# Are there long-term downsides to losing your virginity late in life? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 6, 2018, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-long-term-downsides-to-losing-your-virginity-late-in-life/810120 "2018-03-06T16:30:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2018, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-long-term-downsides-to-losing-your-virginity-late-in-life/810120/41 "2018-03-07T14:02:01Z")
> [@2ManyTacos](#): > > But perhaps the most alarming thing to me is that, if I were to suddenly spend thousands of dollars on clothing and mastering pickup artist techniques - and then rapidly build up my number of sexual partners - I ostensibly _would not_ acquire the same kinds of psychological, developmental, social, and sexual developments from doing those things as I would have if I had done them as a teenager. In other words, increasing my count today may not actually do much to address the hangups that I presently have because the long-term benefits of earlier sexual activities can never be acquired by somebody who has passed that point of his life. You are assuming that having a large number of sexual partners automatically addresses hangups, and that if you had had that number, you wouldn’t have hangups now. That might be true, in a way - you would probably have different hangups, but probably not fewer. Having a lot of different partners isn’t the point. You can address your hangups now, whatever they happen to be, just as effectively now as you could as a teen-ager - probably more so. But finding a dozen different women to have sex with isn’t going to do it. It sounds to me like your big issue is that you are worried about something that is really tangential to your happiness. “Just don’t worry about it” is pretty glib and facile, but it really addresses something. If you find someone to whom you are attracted, it won’t matter if you were a virgin until you were 25 or if you had an affair with your kindergarten teacher. Think about that person now - if she is the kind of person to have sex with, she won’t care, and neither need you be. “Never apologize, never explain”. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/6bbea6/32.png) [@Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Living_Well_Is_Best_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2018, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-long-term-downsides-to-losing-your-virginity-late-in-life/810120/42 "2018-03-07T14:15:45Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#): > > I can NAME fifteen women my husband has had sex with (before he was my husband - I can’t name any since and I’m sort of hoping I never will be able to) and am friends with at least half a dozen of them. We married in our early 30s. > > Have a social circle where sex outside marriage isn’t taboo, start as a Junior or Senior in high school, spend four years at college where there is a similar social circle, keep those social circles as you start your career, and over all that have a few on night stands, and few steady relationships, and a few short term girlfriends of a few months, and it isn’t hard to get to fifteen over the course of a dozen or so years. > > And that’s assuming that you are simply counting traditional heterosexual penis in vagina sex and not all the other ways two or more people could have sex together. Exactly. When this is your experience, 15 is not a big deal or some huge number. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2018, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-long-term-downsides-to-losing-your-virginity-late-in-life/810120/43 "2018-03-07T14:35:34Z")
> [@Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](#): > > Exactly. When this is your experience, 15 is not a big deal or some huge number. Well, back of the envelope math says that, even if you’re in the top 33% of the 40-44 male age bracket (per the Slate calculator), that still puts you in the company of around 3.5 million men in the United States. So you’re statistically above the norm but hardly a unicorn. ---
**Author:** ![Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/6bbea6/32.png) [@Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Living_Well_Is_Best_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2018, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-long-term-downsides-to-losing-your-virginity-late-in-life/810120/44 "2018-03-07T15:16:37Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > Well, back of the envelope math says that, even if you’re in the top 33% of the 40-44 male age bracket (per the Slate calculator), that still puts you in the company of around 3.5 million men in the United States. So you’re statistically above the norm but hardly a unicorn. Never claimed to be a unicorn. Actually quite the opposite in fact. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2018, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-long-term-downsides-to-losing-your-virginity-late-in-life/810120/45 "2018-03-07T16:51:58Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > Well, back of the envelope math says that, even if you’re in the top 33% of the 40-44 male age bracket (per the Slate calculator), that still puts you in the company of around 3.5 million men in the United States. So you’re statistically above the norm but hardly a unicorn. But if you remove all the people who waited until marriage (or some other commitment point - like an engagement), or choose not to have sex ever - your numbers probably jump pretty dramatically pretty quickly. If you then remove people who married young - say before 23 - but limited yourself to the 30 and under set, you’d get a different profile again. It would be really interesting to see the numbers when you remove the 0s and 1s as a different population. And Tacos isn’t comparing himself to guys like Shodan, who are perfectly happy to wait until marriage and don’t value casual sex. Nor is he comparing himself to a guy who is engaged and about to commit to sex with one person for life. (I’m making no judgment on either, just saying that I suspect the stats as presented are a bad measurement for what Tacos is comparing himself to. And as a judgment call, he shouldn’t be comparing himself at all to anyone, for all the reasons already stated in this thread and about a gazillion others.) ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2018, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-long-term-downsides-to-losing-your-virginity-late-in-life/810120/46 "2018-03-07T17:17:53Z")
You know, it’s not like you need Malcolm Gladwellian 10,000 hours of fucking to become halfway decent at putting penis to vagina. I’d say there are actually a couple of downsides to losing your virginity later in life: One is the opportunity to have sex with teenage girls without being creepy. The other is that sex is somewhat of a developmental and social milestone. If you delay it significantly beyond the bounds of what is considered “normal” or “typical”, you can build it up in your head as too much of a “BIG DEAL”. Which is kind of what we are seeing with the OP. If the OP wants to “make up for lost time” or whatever, there are certainly plenty of dating sites and apps like Tinder to…uh…practice your craft. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2018, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-long-term-downsides-to-losing-your-virginity-late-in-life/810120/47 "2018-03-07T17:20:31Z")
The idea that you would have gotten over your sexual hangups if only you could have had wild carefree promiscuous sex as a teenager is wildly mistaken. Again, you’ve got the causation completely backwards. Yeah, there are lots of people who had enjoyable varied sex lives when they were younger, and now that they’re older they still have enjoyable sex lives. That’s not because the early sex cured them of their hangups. It’s because they didn’t have them in the first place. You’ve got some problems for sure. “If I could have convinced Jessica to have sex with me when I was 16 then I would have been more confident and so I could have had sex with Heather and Brittney at 17 and then I would have been popular and more confident and I would have aced my SATs and gotten into a good college where I would have constant sex with all the girls there and that would have increased my confidence even more and I would have gotten better grades and landed a great job right out of college where I would have sex with all the women in the office while making a great salary and by the time I was 25 I’d be a millionaire and own a mansion and a yacht.” That’s a delusional story to be telling yourself. It wouldn’t have happened that way, even if you could have had sex with Jessica from algebra class. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2018, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-long-term-downsides-to-losing-your-virginity-late-in-life/810120/48 "2018-03-07T18:16:16Z")
> [@Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](#): > > Never claimed to be a unicorn. Actually quite the opposite in fact. I didn’t mean to imply that you were. Just saying that your experience is outside the average but common enough that there’s no real reason for it to seem weird or strange especially to you or your peer group. > [@Dangerosa](#): > > But if you remove all the people who waited until marriage (or some other commitment point - like an engagement), or choose not to have sex ever - your numbers probably jump pretty dramatically pretty quickly. Eh, they might or they might not. Anecdotes and all that but I can’t say I remember anyone from my college (or shortly after) days intentionally saving themselves for marriage. They no doubt exist but I assume they make up the far end of the curve just as super popular people with a different partner nightly make up the other extreme end. Neither is very reflective of the norm. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2018, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-long-term-downsides-to-losing-your-virginity-late-in-life/810120/49 "2018-03-07T18:33:01Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > Anecdotes and all that but I can’t say I remember anyone from my college (or shortly after) days intentionally saving themselves for marriage. All depends on your peer group, I suppose. I hung out with an Evangelical Christian group for a while when I was in college, and without exception, they would have said that they had no intention of having sex before their wedding nights (because, frankly, any other answer would have been socially unacceptable within that group). Now, how many of them _stuck_ to that is another question, entirely. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2018, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-long-term-downsides-to-losing-your-virginity-late-in-life/810120/50 "2018-03-07T19:02:52Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > Eh, they might or they might not. Anecdotes and all that but I can’t say I remember anyone from my college (or shortly after) days intentionally saving themselves for marriage. They no doubt exist but I assume they make up the far end of the curve just as super popular people with a different partner nightly make up the other extreme end. Neither is very reflective of the norm. I don’t remember anyone I know (male or female) mentioning that they “intentionally saved themselves for marriage”. But that’s not the only thing will potentially bring the numbers down - just change Dangerosa’s example a little bit. Eliminate the one night stands, maybe. Or rather than getting involved with the future spouse at 30 and getting married at 34, maybe the person met the future spouse at 21 and got married at 26. What are the chances that that person has had more than 15 partners? I absolutely _know_ that my experience is not representative - but I know at least four couples who got married in their mid-to late twenties who originally got together when at least one of the couple was around 16. Even if there was no intention to wait until marriage ( and I’d be surprised if any of them did wait) , I’d bet a large sum of money that at least 4 of the people have had only the one partner and none of the others got anywhere near 10. ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2018, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-long-term-downsides-to-losing-your-virginity-late-in-life/810120/51 "2018-03-07T20:26:27Z")
> [@2ManyTacos](#): > > This is also one of the things that bothers me, at least to an extent. > > No matter what I do today to try to acquire the kinds of sexual experiences that I missed out on as a teenager, I will never be able to recreate the social and physical dynamics that underlined that era. So, for example, I’ll never again be surrounded by like-minded younger women to the extent that I was when I was 15; I’ll never again be simultaneously on the cusp of adulthood yet free of the kinds of worries and financial obligations that stymie the lives of grown men (meaning that the _consequences_ of the kinds of illicit sexual experiences I might have gotten away with in high school would be much more dire for me as adult); and, frankly, I’ll never be as horny as I was when I was 17 (although this might actually be a good thing). I wouldn’t let that worry you. I didn’t exactly have girls chasing after me eager to have sex with me in high school, or at least I didn’t notice. I didn’t lose my virginity until 22 and I’ve definitely made up for it since then. > [@2ManyTacos](#): > > But perhaps the most alarming thing to me is that, if I were to suddenly spend thousands of dollars on clothing and mastering pickup artist techniques - and then rapidly build up my number of sexual partners - I ostensibly _would not_ acquire the same kinds of psychological, developmental, social, and sexual developments from doing those things as I would have if I had done them as a teenager. In other words, increasing my count today may not actually do much to address the hangups that I presently have because the long-term benefits of earlier sexual activities can never be acquired by somebody who has passed that point of his life. I think you’re way overthinking this. Everyone’s experience is different, you may have a late start but you’re still in the game. You’ve got to have confidence, not worry, and above all just be cool and have fun. Sex is a great thing if you have chemistry with your partner. It may take several tries to find someone with good chemistry. Just remember, you’re there to have fun. If it’s not fun then talk about it with your partner or move on. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2018, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-long-term-downsides-to-losing-your-virginity-late-in-life/810120/52 "2018-03-07T20:37:45Z")
The general trend is for younger people to be having less sex than they used to. Not really due to religious reasons or awaiting commitments per se but likely for various other social factors such as moving out of their parents’ home later, prioritizing careers/education over dating/hook-ups, fear of sexual assault (or accusations of assault), pregnancy/STD concerns, less time spent socializing in person vs via social media, etc. It’s not a bunch of Promise Ring owners pulling the numbers down, younger people as a general group just aren’t doin’ it like they used to. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2018, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-long-term-downsides-to-losing-your-virginity-late-in-life/810120/53 "2018-03-07T22:10:16Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > The general trend is for younger people to be having less sex than they used to. Not really due to religious reasons or awaiting commitments per se but likely for various other social factors such as moving out of their parents’ home later, prioritizing careers/education over dating/hook-ups, fear of sexual assault (or accusations of assault), pregnancy/STD concerns, less time spent socializing in person vs via social media, etc. It’s not a bunch of Promise Ring owners pulling the numbers down, younger people as a general group just aren’t doin’ it like they used to. I have two teenagers and I think that is very true. My daughter is asexual, my son doesn’t want the bother of a girlfriend and isn’t willing to make the trade (although I suspect he might hook up once in a while) (On the other hand, my daughter had a group of friends her sophomore year that were going at it like bunnies…) ---
