Too soon: should you have sex on the first date?

Eloise Millard questions the outdated taboos around having sex on the first date.

Meeting someone new can be one of the most exciting things to happen among the banality of student life: work, sleep, drink, repeat. Once you’re past sweating palms, stilted conversation, and the awkward first kiss, the question really is: your place or mine?

You’ve been drifting between “Will I or won’t I”? You have been ever since “We should go out sometime” was first mentioned. Here comes the dilemma – do you prepare to have sex? You may think coming ‘prepared’ to a first date seems a little forward. By prepared, I mean, gentlemen packing a condom in their wallet (safety first, folks); and for the ladies, whipping out the Venus and finally bothering to find underwear that matches for the first time since you were last seeing someone.

On top of all this, you’re wondering if you even should take your budding relationship to the next level. Before you do, make sure you’re completely comfortable, and you trust the other person. Whether the date is a success or not, you don’t want to leave regretting what you’ve done. If you do end up having sex with someone and you’re not completely sure you want to, the entire experience is going to be an anti-climax (no pun intended), and just generally awkward, potentially forfeiting any blossoming romance that once was! Sex shouldn’t be a formality. If it gets to the point when you have to decide whether or not you’ll be sleeping alone that night and you don’t want to rip their clothes off, chances are there was no spark to begin with. Save yourself the embarrassment, and finish the evening with a goodnight kiss; go home and think about what you really want. There are pros and cons to having sex on the first date, and whatever you decide is entirely dependent on the relationship you already have with the other person.

Say you’ve known this person a while now, you’ve been friends, and now you’re more than that. Having a romantic or a sexual relationship with this person could jeopardise your friendship entirely. Let’s face it: “We can stay friends” is a spoken formality rather than an actuality. However, if you met this person in a club, swapped numbers and so on, it’s obvious you only began to interact because of sexual attraction. Although it may seem it when  you’re drunk, you never truly had a connection with someone in the darkened smoking area in which you discussed the EU and shared an ambiguous drunken view before getting off. It’s much easier to sleep with someone who you’ve already interacted with on a sexual level.

The short answer is there isn’t a right or a wrong way to end a first date.

If you do choose to sleep with the other person, it doesn’t make you ‘easy’ or suggest you’re only in it for sex. Much like if you choose to abstain, it doesn’t make you boring or frigid. Choosing to have sex is a personal decision, it’s your body and no one else’s opinion should matter. However, choose who you tell about your first date wisely. If your flatmate comes knocking
on your door the minute you get back, wanting to know all the details, don’t always oblige. You’re in dangerous waters if the people you tell about your date know the person you went with. The last thing you want to do is for word of your amorous activity (or lack of) to get around. Your date may be hurt by a lack of trust between the two of you, and you could end up alienating them by appearing as if sex was your main concern.