In the car I just can’t wait, to take you out on our very first date…
Imagine you are on a first date and it’s going well, very well. Your date is attractive, intelligent, and you feel surprisingly comfortable around them for having just met. You already know that you want to see them again.
Time flies, it’s late, you don’t want the night to end, but you could use a change of scenery, so when they suggest coming back to their place to watch a movie you happily agree. Now, perhaps you genuinely want to watch a movie together, or maybe you hope to ‘Netflix and Chill’, or boldly skip the charade entirely and head straight to the bedroom (or the floor if you can’t make it that far 😉).
Regardless of your initial intentions, lust tends to bloom at night. The only thing holding you back is the fear that they don’t feel the same. So, you make a move to test the waters–perhaps something subtle like brushing the back of your finger against their skin—and if they reciprocate, even in the tiniest way, all resistance gives way in an instant like the demolition of a damn.
And you have sex! Perhaps more than once and fall asleep with bodies touching. You wake in a pleasant mood, stretch your limbs, careful to disturb their slumber, and have sex again—for what feels like the first time? –in the soft morning light. Eventually you leave bed to make coffee and smile sheepishly at each other between sips and stilted conversation about the decor or some other triviality. You do not talk about last night, careful not to dispel the lingering magic. You do not talk about later either, careful not to reveal your intentions.
Besides words are superfluous. It is undeniable last night was great. It’s clear there is a real spark. It’s obvious you will see each other again.
Alas, while this is true, it’s also all downhill from here…
He takes longer to respond and his replies grow shorter. You hang out a few more times, but it’s clear he’s not interested in building a relationship, just sex. You want more, he knows this and eventually stops responding altogether.
As a woman, you feel hurt, deceived, frustrated…and rightly so! But before we simply label the man another ‘asshole’ and move on, we should consider his experience.
The man is sometimes just as hurt, frustrated, and confused! He doesn’t understand what happened. He liked you, he took pains to memorize your favorite shows, made grand plans for a 2nd date, and even wondered what life would be like together. However, despite his noble intentions, these romantic feelings are fading fast and he feels powerless to stop it. Even after the feelings are gone (or conspicuously weakened), he still remembers how he felt so he goes on a few more dates in a sincere attempt to recapture that spark, but like an echo it only grows fainter.
Sound familiar? Do you wonder why this happens again and again? Do you wonder why having sex on the first date so often precludes any chance of forming a serious, long-term relationship?
I did and the volumes of self-help articles were unconvincing (perhaps that explains why there are so many of them). They acknowledge the existence of a taboo, but describe its cause as rational– after thinking about it more, I am not okay with someone who does x—or cultural– society tells us that people who have sex on the first date are not relationship-worthy. These explanations are not wrong, but they feel incomplete.
So I turned to science for an answer and developed a theory based primarily on the ideas of Sex at Dawn, The Mating Mind, The Blank Slate, and The Molecule of More. I am admittedly an ‘armchair academic’ and would gladly leave the work to experts, but they have shied away from this topic, presumably out of fear of being ‘cancelled’. Thankfully I am not really cancellable so I will gladly continue the conversation for the sake of truth and helping others who also struggle with this taboo.
Without further ado, my theory:
I believe there is an innate, biological bias against sex on the first date. I believe there was an evolutionary benefit to waiting to have sex until you knew the other person well. I believe a biological bias offers a better—stronger and more consistent—explanation of behavior than rational and cultural explanations. And I believe understanding this bias is the most effective way to overcome it…
Read on to learn why exactly I think such a bias would have evolved in our species!
Evolution is sexy
Before we jump to the heart of the argument, a brief primer on evolution is warranted since my argument rests on some of the less understood aspects of evolution.
The two primary goals of almost all creatures are:
1) to spread their genes are widely as possible
2) stay alive as long as possible (primarily in order to increase their chances to pass along their genes).
As Doctor Geoffrey Miller, author of ‘The Mating Mind’ puts it “…the body itself is a sinking prison ship. Death comes to all bodies sooner or later…Genes can survive in the long term only by jumping ship into offspring.”
Genes influence what traits (e.g. hair color, height, temperament) are expressed in an organism and evolution describes which genes/traits persist across generations (and which become extinct). If you are more of a visual person and/or want more than a one-sentence explanation of evolution, there are tons of excellent resources out there such as this cute ~10-minute video.