**Author:** ![ArtBeforeScience](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/73ab20/32.png) [@ArtBeforeScience](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ArtBeforeScience)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2018, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-long-term-downsides-to-losing-your-virginity-late-in-life/810120/54 "2018-03-08T16:48:53Z")
Why is virginity treated as a “loss”? On your question, I wouldn’t worry about it. Seek sex-positive forums and venues, like Dan Savage’s column “Savage Love”. Venues doesn’t mean a sex club, it just means be around people who are open minded about their sexuality and aren’t afraid to explore things in a respectful, safe, and caring manner. It can also help you view sex separately from being in a relationship, since they’re both important. I’d frame it as intimacy, since that doesn’t require sex and is more about being present, and caring about companions as total human beings, not just bodies. Sometimes people with a lot of partners have hangups, too. And sometimes we can laugh about our hangups with our lovers, who have their own fears. ---
**Author:** ![MonkeyCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@MonkeyCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MonkeyCat)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2018, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-long-term-downsides-to-losing-your-virginity-late-in-life/810120/55 "2018-03-08T22:03:09Z")
> [@2ManyTacos](#): > > In terms of the topic question, I guess what I am asking is whether a person who loses his virginity later in life (say 25+) is permanently stilted for not having benefited from the psychological, social, developmental, and sexual impacts of first sexual contact at age 15-17. > > And this question is borne from my own experiences. I am 26 now, but I first had sex at 25 with a woman who was both younger than me and has consistently had sex since she was 15 with several prior sexual partners. Over time, then, it has become apparent that I suffer from several sexual hangups. As it stands, I do not know whether the Dope is the greatest venue to discuss those specific issues in detail, but, at the same time, I cannot help but think that _all_ of my present problems simply _would not exist_ today if I had begun having sex when I was still in high school. > > Part of me is fixated on the idea that, at my age (again, 26), I should have slept with 15+ women by now, while another part of me can’t escape my past and this burning desire I have to go back in time and be more promiscuous as a teenager. > > Has anybody on the Dope experienced this sort of thing before? How did you deal with it? Ambivalid and I (we only met 3 yrs ago) both did not have sex until age 19. I would think that there’s probably something to be said for the confidence and social integration associated with a person who has sex at age 15-17, but at the same time, I do not necessarily think it’s a mark of shame to wait. I don’t think the sex itself and whether you choose to have it means as much as the maturity, adaptability, and successfulness of the person as a whole. As in, I think there’s a good chance you can still be a totally functional person and not have had sex at age 15. Personally, I see the person who had sex at age 15 not having benefitted _from_ the sex as much as the sex is the mark of a certain level of maturity. ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2018, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-long-term-downsides-to-losing-your-virginity-late-in-life/810120/56 "2018-03-08T22:08:15Z")
> [@tvaetbjorn](#): > > Ambivalid and I (we only met 3 yrs ago) both did not have sex until age 19. I would think that there’s probably something to be said for the confidence and social integration associated with a person who has sex at age 15-17, but at the same time, I do not necessarily think it’s a mark of shame to wait. Well I feel loved and listened to haha. 17. 17 years old was when I lost my virginity. It’s not as if I haven’t mentioned that a time or two. 😉 ETA: In hindsight, I wish I’d waited. It was horrible, horrible sex with a partner I was ashamed to admit to being with. And we were both drunk. Just bad. ---
**Author:** ![Crazy\_Canuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crazy_canuck/32/5282_2.png) [@Crazy\_Canuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crazy_Canuck)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2018, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-long-term-downsides-to-losing-your-virginity-late-in-life/810120/57 "2018-03-09T00:08:46Z")
> [@2ManyTacos](#): > > As it stands, I do not know whether the Dope is the greatest venue to discuss those specific issues in detail It is not, but hey, we’re here anyways. > [@2ManyTacos](#): > > I cannot help but think that _all_ of my present problems simply _would not exist_ today if I had begun having sex when I was still in high school. Maybe. Maybe you’d have some new ones instead, like explaining that you have Hep C to every potential sexual partner or a child support payment. Don’t get me wrong, sex can be great, but there are real potential downsides to it as well, which is why we don’t endorse kids doing it. Let me tell you a story. After my marriage fell apart, I had a need for money, so I was an idiot and decided to start dealing cocaine again. One of the “benefits” of being a cocaine dealer is that you will get women offering to sleep with you in exchange for cocaine. I accepted a lot of those offers, and I ended up with way, way **more** sexual hangups after that than I had before. When I quit dealing and most of the women disappeared … even knowing it was coming and why, that one hurt deep, and it tripped me up for a long time. Trust me, It’s never about the numbers, unless you make it about them. If you can’t shake that thought, I sincerely recommend finding a therapist who you relate to and working on why. ---
