So, sex is going to happen on the first date anyway? But if the woman initiates or even consents, then she is immoral, so she might as well tease to at least get the best sex she can?

“No means maybe” isn’t the right title. It’s “No is meaningless.”

And creepy week on Pandagon continues…

So guys only try if they’re trying to get one over on you?  Good to know.  Not my experience, but what the hell.

What a weird, weird piece.  Like the rest of the right wing paradigms, their sex paradigm is further and further sinking quickly into madness.

Soooo….

Let’s take the old Patriarchy paradigm and examine it and see, for all it’s ills, if it supports this moron.  As a geezer, I remember a time when you wouldn’t even try to have sex on the first date.  It’s not something that gentlemen did.  You are supposed to woo her.  You are supposed to patient.  You are supposed to show respect.  She’s woman, like your sister, mother, etc. 

Where’s all of that?  Nowhere.  Here, it’s try to get into her pants immediately.  If you are a manly man you’ll at least give it a shot.  I’m a disgusting pig but hey, it’s my job.  If you force me to, I’ll pretend to act decent, but giving you respect?  Fuck that.  If you didn’t have a pussy I wouldn’t give you the time of day. 

So here’s my take.  They not only don’t get the new paradigm they don’t get the old one either.

TMI alert!

My wife & I had sex on the first date, and it really wasn’t even a date. It was more of a hook up. 14 years ago. It was very much a mutually agreed upon action (I didn’t have to make any outlandish promises/lies) and quite fantastic. So (in my opinion) this guy is one stupid mother fucker.

I would probably have said that anyway, but my personal experience makes it even easier to reach that conclusion.

This thinking goes along with that outmoded “Rules” crap from about 15 years ago.  Proved to be a FAIL back then, hasn’t gotten any better since.

Hell, if you want to have sex on the first date, why not? If he’s a jerk, he’ll just go away that much faster.

“a chance to rob the gold from Fort Knox.”

WOW.

Sweet Jesus on a pogo stick.  He put “then be glad you’re seeing the taillights.” way too far up in that article.  The sort of dude who’ll openly state that he gets “a lot of pleasure” out of breaking a partner’s resolve and/or tricking them out of some pussy is the sort of dude you sure as hell don’t want to be in any kind of relationship with.

Let’s take the old Patriarchy paradigm and examine it and see, for all it’s ills, if it supports this moron.  As a geezer, I remember a time when you wouldn’t even try to have sex on the first date.  It’s not something that gentlemen did.  You are supposed to woo her.  You are supposed to patient.  You are supposed to show respect.  She’s woman, like your sister, mother, etc.

The caveats being:

1) This “respect” only applied to “respectable” women (like your mother, your sister, etc.).  If a girl was a bad girl, you could treat her however you chose.

2) The “respect” was not the respect accorded to an equal, but a bit of noblesse oblige, a social superior choosing to act graciously to an inferior. 

Where’s all of that?  Nowhere.  Here, it’s try to get into her pants immediately.  If you are a manly man you’ll at least give it a shot.  I’m a disgusting pig but hey, it’s my job.  If you force me to, I’ll pretend to act decent, but giving you respect?  Fuck that.  If you didn’t have a pussy I wouldn’t give you the time of day.

It’s worse than that.  If a guy is like that openly, then his date can choose to either drop him on the spot or take a recreational ride on his cock and then dump him without feeling bad about it, as she chooses. If he doesn’t give her the time of day, then she’s in no danger - the worst that happens is she has no date for Saturday night.  What this putz is advocating is spending the “time of day” plotting and pushing and scheming to get into her pants despite - in fact, because of - the fact she’s already said no, because lack of consent is nothing more than a tantalizing challenge.

It’s the mindset of the rapist in a nutshell.

If the evening is still young, he takes your limit-setting as an exciting dare, not a disappointment. The longer you stick to your guns, the more effort, creativity and care you’ll get out of him.

