When you’re in the early days of dating someone, the decision of whether or not to have sex can be conflicting. The content in this video incorporates some of the top questions I’ve been asked on this subject.

If you found this video helpful, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Just drop me a comment . . . I’ll be reading them.

Become the Most Confident You’ve Ever Been.
Claim Your Early Bird Discount for The Virtual Retreat . . .
TAP HERE

In this video, we’re going to talk in very raw ways about when to have sex with someone you’re dating, how to have the conversation about sex before having it, and I even give you an exact script for doing that and how to handle it if after sex someone disappears. Let’s get into it.

The decision for so many women about when to have sex with a guy is fraught with complexity in so many people’s minds and potential emotional consequences. If I really like this person, when is the right time to have sex with them? How will I feel if after sex this person goes cold, if they reject me, if they ghost me and just disappear without an explanation? What is that going to do to my self-esteem? Am I going to feel shame? Am I going to feel used? Am I going to feel like regret that I wish I hadn’t done that? Then beyond even knowing that you really like someone, if you have sex with them, do you run the risk of feeling more bonded to them chemically after that? And this as a result now, I am almost certain to feel like I’m in a more vulnerable place after this.

This is a difficult thing for a lot of people who want to enjoy the early stages of dating, want to enjoy the romance of it, the excitement of it, want to enjoy the organic progression of things, but can’t help, but place a lot of emphasis and importance and even a symbolism around the moment of sex. And then throw into that, the idea that so many people feel like I’ve given up power after that act. And you have a recipe for something that feels like a minefield to so many women.

I think that this can be made simple in the sense that any conversations that are happening in your head about what someone’s intentions are or what you feel around sex can be and should be in an elegant way, aired out loud before going to that place of intimacy with someone. Why? Well, firstly, it forces you to be conscious about that act. Instead of doing it from a place of feeling like you need to or have to, because they’ve been seeing you and they want that, but you are not necessarily ready for it, but in order to keep this person’s interest, you feel like you have to, you feel like that’s a next necessary step. It forces you to be conscious about owning it and saying, I’m going to have the conversation about what this means, I’m not just going to be led blindly into this act with someone who wants to do it right now more than I do or who feels more comfortable doing it right now than I do.

But secondly, it acknowledges the possibility. Speaking about sex out loud before doing it with someone, acknowledges the possibility that it means something else to somebody else than it does to you. For somebody else, it might be equivalent to a cup of tea, whereas to you, it might feel like there is something symbolic and important about this. I wouldn’t just do this with anybody or I wouldn’t do this in a situation where I didn’t feel like it was a part of a progression in the dynamic, in the relationship. It might have a completely different meaning to you. It might be that I know about myself, that if I have sex, I’m going to get even more connected to you.

But assuming that’s true for the other person is an extremely dangerous thing to do, because you might be with someone who absolutely will not get more connected to you via sex. It will not bring you closer to them, it will not make them fall more for you, it will not make them feel more connected or close to you, it won’t even create more intimacy for them emotionally and psychologically, even though it will temporarily, physically.

So having the conversation about how you feel about sex is essential before having sex if sex is going to mean something to you. I’m not talking about situation where you are just in a very casual mode and you are in that place of this is just a bit of fun, I don’t expect anything of this or from this person afterwards, this is just something that I’m excited to do, and it will exist as a fun moment, as an enjoyable moment between us and it doesn’t need to be hitched to any other meaning for me or progression. Then this video isn’t really relevant. You can go and do that.

If you know sex is going to mean something to you, either because it has to represent a progression or because you know you’re going to feel bad afterwards if someone just disappears, then the conversation must be had. Now the conversation might sound something like this: I like you and I’m excited about doing that with you, but sex means something to me. And because we haven’t known each other that long in the scheme of things, I’m conscious it might not be the same for you, or it might, I don’t know that yet because we haven’t spoken about it. Anyway, if it seems as though I’m slowing us down, it’s not because I don’t like you, it’s just because I’m not looking for just a hookup. And so I’ve wanted to give this time for it to develop organically rather than create this really intense feeling that doesn’t last.

Now, a lot of people won’t have this conversation with someone. And the reason that they won’t have this conversation with someone is because they don’t have the confidence to have this conversation with someone. Well, firstly, they’re afraid to speak up about their needs. They’re afraid to speak up vulnerably about how they feel about something. This is a vulnerable thing. You’re talking about what sex means to you. You’re also to some extent, tipping your hand that you like someone. It’s a vulnerable act. It’s an act that may push someone away. It may make them say, “Oh, well, I’m not looking for that. And so I’m going to back off.” And at that point, by the way, we have to realize that, that was a good filtration system that, that person wasn’t supposed to get through because they clearly did have a different view of what the intention was around this or what sex means to them, and they realized that you were someone that it was going to come with a depth that they weren’t willing to take on.

So if they leave at that point, by the way, you want to be grateful that they’re the kind of person that did leave and didn’t lie to you about their intentions in order to still have that intimacy. But it takes having a standard in the first place and owning that standard. And that’s something that so many people don’t do.

I remember years ago doing a campaign around safe sex with a condom brand. And one of the most shocking things to come out of it, and it wasn’t even shocking, I suppose, but one of the saddest things to come out of it was how many women didn’t feel that they could speak up about demanding that a guy wear a condom if they’re to have sex and how many people didn’t speak up because they felt under pressure to let a guy have sex with them without a condom. And something as fundamental as safe sex went out of the window because of the unwillingness to have a conversation and enforce a standard. And this is pervasive. This is something that we see at all stages of a relationship, whether it’s after a date or well into a relationship is the unwillingness to speak up, the unwillingness to say what you need, what standard you have, the conditions on which you will proceed or not proceed.

