When Should You Sleep With Him?
By Nina Atwood
The #1 Relationship Mistake Women Make
Author Penny Wren tackles this all-important question in the January issue of Glamour Magazine, on newsstands now, bravely sharing her personal history and then interviewing several experts, Nina included. Her conclusion: wait, for the following reasons: 1.) Because you’ll have better sex, 2.) Because you won’t confuse chemistry with compatibility, 3.) Because you’ll do it for the right reasons, 4.) Because sex is the Big Deal you think it’s not, and 5.) Because sex right away can make you feel empowered – but it can also make you a needy mess.
Read the whole article for a full understanding about why putting off sex is the right thing to do for a great relationship! Just released on msn.com: click here for the article. After you read it, take the Singlescoach® Sexual Behavior Assessment – learn about your sexual attitudes and find out where you stand compared to others.
The temptation to get sexual too soon overwhelms most women at one time or another - but the answers are available now! If you haven’t yet done it, buy and read Nina’s hit book Temptations of the Single Girl: The Ten Dating Traps You Must Avoid today! Click here to learn more, or click here to buy it today.
Article excerpt:
When Should You Sleep With Him?
By Penny Wren
Some experts say that jumping into bed too soon is the #1 relationship mistake women make now. Not to get all prudish, but it might be a good idea to wait a little—for better sex and stronger love.
Not long ago, hoping to silence my moaning about a particularly rough dating drought, a girlfriend volunteered to fix me up with her old friend T. One e-mail from him and I was smitten. After a day of message volleying, we agreed to talk on the phone that night.
T. sounded as charming as he was online. I wanted to speed things along—finally I’d found someone worthy of my attention—and I suggested we meet right that minute. He agreed and rushed over to my apartment. From then on we were coupled up, quite literally, since we spent most of our time horizontal in his place or mine.
Soon enough, though, the mornings after brought a sinking “this isn’t going to work” feeling. Charmingly boyish now seemed plain immature, and enthusiastic was more like hyper. The more time we spent vertical, actually talking, the less I liked him. So one night, during a romantic dinner at my favorite Italian bistro (I’d insisted that we finally go somewhere other than our apartments), I announced, “I don’t think we have what it takes to make it in the long run.” After six months of ordering takeout and sleeping over, we were breaking up on our first real date. [Read more…]
Share your comments about this issue below.
Entry Filed under: Dating
12 Comments
1. crystal | December 18th, 2008 at 10:16 am
I have always been a “good” girl, when it comes to waiting to have sex with someone I am dating, b/c I like to keep the control and make them want it more than they already would. That way I have found out which guys wanted JUST sex and which ones ended up clingy. lol… So, I have a new guy who I met online and lives several hours away. We spend a ridiculous amount on the phone and we have decided we are “soulmates.” lol…He is supposed to be coming to see me for the holidays, I am definitely not going to sleep with him right away, but was wondering if it could possible mess up the relationship if I sleep with him before he goes back?
2. zanade | December 18th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
I think it honestly depends on what your expectations are in whatever type of relationship you want. For example I know women who do not want a long term relationship but rather a nice round in the sack to ease a stressful day and others prefer to hold out because they are looking for a husband! Women are analytical and can plan very well so if you know what you want I think a woman can just about pinpoint the appropiate time to “Shag!”
Zanade
Designing Women Inc.
3. Mega-machiene | December 31st, 2008 at 11:11 pm
I completly agree with this article – me and my boyfriend Christopher went under the sheets too fast and after that it’s all gone down hill. How can I keep him around and satisfied – please help! I don’t wanna lose my Christoper.
4. Nina Atwood | January 5th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
Dear Mega: Your question embodies the problem. Once you sleep with a guy whom you really like (BEFORE he loves you), you bond, your expectations rise, and you find yourself off balance in the relationship, wanting more than he is giving you. Your goal cannot be about keeping him around or pleasing him – that’s not working. Your goal has to be about YOU, getting your emotional needs met.
Your solution is simple but difficult: back off. That’s right – stop sleeping with him, explaining in a loving way that you weren’t ready for that step and that you want to take a step back and focus on getting to know each other. Tell him you want to be asked OUT on dates for the purpose of talking.
Then, do nothing. His behavior after that will tell you the truth. He will either step up to the plate, eager to please you and spend time with you during which he will ask questions about you and what’s important to you in life, or he will not.
It’s hard, but this step will empower you both to grow together, or to let go and move on to something better. Be strong! A better relationship is around the corner, with or without Christopher.
5. Ms. Melissa | January 6th, 2009 at 6:59 pm
I think that a girl has a right to sleep with whomever, whenever she wants. But…. if you are really wanting a relationship it is much better to get to know the person before you share this experience together. Once you have sex the relationship takes a different direction. If you have never witnessed this first or second hand it is hard to explain. The truth is it sounds weird but don’t have sex with someone you really like until you know pretty much the good, the bad and the ugly. Sex clouds the judgement.
6. George | January 8th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
To Ms. Wren, I would point out that the whole problem of the idea that women should be as empowered as men is that it should not be a double standard, not because women should feel free to jump into bed because they’re sexual beings like men, but because men should have enough respect for women and the fact that women automatically bear most of the consequences (despite efforts and assertions to the contrary, biology is biology), that the MEN constrain themselves.