One person’s “effort, creativity, and care” is another person’s (at the very least) “annoying the shit out of me and second guessing my decisions.”

Yeah, mind games and manipulation are HAWT. An approach only a PUAC idiot would find insightful.

My goodness, what awful advice. Magis and Mark, in different ways, both nail the reason why.

The author of the piece is a rapist.  He cannot believe that no means no, and he sees it as a “challenge”.  He believes all men are exactly like he is.

He’s trying to reinforce his idea that no does not mean no, but simply means that his date wants foreplay.  HE wants sex; her feelings about the matter are irrelevent.

Rapist.  He’ll claim it’s ‘grey’ or otherwise questionable, but he’s a rapist.  He’s the rapist who’s always asking “Is it rape if I do this?  What about this?”

Sex is something consenting adults enthusiastically participate in.  If either the consent or the enthusiasm or the participation are missing, it’s not sex.

Rapist.  He’ll claim it’s ‘grey’ or otherwise questionable, but he’s a rapist.  He’s the rapist who’s always asking “Is it rape if I do this?  What about this?”

Exactly—if you gotta ask ...

When a woman actually wants to have sex with you, it’s really awesome. It would totally change this guy’s mind about his thesis. Too bad it will never happen.

You know, I am a rape survivor so maybe I’m over sensitive about this. But the second this guy tried to “steal the gold out of Fort Knox” or WHATEVER, I’m gone.

The way I see it is this. Most guys I go out with are physically stronger than I am. They could rape me if they wanted to. Putting aside social privilege, they have physical power there. So, if they are a decent human being, they will actively give up power and go out of their way to make sure they respect what I want and what my limits are in order to establish trust. That is, if they are a decent human being. (Once, I was in this guy’s car on a date, and for some reason he got into the whole issue of sleeping with a girl without “sleeping” with a girl. He said he couldn’t do it. He said if a girl was going to get into his bed, she was there for sex. I literally got out of the car at the next red light and took a bus to a friend’s house.)

And on the other hand, if I want to do it with some guy on the first date or whenever, if he is good with that then let’s just DO IT already and not play a bunch of stoopid power games about it. But I forgot, for guys, it isn’t about mutually making each other feel good, it is about The Conquest.

I’m fine with the tail-lights there. His maneuvers would totally have the opposite affect on me.

I hate men like this more than anything else in the entire world. And the more they lead me on pretending to be decent people for a while, the more vehemently I hate them when I find out that they thought they were trying to “get somewhere.” (Because nonsexual social interaction just isn’t anything, really.)

And then they’re always so damn SURPRISED when I tell them never to speak to me again. >.>

...Oh, and I don’t date, so I run into this situation while *not even on dates*, just kind of existing in social space.

“...Oh, and I don’t date, so I run into this situation while *not even on dates*, just kind of existing in social space.”

Exactly.  Some people don’t understand why I’m so touchy about the “hey baby” approach on the street—but I can’t help resenting being spoken to only account of my hotbox.  Makes me feel like that nasty old joke about what to call all that extra flesh around a vagina.  I’m not talking about the curious, polite stranger who goes out on a limb to try to meet a woman he’s attracted to.  I’m talking about the “fish in a barrel” approach some creeps have of interpellating every young woman they see.  It exists in public space, constantly, all around, and it drives me around the murderous bend to be treated that way (I let them know it).

That Fort Knox comment still has my skin crawling—worried about anyone left alone with that guy.

It’s gross that this is one of those “I’m trying to help you ladies!” scribes.  Then again, perhaps he is because he’s announcing to the world that he takes “no” as a challenge and not, you know, NO. If I know that right off the bat I’m going to have to be combating you all night I’m going to be less inclined to deal with you.

And I’m having disturbing thoughts about what this guy would do if his date wasn’t brow beaten into sex. If she went home would he take that as a challenge to stalk her? If she locked her door would he see that as only a minor obstacle to getting into Fort Knox (and lets be clear, “fort knox” is code for vagina, isn’t it?). At what point would he honestly back off?