Most explanations of evolution emphasize the idea of ‘survival of the fittest’. The ancient world of our ancestors was full of disease, deprivation, and deadly predators (lions, tigers, and other humans, oh my!). These dangers may not sound intimidating today, but we have medicine, weapons, laws, agriculture, and other tools of civilization to combat them, whereas our ancestors had sticks, stones, and fire (and not even these in prehistory!). We do not know for certain the mortality rates of ancient hunter-gatherers, but there is broad consensus that it was significantly higher than today1. Hobbes was partially correct when he described the life of uncivilized man as “…nasty, brutish, and short.” In the unforgiving environment of the hunter-gatherer the healthiest, strongest, and wisest were most likely to survive and pass along their genes.
The survival aspect of evolution is important, however, it alone is insufficient to explain evolution. To pass along genes to the next generation one must do more than survive, they must also reproduce. Indeed, if an individual is unable to attract a mate, it does not matter how good they are at surviving—their genes die with them and they are considered an ‘evolutionary failure’. Furthermore, those who die young but reproduce before doing so are considered an ‘evolutionary success’.
‘Sexual selection’ describes the reproductive aspect of evolution. For many species, mates are chosen based on preferences for certain characteristics, which may or may not have survival value. This side of evolution is typically de-emphasized because of old-fashioned prudishness and the assumption that those who are most likely to survive are also the most likely to reproduce, but that is too naive of a simplification.
There exists an enormity of traits and behaviors that have evolved for seemingly no survival benefit. There are hundreds of examples1,2,3 in other animals, perhaps most notably the flamboyant tails of peacocks, which are actually a detriment to survival (heavy and nutritionally expensive to maintain). In humans, some obvious candidates of sexually selected traits are male facial hair, breasts larger than necessary for milk production, disproportionate storage of fat in female buttocks, and even the excessive size of the penis. Doctor Geoffrey Miller (The Mating Mind) argues that art, morality, and even consciousness also developed primarily through sexual selection. The common thread for all these traits is that they have little to no survival value and require considerable resources—energy—to develop and maintain. Evolution does not reward wastefulness so there must be a reason for the existence of these traits and sexual preference is the best explanation available.
Suffice to say, talking about evolution only in terms of ‘survival of the fittest’ is like talking about how much you love your favorite singer’s lyricism when someone else wrote the song. While sex obviously has some survival benefits (resource sharing for example), the ultimate purpose of sex is to pass along our genes, so it seems obvious we should examine the ‘sex on the first date taboo’ through the lens of sexual selection. To do this we need to go back in time and understand the environment in which our mating preferences evolved.
Born in a different time
One more thing that needs to be understood about evolution is that it’s a slooooow process. While evolution is technically occurring all the time, it takes a significant amount of time for a change in an individual’s DNA to become widespread in a population. The amount of time it takes varies based on numerous factors such as the pressure exerted by the environment, the benefit of the DNA change, lifespan, reproductive cycle, etc. I’ve seen estimates vary from 3,000 years for increased blood oxygen4 for high altitude environments, 10,000 years for modern skin pigmentation5, and 100,000 years for complex traits6 such as art and perhaps consciousness.
These wide-ranging estimates highlight another important point for our discussion: the more complex a trait is (i.e. the more factors—genetic and environmental—influencing it), the more stable the trait is across generations and thus slower to evolve (compared to traits influenced by a few or even a single gene such as acne, heart rate, and Huntington’s disease7.
Mating preferences are undoubtedly complex traits. There are numerous, subjective, subtle, interdependent mental processes occurring when assessing the desirability of a mate. Preferences often vary across individuals—beauty is in the eye of the beholder—and can be inconsistent within an individual, and change over time. A major reason why humans are so bad at predicting what they like in a partner is because it is so complicated.
Anyways, if mating preferences are indeed highly complex traits, then we can safely assume it would take at least 10,000 years (and likely far longer) for meaningful changes to become widespread.
This assumption is critical because the ‘modern’ world is incredibly young; a mere 12,000 years have passed since the start of the Agricultural Revolution, a paltry 200 years since the Industrial Revolution, and a minuscule 60 years–just 3 generations–since the Sexual Revolution. These periods brought about massive changes to society and applied enormous pressure to adapt our sexual preferences to this new environment, however, thus far humanity has adapted primarily through changes to cultural norms—there simply has not been enough time for our biological sexual preferences to significantly change.
