The thread has addressed the "giving in" part exhaustively, so now I want to address the "appropriate amount of time" part.

I have never tried to standardize and quantify this process on an ex ante basis, but I can comment on what has happened to me ex post, over the years.

My stats, from meeting someone to sex:

1) shortest time = the night of meeting a guy. (just a few cases)

2) longest time = 12 years (1 case)

And a small bunch of datapoints in-between.

Looking back, each approach has its pros and cons. The only thing that you need to realize that it is EITHER OR, but not both. The suspense part inherent in waiting longer (I have never tried planning to wait longer in a cooperative fashion, though, when two people make a conscious joint decision to postpone sex - I have never tried it and I just do not see myself ever trying it, because it seems too cognitive to me, but I have definitely extended the time on my own) is valuable, but the instant attraction part is valuable too, but you cannot have BOTH - it is either or.

Likewise, you can write a short story or you can write a multi-chapter novel, and both genres have a lot going for them and are valuable etc., but a novel cannot be a short story and a short story cannot be a novel, and there is no perfect genre.

So in essense it is a question of genre, for me.

There are things that you can get a bit of each. Say, there is pleasure in having sex with your eyes closed, and a different kind of pleasure in having sex while watching your partner, and you can alternate between the two for the optimal experience.

But you cannot do that with deciding when to have sex - if you do that early on, you forego the suspense and tension build-up value, and if you do that later on, you forego the value of instant spontaneous attraction.