Bo­bie-lee Dixon

As women we all have a list or per­son­al cre­dos by which we live when it comes to re­la­tion­ships. For ex­am­ple, we put time lim­its on when we will give the lucky guy the first kiss, or let him cop a feel, and then of course there is the whole is­sue of not giv­ing up the "goods" too soon. But what hap­pens when that time comes around when your ac­tions are just pure­ly un­ortho­dox? That mo­ment when you just throw the rule book out the win­dow. That mo­ment that you just can't help but fall in­to the now and go with the flow? There is al­ways that one per­son who comes in­to your life and shakes things up a lot. Some­one who makes you let go of all your in­hi­bi­tions. It's a con­fus­ing but yet lib­er­at­ing ex­pe­ri­ence. You are scared but at the same time you want to soar. You ques­tion your dig­ni­ty, but then you re­mind your­self that you de­serve to have a good time for a change. You feel torn be­tween what your mind is telling you and what your body wants. It's enough to make you scream, be­cause when all is said and done you know you want him to have that cook­ie, with the "how will I feel to­mor­row?" ques­tion lin­ger­ing at the back of your mind.

The ex­perts say

In­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tion­ship ex­pert, cer­ti­fied life coach and co-founder of TLC Part­ner­ship, Ryan C Brown­ing, di­rect­ed the T&T Guardian to a writ­ten dis­cus­sion by him on the very top­ic at http://www.cos­mopoli­tan.com/sex-love/tips-moves/when-to-sleep-with-him. The ar­ti­cle was writ­ten for Cos­mopoli­tan On­line Women's Mag­a­zine. Brown­ing said great chem­istry is hard to come by, so when women meet a man with whom they click, all they may think about is hav­ing sex with him. But he warned that hav­ing sex with a guy you are dat­ing too soon may pose some prob­lems. "Prob­lem num­ber one, once you give up the goods, you lose the up­per hand in the dat­ing pow­er dy­nam­ics," ar­tic­u­lat­ed Brown­ing.

"See, sex cre­ates a false sense of in­ti­ma­cy, so even if you were iffy about a guy, you sud­den­ly crave a com­mit­ment," he added.

Brown­ing said the sec­ond prob­lem was that the man may not be on the same wave­length with a woman af­ter hav­ing sex, so while she may want to move for­ward, he may still be locked in one place. He said that sit­u­a­tion could make a woman feel help­less be­cause he dic­tat­ed how se­ri­ous the re­la­tion­ship got.

Hold­ing off is im­por­tant

Brown­ing said dur­ing the time be­fore a woman had sex with a man she was dat­ing, he was ful­ly un­der her spell. He be­lieves the longer a woman holds off, the more in­trigued the man be­comes and this al­lows the woman to set the pace, thus hav­ing of con­trol how things de­vel­op. "That's why it's im­por­tant to post­pone sex for as long as you can-I say at least a month. I know it's hard to re­sist when the at­trac­tion is so in­tense, but trust me, it'll pay off in the end," ad­vised Brown­ing.

He ac­tu­al­ly wants you to say no

Brown­ing is of the opin­ion that men are ac­tu­al­ly turned on by a woman who shows him re­sis­tance. "In the be­gin­ning of the dat­ing chase, men are look­ing to get in bed, but they're al­so look­ing to make a con­nec­tion," not­ed Brown­ing. "Even though he may turn on the charm, sub­tly (or not so sub­tly) push­ing to get you in­to bed, the truth is, he'd rather you turn him down than give in. Yes, it's con­tra­dic­to­ry. Look, he ob­vi­ous­ly wants to have sex, but he loves a good chal­lenge too, and the more he has to work for it, the more en­tic­ing the prize will be." "If the man re­al­ly likes the woman, he's sub­con­scious­ly hop­ing she'll fend him off be­cause it makes her more de­sir­able. You've heard that any­thing worth hav­ing is worth wait­ing for. As long as you dan­gle the promise of sex in front of him, he'll be fix­at­ed on you," Brown­ing opined.

