That might be a nice idea for different-sex friendships also. Of
course, in either the same-sex or different-sex case, it would only
apply to situations where both persons were comfortable with it. So,
there'd be some friendships where it didn't apply; it'd probably only
apply to fairly close friendships, for a start. I guess that it would
be a good middle ground in between platonic friendship and sexual
involvement, which does seem like somewhat of a false dichotomy.

<snip>

I agree entirely. However, I wasn't actually talking about this, and I
think you've misinterpreted what I was saying. I apologise for my part
in the misunderstanding if the way I structured my post was ambiguous.
I wasn't even talking about Talia and Ivanova, or B5, for most of my
last post; other than the first two sentences, nothing I said in my
last post had anything at all to do with B5. Rather, I was talking
about dating issues IRL. The reason I made the "This probably just
reflects how society is at the moment, at least largely" comment was
that I was saying that it could be changed.

My point is that, with the way society is at the moment, often it's
hard (especially so with a different-sex partner) to take the physical
side slowly when you're dating. The idea of just being "bed friends"
for a while first is very appealing (for me, anyway), but often hard
to achieve in practice. I think it's easiest for two women, because if
one of them said she wanted to wait a while before having sex, it
would probably be better understood. OTOH if a *man* says he wants to
wait a while before having sex, it sounds unrealistic due to
stereotypes about gender roles. Men are generally expected to always
want sex and not to have any emotional needs to take things slowly;
it's a bit like how men aren't supposed to cry, and all that.

Also, IME it's a little easier for a man to say "no" in a dating
situation with another man than it is for a man dating a woman. Some
men will accept it, others won't; but you can tell the good and bad
partners apart in this way (women can also determine good and bad male
partners in this way). For a man saying "no" to a woman, though, it's
more complicated. Most of the time, women seem to assume that if a man
doesn't want sex as soon as the woman is ready for it, it must mean
that he doesn't find her attractive, or something along those lines.
The idea that a man might want to take things slowly for his own
emotional needs doesn't seem realistic to most women (especially so
for young women, I think). Likewise for women who'd prefer to take it
slower with a man they're dating; often they don't view this as a
possibility, and think they have to have sex with him early on in
order to keep him interested.

IME it's somewhat easier in a same-sex dating context, where
assumptions about gender are generally a bit less fixed. So overall, I
guess having some experience of dating both sexes can be useful for
the sake of making comparisons. (Not that everyone *should* date both
sexes, of course; some people are only attracted to one gender, and
that is of course a valid preference.)

Am I making sense here?

Matthew