Sex and relationships: a practical consideration

Originally Posted by Avalokiteshvara

Basically, I need data on how the dynamic of a relationship changes once you've had sex. I'm fairly certain if you're far enough into the relationship, it doesn't have much effect. Likewise, I have the impression that if you have sex really early on, it muddies things up a bit, and then generally there tend to be issues.

So what I'd really appreciate is, if we could eschew the moral arguments for the moment, and stick to concrete examples of how actually having sex changes a relationship, if at all.

Ideally, what I hope to accomplish here is to gain some sort of idea on how first-date sex (for instance) would affect the odds of a successful relationship. I lack my own experience, so I'd like to try drawing vicariously on others.

I bet any strife regarding sex is a function of how old you are. If you're still stuck in that phase where virginity is really important, either to you or your friends, it might make things weirder. But once you grow up, it's expected. No one's going to wait around for your ass if you're still ambivilant about sex at 25, except other people who feel the same.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

How much first hand experience do you have, Monkey King?

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Your argument is "people aren't unique snowflakes." If you think that's a counter to what Electric Sheep was saying, you fail in reading comprehension.

All I'm saying is that, if people behaved as predictably as you figure, we'd have a lot easier time in economics* than we currently do.

* The study of people vs wealth, which is arguably more important to folks than sex, in case you were going to ask what that has to do with anything.

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Originally Posted by Monkey King

My point is that no, people generally do not have unique individual needs, motivations or feelings. ElectricSheep is trying to make the argument that no two relationships are alike, making it impossible to draw any conclusions from relational trends, and that's just not so. People tend to fall into fairly predictable behavioral patterns. Whether a relationship will hold together after having sex does depend on a few factors, but there's fewer variables than people like to think. No one likes being told how easily they fit in a labeled box, but that's the unvarnished truth.

Would you like to offer up your own relationship experience as evidence for this. Or, if that is significantly lacking, perhaps you are making a lot of money helping out singles find their optimum partner, or helping couples reach the highest percentage of happiness they can statistically have with each other.

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Every rule has an exception, naturally, but those aberrant couples have such non-standard relationships that they're probably not even asking whether or not sex is going to affect their dynamic.

Actually, most folks beyond teenagers and deity-searching booknerds don't ask whether or not "doing it" is going to hurt their relationship. So that is true!

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Incidentally, the advertising industry says that yes, people ARE that predictable.

There has never been a product that has flopped.

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Economics is hard mainly because there are too many stupid people holding positions of authority, not because economists have a hard time figuring out how people will act.

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Originally Posted by Monkey King

You really hate my analytical approach, don't you.

Not so much as mock it. I mean, you're not telling us anything we don't already know, but you're acting like it's some holy grail of science x information gradient. It's not, otherwise you or someone else significantly more creative than you would be very rich by now.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Monkey King

Everybody knows it deep down, and this is hardly a new concept, but nobody is rich off it because people don't want to hear it. They much prefer the popular superstition of love being this magical force that overcomes all obstacles and hardships, and that each romance is a unique, delicate, beautiful things. People do not give up their superstitions easily; it forces them to critically evaluate their world, and the world is often a scary place. Far better to hide in your little safe place of misconceptions and half-truths.

I know I'm probably just spinning my wheels here, trying to beat people about the head and shoulders with the facts in the desperate hope they'll spontaneously stop being foolish. But it's far worse to stand there silently in the face of such raw ignorance and not try to speak up.

Honestly? I don't even care about the topic. I'm just trying to shake people up and put some honest thought into all these preconceptions everyone takes for granted. You can't just judge relationships by statistics and known behaviors? Why? Nobody ever asks why anymore, and that's the problem.

It's unsightly to masturbate in public like this, you know.

You're still missing the point. The kind of statistics that you want don't exist, for the most part, and the numbers that do exist can be twisted into justifying whatever you want. What on earth are you going to do with "x% of teenage relationships survive to marriage"? Not date at all while you're a teen? oh wait.

I like that 'known behaviors' though. The kinds of relationships Radez is talking about, not much is known about the partner at first. But yes, actually, most folks operate by taking the known behaviors of their partners into account.

You believe that girls only want assholes, why lie.

How ya doing, buddy?

And since we're being scientific about this, how much does a relationship have to be based on sex? Are we talking purely physical attraction drawing two people together, or a fuckbuddy relationship? Perhaps a one-sided relationship where one party basically serves the other in hopes of getting emotional attention (VG)? I mean, 'based on sex' isn't very specific.

Maybe they were fuckbuddies who kept cockblocking each other. That just won't work out.

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