Sex has become watered-down.
As a result, the relationship between the sexes has also become watered down - it's now only a runny semblance of the thick, meaty stew it once was. Instead of taking a step back and allowing the recipe to achieve a slow simmer, we continue to dump ingredients in, hoping that one will give it enough je ne sais quoi to keep us coming back.
In other words, hump-it-and-dump-it has lost its appeal.
So what's the problem? The problem stems from the pervasive assumption that, at the end of the night, sex should always happen. We figure that if we grace a girl with our presence for longer than an hour, we've bought our tickets to O-Town.
Generally, our assumptions are true - there's a silent agreement between the sexes that a sizable chunk of society's rules don't apply in college.
Want to lick whipped cream off a stripper's chest in front of a hundred people?
Sure.
How about taking shots of J??ger out of a chocolate-flavored condom?
Hell yeah.
Manscaping for your buddy and putting the video on Facebook?
F--- it, sure.
Sex with a girl you've known for 45 minutes and never plan to speak to again?
The obvious, resounding answer is "YES! YES! SWEET BABY JESUS, YES!"
Usually, this is fine. College is college. It's a time to learn, grow and make mistakes. The problem is that mistakes are meant to teach us something.
While the first 10 mistakes are admittedly entertaining, they diminish in return over time. We realize that something is missing.
Emotion is missing.
There's a degree of emotionality inherent in sex. The emotionality packs its heaviest punch the first few times - there's a reason we always say the most embarrassing, compromising s--- during sex. It is meant to be the pinnacle of human interaction.
Sex should be balls-to-the-wall awesome. It should leave us happy and fulfilled. And tired. And hungry for a sammich.
Too often, though, sex leaves us with regret and a bad taste in our mouths, only one of which can be solved by shotgunning Listerine.
We have to slow down. We have to take it easy and learn to tolerate one another. Instead of sprinting to the finish line, we should enjoy the scenery and take our time. It's amazing how much we can learn if we take the time to listen to what a girl has to say.
Multi-task - listen to her while you nibble on her neck. You may decide to pull the rip-cord, thus avoiding another horrible mistake.
"This woman is bats--- insane," you may think to yourself, "and, as a logical human being, I'm going to bounce. Goodbye, woman. I pity the next soul who stumbles into your trap."
It isn't a sin to let the first night pass without event. Build up the tension. Make her want it. Use your words.
Waiting for as little as a week allows emotions to ferment so that, when the moment finally comes, cradles will rock.
Either that or she'll be supremely disappointed - but then the joke's on her.
What I'm suggesting takes work. Patience is not a word in the American lexicon - we want our s--- now and we want it big and with lots of explosions. To resist an urge is to deny human nature.
An urge resisted, however, becomes one of two things: a damn good choice (she looked better in blacklights) or, if it's actually worth anything, a desire, which is more effective than any seven or eight beers.
In the realm of emotionality, Urge traipses around starting s---. Desire, on the other hand, is an emotional heavyweight - he slaps Urge across the mouth like a b----.
Think of Desire as the perfect wing-man. If we let him do his job, he's got our back. By limiting initial encounters to flirting, we allow that J??ger to leave our systems and hold our breath to see if Desire still gives us the thumbs up.
If he doesn't show, we realize that what we thought was desire was simply an urge and what we thought was her luscious upper lip was actually her mustache.
True Desire won't steer us wrong . . . or he'll at least steer us in a better direction.
When we are patient and stretch the start of a sexual relationship over a longer period of time, we let Desire have his way with the soup - he'll thicken it into a stew, make it hot enough to burn the roofs of our mouths - and if we're patient with him, bring it to a roiling boil.
By the time we dip our spoons, we're coming back for seconds.
