To Sex Or Not To Sex

There is a question that seems to keep coming up in my life: What, if anything, happens when you have sex very early in a relationship? (i.e.: the first date...or before the first date, as the case may be.) My therapist (who disclosed that in fact she wouldn't know anything about NOT having sex on the first date, having come of age in the 60s and 70s) and I had a long chat about this in our Friday morning session. We ultimately came to the conclusion that there is no conclusion. I hate that answer.

I think Sex really gets the raw end of the deal here. It gets blamed for all sorts of things that really aren't its fault. Like, if the relationship isn't working out people (well, women really) might start to wonder - Did we have sex too early? Did I wait too long? when really that may be completely irrelevant. I really think a relationship is going to be what it's going to be, whether you had sex on the first date or the 15th. If he reminds you of your mother, he reminds you of your mother and that's all there is to it.

My friend Carrie (you know the one, she lives in the City and is friends with Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda....She had a long, fucked-up relationship with Mr. Big...) mistakenly named Sex as the culprit when her relationship with Big wasn't working out. They had sex on the first date. But what she fails to realize is that the problem was that he wasn't emotionally available. And he wouldn't have been any more emotionally available if they waited to have sex on the second date or on the 10th. I think her Manolo Blahniks were cutting off the circulation to her brain on that one.

Of course, Sex does deserve some credit. It is responsible for fucking things up on more than one occasion. I will say that it can make things more confusing - if the sex is good those good feelings can get transferred onto the (possibly less than good) person you had the good sex with. If it's bad, probably less than good feelings get put onto what otherwise might be a wonderful person. And then there's the whole sex-as-a-substitute-for-intimacy stuff. I recommend therapy for that one.

So the answer? You'll have to check back later to find out, I guess. But, as a (swell) single gal I gotta say - if you have sex early on and then decide that you really don't like the person all that much, at least you got laid, right?!