Doug Reilly
Senior Editor
With casual sex seemingly becoming more and more prominent in today’s world, emotional ties between two sexual partners can become less important. However, for those in ‘serious’ relationships, sex is more than physical.
Senior Jamie wanted to be sure that she was more than ready before she and her boyfriend had sex. “We’ve been dating for over a year,” she said. “And we didn’t start having sex until more than six months. I needed to make sure that I was truly in love, and that he was, too.”
Not all partners wait as long as Jamie, however. “My girlfriend and I waited just few weeks before we started having sex,” junior Barry said. “We talked about it, and we decided that we were both ready. It wasn’t that big of a deal.”
According to the results from the NCHS Courant Online Sex Survey, the majority of respondents to the question of how long they waited to have sex in their relationship said at least 2-3 months.
The time to wait before having sex in a relationship definitely varies, for a number of reasons. Age and experience, specifically, have a lot to do with when partners in a relationship begin to have sex. “My boyfriend was a senior, and I was only a sophomore when we started having sex,” junior Sally said. “There was definitely a lot more pressure on me, being younger, because he had already lost his virginity. At the time, I thought it would be fine, but I wish we waited a little longer.”
For senior Leonard, the circumstances were different, with him and his girlfriend both being virgins. “We definitely needed to make sure we both felt strongly for each other, and that we were both ready,” he said. “Once we had talked about it and agreed we were ready, it was more about getting past some of the awkwardness and nerves.”
“We were in love, and that’s really all that mattered,” sophomore Kelly said about her experience with her boyfriend. “There was no point in putting a time frame on our relationship like that.”
While sex is a huge step for a man and a woman in any relationship, its effect on the relationship is different in each case. Results to the question as to whether or not sex changes a relationship displayed the majority believed that the relationship definitely did changed, as only 19 of the 194 responders said it did not.
The slight majority of females, at 45.7% (64 of the 140 responders), felt that yes, sex changes a relationship, but it makes it more complicated. 26 of the 54 male responders, 48.1% feel that sex changes the relationship for the better.
“It was great. Getting to that next level in our relationship built an even deeper connection between us,” Leonard said.
On the contrary, having sex while in a relationship can negatively affect it. “Having sex with my boyfriend was good,” junior Linda said. “But we got so attached that expectations grew too high for our relationship, and it eventually drove us apart.”
While the activity is the same, there is no doubt that every relationship is different, and that every relationship has its own circumstances, causing the sexual experience to become even more important.
