A single friend reports that in today's dating world, intercourse occurs on the third date — news that caused me to tremble. The idea that romance could be dictated by social rules including a timetable for "intercourse" seemed the perfect argument for celibacy.
Shouldn't love making rather be a mutual throwing down, a taking from the buffet whatever can be stuffed, a state of blissful helplessness that catapults two or more people through the exosphere to drift tingling in an aurora of ectasy, taken there not by consent but by the temporary loss of free will, overcome by the irrepressible desire to join bodies, and almost, for a moment, believing it possible.
On the other hand, there is intercourse on the third date. I'd rather go to Jiffy Lube. I'd rather have my picture taken with Lynndy England. I'd rather endure a battery of painful tests involving my testicles.
What am I saying? Give me the intercourse, of course. What I'm saying is obvious. Intercourse can never be made out to be love-making, but it can be made to sound pretty close. And mental revisions make almost anything possible.
I was therefore not surprised when my friend described his most recent last third date as the loudest ever, screams of pleasure directly beating his left eardrum, only to hear when he requested the fourth date that they had no chemistry.
"No chemistry?" he repeated. "All those screams and no chemistry? Was she faking it then?" He was asking me.
I said the kindest thing I could think of, which was that some people fake everything. I called it a "coping mechanism," which he seemed to buy. Refusing to attach makes detachment easier, I continued. It's the same principle as pre-emptive war; just that it's pre-emptive love.
I advised him to never use the word "intercourse" again and to shave his back, and to either have sex before the first date or right at the very end of the second, but never on the third, just on principle.
You will know when there is chemistry. You will never have to ask. And if it's one-sided, one of you is lying, and it's just as likely to be you as it is to be the other.
Matters of the heart aren't settled by groin-to-groin interviews, but by the pulling together of two objects by force of gravity, biology and the human imagination, the last of which is just crazy enough to make a lifelong commitment based on a 13-second orgasm.
Third date? The real test is "intercourse" on the third decade.
Article comments
1 - Curt
sex sex sex sex sex sex sex had enough? you want more? what's a guy have to do to get read around here? sex sex sex sex sex sex? Sex.
2 - Purple Tigress
Third date? My, oh my...just what kind of crowd do you run around with? I, of course, spent too much time learning how to talk rationally about safER sex.
I read recently that 75 percent of college age women have HPV, an incurable group of viruses that cause genital warts AND cervical cancer. No tests are made so men, who are the carriers, can carry on and infect many women. Men rarely contract a fatal cancer from HPV because you'd need a warm, moist area for that like a cervix. And a condom doesn't prevent transmission.
That's only one of the STDs that can be passed on and on and on when one has sex because like Ado Annie one never learned to say no. Even on the third date.
Take time to take care of your life.
3 - SFC Ski
I don't think it should be a social rule as much as common sense. When I was single, I was all in favor of one-night stands and first date sex, but I generally found less of a desire to be with the girl the morning after, or any other time than having sex. The woman that I eventually married, and am still married to, was not one I had sex with on the first date, so maybe there is something to it.
4 - Bob A. Booey
"Shouldn't love making rather be a mutual throwing down, a taking from the buffet whatever can be stuffed, a state of blissful helplessness that catapults two or more people through the exosphere to drift tingling in an aurora of ectasy, taken there not by consent but by the temporary loss of free will, overcome by the irrepressible desire to join bodies, and almost, for a moment, believing it possible. ... Matters of the heart aren't settled by groin-to-groin interviews, but by the pulling together of two objects by force of gravity, biology and the human imagination, the last of which is just crazy enough to make a lifelong commitment based on a 13-second orgasm."
Virgin.
Don't write about sex ever again. It's gross. Ugly people shouldn't have sex.
What's the heart and lifelong commitment got to do with it?
"I said the kindest thing I could think of, which was that some people fake everything. I called it a "coping mechanism," which he seemed to buy. Refusing to attach makes detachment easier, I continued. It's the same principle as pre-emptive war; just that it's pre-emptive love. "
This is one of the worst paragraphs ever written. Virgin. You and your friend combined wouldn't make up enough of one man to satsify any woman ever.
Purple: you're paranoid. If you live in a city, HPV is unavoidable. Herpes is pretty omni-present too. Remember that next time you see a cold sore. Deal with it if you want your white boys treating you as exotica, banana.
That is all.
5 - Shark
Booey, now it's you who's not worthy of annointing another's feet; CW Fisher.
BTW, Booey: folks might start writing up to your grad-student "Hey look, I just discovered my intellect and I'm going to take it for a walk" standards WHEN YOU START PAYING THEM.
Pedantic Punk.
6 - Eric Olsen
Um yes: what an odd, even pathological response to this. I am trying to imagine the kind of person would be driven to such a cramped, sour, niggardly of heart, response.
EVERYONE knows that the most satisfying sex cannot be divorced from such cosmic emotions, even if those emotions are self-deceptively generated. They are generated because we all know something is missing if they aren't there.
7 - Michael
Back when I was a young punk it was considered obvious in my crowd that if you didn't kiss by the third date, the chemistry wasn't working and you should move on.
