sexual connection Sexual encounters.
"The one and only time I slept with someone on the first date, I married him." So said Liz Jones, an eponymous columnist with the Daily Mail.
While there are indeed some first-date sexual encounters that actually work out in the end, the ultimate question remains: to do it or not to do it?
According to a bunch of New York-based women, some of my single colleagues and many of those hailing from younger generations, the answer is a resounding "no". Yep, surprisingly, sex – or at least the casual encounter - is no longer on the cards.
Famed feminist Erica Jong, the author of Fear of Flying and the woman who coined the term "zipless f---", concurs.
In her latest essay for The New York Times, she notes that, while sex can be "discombobulating and distracting", and while it can make one "immune to money, politics and family", sometimes it's all so complicated the younger generation are seemingly wanting to give it up altogether.
She writes: "Generalising about cultural trends is tricky, but everywhere there are signs that sex has lost its frisson of freedom. Is sex less piquant when it is not forbidden? Sex itself may not be dead, but it seems sexual passion is on life support."
And she's not the only one who thinks so.
Evidence of this is the fact that a bunch of once promiscuous women in New York have declared they are going on a permanent no-casual-sex diet. One of these women is Katie Jean Arnold, who told the New York Post that, after having sex with a stranger she met on the train, she woke up to find him naked and saying: "What's your name?"
Charming.
Unfortunately, there's no telling how it's going to end before the deed is done. Because, in the heat of the moment, it never, ever seems like a bad idea. Because, when the chemistry is palpable and there's more heat between the two of you than in a sauna, what's to stop you?
So to do it or not to do it? Can you predict the outcome of getting hot and sweaty and naked with someone else?
Everyone seems to have a different view of it. A married friend, Maria, says: "When I met Jacob, all my rules flew out the window. I slept with him on the first date. We've been married two years."
Newly engaged Tory says: "I made him wait six months. Best decision ever. We are so happy together. We've been engaged now for six months. Oh yeah, we haven't had sex in a while, but that's OK. I'm sure things will get better once we're married."
Henry wrote to me in an email: "The girl dictates when you're going to have sex. For sure. You know when she wants to have it. So you just wait until you get the signals." He waited four months.
Does it really matter in the scheme of things how long a woman makes a man wait?
At the dinner table the other night, I was surprised to hear a range of opinions.
"I made him wait a month," Vivian declared.
"We waited a month? No way it was that long," her boyfriend Mark retorted.
Vivian, distraught at having to hold out and then not to have it even acknowledged, was shocked.
"Yes we did! I made you wait, remember?"
Mark had no such recollection.
Dane, on the other hand, told the table his girlfriend had made him wait six weeks. "The minute we kissed, she was my girlfriend. We didn't need to sleep together to make it official."
Is that why he likes her more than Mark likes Vivian? I doubt the sexual timing has anything to do with it.
While this conversation left me more confused than ever, perhaps it's as Naomi Wolf said on the subject of having sex on the first date: "It all depends how good you think he'll be" ...
What do you think?