When you first start dating someone, it’s shiny like a brand new toy… a toy you don’t want to screw up! So, we try to hide the fact that we are real human beings. The “fresh relationship” time is a window of our existence where bathing, deodorizing, and grooming suddenly become more important than marathoning the Walking Dead over a bag of cheetos.

It’s what Tracy Clark-Flory at Salon once called “total fart denial,” what the 2006 movie Love and Other Disasters deemed “the conspiracy of silence” and what one poster on Reddit named the “fart barrier.” But at some point… if you’re in anyone’s presence long enough… air WILL escape your butthole, and there’s nothing you can do about it!

Since it’s gotta happen eventually… Let’s decide WHEN it’s acceptable to fart without looking completely unsexy, or worse, like you’re a shamelessly flatulating slob? It’s been debated for centuries… ok well maybe just a few years… and there’s never quite been a general consensus — until now.

Using Google Forms, Mic collected answers from more than 125 people in their 20s and 30s to find out when we really lay down the farts in a new relationship. Here’s what people think about breaking the fart barrier.

It takes about two to six months for most people to feel comfortable farting in front of their significant other.

The most popular time to end the fart-free fantasy is before your six-month anniversary, according to Mic‘s survey. Results showed that just a little more than half of people (51%) have farted in front of their significant other in six months or less of dating (22.4% did it after a few weeks, while 29% cut it between two to six months).

Meanwhile, 25.2% of respondents waited between six to 12 months to cut the cheese, when they really felt comfortable in their relationship.

It can take a while for some people to jump that hurdle, though. As much as 9.3% of respondents waited a whole year to fart (ouch). On the other hand, some farting mavericks out there embraced their humanity — about 10% of respondents said they fart in front of their significant other as soon as they needed to fart. Some couples “break the fart barrier” when they hit other key relationship benchmarks.

If you’re having regular sleepovers, you’ve probably broken the fart barrier.

Let’s face it: Most people play the butt tuba in their sleep. It’s the one time of day when you have no earthly control over your intestines. That’s why 33.3% of people said it’s acceptable to fart once you’re having regular sleepovers.

Interestingly, others were more conservative in letting out their farts. 7% of respondents said they waited until they locked down an “I love you” to fart, and 5.4% of people fart only once they’ve had sex.

Lucky for women, most men find it amusing! As a female though, I find farting funny too – so I say let ‘er rip!

Women might be waiting for their partners to set the fart precedent.

(19%) admitted they would only fart in a relationship once they’ve heard their partner fart.

Of those who wait for their partner to cut the cheese, a whopping 73% are women. Which reveals something about farting and dating that might not be that surprising: expectations about who can fart are still highly gendered.

That’s in line with previous research, apparently: A 2005 study from the journal Social Problems polled 172 college students and found that more than 55% of straight women and non-straight men were uncomfortable farting in front of people, feeling it made them less attractive and didn’t conform to their gender ideals. Straight men, on the other hand, were most likely to think their own farts were funny.

Which explains why Carrie from Sex and the City was famously “mortified” when she farted in front of Mr. Big — women learn to stigmatize their bodily functions, while men tend to learn to celebrate them. How we’re socialized greatly determines how we cut the cheese and, by proxy, who farts first in a relationship.

Farting is an inevitability when you’re becoming intimate with someone — and it’s going to make your relationship better.

The 7% of respondents who claimed that they will never, ever fart in front of their significant other might be better off if they just politely cut one. Most happy couples agree that the moment you get gross with someone is when your relationship can truly begin.

Source: Yahoo News