A third of women have sex on the first date with men they've previously met online, and 77% of those don't use condoms, a new study reports. "They may not think of it as being risky sex," the survey's author tells the Houston Chronicle, citing "virtual intimacy" as a factor in unsafe behavior.
While online daters might take precautions before meeting their partners—running background checks and screening out unwanted lovers—that has little bearing on what happens in the heat of the moment. "When somebody's sitting at home and writing these sterile e-mails ... there's no sense of emotionality," one researcher says. "But when they meet and they get aroused, life changes." (More online dating stories.)