November 15, 2004 :: Emotional condoms

Uptown Brown Girl and I were having a discussion the other day about how she always thought it was crazy that I could sleep with someone on the first night if I didn't really care about her, like her all that much, or see a future with her, whereas I take things extra-slowly with women I really like or whom I think have lots of upside. (Note to all you assholes who like to save my words to use against me: I said "could sleep with", not "have slept with".) Although it didn't make any sense to her when I first said it, now that she is somewhat newly single and experiencing the world in which I date, she is starting to come around.

What's the issue here? I broke it down like this: When it comes to having sex with someone, there are a variety of risks. The physical risks are well-known and well-documented: pregnancy and sexually-transmitted diseases. The mitigations to those risks are also well-known and well-documented: prophylactics, contraceptives, testing and education. None of these is completely foolproof, but a fool could consider himself reasonably well-protected by employing these techniques.

The much less discussed side of sex is the emotional risk. What, a man talking about emotional risk? Don't worry, I won't get all Oprah on you. But there is a risk involved in opening yourself up to someone you are really attracted to or interested in. In fact, I believe men are more vulnerable in this situation than women because women have more experience with it. How many of you know a man who only sleeps with women but doesn't ever commit to them? Dimes to doughnuts a trained (and well-paid) psychologist would reveal some past wounding by some woman he cared about, and that thenceforth he had declared to himself he'd never "get caught up again"; i.e. open up to a woman. These emotional risks and vulnerabilities only come into play when you care about the person; hence, one-night stands don't really have the potential to hurt him. If she gets up mid-stroke, curses his poor skills and departs never to see him again (or worse, spread news of his poor skills to every girl she thinks he knows), hey, fuck her, she's just a one-night stand. But let his new future wife say something... he'll be all discombobulated trying to solve the problem.

So how does one mitigate these risks? I swear, if I could invent such a thing as the title suggests, that would be my billion dollar idea and I could retire forever. There isn't such a thing, though, so we must make do with the emotional version of the "rhythm method". It's imprecise, unreliable, but it's all we have. You stretch the time scale of things out to get to know her as much as possible, allow the two of you to be comfortable in each other's presence without that pressure of trying to impress the other person, or worrying about how much little things are magnified in the early days of relationships. That way, when the time comes, presumably the two of you are already secure enough in your status that you don't have to worry so much about the risk.

Comments are encouraged on this topic!

posted by Rainmayun at 5:32 PM -