Thirty percent of women who use online dating services have had sex
on a first date, according to a study by Sexuality Research &
Social Policy, a journal of the National Sexuality Research Center. The
research was conducted by Paige M. Padgett, Ph.D., and published in the
June 2007 issue of the journal. The name of the study is Personal
Safety and Sexual Safety for Women Using Online Personal Ads.
While the 30% of women having sex on the first date may surprise
people, even more shocking is that out of that number, 77% of them
didn't use any protection during the sexual encounters. Some online
dating services make it easy for people to meet up for sexual
encounters by offering "Intimate" or "Erotic" services to members.
"Risky behaviour like this, from both males and females, is
contributing to the dramatic rise of sexually trasmitted diseases,"
says Joe Tracy, Publisher of Online Dating Magazine. Online Dating
Magazine, a consumer watchdog publication for online daters, also
contains an STD Info Center with educational information about sexually
transmitted diseases. "When you have unprotected sex with people you
are meeting online, you are playing russian roullette with your health.
It's not a matter of 'if' you'll get a sexually transmitted disease,
but rather 'when' and 'how many'."
Safety measures some women use before meeting a man, according to the
study, are: 1) Googling him. 2) Running a background check. 3) Not
giving any personal information (like address, phone number, etc.). 4)
Revisit subjects already discussed to see if the man is lying. 5) Gut
instinct.
The study shows a strong popularity of online daters using email to
communicate with each other. Some women set sex boundaries via email,
others made it clear there would be no sex on the first date, and
others didn't discuss the subject at all.
The study showed that neary 3/4ths of those who had sexual encounters
never discussed STDs or AIDS. And email apparently played a major role
in how far intimacy went so quick. From the abstract: "The high
frequency and intensity of email communication prior to meeting in
person cultivated acceleration of intimacy for the individuals involved
and may have affected somen's decisions to engage in risky sexual
behaviours."
The study used a survey placed on various online dating services and
targetting women. The survey was completed by 740 women of which 568
said they had met someone in person. While 30% had sex on the first
date, some were specifically looking for that.
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