Date is a very subjective term, half the time, you're not even on a fuckin' date.
This. I don't think I've had a "date" with someone since high school (i.e. virgin time, mainly) that wasn't with somebody I was already "dating"-- i.e., in a relationship with.
Generally speaking, I know a guy for a while. We spend time together at various times in various places with various people, but not on a "date." Then at some point, we fuck. Then we either choose to go on fucking, or not. Isn't this pretty much the way it is for most of the Western world? Is that slutty?
Actually, do I care? No. Any guy who would call a woman a slut for being willing to sleep with
him "too early" should apply that little slut lens to himself and ask why she's a slut and he isn't. And if he's a slut too, then perhaps it's not so bad to be a slut, is it? Pick one. I don't especially care which, but pick one. Either you're a slut too and should go home and beat yourself up about it, or being a slut isn't a bad thing and there's no reason you shouldn't happily be sluts together with the girl.
Relationships start sluttily. This really needs to be acknowledged. They start nicely, but they also start sluttily, and those are not necessarily any less respectable or healthy or whatever. You're just less likely to hear about them at cocktail parties because Jim and Melissa aren't going to think that people want to hear about how they initially hooked up in a bowling alley bathroom, or drunk off their ass in a lake at Jimmy Buffet booze cruise, or at an S&M club or whatever. One of my heroes is Dan Savage, who initially hooked up with his now-husband of ten years in the bathroom of a gay bar on the night they met. That's slutty as all hell-- but maybe it's okay because they're gay? Any
woman who would do that, on the other hand, is a nympho whore-bag.
Of course, it's kind of handy self-fulfilling prophecy, isn't it? It's too bad if you're dating a guy who is going to think you're somehow subhuman for sleeping with him too early but doesn't explain that he is, or when is "too early" for him, and you end up having to sleep with him before finding that out. But at least then you know never to sleep with the asshat again. And at least the sex wasn't tainted prior knowledge that it was with an asshat. Life goes on.
Here endeth my rant.