The sex will be bet­ter

Brown­ing be­lieves the sex is much bet­ter when you wait. He in­sist­ed the longer a woman had a man in the hold­ing pat­tern, the more ful­fill­ing the sex would be when it hap­pened. In ad­di­tion to lock­ing in his in­ter­est, the woman was al­so build­ing up the an­tic­i­pa­tion of what was to come, he said. "Let's be hon­est, first-time sex isn't al­ways the great­est, but be­cause you've been look­ing for­ward to it for so long, it'll seem more in­tense. Plus, since you wait­ed to give it up un­til you felt com­plete­ly com­fort­able with this guy, you'll feel more in charge."

You'll trust your feel­ings

Brown­ing said it was no se­cret that hot sex could cloud your judge­ment. "If you click sex­u­al­ly with a guy, you might over­look a lot of his flaws or in­flate his good qual­i­ties in or­der to jus­ti­fy your rea­sons for sleep­ing with him in the first place. "When you wait to have sex though, it'll be with your eyes wide open. Since you've got­ten a chance to get to know each oth­er, you can trust that you're sleep­ing with him for the right rea­sons, not just be­cause of some in­tense at­trac­tion. "Com­ing to the de­ci­sion on your own terms, at the right time, not on­ly boosts your con­fi­dence, but it makes you feel more em­pow­ered in the re­la­tion­ship over­all," he said.

To get a va­ri­ety of views on the top­ic the some women were in­ter­viewed on their thoughts on the is­sue. They have been giv­en alias­es to pro­tect their iden­ti­ty.

Al­ley Park­er, a 24-year-old kinder­garten teacher, said she would take her time.

"I would say take your time. I don't think there is a set time when you have to sleep with a guy. If he puts a time­line on it, then you know that he is on­ly in­ter­est­ed in one thing. If he tru­ly cares about you, he won't mind wait­ing un­til you are ready. If you feel rushed you prob­a­bly are. I'm sure it's dif­fer­ent for each cou­ple, some might know af­ter the fifth date, oth­ers need a cou­ple of months.

Ja­mil­i­ah Stevens, a 32-year-old of­fice as­sis­tant, had a dif­fer­ent point of view.

"Hon­est­ly, I think women give the cook­ie up when they want to. I re­al­ly do not be­lieve there is any fixed time to do so or the right time for that mat­ter. "I think it is two con­sent­ing adults who are aware of their ac­tions and so if they de­cid­ed to have sex af­ter the first date or nine months lat­er, they are still go­ing to have sex and might prob­a­bly still have to ex­er­cise the same pre­cau­tion at that time.

"I re­al­ly do not mind when, as long as we know where we stand with each oth­er."

Jessie Hold­er, a 27- year old fit­ness in­struc­tor, got a bit philo­soph­i­cal.

"I would hope that you've had enough ex­pe­ri­ence in life to have de­vel­oped enough in­tu­ition to know when you're in the kind of re­la­tion­ship where you may get dumped af­ter you sleep with him," she said. "It's not re­al­ly rock­et sci­ence. If you're not sure if he's just see­ing you for sex, then guess what? Don't sleep with him yet! "If af­ter three or four dates he seems gen­uine­ly in­ter­est­ed in you, and he hasn't pres­sured you for sex, you may have found a good one. "If he is al­ways on your case to get naked, then that is a good in­di­ca­tion of what is most im­por­tant to him. It is re­al­ly pret­ty sim­ple, just fol­low your in­stincts and use some com­mon sense."

Di­ane George, a wife and moth­er, said she has been mar­ried for 14 years to the man she had sex with one week af­ter they start­ed dat­ing.

"You know it re­al­ly all comes down to the both in­di­vid­u­als in­volved. I guess you can tell if he is a keep­er by his ac­tions and if you are hon­est with your­self you too, would know whether you just want sex or you are look­ing for a re­la­tion­ship. "I think we all have rules but some­times our rules pre­pare us for the en­coun­ters we will have in life. "No one should live by what the world per­ceives about them by do­ing some­thing sup­pos­ed­ly un­con­ven­tion­al. As long as you are com­fort­able with your de­ci­sion then it should be fine."