Think back to that first time you met the person you’re talking to. Focus on the time you first felt butterflies in your stomach, that indescribable cosmic rush between your head, heart, maybe even your junk? Get ready, cause today is all about sex and intimacy!
It’s a rush that can quickly advance one’s carnal desires early on in a relationship. Throw in a Pandemic and all the rules went out the window.
The words, new year, new you have never felt more accurate!
Sex and Intimacy
You’re both consenting adults; if you choose to experiment with sex and intimacy on the first date—you do you! Some say it’s a right of passage in a relationship to assess true physical compatibility. No one can deny the importance of sex and intimacy when it comes to building a romantic bond.
Maybe you’re both just ready to jump anything with a pulse after being in lockdown forever!
Many believe that determining your sexual chemistry before becoming exclusive is a necessary indicator of compatibility. However, there are others with fancy degrees and data who disagree.
Waiting Builds a Bond
Believe it or not, there is scientific data that supports waiting before jumping in the sack.
A study in the American Psychological Association’s Journal of Family Psychology surveyed 2,035 married couples. It found that the longer they waited to have sex in their relationship, the better the relationship was overall, even after marriage.
Don’t want to get married you say, so why wait? Well, there’s data to support that scenario too.
Sharon Sassler and her colleagues at Cornell University found that rapid sexual involvement has adverse long-term implications on relationship quality.
“Adequate time is required for romantic relationships to develop in a healthy way. In contrast, relationships that move too quickly, without adequate discussion of the goals and long-term desires of each partner, may be insufficiently committed and therefore result in relationship distress, especially if one partner is more committed than the other.”
Couples that engage in sex too soon create counterfeit intimacy. These fast, intense feelings of lust or infatuation are often confused with true love.
This counterfeit love currency is then cashed in on major life purchases, like buying a house together or adopting a dog.
That basically means having sex early on in a relationship creates an imbalance which can include unhealthy communication patterns, and rushes to judgement on major life decisions. Such preemptive entanglement is hard to unravel. Often couples will passively follow what’s easiest and proceed with poor life choices instead of interrupting the status quo.
Love > Libido
They say true love is worth waiting for, but some people view hooking up more casually than others.
Be willing to have an honest conversation about sex and intimacy with your partner. Even if you haven’t defined the relationship yet. Communicate what each of you are seeking before you bring sex into the relationship. Otherwise someone is going to get the short end of the proverbial stick.
Simply ask yourself—do you want to nurture a long-lasting relationship built on a foundation of partnership and love or are you just looking to feed your libido? No judgement here. You get to choose, but be sure to discuss it before clothes start hitting the floor.
Click here for more information about Safety and Sexual Health.