Outdated sex rule that needs to end now

When it comes to sex and dating, women can feel like they’re facing an impossible choice – here’s what you should do instead.

It’s safe to say things have thankfully changed from the days when women were expected to stay virgins until they were handed over like literal property by their father to their husband at a wedding ceremony.

But the world still has a long way to go when it comes to fully accepting women’s sexuality, with one of the best examples of this being the confusion around when is the ‘best time’ to have sex when dating.

Society still teaches women that if they sleep with a man ‘too soon’ they will somehow be less valued in his eyes.

But wait too long and you risk being viewed as frigid – both of these situations involve scenarios in which women can’t win.

Kinda Sorta Dating host Jana Hocking.

So, what’s a girl to do? Well, apart from remembering that it’s your body and you can do whatever you damn please as long as it’s consensual, Hinge’s director of relationship science Logan Ury has some sound advice.

“My rule is when it comes to sex is there are no rules,” she told Jana Hocking on this week’s episode of news.com.au podcastKinda Sorta Dating.

According to Logan, having a rule around when to have sex when dating is outdated and can potentially lead to issues around intimacy in a relationship.

“I really feel like those rules – like don’t sleep with someone until the third date or don’t sleep with someone until you’ve met those friends,” she said.

“I don’t actually feel like they are tuned into the nuances of modern dating, and in fact I think that they give too much power to sex.”

Buying into the outdated idea of using sex as a “negotiating chip” that you “want to hold on to” can end up cheapening intimacy, Logan argued.

Using sex as a ‘negotiating chip’ can end up cheapening intimacy in a relationship. Picture: iStock.

“There’s people who are in great relationships that slept together the first night, people in great relationships who took a long time,” she said.

Women can also sometimes blame a relationship not working out with a man because they slept together “too early”, Logan said.

“One thing I hate hearing is when someone, usually a straight woman says, ‘I slept with him too early and that’s why he didn’t call back’,” she said.

“I talk to a lot of guys and it’s never, ‘Oh she slept with me too early, I wasn’t interested’, it’s something else she did.

“She was self-absorbed, she wasn’t kind, she was rude to the waiter but then the woman focuses on, ‘Oh, it’s because I slept with him early.’”