An Immodest Proposal: sex on the first date?

I know I promised to try not to talk about sex too much in this column. But I've been on extra good behavior for the past few months (at least for me), so I feel like I deserve a little break.

Now I'm not going to write anything graphic, but if you're one of those people who is offended by the mere mention of unmarried people having sex with each other, I ask you to please stop reading right now.

Okay, you were warned. I'd better not see any angry comments from anyone who was naughty enough to read this column all the way to the end.

Whew! Now that I've got the disclaimer out of the way, on to today's topic: Why -- back in my dating days -- I used to always have sex on the first date. On principle. I'm not advocating that anyone else follow this practice. I'm merely explaining my reasoning in case you're curious about how the logical-yet-depraved mind works.

The following line of reasoning obviously applies mostly to women. I know a lot of guys who would also like to follow suit, and to them I say "Good luck to you on that."

The first reason for having sex on the first date is because it's fun. This reason alone would be enough for me, but it turns out that there's so much more!

The next reason is efficiency. Going straight to the sex part is really much more efficient than either the popular heathen practice of waiting until the third or fourth date or the popular LDS practice of waiting six whole weeks and taking a quick trip to the temple together before doing it.

The reason it's more efficient is that it shortens that awkward part where you're wondering where things are leading. Plus, if the guy is one of those guys who's just in it for the sex, and doesn't plan to call back after, this gets the whole thing over with right off the bat so you don't waste too much time on him.

There are guys out there who think that "nice girls don't" and that "women should be virgins until marriage", etc. This method eliminates those guys right off the bat too. Also eliminates closet gay guys. Hey, my time is valuable, people! I'm not so stingy about it, but I figure why should I waste three or four perfectly good evenings just to find out that I'm incompatible with some guy if I can do it in one?

The third and final reason for this practice is that it catches them off guard. Yes, even in our modern day and age, a lot of guys aren't expecting to get to go straight to the bedroom, and they don't see it coming. It confuses them. They've convinced themselves that this is their ultimate goal, so once it's over you can almost see the wheels spinning in their little brains as they go "Now what do I do?" You just can't buy entertainment like that.

Once the sexual tension is out of the way, both partners have a clear head to confront the serious questions of whether there's anything else there worth pursuing -- i.e. interesting conversation, and perhaps a relationship.

If your chosen quarry is a nerdy math, science, or computer type (or some other category of shy guy who isn't getting much), the answers to the above questions are more-or-less determined. When you get to the pillow talk stage, the guy pretty much assumes that now you're engaged to him. This has its advantages and disadvantages, so proceed with caution!

If, by contrast, you're of the mindset that the perfect lover turns into a pizza at 4 a.m., and you prefer the model where the guy doesn't call you back the next day, I'd say go for the super-outgoing flirty guy who has a million girls hanging off him. I have no first-hand experience with this category -- I'm just saying that it stands to reason.

Now some of you may be shocked that I appear to be advocating promiscuity, which is dangerous. Of course, given my weakness for the nerdly types, in my case most of these encounters lead to relationships -- see above -- so in the end it doesn't add up to all that many different partners total.

Still, remember that every single partner -- no matter how nerdly -- increases your disease risk. And I hope that it goes without saying that I mean with a condom every single time, plus avoiding obviously high-risk partners such as I.V. drug users and people with open sores on their naughty bits. Sex with another human is never "safe" -- even following all of the standard safety tips, the best you can hope for is "safer". Even in a monogamous relationship, you can never be 100% certain your partner isn't cheating on you and hence putting you at risk.

The only truly safe sex is to stay home and fly solo. And if that's your strategy, I hope that today's frank and mildly erotic discussion has proven helpful to you.

Another thing to keep in mind is that I'm talking about back the days when people tended to meet people through a friend of a friend or at school or work. I'm all in favor of meeting people on the Internet, but in that case I think I might have made an exception to my usual rule and gone for a lunch date in a public place first. One that includes me going home, and the guy going home to his own home instead of following me home. This would just be a first-pass litmus test to weed out the most flagrant and incorrigible stalkers.

At this point you should probably be protesting that -- while it's clear how I might have been able to put this theory into practice when I was in grad school surrounded by desperately horny math nerds -- it seems it would have been impossible for me to insist on always having sex on the first date back when I was at BYU, surrounded by virtuous and chaste returned-missionaries. The solution is simple: I didn't date the virtuous and chaste returned-missionaries. I was careful to actively avoid going on a date with any guys I suspected of being excessively righteous. Instead, with those guys I mostly just tried to trick them into coming over to my lair.

Ah, those bonny, bygone days!

And so ends today's set of fond reminiscences of a now-mostly-respectable little old lady.


Published in the Utah Valley Monitor March 15, 2006.