I can kinda see how he’s saying that he wants the throw back role playing of “you make me work for it” where the woman is hopefully in on it (and I’m assuming he’s gonna try to stave off rape accusations with this piece, “But, but, see, you’re not really supposed to say “no” as a definitive! It’s a game! It puts the lotion in the basket! Wait, what was I saying?”

But it really just comes off as creepy either way.

This reminds me of that Details article that got ripped in the feminist blogosphere a couple years ago. Remember that? The one about how the joy of anal sex comes from knowing that the woman doesn’t really want to do it, that it’s coerced? And if it hurts her or makes her feel dirty, so much the better. And then the guy won’t want to see her again, because she’s a dirty whore who gave in for anal. And if she enjoyed it, she’s probably even more dirty and thus unsuitable for further dating.

This author would probably agree wholeheartedly with everything said by the slimeballs quoted in that Details article.

1) This “respect” only applied to “respectable” women (like your mother, your sister, etc.).  If a girl was a bad girl, you could treat her however you chose.

As a geezer with a few gray hairs, in those days, one wouldn’t ‘date’ a “bad girl”, one would do ‘pick-ups’ at the local bar for someone to have sex with after a first meeting.

It’s a remarkable distinction:

If a woman were to say, “I don’t usually like to have sex on the first date, so you’d better really wow me if you want it,” that’s the ideal case for setting up a challenge, even though it’s you know, phrased as a challenge.

No, the desire here is to hear “I’m not going to sleep with you” and turn into sex because you’ve destroyed her willpower.  That’s fucking bizarre.  There’s a difference between high standards and refusal - you’d think a challenge would entail the former.

As a side note, now we just have to await the MRA/libertarian/evo-psych/NiceGuy® types who’ll show up here to state earnestly: “Well, gee, it sounds like good advice for the average guy who has trouble understanding the ladies,” and we’ll have a real barn-burner of a thread.

Anyone taking bets?

“and lets be clear, “fort knox” is code for vagina, isn’t it?”

I think “gold” is code for vagina, and “Fort Knox” is code for “your date.”

They not only don’t get the new paradigm they don’t get the old one either.

Have you seen The Philadelphia Story lately?  There’s some pretty creepy stuff in there (like apparently it was the Katharine Hepburn character’s fault that her father cheated on her mother, with some very Caitlin Flanagan-like reasoning) but there’s also the scene where she asks the Jimmy Stewart character why he didn’t have sex with her the night before.

His answer?  “You were very charming last night, but you were also very drunk, and there are rules about that.”

My question is, if there were rules against having sex with drunk women in 1940, what the hell happened in the intervening 60 years to change that rule?

(Yes, yes, I know, feminism and its silly idea that women actually had inalienable rights and weren’t merely given privileges by men that could be taken away at any time.  Still.)

What’s most annoying about these articles is the tiny bit of good sense buried in them.  For example it is true that a man who is actively trying to seduce a woman by making her feel good is more likely to have her decide to have sex then someone who has a passionless conversation ‘do you want sex?’.  I always let out a little cheer when someone points out that the best way to get the woman you desire into bed is to make her want you by making her feel good.  There is nothing wrong with seduction (when it’s not browbeating, when it is welcomed, etc. etc.).  But why the hell would it need to be forced by the woman lying?  If she is already into it enough to want sex why drag it out artificially?  And what in the world does any of this have to do with first dates?  Stupid.

I think “gold” is code for vagina, and “Fort Knox” is code for “your date.”

ahhhhhhhhhhh .

My husband and I fucked before our first date.  Actually, I don’t think we went on a “date” until after we were engaged.  Just lots of hanging out with friends and fucking until we couldn’t move.  He’s also the most amazing sex partner I’ve ever had, and I didn’t have to “string him along” with “false challenges” to get him to be that way, because he ACTUALLY CARES THAT I ENJOY THE EXPERIENCE TOO AND ALWAYS DID!!!!