7. Sarah | January 9th, 2009 at 10:42 pm
What does “not sleeping” with him mean – for the puposes of holding out to find a husband ?
There are various gradations:
-kissing then going home by yourself
-making out
-making out and spending the night in his bed but no sex
-making out, spending the night in his bed, and fooling around
-full blown sex.
Where do you think a girl should draw the line if she is looking for a husband ?
8. 10bonnie10 | January 10th, 2009 at 12:11 am
I read this revealing article twice and I have much respect for the courage of Penny Wrenn and for the participants who offered their statements. I must assume that the article was offered to women for women. However, as a man with what I believe are balanced viewpoints, I have read many articles like this, and I have experienced relationships in a world unfamiliar to most readers, and I would like to offer a different and expanded point of view.
Not knowing the general age spread or experience of the author or the readers, I again must assume all are of some marriageable age, and experience based on some unwritten American standard. In more than a few large industrialized cultures and societies, there are relationship principles which are not based on the limits I read here. What seems to dominate the American cultural idea of a relationship, with or without sex, is not an idea easily understood by other women and men outside of the U.S.
The American rules of minimum age and virginity-status are not necessarily world-wide considerations for wholesome, satisfying relationships. Sex as perceived in the U.S., seems to be a separate function to be dealt with as a barrier for men and an object of defiance for women. This limitation placed on women restricts the basic freedom they were born with and forces them to always have to answer to some unknown rule maker.
The thought of sex as an object separate from the body and mind as a whole rarely exists in historically western European, Mediterranean and Pacific arena cultures. As a result, relationships, whether marital or not, that do not succeed are a function of the lack of caring or trust, financial problems, complacency or several other concrete and sometimes unattainable goals.
To share sex with a man or not as a test of his loyalty or trust is very possibly one reason why so many articles are written protecting women from one of their own rightfully born-with freedoms. This type of restriction seems much more stressful as is necessary for a good relationship.
Giving no thought to either resisting or having sex, and giving all thought to caring and nurturing a relationship will be something totally different from what you were taught. Treating sex as a temptation like chocolates or good wine only reinforces an unhealthy desire to judge others or even to poorly judge yourself.
Be bluntly honest with a potential partner and tell him that you think for yourself and that you intend to share lots of personal time together. Tell him that you want to use that time to learn things from him and that you want him to learn things from you. Tell him you would like to enjoy uncomplicated, game free moments that leave lasting memories, like really good pictures taken with a camera.
Tell him there are no rules, but there are orders of responsibility that vary constantly with the occasion. Don’t make the subject of having sex or not, a “subject”; rather make it a part of your whole personality, inseparable from all the rest of you.
I am reminded that with experience, women enjoy sex far, far more than men. To deny yourself the right to start having “freshman” sex as early as possible, just delays the most joyous physical and mental ecstasy felt by humans and humans alone. Give it a try; it will be a life-altering challenge.
Please be free and mature. Don’t make rules – you may only break them anyway. Above all, be a joy to your partner, and yourself, with good sex being just one of your many attributes. Don’t set a time in the future to have sex like you would set a timer to alert you of a cake finished baking.
I welcome and expect some counter-thoughts to my claims, but I hope I have not come off as anti-American-culture as much as just wanting to share some of the more world-widely accepted viewpoints.
9. Elise | January 11th, 2009 at 8:03 pm
I am a young, single woman and I can’t figure out how to turn guys I like into boyfriends. I have spent many years making the mistake of sleeping with a man too soon, in hopes that afterwards he would want to spend more time with me. Of course, that doesn’t seem to be working, and it can cause a lot of emotional distress. I see so many women who date so many guys, but with every one she makes sure that they’re in a “relationship.” Is this just a conversation one must have when dating? How do you bring it up? I always assumed that if a man liked me, he would be the one to bring up this conversation. The only times I have attempted this, I’ve been turned down. Help!
10. Mark | January 12th, 2009 at 11:30 pm
Take things slow, it’s the only way to go. You need to leave a little up to the imagination for a man…works like a charm!
11. Kelly | January 18th, 2009 at 10:48 am
I read the book Temptations of the Single Girl and I felt like Kelly myself, except that I have been married twice and have two children. This book has had a great impact in my life; I can certainly say now that most of my relationships with men have been the result of poor choices. Even I know it is wrong, I give myself too soon, jumping in bed almost immediately, and fooling myself about what comes after it. I have gotten to the point that I feel exhausted from dealing with dating. I have read several books trying to find help, finally I found the ONE that has opened my eyes to see what I have been doing with my life; I thank Nina Atwood for the amazing job - helping women to think, believe, and, most important, behave in an entirely NEW WAY so that they can have the life they want- her own words. I am praying and hoping to grow in this matter in order to develop more self care, self respect, and self control. This is about making the right CHOICE with the right tools. God bless you Nina
12. Charles | August 20th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
Yes Yes do not sleep with them until you are sure thats what you want.To early in life turns into manufactured love,an with that comes some Real problems.God gave us the gift of Love sex is not it.Shoot being married these days is no more than a legal way to have sex.That might be Y there be so many single women with children.Dead beat Daddy.Not I am.Had the option once.I will change you do not work.Its a crying shame,These days.So fall in manufactured love,get hitched the dud goes left an the girl goes right.Times change.So you stand before God an say I do some time back.A Dog is more friendly.Than an Ex.