Relationships

Apparently People Aren't Really F*cking On The First Date Anymore

by Alexia LaFata
Simone Becchetti

In the last 10 years, online dating has exploded in popularity. While there was once an intense stigma around the concept of MEETING SOMEONE ON THE INTERNET, we all now unabashedly have several dating apps downloaded onto our phones.

I personally have a profile on Tinder, Bumble and Hinge, and though the apps are all lumped together in a folder on my iPhone that I've eloquently titled "LOL," I'm not embarrassed to admit that I use them. They've helped me find some pretty incredible people.

But what exactly are dating apps doing to our dating and sex life? Are they really as great as I think they are? Or are they completely ruining everything? Surely, dating 10 years ago was different than it is now. But how different?

To find out the answers to these questions, OKCupid issued two surveys, 10 years apart, to roughly 10 million people (woah). What they discovered was that A LOT changed between 2005 and 2015. Here are the eye-opening results.

We are less likely to sleep with someone on a first date now than we were 10 years ago.

People are 19 percent less likely to have sex on the first date now than they were 10 years ago, which is surprising to me, considering how much more sexually open our culture is. In fact, every single gender and sexual orientation experienced a drop in "yes."

But straight women are still the significantly least likely to do have sex on the first date, both in 2005 (at 48 percent) and in 2015 (at 25 percent).

Throughout the results of this survey, straight women demonstrated that they were their own harshest critics for everything. For example, our culture as a whole is much more comfortable with expressive women than it was 10 years ago...

...but still, even within this "yes," only 78 percent of straight women are comfortable with it. That's the lowest percentage out of every gender and sexual orientation. Check out the graph below.

What's the deal, ladies? Let's embrace -- and be proud of -- our sexual adventures (and misadventures).

If we like someone, however, we don't hesitate too long before having sex.

Overall, people aren't really having sex on the first date as often as they were 10 years ago. Now, we'd rather wait. But for how long?

Huh. Looks like we're not going to wait that long.

Back in 2005, we were more likely than we are now to wait 6 or more dates before having sex. But more people stick to the 3-5 date rule now than they did 10 years ago.

We need the sex to be GOOD, no matter how many people it takes us to get there.

Clearly, sex is very important, and if we're dating someone, we need to find out if we're sexually compatible ASAP.

Over the last 10 years, the percentage of people who need to have sex with their partners before marriage increased by 11 percent.

We even take the importance of sex one step further: When participants were asked if the person they marry needs to offer the best sex they've ever had, many said "yes." And the percentage of people who said "yes" increased over the last 10 years across all genders and sexual orientations, except for bisexual men.

Straight women's attitudes changed the most. Evidently, they (and nearly everyone else) are valuing good sex more than ever.

And the culture is helping: Overall, nobody cares as much as they did 10 years ago about how many people anyone has slept with, so we're not afraid to keep trying until we find the BEST.

Once again, though, we straight women are our harshest critics. Sixty-three percent of straight women -- which is significantly higher than any gender or sexual orientation group -- still feel like there is a number out there that's too high. See below:

Come on, girls. Let's join the rest of society and stop giving as much of a sh*t.

Even if the sex is really good, though, that's not enough to sustain a relationship. We're all a bunch of hopeless romantics at heart.

Love is the thing, everyone. We're just as likely as we were 10 years ago to value love more than sex.

Even though we've always valued love more, in the past 10 years, the percentage of people who would date someone just for sex decreased by 8 percent.

And this decrease was true for both men AND women. The percentage of men who would date someone for sex decreased from 60 percent to 51 percent...

Looks like we're maybe, possibly, kind of embracing the scary concept of opening ourselves up to people for things other than physical connections (*GASP*).

So, what have we learned here? We're less likely to f*ck on the first date, we care more about having GOOD sex than we ever have before (no matter what it takes to get there) and straight women need to learn to stop being so self-conscious. Most importantly, though, we learned that we STILL want love more than we want sex. I don't know about you, but that is very reassuring.