1. “My current boyfriend of five years and I slept together the first night we met. There was no way we weren’t going to. The chemistry between us was crazy strong. Mid hookup I pulled away and said something lame like ‘maybe we shouldn’t’ so he suggested we play ‘just the tip.’ It took exactly thirty seconds before I regained my sensibility and let him fuck me properly. I don’t think there’s any reason to wait if you don’t want to.”
—Charlotte, 27
2. “I made him wait three months and don’t think it’s because I didn’t want to have sex with him. I really wanted to but I was looking for something serious with him and wanted to make sure he was into me enough for some delayed gratification. He was and we’ve been together nearly three years now. Best relationship I’ve ever been in and we’re talking about getting married.”
—Erica, 27
3. “The longest? It was five months but that was an on again off again thing. I wish I’d gone ahead and slept with him the first day I met him and I wouldn’t have even considered spending more time with him. We dated for about three months afterward and we really weren’t compatible sexually and he became controlling quick.”
—Jacqueline, 20
4. “Erg, maybe a week? I don’t have a lot of hang ups about sex and if I want to sleep with someone and they’re into me then I go ahead and do it. I think I actually only waited a week with my current boyfriend because he was out of town for a couple of days. We’ve been dating a year now by the way.”
—Melissa, 28
5. “I made my current boyfriend four months before sex but I used to not wait at all. For me though, that never translated into something that was lasting or serious and I felt like I was sort of being tricked a few times. My guy stuck around and things are going well and the sex is great.”
—Naomi, 26
6. “He’s still waiting but we’re actually both waiting until we get married which is happening in six months. We met a year ago. Neither of us are virgins but we’re both religious and something just clicked with us where we felt like we shouldn’t have sex until marriage. I know this isn’t the popular opinion but I feel like it’s made us closer as a couple.”
—Anne, 25
7. “I married for the first time very young and both he and I were very Baptist and both virgins. We dated for a year without sex and when we married the sex was actually great after we learned how to do it. We divorced five years later but it was amicable. I don’t regret that marriage actually and I don’t remember waiting to have sex until marriage. Now, however, waiting isn’t as important to me.”
—Maggie, 29
8. “We were only dating casually for the first three months but my boyfriend was willing to wait a total of seven months before we had sex and I kept it casual until the two months before we did mainly because he had a reputation as a player. I’d never made anyone wait that long before. The night we had sex he actually said ‘I can’t believe this is really happening’ which made the whole thing that much more romantic for me. We’ve been together nearly a year now and think we each may have found the perfect partner.”
—Karen, 27
9. “I have vaginismus which, for the sake of summary, means that it hurts for things to go in my vagina. It’s an extremely disruptive condition sexually for the obvious reasons. It’s also caused me to lose relationships because I always made guys wait until they didn’t want to wait anymore and I was scared to death of the pain sex caused because I wasn’t aware of my condition for years. With my current boyfriend it took us six months of trying to have sex for us to do it with minimal pain and that was after three months of dating and him figuring out if this was something he was willing to work through with me. We’ve been dating a year now and it can still sometimes hurt but mostly it’s actually wonderful.”
—Cynthia, 28
10. “I’ve never ‘made anyone wait’ but at the same time it’s not like I’m sleeping with tons of people. I’m pretty much either into someone and trying to sleep with them or I will never sleep with them. Works for me.”
—Fiona, 24
11. “Not a huge fan of the double standard in this question. How long am I supposed to make someone wait and why? Are guys also supposed to make me wait? Am I a slut if I don’t make someone wait long enough? Maybe your readers should consider those questions instead of wondering how long I’ve made some dude they don’t know and will never know wait to have sex with me.”
—Vickie, 26
12. “For people I don’t see a long term thing with I don’t make them wait at all if I want to have sex. If I’m looking for an LTR then I make them wait a month, maybe two. With my current boyfriend I told him I wanted to wait and didn’t say for how long. We ended up waiting a month and a half. I think there’s something to be said for gauging a man’s reaction to being told to wait. I think it says a lot about how they think of sex and women.”
—Ashley, 29
13. “I didn’t used to make people wait but when I noticed that, for me, the people I was sexually compatible with were consistently the ones I wasn’t compatible with in other ways I started to feel like I was wasting time (wasting time with good sex sounds crazy, I know) because I did want to meet someone I’d be with forever and have a family and all that. I made my boyfriend wait three months mostly because I didn’t know how long was ‘a long time’ and that seemed like a very long time to me. We’ve been dating about six months and I feel like things are going really well. I’d never been friends with anyone before I had sex with them before and it’s definitely new and different in a good way.”
—Fay, 28
14. “Wait for what?”
—Jen, 30
15. “The longest I’ve ever waited for sex was six months and it actually wasn’t my choice at all. I met my current boyfriend and we really hit it off but he’s also very Catholic and wanted to wait until he felt like we knew each other and loved one another although he wasn’t a virgin. It was a pretty big reversal of how this kind of thing has gone traditionally but I went with it because I felt and still feel like he’s amazingly special. We’ve been dating almost a year now and it’s literally the best relationship I’ve ever been in. While I don’t put that down to not having sex for six months I do think there’s something to the idea of getting to know someone before sex if/if you think you want a long term thing with them. Otherwise, I still don’t think there’s a point in waiting.”
—Rachel, 25
16. My current boyfriend and I had sex on the second date and we’ve been dating five months now. He’s a great guy and I knew after our first date that I wanted to sleep with him but he says he was too nervous to even try.
—Kimberly, 24
17. “I have sex with whomever I want whenever I want as long as they’re into it, obviously. I think the key to this whole question is when people have sex or don’t have sex because of some arbitrary rule they’re thinking about or because they’re seeking approval through sex. Know yourself and do whatever the hell you want to do as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone or you.”
—Lee, 28
By Lisa Woods from ThoughtCatalog