Anyone who watches Millionaire Matchmaker knows that Patti Stanger advises all of her clients to stick to her rule of “No sex before monogamy!” While I love Patti’s straight-up style and tell-it-like-it-is ‘tude, I could not disagree with her more on this one. (Well, she does disapprove of gingers, which I’ll never understand. SO HOT.)
How could you know if you want to be monogamous with someone if you haven’t slept with them?! While many may not agree, I believe commitment is more sacred than sex, particularly as you get older. When you’re in your early 20s, having a boyfriend or girlfriend is a wonderful thing. Marriage and the distant future are rarely a concern, and love is often enough to fuel a relationship. I loved my sexy Italian stallion boyfriend in college, and it never occurred to me that our polarizing religious views and vastly different post-graduate plans mattered. I didn’t even care that his parents hated me — I mean, I WAS his R.A., three years his senior, after all.
However, in my thirties, commitment has taken on an entirely new meaning. People rarely enter a relationship in their thirties if they don’t see a future, whether it be marriage, domestic partnership, or something else. And that’s the way it SHOULD be.
Sex is a monumentally crucial aspect of any and every relationship. Take it from Dr. Phil: “Sex might not be everything, but it registers higher (90 percent) on the ‘importance scale’ if it’s a source of frustration in your relationship. If your sex life is unfulfilled, it becomes a gigantic issue. On the other hand, couples that have satisfying sex lives rate sex at only 10 percent on the ‘importance scale’.”
Whether you do it the first night, the third date, or two months down the road, it won’t matter. Either you’ll work out, or you won’t, and what’s meant to be, will be. While the timing doesn’t matter, the sex itself does, though. Bad sex doesn’t get better. You can’t force chemistry.
Before we slept together, I decided to be exclusive with a super sweet guy that treated me like gold. We had met each other’s friends, gotten into a nice routine, and things were going smoothly…. until we did it. I felt like the pavement to his jackhammer and the mannequin to his strange version of a CPR reenactment. He told me he loved me afterwards. I told him I think he may have bitten off a piece of my earlobe. It was painful, in more ways than one.
By then, you’ll feel horrible for breaking up with someone so wonderful just because the sex isn’t great. I mean, it could always get better, right? WRONG! (And it can’t get bigger, either). Believe me, it’s much easier to end something after you’ve already boned and you later realize you both voted differently in the last election. You’ll feel much worse if you fall hard for someone and then have to end it when he refuses to stop calling you “mommy” while he hammers away for 30 seconds.
So, yeah, as Nike says, “Just Do It”. Whenever you want — just make sure it’s before you take yourself off the market.
