When it comes to taking a first date from a classy restaurant to an all-star romp, it turns out mother might actually know best.
More than a third (37 per cent) of 1,000 people ages 50 to 65 surveyed recently by boomer lifestyle site wanobe.com and PARSHIP.com said they would be willing to have sex on a first date.
That’s double the number (18 per cent) of under-40 singles willing to strip down and let loose on a first encounter.
Surprised? I was.
But Agneta Owen of lavalifePRIME’s Boomer Lifestyle website (www.prime.lavalife.com) and fellow boomer says people in their 50s and 60s are comfortable and confident about sex and the life they lead. “They know who they are at this point in their lives,” she says. “They don’t care what other people think. They feel so comfortable in their own skin that it’s about ‘What I think is right for me,’ rather than ‘What other people think about me.’”
Add to that years of experience both between the sheets and out and the results start to add up.
Boomers also have the advantage of growing up in a time very different to the preceding generation, points out Lisa Daily, dating coach and author of Stop Getting Dumped. “People who grew up in the ’60s and ’70s had things like the invention of birth control pills that really made unattached sex very desirable. Whereas Generation X (people in their 30s and 40s), we grew up with the terror of all the things that could happen if you were not more chaste,” she says, referring to AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections. “Instead of sex being something that you deserve to have, for Generation X it was something you had to be careful of.”
The survey suggests that’s not so for our parents’ generation. But before you go thinking your mom is a tramp, do know she expects something more, like a good dinner first. According to the survey, of the boomer women willing to sleep with someone on the first date, 76 per cent expected their date to take them for dinner … and pick up the tab.
And men, I don’t think we’re talking McDonald’s drive-through.
“For women, respect is a really big factor (when it comes to sex),” says Daily. “So the dinner thing is symbolic. It shows they’re not just a booty call.”
One area boomers still haven’t gotten it right in the bedroom is when it comes to sexual safety. Turns out most boomers forgo the use of condoms.
“When the sexual revolution came around, for boomers and people older than boomers, pregnancy was the worst thing that could happen to them,” says Daily.
Kasia Iglinski
Kasia Iglinski is a journalist who enjoys her work and her dating life. Armed with a notepad and a curious mind, she’s always on the prowl for a good story and a good date.
