How long should you wait to have sex? It’s a question many of us have pondered for years but haven't found a satisfactory answer to. In fact, the iconic television series Sex and the City attempted to tackle the question roughly two decades ago.

Carrie Bradshaw and her friends popularized the “three date rule”—the idea that, when you're seeing someone new, there should be a short waiting period before you have sex with them. The goal is to give you a chance to evaluate the other person before hopping into bed. Plus, you don’t want to give the other person the impression that you’re overeager, but you also don’t want to wait too long to start having sex in case it turns out you’re incompatible.

Right off the bat, it's clear the rule isn't perfect—particularly when it comes to not wanting to seem overeager. Our sex-negative society has programmed us to slut-shame people who have sex on the first date, as though their eagerness to bone says something bad about their character. “Our obsession with when people decide to have sex speaks to the puritanical urge to judge,” explains Sofiya Alexandra, co-host of Private Parts Unknown, a podcast exploring love and sexuality around the world. “Did they wait long enough? Is she ‘easy?’”

There's something to be said for not waiting too long to do it. You don't want to invest a ton of time in a new relationship, only to realize you weren't sexually compatible to begin with. Plus, if you put it off for a while, you run the risk of losing your sexual tension and entering platonic friendship territory.

The three date rule is basically the Goldilocks approach to dating: It’s about figuring out the time to have sex that’s “just right.” Is there any scientific backing for this idea, though? And is the third date really when most people start having sex anyway?

Researchers struggle studying the topic because it's unclear what is considered a "date."

Believe it or not, social scientists haven’t yet established which specific date is the most common one for people to start having sex, in part, because “date” is a pretty nebulous term. What counts as going on a date anyway? For example, does it have to be one-on-one, or can going out with a group of friends count, too? Also, how is “dating” different from “talking” or “hanging out” with someone?

Even if people could agree on a definition, the number of dates isn’t all that meaningful to look at because people space them out very differently. Some people go on several dates in the same week, whereas others space them out over a month or more. In other words, two couples could be on their third date, but one pair might have known each other a lot longer than the other.

In order to get around these issues, researchers who study this topic have focused more on the length of time people have known each other rather than on how many dates they’ve had.

Here's how long people wait, according to research.

A study published in the Journal of Sex Research of nearly 11,000 unmarried adults in “serious or steady” relationships inquired about when participants started having sex and looked at how this was related to their relationship satisfaction. Most participants (76 percent) had been in their relationships for more than one year, and nearly all of them (93 percent) reported having had sex with their partners.

Of those sexually active, a slight majority (51 percent) said they waited a few weeks before having sex, while just over one-third (38 percent) had sex either on the first date or within the first couple of weeks. The remaining 11 percent had sex before they even went on their first date.

Did the timing of sex matter in terms of how people felt about their relationships? Not in a meaningful way. There were only minor differences between the groups, with those who had sex earlier tending to be slightly less satisfied. However, all of the groups were highly satisfied on average.

The fact that those who had sex earlier were a little less happy is to be expected based on research showing that sexual passion and excitement tend to decline over the course of a relationship. So if you start having sex sooner, the passion will wear off a little faster unless you put in the work to keep it going (which you can do by regularly mixing it up in the bedroom).

It's more important how you think about sex than when you have sex.

There’s something far more important than when you start having sex, and that’s what your personality says about how sex and love go together. Everyone has what’s called a sociosexual orientation, which is basically the degree to which you think sex and emotions are intertwined versus totally separate.

People who think that they go together tend to agree with statements like, “I do not want to have sex with a person until I am sure that we will have a long-term, serious relationship.” These folks have what psychologists call a “restricted” orientation.

By contrast, people who think that these things are separable tend to agree with statements like “sex without love is OK.” These people have what psychologists refer to as an “unrestricted” orientation. Unrestricted people are more comfortable with casual sex, and they tend to report higher sex drives and greater numbers of sex partners over the course of their lives. As a result, the amount of time it takes for them to be comfortable having sex with a new partner is much shorter than it is for someone with a restricted orientation.

Neither orientation is inherently better or worse than the other, but knowing where you (and your potential love/sex interest) fall on this spectrum will give you insight into whether having sex sooner or later is the right approach for you. Understanding differences in sociosexual orientation can also help us to understand why so many couples disagree on the “right” time to start having sex as well as how much sex they should be having. If you put a restricted and an unrestricted person together, it will likely be challenging for them to get on the same page.

What should you do if you and your partner like each other, but have very different ideas of how long to wait before having sex?

“The decision to have sex is one of those rare situations that doesn’t call for a compromise; if one person isn’t comfortable or ready, sex is off the table,” Alexandra says. “If this isn’t someone you’re in a serious long-term relationship with, they might not be comfortable telling you why they don’t want to have sex, so don’t push. If this is a long-term thing, work on trust until your partner feels safe enough to talk more about why they don’t want to have sex.” There are numerous reasons why they might not feel comfortable having sex: It could be painful, they could be working through past trauma, or they simply haven’t tried it. “If you make it clear that your feelings toward them don’t depend on sex, this will go a long way to build trust,” she says.

If your partner wants to wait longer than you do, it "doesn't have to be a dealbreaker," adds Courtney Kocak, Alexandra's co-host at Private Parts Unknown. "I had a partner several years ago who had performance anxiety in the bedroom, and I really liked him, so we figured it out together. After three-plus months, we were finally able to consummate our relationship, and it was totally worth the wait.”

So, what's the final verdict on how long you should wait to have sex?

What all of this tells us is that there are no hard and fast “rules” for dating. Different things work well for different people depending on their personalities, so figure out where your comfort zone is—and your partner’s, too—rather than subscribing to some arbitrary rule.

“The only people who have any right to choose when is the appropriate or ‘right’ time to have sex are the people who are planning to have it,” says sexologist Gigi Engle, author of All The F*cking Mistakes: a guide to sex, love, and life. “Sex is a co-created experience between two or more people, and while we are always going to be influenced by our sex-negative, sociopolitical outlooks on sex, we can actively choose to move away from a place of shame and into a place of empowerment."

So have sex or don’t have sex: It’s totally your call. What matters is that you and your partner are enthusiastically consenting and ready to get down.