Right now I’m wondering if I can track down the guy who wrote that article and have my husband give him a lecture on women as equal beings and how to treat them, while punctuating his speech with headslaps.*  We could do it as a pay per view.

*I volunteer the husband because if the lecture came from a woman, this douche would probably assume she didn’t actually mean it, even if she did punctuate her speech with headslaps.

What is it about having a penis that makes you stupid?

Sheesh!

I went down to Vegas with a friend for his Bachelor party.  We stopped off at a bar as we were wandering and I started flirting with a woman.  After a few minutes of banter she informed me she was killing time until her husband got free from his conference.
I immediately stopped trying to be flirtation and just tried to be intelligent and engaging.  I had a great time talking to her and hope she had as well. 
She at least paid for my drink.

There was no “No means Maybe,”  No gold,  No FT. Knox.
She never lost her value as a PERSON

Seraph:

1) This “respect” only applied to “respectable” women (like your mother, your sister, etc.).  If a girl was a bad girl, you could treat her however you chose.

2) The “respect” was not the respect accorded to an equal, but a bit of noblesse oblige, a social superior choosing to act graciously to an inferior.

Not in my world, but YMMV.  I was taught (and by God better) respect all women.  But those were ancient times.  And, honestly, sometimes the rules for some persons were more ‘respected in the breach.’  Still, my point was that conservatives are giving up even any pretense of not being piggish these days.

P.S.  Besides, the “bad girls” were almost always more interesting as people anyway.

What I find weird in the article is the premise that not only do you need to be resolved not to have sex on the first date, but you have to announce it.  I’ve never gone into a first date expecting more than an awkward moment at the end where I had to decide whether it was appropriate to kiss her when I said good night. 

The key, though, is not only that you don’t have sex on the first date (71% of you don’t anyway); it’s how you break the seemingly bad news.  For this maneuver to work, you can’t yank on the reins after your bra and panties are already hanging off the headboard. It’s vital that you announce it early, before you go anywhere near the bedroom. In fact, the absolute best time to tell him is the minute you’ve decided you want to fool around.

This whole setup is weird.  I would think that the 71% of women who don’t have sex on the first date also don’t have a guy getting anywhere close to their bra, panties, or bedroom on the first date.

And talk about enabling rape culture.  You can’t yank on the reins once your bra and panties are off?

As one of my flings said whilst getting out of my bed “There’s a word for girls like you.”  Enthusiastic consent is just such a turnoff for men that they can barely stand you while they’re having sex with you…or something. That guy actually was a rapist.

I recall that, in my dating days, ending the first date with a hug was usually well received.  The women I dated would often tell me later that this was how they knew I was boyfriend material: no pressure, no steamrolling.  Of course, I think I missed out on my share of casual hook-ups because I failed to read the signs that such advances would be welcome, but in retrospect that’s no big loss.

I’ve always found directness and honesty to be far more sexy than deception and coercion, but, hey, that’s just me…(pats self on back) 

As one of my flings said whilst getting out of my bed “There’s a word for girls like you.”

“Sweetie”?  “Darling”?  “Thank you”? “Wise and healthy people”?  I can think of quite a few, though I doubt that any of these occurred to him.

I mean, really, what combination of misogyny and self-loathing produces the attitude that says “how dare you willingly have sex with me, you slut!”

Sorry you had to go through that.

Cap’n Bathrobe at 3:57PM - much respect.  I am reluctant even to hug on the first date, though that may make me a bit of a cold fish in some ways.

What strikes me the most about assholes like this one is that he doesn’t even think to consider how/whether sex is like anything else.  Would you engage in browbeating someone, or game playing, to get somebody to enjoy a night of playing bridge or enjoying a meal at an Italian restaurant or taking a trip downtown?  Is this your M.O. for the rest of the negotiations in your life, homey?

