(Picture: Ella Byworth for Metro.co.uk)

Like most women, I grew up believing that if you really liked a guy, you should ‘make’ him wait for sex.

Then I got older and had a bit more sex (without always waiting for three dates, a romantic dinner and a bed covered in rose petals) and realised that the ‘no sex if you want it to turn into a relationship’ was a total myth.

It’s perfectly possible to have a relationship with someone you’ve bonked on the first date. Or even bonked without there having been a date at all.

Unfortunately, not everyone seems to have got that memo. I regularly hear women – educated women who pay their own bills and do stuff like watching films with subtitles – lamenting not being able to have sex.




How do we get to 2017 and have women saying things like ‘I’m making him wait because I really like him’?

Spoiler alert: anyone who would like you less or be less inclined to be in a relationship with you on the basis that you have had sex with them is a complete and utter t**t.

Your worth as a person is not in your sexual mystique. You do not lose anything by having sex. Whether you have sex or the first date or the twenty fifth has literally no bearings on your morals or your character.

Some people who have very little sex are morally reprehensible. Some people who have a different partner every night are good and kind and honest. How you have sex does not define who you are as a person. At all. Not even a little tiny bit.

(Picture: Ella Byworth for Metro.co.uk)

The assumption that a man will like a woman less after he has sex with her is also kind of unfair to men. It casts them as these sex-obsessed, brainless creatures who have been brainwashed by a societal expectation of virginal purity.

Most men are better than that. They’re perfectly able to respect you as a human even if they’ve seen you naked.

The thing that troubles me most about this ‘make him wait’ philosophy is how completely illogical it is.

We don’t apply it to any other aspect of a relationship. You don’t hide your sense of humour for the first four dates because he’s supposed to work really hard before he’s allowed to see that you’re funny.

Having a deliberately less fun time with someone in order to ascertain whether you would like to have a more fun time with them just feels counter intuitive.

Sex is fun. Having sex with someone new who you really fancy is extra fun. It’s a bonding experience. It brings you closer and strips back your defenses. It’s (at least in my view) an essential part of getting into a relationship. So why wait?

Having sex on the first date means getting that first time over and done with. It means you don’t waste two months dating someone only to discover that they hum Phil Collins when they climax or can only get an erection if you’re both wearing socks.

If you’re a big fan of wasting time then by all means, leave the discovery of one of the most important aspects of a relationship until you’ve committed in other ways. But if you’re trying to date in a time efficient way? Having sex straight away just makes sense.



Really bad sex isn’t always a total red card, if the person you’re sleeping with is willing to change and try new things that can be a really good sign. But whether it’s good or it’s bad, you’ve learned something about the person that you’re trying to forge a connection with.

There is no wrong way to approach sex, as long as it’s consensual. If you want to wait until marriage, that’s your call. If you’re leaping in to bed with people the day that you meet them, that’s also totally okay.

The only time when it becomes a problem is when you’re holding yourself back or denying yourself a life experience that you’re craving in order to try and retain another person’s respect. Because – and I really hope that someone has told you this before, but just in case they haven’t – anyone who thinks that your worth can be eroded by having sex with them? Not someone you should be getting into a relationship with in the first place.

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