In fact it's probably more of a surprise to hear that a couple has been dating 3 months and have not in fact done the dirty deed.

"Somebody" was right, it is much too easy nowadays - probably a lot to do with the way popular culture is shifting our moral values: television tells us sex can be easy, magazines tell us sex can be easy, sex is in your face, everywhere, all day long - it's quite lewd, actually. It's nowhere near as taboo as it was way back when that "somebody" was being wooed or courted or whatever it is they did in the Stone Age...

You know what scares me? (Apart from the fact that there are way too many things out there to catch). It's not so much the fact that it is too easy, rather, the fact that sex means very different things to different people.

If it was the case that the entire earthly population could copulate 'easily' without the complication of emotion, there would a whole planet of illegitimate so and so's - so many in fact, that the term "bastard" wouldn't be an insult, but a mere reference to a specie. But as we know, or at least from what I've seen and heard, it isn't that simple, it's NOT that easy....Easy sex is kind of hard.

Males and females, we are wired differently emotionally - more on that later - but even just from physical standpoint, for a woman, the act is internal in the sense that it is much more intrusive. For men, the act happens outside the body...is there a sense on the woman's part of "letting someone in?" I'm still figuring out if the biological mechanics (incongruity, I know) of it have any bearing on the emotional. Men appear more able to distance themselves from their emotions.

That is not to say that all women internalize or feel that some kind of emotional connection takes place too. I have no doubt there are women out there who are more than able to be emotionally removed from "making love." That is also not to say that some men do not engage emotionally during and after sex. But does it go both ways? Do both men and women expect some kind of emotional commitment after sex? At this point you probably have a good idea of what I think. I think that for a lot of women, and yes, to flirt with the idea of emotionless sex is to commit a fallacy!

Some, not me (of course), but some may attribute it to an inborn, innate sense in women that physical closeness equates to emotional intimacy. Which begs the question, gentile as we are (or as our socialization has molded us to be,) is sex still simply an instinct in men?

This is the way the puzzle of intimacy fits together in my mind. The dichotomy of women and men's attitudes to sex boils down to our social conditioning. That sense that sex is sacred is so deeply imbedded in us that in spite of the liberal times, it is difficult (because of a subconscious desire to be socially acceptable,) to extricate ourselves from becoming emotionally involved after sex. We've been taught that sex is supposed to mean something deeper, something higher and emotional stagnation during/after sex would somehow suggest there are harlots among us!

Whichever way it goes, for men and women, sex can cause a false sense of intimacy. And that's the real danger of easy sex (plus all those nasty VDs).