As a side note, now we just have to await the MRA/libertarian/evo-psych/NiceGuy® types who’ll show up here to state earnestly: “Well, gee, it sounds like good advice for the average guy who has trouble understanding the ladies,” and we’ll have a real barn-burner of a thread.

Sounds like good advice for the average guy who has trouble understanding the ladies as anything other than a puzzle in a computer game.

(“Wait, wait - you mean ‘Leisure Suit Larry’ wasn’t an instructional simulation?”)

“Wait, wait - you mean ‘Leisure Suit Larry’ wasn’t an instructional simulation?”

Whoa, you could get past that age-verification quiz at the beginning? Impressive.

Ah, PiatoR, for a great many men, “female sexual agency” is “No”, repeated again, and again, and again.

Bad: “No. No. No.”
Good: “Yes.  Yes.  Yes.
Better: “There.  There.  There.”

Cap’n Bathrobe at 3:57PM - much respect.  I am reluctant even to hug on the first date, though that may make me a bit of a cold fish in some ways.

Thanks.  I’m from the SF Bay Area, and used to be kind of a hippie, so hugging usually felt like a safe bet.  I could usually gauge the other person’s body language, and I would keep it brief and chaste for the most part (i.e., no groping or full body pressing).  I suppose, strictly speaking, I could have asked permission before I did, but a good-bye hug on the first date is not usually considered out-of-line.  Admittedly, I probably refrained from attempting anything further out of fear of rejection as much as any other reason…

I would argue that sex really isn’t like anything else, in that huge swaths of the population—men and women alike—have trouble talking about it in a frank, honest, egalitarian manner.  Inviting a casual acquaintance over for sex is far more fraught with peril than inviting her/him over for Monopoly.  The shame and societal disapproval surrounding sex (for women especially) make it an ideal venue for assholes to act out their power trips without fear of being challenged.

She never lost her value as a PERSON

That’s because you regarded her as one from the beginning, flirting or not. And that’s why however the date ends, with a hug or sex or something in between (or nothing at all), it’ll be the right way.

That’s what frauds like the author of this article never seem to understand in their attempts to plumb the depths of the female psyche.

My question is, if there were rules against having sex with drunk women in 1940, what the hell happened in the intervening 60 years to change that rule?

Not much has changed. Not everyone acts like the gruff but essentially decent leads played by Jimmy Stewart in Hays Code era movies?

Rules exist because people can potentially break them. If the rule is not backed by force of law or censure (secular, clan, and/or religious), more people tend to break or bend them. And the kind of arsehole who finds sex with a semi-conscious woman satisfying has been around as long as the patriarchy and intoxicating substances have.

I love The Philadelphia Story, by the way, but most movies you watch from that time (or, to be fair, the ones that date from before the ‘70s) will contain at least one statement or situation that’s cringe-worthy by our standards. And conflict, even politically incorrect type if played for screwball laughs, is always a key plot point.

Even so, jerks remain jerks by our standards in these movies, and neither Mac Connor nor C.K. Dexter Haven (one of the all-time great character names) fall into that category—slapstick shoves in the kisser aside. If both these characters even had a thought about having sex with a drunk woman, both would have to be pretty drunk themselves (which for Dexter was a constant state during his first marriage to Tracy).

I spent most of my dating years in San Francisco, and my approach was just to be resolved that there’d be no kiss on the first date.  No awkward pausing, no looking for cues.  No kiss, period.  Even on the second date, I didn’t aim for anything more than a simple kiss, maybe on the corner of her mouth.

How’s this for a Good Rule for Women to Follow:  Don’t take sex or dating advice from men.  Especially the concern-trolling kind.

