My esteemed BettyConfidential colleague Carrie Seim recently revealed that first-date sex won't necessarily make a man lose interest (see Is it OK to Have Sex on a First Date?). This may very well be true—if the man in question only gets laid about once every five years. Why do I say this? I happen to be a man and a reformed rogue, so you can consider me your mole.

The conventional wisdom is that men only have one thing on their mind when they first see a woman—sex. The truth is, most men have two things on their minds: They want a sweaty, all-night bone-a-thon, and they want to fall in love. Yeah, that's right. We want to be happy, too. One is a powerful biological and psychological need, the other is spiritual and emotional. The problem for guys is that these two desires, especially during the dating phase, have nothing to do with each other. The only thing that ties them together is that they both live in the brain (well, one arguably lives in a "smaller brain"). Women, of course, have sex and then begin to have feelings. A man rarely can. Sex is the great distraction. He tells himself, "I'm getting what I want...right?" He's not. He can't hear his true calling because it's being drowned out by the inner monologue chants of "do her!"

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Basically, this means that if a guy fulfills his sexual needs too early, it can muffle the call of his own heart. Before he can relate sex to intimacy, a man must first be made to feel; without feelings, sex is only about conquest and relief. One way to try to get him in touch with his feelings is not to put out on the first night.

But let's discuss what I mean by "putting out," shall we? I'm not saying women should be hermetically sealed, prudish cyborgs. A frisky first date can be a turn-on to an honest man. What I'm saying is to keep things comfortably at third base—OK, even first or second base. In other words, don't open your legs. And never let a man get on top of you—especially when you're down to your panties. Once you let him "knock on heaven's door," you’re sending a signal that you want him to enter. He'll feel obliged. And no one wants to have obligatory sex (OK, there was a night in Tulsa I wouldn't take back…).

You might be thinking, "Well, I'll just ask him if he wants to do it. That's the respectable thing to do." It's not. You'll never get an honest answer from a man who's on top of you. If you ask him this, he'll worry that you'll think he's a wuss if he says no. Now I don't have to go to great lengths to explain the moronic things men will do to avoid being labeled a wuss, right? (Declaring war comes to mind.)