January 19, 2011
Delaying Early Sex Leads to Better Relationships
You young women who have hooked up a lot (you know, you've had sex because you had 15 minutes, were a little horny, wanted a release, you wanted a little excitement, etc.) - do you feel better about yourself?  Does it make sex a more valued entity in your life?  I've been talking about this for decades.  Trivializing something so incredible is a mistake.  A recent study finds that waiting for sex is linked to better communication and stability in a relationship.  So for all of you who laugh at the religiously Orthodox types who barely even touch fingers (much less kiss), what do they actually spend time doing?  Actually getting to know one another!   Having sex early in a relationship, the study reads, may lead to less satisfying marriages because couples can fail to develop important skills to communicate well and resolve conflicts.  The study, done at Brigham Young University, found that married couples who had delayed sex while they were dating were more likely to communicate, enjoy sex, and have more stable marriages than those who had sex early on.  They were also more generally satisfied with their marriages. Why would rushing into sex impede marital happiness?  According to the study's co-author, people who quickly become intimate end up marrying even if they are incompatible, because they become entangled in a relationship that becomes difficult to end.  This is especially true for women. Read my book Ten Stupid Things Women Do To Mess Up Their Lives - I have a whole chapter on this. According to the study, the longer sex was delayed, the longer the more participants in the study reported a better quality of sex, better communication, more relationship satisfaction, and more perceived relationship stability.  Waiting until marriage to have sex had the strongest correlation with a positive outcome. You can't conclude that pre-marital sex (assuming you were going to marry that person) necessarily leads to a bad marriage.  It doesn't mean that the marriage is doomed.  It just means that sex creates a sense of attachment and finality that leads people not to be objective anymore.  If they're hot and heavy every time they see each other, then the incompatibility and lack of a potential future just gets ignored.  And spouses with a lot of sexual memories of other partners may find the bar for satisfaction very high. In contrast, people with fewer sexual memories don't expect a virtual circus of activity.  Basically, they're as good at sex as they believe themselves to be. It becomes very complicated to leave a relationship when sex leads the relationship.  Objectivity is lost, people shack up and make babies out of wedlock, and all these things just start falling over each other until you realize you're stuck.  And then you call me and say "what should I do?"  I just have to shrug my shoulders.

Posted by Staff at 4:43 PM