Sex, Relationships, And The Hazards Of Default Decisions: The Blowfish Blog

I have a new piece up on the Blowfish Blog. It's about the problem of people making major decisions about their sex lives and relationships, not because that decision is right for them, but because of an unspoken but pervasive checklist that is assumed to be right for everyone. It's called Sex, Relationships, And The Hazards Of Default Decisions, and here's the teaser:

The timetable is the most obvious example. There seems to be this rough timetable that Americans base their sex and love lives on: a timetable that rarely gets spelled out but that everyone seems to know about. It varies somewhat between different regions and communities (sex tends to happen faster in progressive urban areas, marriage is more likely to precede sex in conservative rural towns). But even between those regions there’s a remarkable similarity... and within the regions, there’s a expectation of homogeneity that’s rather startling.

When you first have sex. When you make the decision about whether the relationship is serious. When you move in together. When you merge your finances. When you get married. When you have kids. Think about it. How much variety is there in your circle about when these things happen? And when people do step outside the standard timetable, how do other people react to it?

In my experience, there’s surprisingly little variety in the timetable. And when people step outside of it, they’re often met with surprise and bafflement at best, disapproval at worst. If you move faster than the timetable (having sex on the first date, say), you’re "rushing things"; if you move slower than the timetable, you’re "dragging your feet."

To read more about other kinds of default decisions that commonly get made about sex and relationships -- and to find out why I think it's a problem -- read the rest of the piece. Enjoy!

Comments

[MAK]

This is great. I have often felt this way when dating in the San Francisco lesbian scene. It seemed like I suddenly had to define myself as being in a relationship because I had been on a few dates with someone. Plus there is the assumption that everyone who is single wants to be in a romantic relationship, and if they don't they have some "issue".

[GKP]

This was a great post. Relationships fail and falter all too often because of this perceived "timetable".

[Kalia]

I ran into my own default assumptions a few years back over the issue of kids. I had always "known" that I wanted kids, but found that I kept putting it off for some reason. After much soul-searching and agonizing, I allowed myself to voice the words "I don't want to have kids" and suddenly felt a huge rush of relief. That assumption had just been there from the start, as a default, and it took a conscious decision and a lot of work to unseat it.

It's many years later now, and I'm still really relieved about my decision. I love kids, we have a lot of kids in our social circle, and I get all cooey around babies, but I'm very, very happy that I was able to jump the rails on this particular issue.

[traumerin]

I applaud this post - I think it was exactly what I needed to read right now.

I would also add that this includes sometimes making personal choices that others in the quote-unquote liberal or sex-positive community might be somewhat baffled by, such as waiting longer to have sex or abstaining from it altogether, or marrying/having children at a younger age than expected.