**Author:** ![ProudPuppy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/278dde/32.png) [@ProudPuppy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ProudPuppy)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2018, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-long-term-downsides-to-losing-your-virginity-late-in-life/810120/58 "2018-03-10T02:00:28Z")
> [@2ManyTacos](#): > > This is also one of the things that bothers me, at least to an extent. > > No matter what I do today to try to acquire the kinds of sexual experiences that I missed out on as a teenager, I will never be able to recreate the social and physical dynamics that underlined that era. So, for example, I’ll never again be surrounded by like-minded younger women to the extent that I was when I was 15; I’ll never again be simultaneously on the cusp of adulthood yet free of the kinds of worries and financial obligations that stymie the lives of grown men (meaning that the _consequences_ of the kinds of illicit sexual experiences I might have gotten away with in high school would be much more dire for me as adult); and, frankly, I’ll never be as horny as I was when I was 17 (although this might actually be a good thing). > > But perhaps the most alarming thing to me is that, if I were to suddenly spend thousands of dollars on clothing and mastering pickup artist techniques - and then rapidly build up my number of sexual partners - I ostensibly _would not_ acquire the same kinds of psychological, developmental, social, and sexual developments from doing those things as I would have if I had done them as a teenager. In other words, increasing my count today may not actually do much to address the hangups that I presently have because the long-term benefits of earlier sexual activities can never be acquired by somebody who has passed that point of his life. Well one benefit is that you’re having a lot more sex. ---
**Author:** ![Huppydog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dbc845/32.png) [@Huppydog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huppydog)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2018, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-long-term-downsides-to-losing-your-virginity-late-in-life/810120/59 "2018-03-10T18:51:38Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > I don’t remember anyone I know (male or female) mentioning that they “intentionally saved themselves for marriage”. But that’s not the only thing will potentially bring the numbers down - just change Dangerosa’s example a little bit. Eliminate the one night stands, maybe. Or rather than getting involved with the future spouse at 30 and getting married at 34, maybe the person met the future spouse at 21 and got married at 26. What are the chances that that person has had more than 15 partners? > > I absolutely _know_ that my experience is not representative - but I know at least four couples who got married in their mid-to late twenties who originally got together when at least one of the couple was around 16. Even if there was no intention to wait until marriage ( and I’d be surprised if any of them did wait) , I’d bet a large sum of money that at least 4 of the people have had only the one partner and none of the others got anywhere near 10. It totally depends on the people you hung out with. My first was at 16 and it was horrible. My next girlfriend was at 17 and she was 20 but wouldn’t sleep with me until we got married because she had and lost a kid already. So, I’m sexually cursed already. The girls back in the 80’s were cute and tight but the worst sex ever was all the way until my 30’s except for that 40 year old that already had a kid too when I was 23. Anyway, every one has their own beliefs, regrets and questions. I look back a 40 partners and still think things could have been better. I should have banged that girl at 10 and 12 and 14 that begged me. But I didn’t. Having the opportunity and knowing I was that cute says something. So, yeah. There’s a psychological effect on any decision you make in life. You’ve now seen lots of stories and we all wonder what it would be like if we had done something different. The hardest thing in life is realizing there’s a future instead of living in the past because there is no future. Ahhh…but some of the memories are great! ---
**Author:** ![fjs1fs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/9e8a1a/32.png) [@fjs1fs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fjs1fs)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2018, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-long-term-downsides-to-losing-your-virginity-late-in-life/810120/60 "2018-03-12T18:09:34Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > Don’t be so sure about this. I’m 56 years old and horny all the time. (I am, however, better able to think clearly while horny). Also, the past 10-15 years have, without question, been the most satisfying and exciting period of my life sexually. > > You are right about things you have “missed out on.” We all miss out on something. What you will find, if you talk to a few of us old timers, is that those experiences are not all they are cracked up to be. You haven’t missed out on the best sexual experiences of your life, for example. I can’t speak for sex at 16 (since I missed out too) but sex from 18 to 22 was\* interesting\*, but not life-changing or even mind blowing. It takes awhile to figure it out, and starting at 26 isn’t the end of the world. Great answer. Almost 53 yo male here and feel the same way. Having best sex of my life now. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-long-term-downsides-to-losing-your-virginity-late-in-life/810120.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-long-term-downsides-to-losing-your-virginity-late-in-life/810120.md?page=4)