The subject line of this email is something that was said on a recent episode of The Ultimatum, the tragic Netflix dating reality show. It came up during a discussion between all of the men on the current season, about whether you need to have sex with someone in order to figure out if you’re compatible with her, sexually attracted to her, and romantically drawn to her.
Several of the men seemed to be saying (I say “seemed” because the high tensions and tight editing of a dating reality show don’t always make for the clearest arguments) that they don’t, or can’t, develop romantic feelings or emotional intimacy with someone until they’ve already had sex with them. I think this is relatively common, especially for men; sexual intimacy is regarded as a reasonable desire for men to have, while emotional intimacy often is not, and so it makes sense that they would try to justify the latter by draping it in the former, or would even feel unable to access the latter in the absence of the former.