Sexeteria

Okay, so here's the scenario. You've been getting to know someone new; it's clear you're both attracted to each other, and you know each other at least enough to know you generally like each other as people (as in, this is not an anonymous hookup). Your drawing together results in a sexual experience (the first you've ever had with this individual). It can be an experience of any sort--in person, via phone, via IM, whatever. The point is, sexual intimacy is exchanged--orgasms are reached. You have the usual afterglow moment, and then you both leave the metaphorical post-coital bed to go back to your individual living situations.

The next day arrives. What's the protocol?

In your opinion, should there, by rote, be contact the next day? Who makes the contact? What kind of contact should it be? What's good and what's just too much? In the case of heterosexual couplings, should it be the woman or the man who does so?

Or forget about the "shoulds." What do YOU want or do in this situation?

My own feeling is next-day contact is important. I definitely want contact. And I want the guy to initiate it.

I know this appears to fly in the face of feminism, and of COURSE if the woman wants to make first contact after first orgasm I think that's fine. But perhaps my preference isn't as anti-feminist as one might think. Let's face it, the world still is a patriarchy, and there is a certain amount of double-standard that exists in patriarchies. This double-standard feeds into an unspoken judgment of sexual women as being of "lower worth." The woman may reject this standard (as I do), and have the sex she wants to have, when she wants to have it (as I do). She may feel fine with that decision. But she also knows the judgment's out there in the world. And it's a nice reinforcement to get from the male she's just had sex with that he, too, rejects that standard.

So I think it's only polite for the man to be the one initiate the next-day contact formalities, rather than wait for the woman to do so. Why? Because doing this reinforces his enthusiasm for the woman's decision to be a fully sexual woman in the world. This does not mean I want the man's approval of my sexual choices. More, I want the reassurance he's not an asshole--that I accidentally didn't pick an asshole disguising himself as an evolved guy just to get some pussy. I want to know that AFTER he's gotten his rocks off, he's still acting like he thinks of my body and self as something of value he was lucky enough to have had me decide to share with him, rather than some inhuman thing to be used as his orgasm receptacle.

Because, yes, even with my entrenched belief that I'm just fine being as sexual as I want to be, I'll cop to still having an insecurity that the guy might not be, and that the day after, even after I've made what I feel is a careful choice about who to have sex with, said guy might turn out to be an undercover asshole user after all. It's pounded in to us women early on that men will do or say anything to manipulate us into having sex, and that afterwards, they'll think worse of you for having done so. Those voices in your head die hard, no matter how you feel about yourself. And men themselves don't always help to negate that stereotype. So it's nice to get the quick call, email, flowers, or whatever it is, to say, "That was a great time, thanks; I think you're great."

I think this holds even in casual relationships, where there won't be any kind of formal, long-term thing starting up. It doesn't take much effort to shoot off a quick email or phone call the day after. It's only polite.

So what do you think? What do you think is best the day after? If you're a male, do you suffer from the same after-sex insecurities about your partner's personality and/or opinion, and wish the women would contact instead of you? If you've been in same-sex couplings, what has your experience been about how people have handled "the day after?" If you think there doesn't have to be contact the next day, when should there be?

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*with apologies to Emily, currently turning over in her grave