let’s talk about sex (on the first date) baby

Yes, no, maybe, I don’t know. Having sex on the first date can be hot, it’s all new and passionate and fumbley but in a gorgeously awkward way. Discovering someone’s body can just feel like a great extension of the intimacies you’ve already exchanged about your childhood pet fish Parsley, or that you might be in the middle of having a quarter life crisis, whilst delightfully stripping each other off. Most of the feral/flirty community shared the sentiment of: “FUCK yes! Try before you buy!!” With a couple caveats of course, that you should never feel like there’s a pressure to, or feel worried about how the other person may perceive you afterwards. If your date treats you differently, or doesn't want to see you again because you did, that’s an excellent sign of their character, and that FRANKLY they’re not worth your time. With all of this ringing in my ears I went on a first date this week.

It was a pretty successful (translated: sexy) first date. We’d split a bottle of red and shared a cheese toastie and if that’s not love, what is? He was a chef who made bread daily, which was honestly about 75% of my attraction to him. We went to a swanky organic wine bar and I asked if I’d had orange wine before, and he said “it’s not actually got orange in it you know”…. and I said “YEAH OBVIOUSLY AHAHA”, a bit too quickly.

He’d been a rapper, at some stage in another life and I tried to softly gang press him into performing a little something to me over our orange wine (he - quite rightly - refused). There was juicy chemistry. He was sat right next to me at the bar, our knees interlocked, facing one another when he told me I had pretty eyes and in that precise moment I really wanted him to kiss me…. but he didn’t, not then anyway.

We had the “conversation” entirely prompted by him – the “what are you looking for” chat. It felt a little early for all that. I think sometimes we’re all too eager to express our boundaries over what we want in a relationship these days. Whatever happened to just seeing where things go? I may not want a relationship now…but… I might change my mind. I told him anyway, being notoriously open about this kind of thing. I said I was open to finding something more meaningful, translated  meaning a good f*** buddy and someone to stroke my hair and tell me I’m pretty. It felt like a good time to bring up that I’d recently played a gig and performed my song – ”did you cum babe” to an audience of 100, which he laughed approvingly at. He claimed to just want good company to go to nice places with, drink nice wine… eat good food, all whilst soaking me up with his eyes… Was it sexy? Heck yes.

"I was open to finding something more meaningful, translated  meaning a good f*** buddy and someone to stroke my hair and tell me I’m pretty.

At the end of the night we went for a walk to soak up that crisp night air and (let’s be honest) shamelessly make out. But it became quite clear from our little moonlight walk that he had one thing on his mind that night. “Sooo, what you saying? Where we going now? Are we going back to yours, or….”. I laughed, because honest to god I thought it was funny how presumptuous he was being. And simply replied, “well, I’m going home and you’re getting on the train, no?”. 

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not against sleeping with someone on the first date. Morally, politically, spiritually, sexually speaking no, not at all. I have plenty of friends who have done and do so quite regularly. And the feral/ flirty gang feel likewise. The logic is, well if I want to and I’m attracted to them, why wouldn't I? And to these people, I say amen, g’bless etc. Screw the narrative which claims you must “hold out” for a potential partner to take you seriously. Relationships can develop from a one night stand. But this date was on a Tuesday night people, and your girl is a WORKING WoMaN with deadlines to meet. There was no way I was going to bed at 2AM only to wake up like a zombie, mascara encrusted face, dehydrated, puffy eyed and de-ceased for my big boss meeting that day. 

There’s a difference between feeling sexy and being sexualised, one is a feeling the other is an external force.

But I could tell he was confused, bemused by my obvious refusal. I’d been so open about my sexuality, my experiences, my writing.... Did he expect that I would sleep with him because I was so open about all of that? Was he using that empowered woman narrative against me? Prove to me that you are sexually liberated. Prove to me that you don’t still have the remnants of the internalised misogyny from your school days. That you don’t still think about and feel bad for calling Samantha Smith a slut or easy for giving 5 boys a blowjob by the time we were 15. Our school days can and do haunt us in some ways, control the women we become or allow ourselves to be. It’s the Madonna- whore complex all over. I didn’t want to… because it wasn’t convenient on that night, but it felt like he was using it as a test. But what he didn’t quite get, is there’s a difference between feeling sexy and being sexualised, one is a feeling the other is an external force. He didn’t understand the nuance. He seemed disappointed almost, like he was wondering, was I this sexually liberated freewheeling woman in his head that played gigs about the myth of the female orgasm or not? 

My issue was not so much the concept of sleeping with him, no, I had an issue with his attitude, his arrogance and assumption. And arrogance as that famous saying goes, is not WAP. I disliked that the man I was on a date with had had the expectation that it would happen. Like turning up at the cinema and assuming the pick n mix is free. (Yes I’m aware I’m objectifying myself here, and if I were a pick n mix I would be a chocolate covered nut thank you for asking, NOT a raisin FFS aka the reason we all have trust issues). 

I didn’t want his pushiness to undo the spell of the evening…. But it did. We’d had great conversation, flirty banter, he was real pretty with sparkly eyes and freckles across his nose, and generous in an old fashioned kind of way, dropping off bread in the mornings to all the bars by the restaurant he worked at. There was something about him which was selfless, grounded, comfortable in his own skin. And yes, he became a horny bastard towards the end, but… was that really him? Or was it just the way he’d configured masculinity in his own brain, that he had to have a story for the boys at the restaurant the next day? They wouldn’t be satisfied with just tales of a nice dinner. Or maybe I was giving him too much credit. I guess that it made me wonder if the depths we’d ploughed through in conversation – about his family, his past, my writing, my comedy was just a shortcut to this false level of intimacy, to make it easier for me to take my clothes off at the end of the night. Sure, I’m open about sex, but I’m open about most things. I like getting to the core of people. I’ve never really been someone that’s great at small talk. Did I sleep with him? It hardly matters. But I wondered about all the different versions of me that might have, just so I could be the woman inside his head. 

Find someone on your wave length on The Sauce.