Thus, our innate mating preferences are still suited to the hunter-gatherer society prevalent for most of human history. This matters because the ‘sexual marketplace’ back then was very different than modern dating. In particular, there is compelling evidence that polyamory and communal child-rearing among a few dozen intimately acquainted people was the norm, and this has profound implications for how male and female mating preferences would have evolved.
(If you’re still with me, I’ll presume you may enjoy a brief tangent on the lifestyle of hunter-gatherers. Numerous scholars suggest that hunter-gatherers had more time for leisure, a better sense of community, and are even able to breathe better8 than humans today. There are drawbacks, of course, to this lifestyle, chiefly high child mortality, disease, murder, and other general hardships. Life was not as good as Rousseau’s ‘noble savage’, but not as bad as Hobbe’s ‘brutish’ depiction. I share the opinion so forcefully voiced by Jared Diamond that humans were better-off as hunter-gatherers and collective ‘progress’ has generally come at the expense of individual well-being9).
Men’s evolved mating preferences
Under the assumptions of polyamory and communal child-rearing, men would have evolved to have sex with many partners with little regard for the ‘quality’ of that partner. True, lower quality partners are more likely to have pregnancy complications, birth an unhealthy child, and be subpar parents, but that would be of little concern to our male ancestors since they bear no biological cost of pregnancy and only a fraction of the cost of communal child-rearing (more food would be needed, but there are others to share that burden with).
This drive to mate with many women is a common theme throughout history. Ismail Ibn Sharif, a Sultan of Morocco and potentially the most prolific father ever, was reportedly able to sire over 1,000 children10. Scientists believe Genghis Khan is a male ancestor to 16 million males today11.
These extreme examples are not representative of the hunter-gather environment, but they highlight what happens when the male desire to mate with many women is virtually uninhibited. And this impulse is not restricted to the ancient past—for modern examples see: Mic Jagger (4,000 women12) and Wilt Chamberlain (20,000 women13)—or is abnormal—65%+ of Americans surveyed reported having sex with multiple partners in their lifetime14, 54% have ever been cheated on15, and 16% have cheated while married17. These are pretty strong arguments in favor of polyamory being a biological preference, especially considering there are such strong consequences—social and financial– for being sexually promiscuous in today’s age.
There are countless other examples of man’s promiscuity, but that does not prove it is a biological imperative. It is difficult to conclusively untangle nature vs nurture, so we should also consider our intuition.
So I ask you, as a man, to reflect on whether any of this resonates as true. Have you experienced overwhelming attraction for other women even when in a fulfilling relationship? Would you be willing to have sex with someone without knowing their name? Would you wear a condom if you were guaranteed not to be held responsible for any potential children? And, most importantly, do you think these are cultural attitudes or something innate?
As a woman, you obviously would not have experienced this feeling personally, but have likely been a firsthand or secondhand victim of it. Do you know men who will sleep with anyone? Have you been cheated on by a ‘good dude’ who seems genuinely remorseful?
Of course, intuition can steer us wrong (and we can lie to ourselves about our intuition), but it is another factor worth considering in the absence of objective truth.
Women’s evolved mating preferences
Contrary to popular opinion, women also likely evolved to have sex with multiple partners, however, women evolved to be selective in the ‘quality’ of their sexual partners.For women, having sex with a low-quality partner could have catastrophic consequences. Not only are low-quality partners more likely to result in high-risk—i.e deadly–pregnancies, they also result in less healthy babies that are less likely to survive, reproduce, and pass along the mother’s genes. Additionally, unhealthy babies that survive childbirth require higher investment from the mother in terms of time and resources (although it is unclear who the father is, there is no doubt who is the mother). While we are touching on uncomfortable topics I’ll add that infanticide was likely a socially acceptable alternative to raising unhealthy babies for hunter-gatherers (14% of male children and 23% of female children among the foraging Ache people18).
Unhealthy babies are highly undesirable in terms of survival of the mother and the mother’s genes (not that you cannot love an unhealthy offspring). Our genes—and the behaviors they encourage–are long-sighted in that they want to persist in perpetuity–jumping ship to a ship sinking even faster is not an effective long-term survival strategy.
