Do you think you lost your virginity earlier, about the same time, or later than most of your age cohort? Why do you think that is? Might it have been a different story if you were gay rather than straight, or vice versa?
And now a little housekeeping.
For purposes of this poll, your sexual identity is what you say it is. If you’re a 50-year-old guy got married at 18, realized you preferred other guys at 48, got divorced at 49 because you didn’t want to cheat on your wife, and still haven’t gotten past first base with another gay, and yet still identify as gay, then you are as gay as Ganymede for purposes of this thread. If you’re a woman who’s only had sex with other women, but thinks that Taye Diggs is incredibly hot, and thus call yourself bisexual when asked, that’s equally cool with me.
Also, for the most part, let’s assume that losing one’s virginity is defined only by the person in question. If you think only full-on coitus counts, fine. If you think manual-genital contact counts, fine. It’s your call. The only qualification I make is that only activity that was voluntary on your part counts; being molested or raped does not. I’m interested in what you chose to do, not what was forced upon you.
Lastly, I apologize for the infelicitous phrase “loss of virginity.” I realize some people think it’s silly, but at least it’s quickly understood.
I’m not automating this poll. Why? Because there’s too many possibilities to cover and I can’t be arsed to do them all. It’s not like any of these are scientific anyway. If you feel moved to specify your age (say to the decade) in your answer, indulge yourself, but if you don’t want to, I for one shan’t weep.
Straight female, at 18 - later than many, but not that late.
I suspect if things were different and I was gay, it would’ve been later, since I didn’t really know many gay people until I went to college. At least, that I was aware of - I wouldn’t have come out at my high school, either.
Straight Male, lost it in high school, probably in line with my peer group.
Lost it? Hell - I voluntarily surrendered it. I was doing my damn best to throw it away at the first possible chance. Lost seems to imply that I might go looking for it again, or that I might want it back.
Female. I lost my hetero virginity at 23. Later than most of the kids on my street, but not necessarily later than my “peers.” (I came from a pretty conservative lifestyle.)
Straight Male. Lost it on the night of my 18th birthday party - but I can’t remember if said party was on my birthday or right before or right after. So, I know when it was within a couple of days, but I don’t know how many years old I was - seems odd.
I think I was a year or so behind my most of my peer group.
Straight female, 23, probably a lot later than most.
Had I gone with the first guy that wanted to, I could’ve lost it at 15/16. I had no clue what it was going to be like so I wanted to wait until I found someone that I really liked and trusted.
Before I did, I would have bet I was the only person I knew who was still a virgin, but after, it began to seem like I was the only one who wasn’t, at least among my friends. But I know there were kids having sex (or at least claiming to) in middle school, and a bunch of girls getting pregnant in high school, so I’ll go out on a limb and say that, for my age cohort overall, I was probably about average.
Most of the people I knew from my high school had lost their virginity much earlier, so I’d say it was later than average. I was part of the nerd crowd, however, and I was sexually active much, much earlier than most of my friends (many of them to this day have yet to so much as kiss a girl).
Funnily enough; Don’t read if you’re not interested in TMI.
I lost my virginity with a girl having anal sex, long before I ever had vaginal intercourse.
Straight female. Late 20s. Technically still haven’t, but nearly all but. I think I’m rather later than most, but I didn’t start dating until my mid-20s and sexual pleasure has never been very important to me (I was asexual until just a little before I started dating - thus the not dating - but that was probably a symptom of my clinical depression.)
Lost my actual penis-in-vagina virginity much later than peers, at 20ish–once, and then was so conflicted about it I didn’t have sex again for almost two years.
First sexual contacts that I’d think would count were somewhat later but not much so, at 16.
I grew up in a rural area with a very rambunctious sort of culture (rednecks, out-of-work mine workers (the last major mines closed when I was 6 or 7.), and that sort of “Christian on Sunday, party the rest of the week” culture you used to get in rural America) and starting around 14-15 was typical for manual/oral shenanigans and 16-17 for actual sex.
Hetero male. Lost mine at 23; a bit later than those I’d grown up with (Christian fundamentalists who tended to get married to their high-school sweethearts at 18), and a lot later than my peers at the time (local punk scene).
I waited so long for a number of reasons; some due to background (I find my personal ethics are still heavily affected by my fundamentalist background), some due to incredible shyness/avoidant personality, some due to incredible stupidity (I’d been on dates with crush objects who turned out to really like me back… and I was so oblivious that I sometimes didn’t even know I’d been on a date!). I had experimented sexually with a girlfriend before that, though; the above age is for the technical definition of loss of virginity.
Straight female, now 32. I was 24. My two relationships between high school and college fizzled before we could get naked.
It’s funny. I love being in a relationship. I think I’m at my all-around best when I’m in one. And I’m not at all shy about sex with my boyfriends. But neither sex nor relationships have ever been so important to me that I actively sought them out. I’ve been totally content letting both come to me.
Bisexual woman. I lost my virginity at 18, later than most of my peers. (Age of consent in the UK is 16, and I knew several girls who said they’d had sex before then - some of them probably actually had, the ones who were less impressed by the whole thing… For sure by 18 most people I knew had had sex for the first time.)