I found this out when a friend of mine, who is very shy, asked his female friends when he should decide to kiss the girl he was seeing.
He was crushed to learn he was six dates late. The relationship did not last.
It's a good thing for him the 3 dates to the bedroom rule wasn't our standard.
8 - CW
Boo Radley's right. I shouldn't write about sex. I'm too old. I know too much. I don't want to blow it for the younger crowd who recently invented it. It is not possible to explain to the young how quickly this all goes away, how one day you're admiring your own pecs and the next day some punk comes along and calls them breasts, and when you look in the mirror and realize the punk is right... what do you do? Stop having sex?
That would be the prudent thing, of course, but drives don't work that way. So on we go, inventing new ways to make rooms darker than ever before possible, while the elderly snicker, knowing full well what we're up to.
Boo, if the young didn't reject the old they'd be learning sex from old people. This is not good for society. We don't need people imagining what it's like to take off a girl's diaper like you've done it all your life.
The very idea that old people are out there having sex should trip the gag reflex in the young. It should even prompt indignation. The copycats!
The worst paragraph ever written is indeed the one that shows your parents having sex. It is, I admit, a horrible image. It proves you're not Jesus. It makes you feel oogy. It brings you back two years ago when your voice hadn't changed and makes you remember when your little peepee was worthy of the name "little peepee."
It's scary growing up, Boo. Even scarier growing older. Scariest is when you think you're a hotshot because you can post insults, because it all comes back on you, son, like pissing in the wind. All you get is sticky shins and a nursing home odor that's hard to explain.
9 - CW
Purple Tigress: I know so little about STD's that for years I thought people were saying "SBD's," which is short for "silent but deadly," a type of fart. I never disagreed that SBD's are a problem, and now that you've educated me here, I'm ashamed to think you think I think that sex outside the clinic is fine: it's not. Parachuting from an airplane is equally dumb and should always be done from your parent's bed. Kissing is all right, if you're kissing a photograph, and masturbation is acceptable with rubber gloves. It sounds to me like you're blaming men for spreading germs, and I think that's perfectly reasonable, since that's what we're here for. We, the unclean, are here to provide you, the immaculate, a spittoon in which to deposit your witchly venom. : )
10 - Eric Olsen
kill 'em with kindness, CW
11 - Dirtgrain
CW, it burns; it burns (I'm referring to your comeback--not STD's (although SBD's are a possibility)). It's fitting that I always felt sorry for Boo Radley. Poor Booey. However, Boo Radley had dignity that Booey's comment clearly lacks. Let Boo rest in peace. Give Booey another nickname.
Classic CW: "It is not possible to explain to the young how quickly this all goes away, how one day you're admiring your own pecs and the next day some punk comes along and calls them breasts, and when you look in the mirror and realize the punk is right... what do you do? Stop having sex?" and "The copycats!" and "Scariest is when you think you're a hotshot because you can post insults, because it all comes back on you, son, like pissing in the wind. All you get is sticky shins and a nursing home odor that's hard to explain."
12 - CW
dirtgrain, I know that burning feeling, and it's not desire!
Either contact your primary health care provider (formerly "doctor"), or memorize the verse below.
13 - Bob A. Booey
CW:
Know too much? Try too damn little at your advanced age. Virgin.
I never called you old, by the way, CW. That's your own insecurity you're offering us about being alone at your age. I didn't know you were elderly.
Your metaphors and witless folksy comments are painful to read. You wrote at least 2 more paragraphs from hell. Even worse, you don't really SAY anything interesting about sex. You come up with some Pollyanna position that everyone already agrees with. Show some creativity and maybe you'll get some booty.
SBDs? What planet do you live on?
Olsen: While I agree about the emotional attachment stuff, I don't think that anyone who approaches sex or relationships from a certain lack -- "something's missing" -- can sustain them. I really don't understand how people in our culture who are so overtly needy ("you complete me") can ever be fulfilled in their insecurities.
Plus, don't forget, boys: Women can see right through you and spot all the character flaws and psychological dysfunction. All that sensitivity and heart-on-your sleeve business won't get you the women you find most attractive. Perhaps that's unfortunate and I'm a narcissist, but it's true. Try being a little independent and not completely enmeshed in another person and they'll want you that much more.
It seems that my lapdogs have turned on me. You all know each other far too much.
That is all.
14 - Shark
...At least Boo Radley knew his limitations.
BobbyBooey is just dying to be christened the Alpha Male Silverback of BC, but as we all know, he's just another little shark in tiny pond.
But Booey, we're all glad we could be present for your first real visit to a message board.
Gee willikers, yer sooo smart!
Now if yer really nice, Fisher might buy you your first beer.
15 - Shark
Fisher, love the graphic. That Dyan Cannon really needs to lay off the face-lifts!
16 - boomcrashbaby
Funny post. I enjoyed it. Reminds me of the first time I slept with a girl. We had been dating two weeks. Can't honestly remember how many times we went out during that two weeks. But she said 'damn, it's about time. I was beginning to think you might be gay.'