A lot can go wrong for women when mating and exacerbating this fact is that women have a limited number of chances to get it right. A woman can only reproduce so many times due to a reproductive lifespan of ~35 years and pregnancy lasting ~10 months (the rough math is ~40 pregnancies at most and no one realistically comes close19). This may sound like a lot of opportunities, but not from the perspective of evolution. The likelihood of survival and the quality of pregnancy decrease with time and each pregnancy, so future pregnancies would be discounted in value quite dramatically. The most effective strategy is to maximize the success of the first pregnancy.
While modern culture generally aims to restrain the innate promiscuity of men, it reinforces the inherent choosiness of women. Progress is being made on having equal opportunities for both sexes, but women are still far more likely to be the primary caregiver for a child and thus it is essential they choose a mate who will not only produce a healthy, lower-maintenance offspring, but also provide for them financially.
I am not aware of any famous examples of women choosiness–likely because women historically have not been in positions of power and being highly selective is less conspicuous than being highly indiscriminate—but female choosiness is reflected broadly in our culture. On dating apps, women rate 80% of guys as worse-looking than average, ~60% of women (compared to 9% of men) estimate they like 10% or fewer of all profiles they encounter, and women typically complain about the quality of their options (while men complain about the quantity of matches). More generally, women are seen as something to be wooed (as opposed to eager participants) and are more likely to be viewed favorably for their chastity.
Now, I readily admit the argument that women are biologically predisposed to be more sexually selective than men is contentious. Sex at Dawn raises some difficult questions that seem to argue against female choosiness such as: Why do women take longer to orgasm than men? Is it because they expect multiple partners? Is that why women also tend to be vocal during sex? To alert and lure other men to sex? And why is a man’s penis uniquely shaped like a shovel? Perhaps women evolved to take longer to orgasm because this makes sex less pleasurable and allows them to think more rationally about mating. Perhaps female vocalness is evolved as a sexual preference of males.
There are reasonable arguments for and against innate female choosiness, but overall, I think the balance is in favor of female choosiness. Female choosiness is prevalent in the rest of the animal kingdom so this is not some special quality being ascribed to humans. Female choosiness is also widespread across many different cultures. And among modern hunter-gatherers serial monogamy appears to be the norm (as opposed to polyamorous orgies).
The case for a biological bias against sex on the first date
That many of our behaviors are not conscious decisions, but rather subconscious, involuntary reactions is a truth that can be understood on many levels. On the personal level, think of all the times you act without thinking. Like how you nearly jump out of your body when you see a snake on the ground. Or how sometimes you speak and immediately regret what you said. Or how you fall in love despite your better judgement. On a more intellectual level, it is instructive to look at the behavior of babies and other animals. You don’t need to teach a baby how to breastfeed and no one would dream of teaching a baby how to cry. Birds aren’t taught how to fly.
These instincts / judgements / reactions / taboos / biases /stereotypes / behaviors / urges / impulses / preferences / predilection / heuristics are in your DNA / blood / bones / soul / spirit / innate / primal. That you are born with some ‘programming’ is not up for debate, the evidence is overwhelming. If you are interested in reviewing the evidence in detail, Steven Pinker’s The Blank Slate is an excellent place to start.
It’s no giant leap to consider adding another innate behavior to the list: men are biologically predisposed to have an automatic and often unconscious negative reaction to women who have sex on the first date (and have sex too quickly in general). This bias may be more subtle and less obvious than the examples above, but that does not mean it is any less powerful.
Why exactly would something like this exist? What is the evolutionary benefit? As we discussed women have likely evolved to be extremely selective of their sexual partners, and when a woman accepts a sexual partner on the first night it says one of three things to men:
- This woman is not discerning
- This woman has poor impulse control
- You are out of her league
Men will have sex with nearly anyone, but they are more discerning when forming long-term relationships and desire the best mate possible. Discernment and impulse control are highly important and highly complex traits. If something is out-of-whack here, that is a major problem in itself, but it also suggests there may be additional shortcomings. Complex traits tell us more about fitness than simple traits like hair color.
Women, on the other hand, can make limited inference from a man’s willingness to have sex on the first date since this represents ‘normal’ behavior.
If this does not seem fair, it’s because it isn’t! But biology only cares for the human concept of fairness or any other ideology in so far as it influences natural and sexual selection (as some aspects of morality undoubtedly do).
Why none of this matters—free will to the rescue!
While our biology may strongly suggest that we judge a woman harshly for having sex on the first date, biology is not destiny–it is possible to overcome our urges.
