Jennifer Lapkin, an account exec with a pharmaceutical firm in Los Angeles, may think so. She said, “I prefer to just get it out of the way at the beginning. I’d almost want to just rip our clothes off as soon as we got into the hotel room!” Jennifer’s idea of “getting it out of the way” doesn’t exactly smack of romance but it does speak to the issue of anxiety vs. anticipation.
Then there were those women who said they view sex as a reward for the vacation versus a natural progression of the relationship from the bonding experience a vacation can provide. “A lot of times, the woman’s in it just for the vacation,” according to Robin
Chapman, a corporate attorney in Chicago. Robin says she tends to date successful men with disposable income she feels is best spent … on her! “Guys figure they’re going to get some if a girl says ‘yes’ to going on a vacation with him. So why not, especially if it’s a great location, hotel or whatever.” (You might think that sounds like music to a man’s ears but read on, I talked to the guys—you may be surprised at how muted their expectations can be.)
Another, perhaps more healthy outlook came from California pharmaceutical rep Carla Gonzalez: “Whether we have sex or not shouldn’t be an issue. If I feel like I can trust him enough to go on a vacation with him, I can trust him enough not to pressure me into doing something I’m not comfortable with.”
Although opinions among women varied, the consensus was that a woman would not take a vacation with a guy unless she was willing to sleep with him. That answer may come as a surprise to most men who think it’s the vacation itself that just might win them over.
When I started polling the guys on their perspective, it was clear that men and women do agree that sex can be the proverbial elephant in the room on a vacation. There is a degree of anxiety for both sexes around the whole issue but men seem to have a different take on it than women and the answers were not as varied.
