatible with me in their love making style. For that reason, it’s an important thing to test out for me before jumping in with my heart. First date if the chemistry’s there, later on if the chemistry takes a while to build. But I can usually tell if I’m interested in someone straight away, and if so, it’s worth a test drive to me!
Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?
Why buy the whole pig when all you want is some sausage?
If someone wanted to have sex on the first date, great. If no sex for a while that was fine too. I never passed judgement either way