Indeed, it may behoove us to disregard these impulses since they evolved for a world very different than the one we live in today. The likelihood of sex resulting in pregnancy has become insignificant due to birth control so women don’t need to worry about the reproductive implications of sex (assuming the proper precautions are taken). Why should we deny ourselves the opportunity to have risk-free sex? We are not slaves to our impulses, we are rational beings!
How free are we?
Unfortunately, there is an enormous gap between the theory of free will and reality. It may seem like we have free will because we are able to compare options and make rational decisions, however, a closer examination reveals that free will is largely an illusion.
How often do you engage in rational, decision-making? Did it inform what you ate for breakfast? How did you determine the options for comparison? Are there any you missed? Did you deliberately choose to exclude them? How did you choose the best option? Could you explain precisely how you valued the various criteria? How did you feel when you woke up this morning? Did you choose to feel that way? Can you predict your next thought with any accuracy? Where did it come from? Did you choose to think it? Can you count to twenty without getting distracted?
There is a fundamental degree of randomness to our thoughts and feelings. While there are various techniques that can influence one’s disposition (Metta meditation to be kinder, for example), they require uncommon discipline and even then, there is still a large degree of randomness. The best we can reasonably hope for, according to the Buddhists who are right again20, is to change our reactions to our thoughts and feelings, and this too requires proper technique and enormous commitment.
The truth is while many can make modest behavioral changes such as eating better, exercising more, or reducing a speech impediment, most lack the capacity to consciously change deeply-rooted behaviors and biases (such as an aversion to sex on the first date).
(Side note: if you value openness a fantastic first-date question is ‘when was the last time you changed your mind?’)
Practical advice
Even if you are one of the few who has the capacity to overcome a bias against sex on the first date, that does not mean you should. There are costs to doing so and if you are an enlightened, rational, civilized individual, then you should consider whether this is the most effective use of your time and effort.
The answer is unequivocally ‘no’ for three reasons:
- There is a low-cost alternative (waiting a few dates)
- The low-cost alternative (waiting) may actually be better
- There are undoubtedly more fruitful uses of your effort (such as learning a new skill, to be kinder, etc.)
Of these arguments, the second may be the most compelling of all. Denying sexual desires increases the levels of dopamine and testosterone, which increases one’s ‘passion’ / ‘infatuation’ / ‘romantic feelings’. Gratifying sexual desires reduces dopamine, which results in less of these feelings and less forward-looking21. Starting a relationship is difficult, it requires compromise, effort, and vision. Forming a relationship is sort of like launching a rocket to outer space; it requires a tremendous amount of energy to launch–too little and gravity brings you crashing back to earth–but with enough initial thrust you can coast for a long time.
This explanation is chemical not cultural, but many laypeople have observed this phenomenon. Psychologists refer to it as the ‘Scarcity Principle’, which Mark Twain described when he wrote:
“…He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it – namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain.“
Call me old fashioned, but when scientists, psychologists, a literary master, and your grandma all agree on something, it’s probably wise to listen.
But you don’t have to take their word for it, try for yourself–wait at least a few dates to have sex.
Unless, of course, you want to have casual, no-strings-attached sex, then go for it! There is no shame in having sex on the first date, but it is foolish to expect a serious relationship to result.
Wrapping it up (tl;dr)
Women evolved to be choosy and women who have sex on the first date are sending a bad signal about their fitness as a long-term mate.
Men can ignore this negative signal, but it’s difficult to do, likely not the best use of their time, and many are not even fully aware this bias exists.
So, wait to have sex, it’s better and costs you little.
Post-Script – On Nature vs Nurture
My argument has relied almost exclusively on an evolutionary explanation for behavior because it is potent and oft-ignored force, but, unfortunately, it can also detract from what truly matters. ‘Nature vs nurture’ comes with a lot of connotations and can spark up intense ideological opposition. Even those who believe in science can easily get caught up debating how strong a role each plays.
In most cases a more practical framework than nature vs nurture is: how deeply rooted is a behavior? There is an assumption that nature is stronger than nurture, but that is not always the case. Cultural programming can be more resilient, pervasive, and insidious than biological imperatives.
Arguing whether a bias against sex on the first date is due to nature or nurture is irrelevant to your life. I believe it is biological. It could be cultural. No one truly knows.
What is relevant is what to do about it. Either way the most effective solution seems to be awareness paired with delayed gratification.