Match.com survey: Many millennials have sex before 1st date

NEW YORK (FOX 5 NEWS) - In the last decade we've all heard and read more than enough about the so-called hookup culture that allegedly describes the love lives of so many millennials.

But Match.com's annual Singles in America survey suggests if not a shift in millennial dating habits then at least a newfound understanding of them. Match's survey of 5,000 single people representative of the larger population and not necessarily match users found that 34 percent of singles and far more millennials than members of any other generation have had sex not on but before a first date.

"What they're really doing is having a sex interview," says Dr. Helen Fisher, a biological anthropologist and Match's chief scientific adviser. "Millennials are ambitious. They're really interested in getting ahead."

Dr. Fisher says this professional and social drive leaves millennials hungrier to determine more quickly whether they want to spend the time and energy necessary to get to know a potential long-term mate, which fisher says millennials desire more than any other generation before them.

"There's two ways to get the boy or girl: Either you spend a lot of time talking about college or life plans or you get them into bed right off the bat and trigger some of this brain circuitry," Dr. Fisher says.

The Singles in America Survey also found 71 percent of men found it attractive when a woman suggested they split the bill. 78 percent of women surveyed said they offered to do so because they didn't want to feel obligated to do anything else.

The Singles in America survey also found millennial participants resented a date texting, taking phone calls, looking at their phone, or even setting their phone face-up on the table.

Increasingly, the survey suggests and researchers like fisher believe that younger generations treat sex not as the pinnacle of intimacy but as a first gateway through which all potential relationships must pass for screening before proceeding onward or not toward some ultimate plane of closeness.