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• Thursday, December 21, 2006 03:41 PM

  Taking it for granted

  I think in general, everyone (all adults, anyway) can take it for granted that sex is a part of a romantic relationship. I guess this isn't true for the subset of people who believe sex should wait until marriage, but I don't think we're talking about them here. :) I don't know any adult women who want to have romantic relationships without sex.

  So, if that's the case, what it seems like you're saying is that you're annoyed that men can't take it for granted that they're going to get laid immediately, since I think they absolutely can take it for granted that they'll get laid at some point if the relationship is allowed to continue to the point where both parties feel that they know each other well enough to be so intimate. Please note that every person, whether male or female, has his/her own idea about when he/she is comfortable enough to be so intimate with another person, and this varies from one woman to the next, and in one relationship to the next. I once slept with someone on the first date (and we then went on to have a fifteen-year relationship); I've also been with men who I haven't slept with for a long time because the relationship hadn't progressed to that stage yet.

  I can't really feel sympathy for the point of view that men should be able to take it for granted that sex will be in the picture immediately, because sex is such a personal thing and whether one feels comfortable sleeping with someone else involves so many variables. If a lot of women don't feel comfortable sleeping with someone until they know him pretty well, can you blame them? (Do I have to go through the whole thing about men being so much stronger, sex involving being alone in a private place and therefore putting the weaker person in a potentially dangerous situation, etc., again?)

  Plus, there are women who will sleep with someone right away, so, again, it's not like there's a conspiracy to withhold it. And, believe it or not, there are men who won't sleep with someone right away. Dividing everything along gender lines isn't the only way to see the world, and I don't think it's very productive if you genuinely want to develop meaningful relationships with people of the opposite sex.

  —lww
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