God help me if I were out there today.  I would have to know and trust someone A LOT before I would ever want to have sex with him.  I’ve always been that way.  So, one-size-fits-all dating advice is always stupid because everyone is different and nowhere more so than in the realm of sex and love.

Not in my world, but YMMV.  I was taught (and by God better) respect all women.  But those were ancient times.

I’m willing to bet that it had more to do with your teachers than your time, then.  The world has never been kind to the bad girls.

Is this guy unclear that breaking into “Ft. Knox” to get the “gold” is a fucking CRIME?  Face it, no one guarding Ft. Knox is letting you in there of their own accord.  When you start with a failed analogy, things can only go downhill.

Also, if it takes that sort of game playing to make the man bring his A-game to a sexual encounter, then he is, by his own admission, a lousy lay most of the time.  And now the world knows.

As one of my flings said whilst getting out of my bed “There’s a word for girls like you.”

This kind of shit burns me up. A friend of mine recently had a similar type of thing, though it came out before they actually had sex. She was at a conference, got to having a good time at the hotel bar with someone she knew slightly from previous conferences, and they retired to his room for more of a good time. She stopped him as he was moving to enter her and asked if he had a condom. He didn’t. She said she had some in her bag in her room. Why didn’t they go to her room and start over? So there she was ... ready, willing and able. And the guy got super weird because she had brought condoms with her. He went into like what kind of person goes around prepared to have sex with anyone at a moment’s notice and even asked her how many men she’d slept with, etc. Needless to say, that was the end of that.

This was a grown-ass adult in his 30s!!! I couldn’t believe it. Serious WTF

This guy reminds me of my ex-boyfriend.  Who, by the way, sexually assaulted me.

So yeah.

So, all guys are rapists?  How offensive that must be to read.

Maybe he never considered that perhaps my “I don’t want to have sex” isn’t a power play, it means “I really don’t want to have sex with you”?  I didn’t want to get busy with every man I went out on a date with.  In which case, the transparent ploys to get me to remove clothing isn’t cute or flattering, it’s farking annoying.  Not to mention creepy.

As a geezer, I remember a time when you wouldn’t even try to have sex on the first date.  It’s not something that gentlemen did.  You are supposed to woo her.  You are supposed to patient.

And what if the woman wants to have sex on the first date?  Your method isn’t much better than this guy’s.  It still assumes that women don’t want it and you have to do something to get it from her.  It is still completely ignoring the question of what the woman actually wants.  Only with your situation, it is hiding behind the guise of doing what society thinks is best for women.  Honestly, I’m a woman and I’m thrilled that I didn’t live back then when men would “respect” me too much to have sex with me when I actually want it.  Of course, the man has to also want it, but he shouldn’t assume what I actually want.

I absolutely hate it when men do not take me seriously.  I’ve had a few men beg for me to have sex without a condom.  If I say no once, then he should stop asking.  He shouldn’t even be asking in the first place.  If a man asks this more than once, then I simply stop having sex with him - no exceptions.  First, if he asked me to do it without a condom, he probably asked other women to do it, and they might have given in, so he’s more likely to have a disease in the first place.  Second, I’m not having sex just for his own pleasure.  I intend to enjoy it too, and whining is a huge turn-off!  Third, if a guy doesn’t take me seriously about this, how can I expect him to care about anything else during sex that I like or don’t like?  It’s not just condoms either, but any sexual thing that I’m just not into.  If I ask a guy to do something I like and he doesn’t want to, then I never pressure him.  I’ve even hooked-up with a virgins who just didn’t want to go all the way, and I never pressured them to go further (and yet we still had amazing times anyway).  I remember a time when a guy thought it was cute to spank me after I specifically told him I’m not into that.  I gave him one warning and then I told him to get out of my house.  He’s lucky I gave him time to put his clothes back on.  How can I possibly enjoy sex with a man who has lost my trust, or a man who is condescending and doesn’t take me seriously?  And what’s the point of doing it if I don’t enjoy it?

[/rant]