Thought-Provoking tweet from Transformed Housewife the other day, which I had the following response to:

But I wanted to elaborate a bit more on this. Because I don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater here.

There is absolutely NO question that men value women more who delay sex. If a man can get a girl to “give it up” without much resistance, then he is going to assume that other guys were also able to. This gives the impression the girl is easy, and reduces her commitment appeal. To use the proverbial expression: why buy the milk if you can get the cow for free?

There are other advantages to a girl delaying sex as well for a woman — it allows her to test whether or not the guy is actually serious about her. A lot of men will say whatever to a woman to get her into bed. If a girl isn’t going there, and the guy is sticking around, chances are he likes her for her. Which is a much better foundation to build a relationship upon than lust.

Finally, delaying sex (within reason) creates more sexual tension, not less. Anticipation is erotic, and most men will find themselves more turned on by a woman who can play with this tension and build it without immediately capitulating to it. This is a seductive art that gets a man quite literally energetically invested in the woman. Note, however, it is a dance — and there is a fine line between drawing out the tension and becoming a tease.

So yes there are good reasons for a woman to wait. But the question remains: how long? And is it strictly necessary?

I’m going to answer the second part of this first, because this is really my main issue with the Transformed Housewife’s tweet.

While undoubtably a woman can *accelerate* a guy’s commitment by delaying sex assuming she is otherwise appealing to him, is it really the variable that gets him to pull the trigger?

In 2022 I’m honestly not so sure. We no longer live in a world where sex is locked behind the gates of marriage or the brothel. I know numerous cases of women who decided not to put out — they managed to get the guy to continue to date her in spite of this, but since they weren’t committed he saw other women on the side. Maybe they eventually got together. But was withheld sex the real reason for it?

You can make an argument that he committed to her in the end because she had shown her sex as more valuable than the other woman’s. I don’t dispute this. But my point is that he didn’t choose her ultimately to have sex — he was already having it. Yes, he may have wanted it with her, but he committed more because among other personality traits he saw she had self-restraint and self-respect.

Which means the question is really at what point did these character traits make an impression on the guy. When did the man internalize that this woman didn’t give her body or her heart away carelessly? When did he realize that he had met a prize?

While rigid sexual mores can convey this about a woman, they aren’t strictly necessary. I would even argue if overly fixated on, it becomes an acknowledgment that the woman’s chief offering to a man is her sex. Many would like to go back to this dynamic, but how many incompatible marriages began because all the couple wanted was to legitimize their desire to fuck?

Both men and women lament that today the sexual marketplace is broken. But while this is true and it has caused immense romantic problems, there is a silver lining: paradoxically we are finally starting to be freed of sex. Now we must choose who we decide to commit to for more than it.

This doesn’t mean that sex isn’t important, or that you “shouldn’t judge” a woman’s sexual history. But as I have said time and time again, there is more to assessing a woman’s quality than notch count. A girl who has had a handful of partners could be mature in outlook as a result of the experiences; a virgin might be childish or extremely insecure about intimacy. Indeed, I have worked with many clients who have ended up with women like this, and guess what: they weren’t holding back because they had self-restraint. It was simply a convenient excuse to cover up their sexual anxiety.

So what sort of “appropriate sexual restraint” should you be looking for in a woman?

This is in my opinion a subjective answer because it has to do with the flow of sexual energy between the two individuals, and the context of their meeting (time constraint being the biggest variable). If it is a slow, gradual build up… the peak wait time to maximize sexual tension could be many months. If it is rapid and intense, it could be as short as a week or two.

But these are extremes, and it’s difficult for your average person to be able to feel through these energies intuitively. So they revert to rules.

The “3 date rule” is a classic, and the truth is it works. The guy has to get to know a girl  by that point, and invest time and money. While his commitment isn’t assured, there is a high likelihood for the girl that he is not just there for sex — he would have moved on to easier targets by that point.

But women can wait longer if they’d like. Any guy who wants more than just sex won’t care so long as they feel things are progressing.

A girl can let the process go slowly, but she still has to allow it to move forward. She doesn’t need to sleep with him on the third date, but she needs to give him more than a goodnight peck. At some point further down the line she will have to show her body, and yes get sexual — even if she is saving “going all the way” for marriage.

And I recommend that marriage happen sooner than later. Sexual energy either builds or diminishes. You can extend a courtship longer than “natural” with proper romantic pacing (like you can extend an orgasm with proper sexual pacing), but eventually you must cross into ecstasy rather than simply flirt with it. Couples who wait more than a year — certainly two — from their first date to have sex have lost sexual momentum. When sex finally does happen, it will be anticlimactic. If that has occurred, you have cost yourself more than you gained.

Which is why I’ve made the following exhortation to trad guys:


Said more precisely, a dating timeline that paid attention to sexual tension and proper screening yet held off on sex itself until marriage:

  • Exploratory dating without commitment (~3 dates / ~1 month, kissing only)
  • Relationship (further ~2-5 months, manual stimulation)
  • Engagement (further ~3-6 months, oral sex)
  • Marriage (SEX)

Notice that the sexual behavior advances in tandem with the commitment level. This is appropriate and allows sexual tension to continue to rise over the course of a year.

But remember all of this is just a template at the end of the day. It is not designed to tell you WHAT to do, but to think about sex in a more holistic manner.

Some of you may prefer to have sex earlier and that is FINE. I will reiterate for the non-trad women, if you want something serious a) provide *some* delay to enhance the sexual tension, b) do not sleep with a guy until he has established he wants to spend time with you for more than sex. Usually this will be about a month.

If women operated like this, most would have single digit n-counts throughout their life.

But I digress. This email is long enough.

If you want my help discerning good girls from trash, apply here: www.patstedman.com/application

– Pat