This is where the work on people’s confidence has to be done, because building our confidence about asking for what we want, about speaking up in terms of what the path has to be for you to continue down it, that’s at the heart of what is going to lead us to what we want, what is going to lead us away from bad decisions and the consequences of those decisions, what is going to lead us towards the right people and away from the wrong people and ultimately what is going to get us what we deserve.

The truth is about people, not a lot of people are great liars. They’re certainly out there, but most people are great avoiders, not great liars. And avoiders, all they need is for you to not have the conversation so that they don’t have to tell you the truth about how they feel about that, that I’m not looking for anything serious right now. I don’t have to say that. And shame on me if I don’t say it, shame on me if I string you along and don’t give you that information. But if you avoid the conversation, then it’s far easier for that person to avoid the conversation to and claim ignorance.

Now, are there still some people who will lie to you when you have honest conversations with them about what something means? Of course. And to some extent, there’s no accounting for people who are great liars, badly intentioned, and will tell us anything we want to hear and even demonstrate any action we need them to demonstrate in order to get what they want. We have to take a philosophical stance on that, I believe.

In a similar way, like we would in a relationship, if you like someone, and if they’re showing you all the right things and you make a conscious decision, I am going to be open to this relationship and I’m going to give it my energy and my generosity and I’m going to give it my all, and that person betrays you, that person turns out to not be what they showed they were, then we have to make peace with it and go, I’m still proud of the way that I opened up in that relationship, I’m still proud of what I gave in that relationship, I’m still proud of the decision that I made to move forward and be vulnerable, because that’s who I want to be. And that one day is going to get me the relationship I’ve always wanted in the right circumstances with the right person. So I’m not ashamed of that, I’m proud of it, even though it didn’t go my way.

The same has to be true of sex. I am conscious of the ways that sex affects people when it doesn’t go their way and when someone is disrespectful, when someone disappears after sex. I’m conscious and I want to be ultra compassionate to people who have been in that situation and had their feelings and their emotions really played with in a situation like that. But I can’t not take the opportunity to try to instill in everybody watching this, that if you own your actions, really own them consciously going into sex, and what I mean by that is you say, I like this person, I feel respected, I feel safe and I’ve had the conversation and it feels like this is progressing in an interesting direction and this person sex does mean something or it appears to mean something to this person in the same way it does to me, and therefore you can say to yourself, “I am going into this fully conscious, owning this action and desiring it and feeling really good about it.”

If then it doesn’t go in the direction you might have hoped afterwards, you still have to own that action and feel no shame around it. You stand tall and confident in your power because sex cannot be your power. The moment you think that sex is your power, you already lost, because then what you’re saying is someone owns my power if they decide they don’t want me after that or if they ghost me after that, if they do the slow fade after that, then they take my power with them. Your ultimate power is who you are as an individual, what you have to bring to the table in your value, your character, what you represent as an energy in somebody’s life. And if someone walked away from you, they lost all of that. You didn’t lose your power through sex, you didn’t give something up.

This is an association I want us to lose. You didn’t lose something. What you lost, the only thing you lost is a person who is not worthy of your energy. That’s the only thing you lost. You did not lose your power, you did not give up a piece of you. You gave energy, but you didn’t lose anything. You just lost a person that you can be glad you lost. And I don’t say this ignorantly. I know that what I’m saying is much harder to do and to feel in practice than it is in the abstract. And that’s why I said be self-aware if you need to wait longer so that you feel really congruent in what you’re doing. Wait longer, have the conversation. These are all smart ways to go into something if you know that thing has significance for you.

But also be prepared for the eventuality always, that this doesn’t go my way, and if it doesn’t go my way, I haven’t lost an ounce of my power because that wasn’t my power in the first place. My power is so much more than that. It transcends any physical act that I could do with anybody. No one can rob me of that. And when you know that and when you feel that, then you go into this situation owning it, no matter what the outcome is.

So be real on the way in, be conscious, own your actions and don’t let anyone, no matter how flippant or disrespectful or disingenuous they are at the end of it, rob you of your beauty on the way out. It is your greatest asset. Sex is not. Like I said earlier in this video, the ability to speak up, the ability to make known our intentions, our values, our standards, what things mean to us in an honest way, requires deeper level confidence. It requires us to really have a sense of our value. And while confidence is undeniably attractive, it’s also extraordinarily important as a mechanism for respecting ourselves and our future selves.

The confidence you have today is a respect towards your future self, who is going to have to deal with the repercussions of what you do today, the decisions you make, the energy you let into your life. We have to respect our future self by making good decisions for that person today. And so many of us don’t do that because we’ve not built the self-worth, the internal value, the relationship with ourselves that forms the basis, the foundation of being able to have those conversations. Because if we rely on people on the outside for our validation, then we have no solid base from which to have those conversations. But if we have a strong foundation, getting rejected or someone deciding they don’t want us because of our standards, it’s not the worst thing in the world. I’m still standing at the end of it because I had a solid base to begin with.

Now, if you want to learn this kind of confidence with me, that’s what I built the Retreat for. And we have a Virtual Retreat, it’s the final Retreat of the entire year going on in November of this year. And I want to invite you to come and join us because it’s the deepest work I do. These videos are great, I love them, but they cannot be implemented until we get right within ourselves and get connected to our worth. For three days, I do this with you on the Virtual Retreat. There is an Early Bird special, which is almost over, and that is the cheapest ticket that’s going to be available at any point this year for the Virtual Retreat. And it also comes with some great bonuses as well. Go to MHVirtualRetreat.com to grab your Early Bird ticket. And then in November, you and I will spend three days making you the most confident you have ever did. I’ll see you next time.