Here I answer a reader’s question about whether it matters if he is a virgin? I suggest that we abolish the word and instead talk about sexual experience. What difference does it make if you are sexually experienced or not? How might it be an advantage not to be experienced? What if we think of ourselves as producing good times, rather than trading in our status and self-worth?
The Question
“I’m 22 year old male turning 23 in a couple weeks November 13 and still a virgin with limited relationship experience as well what do the average experienced woman my age typically feel towards a 22-23 year old who is still a virgin in western culture ? I’m quite anxious to enter the dating scene because of this since the majority of women my age have sexual and romantic experience and they will see my inexperience as a red flag since I’m so late. I also grew up with a slight form of high functioning autism, so social stuff can be hard but I’m actively improving. I’m also very rural Pennsylvania and it seems like I’m fundamentally behind. I know many women my exact age who have kids which even adds to my feelings of being out of sync and undesirable to much more experienced peers. I have dealt with low self esteem most of my life and had other obstacles in my late teens early 20s which led to other priorities, so honestly what do the majority of experienced women my age in the United States usually feel towards a 23 year old virgin man? Am I a huge disadvantage? What age is usually the cut off that inexperience will start causing proper issues or be a huge barrier with women? Is this mostly insecurity and internal fear? How do I talk about this with a potential partner. Any advice would be appreciated specifically from United States perspective.”
Thank you for your excellent question!
Sadly I am from the UK, so I can’t give you a United States perspective. I can sound like the Austin Powers of sex education though, so I have that going for me. Shagalicious baby!
Let’s abolish virginity
First of all, let’s abolish the whole idea of virginity. It’s bad for everyone, particularly heterosexual men and women, and I just think we’d all be a lot better off without it. It’s not cool man! I agree with the philosopher Neil McArthur in ‘The Concept and Significance of Virginity’1 where he concludes that “On balance, the best strategy, for those seeking to promote gender equality, is to try to convince people to stop thinking in terms of virgins and non-virgins altogether”. So let’s just go with a scale of how experienced we are with having sex, or how much we know about it. De-naming it, making it less of ‘a thing’, means that we might be able to make it mean less, and so we then become less likely to make it ‘the thing’ about us.
Do people value sexual experience?
This study in 20162 found that sexually experienced people had a very small preference for sexually experienced partners, but this was mostly just men preferring sexually experienced women, not sexually experienced women preferring sexually experienced men. It also seems that sexually inexperienced people prefer the idea of having sex with sexually experienced people. Mostly any stigma about sexual inexperience comes from the sexually inexperienced, rather than the experienced. So it’s more likely that you are more bothered by your relative sexual inexperience than anyone else. ‘The thing’ about you. I actually think that people will care even less about this now, 10 years later.
Now here’s some advice
What difference would it make?
Let’s say that you did have lots of sexual experience: what difference would that make? You would be ___________ ? Or perhaps ___________ ? Maybe you would be _____________ ? Fill in those blanks, what difference would being sexually experienced make? Now, looking at your answers, are there other ways for you to feel that way about yourself?
Best hopes
You mention insecurity and internal fear. If you didn’t have that, what would you have instead? _________ or _________ ? Now let’s say that your best hopes come true, you will wake up tomorrow morning feeling __________ or ___________ . How will you know? What will be the very first sign that you will be feeling your best hopes?
Instead of the feelings of insecurity and internal fear, you will be feeling what exactly? At a molecular level, waking up, saying hi to people, going outside, texting people, walking about, making yourself a cup of tea, how will you know? Don’t imagine you as Austin Powers, but imagine you with a little bit of Austin Powers energy. What will you notice? In your body, from your toes, to the tips of your fingers, to the top of your bonce (head). What will you be pleased to notice? How will other people respond to you? How will you respond back? What will they notice about you?
I’ve got a lot of advice like this in my articles about how to get a girlfriend, boyfriend or themfriend and this one about how to make friends.
A scale
Let’s say that 0 is super insecure and afraid, and 10 is the opposite (Austin Powers energy). Where are you on that scale now? Why are you at that number and not the one below? Eg if you are at a 2, how come you are not at a 1? Write a list of all the reasons you are at the number you are and not the one below. Off you pop: mate.
You could also try this for your self-esteem, try this resource about Feeling A Bit Better and try this one about How You Feel About Yourself.
You’re a producer not a consumer
This isn’t a criticism, just something I’m noticing that might help you. I think it’s something that a lot of people do. The way you talk about the V word in your question is a bit like you are seeing it as something which might give you status. As if people who are not Vs, have status and you don’t. This is a very capitalist logic, that in order to be ‘successful’ you have to collect status or self-worth which you can exchange to ‘acquire’ a sexual partner. Not a criticism, just a learning point.
Instead of seeing yourself in this way (as a consumer) try to see yourself as someone who is a producer. Someone who is interested in making really great sexual (and perhaps romantic) experiences happen with another person. Where you are both on the same team trying to see how much fun, nice times, excitement, and pleasure can happen between you.
Everyone’s sexual experience is a different experience
People have different experiences of their sexual experiences. I once worked with a young man who was very very sexually experienced (he was about 24 and first started having sex when he was about 13). He told me that he had had sex with hundreds of young women but that he never once really enjoyed it. I also know some people who didn’t have sex when they were younger, and when they did start to have sex, they had a wonderful experience. All of this is to say that everyone is the same in that everyone is unique. We all have a different relationship to our sexual experiences.
Treat every time like the first time
One of the bits of sex advice that I give (me and my colleague Meg-John Barker wrote about it in our book Enjoy Sex: How, When and IF You Want To) is to treat every time you have sex like it’s the first time. This is the advice I give to couples that have been together for ages. It’s about being curious, being interested in how bodies respond together, and forgetting some of the ‘should’ stories. Sometimes the ‘sexual knowledge’ we have from culture and having sex is actually really not good. So we need to be attentive to the moment, ourselves and the person. Touch, sounds, smells, sights, tastes, sensations, thoughts, all circling around. I’ve got advice about how to do this in my article called how to be good at sex.
I don’t think that you have to say I’m a Virgin. You don’t have to tell anyone about how much sexual experience you have. The important thing is to be able to find ways to communicate together about the kinds of sex you may or may not want to have. I have a lot of advice for you here about that at my resource about sex talk and communication.
Tabula rasa baby
So maybe your relative sexual inexperience might not be a disadvantage after all? Sexual experiences can easily fall into patterns, where people just repeat the same sexual experience over and over again. A script we write for ourselves. If you are curious, engaged, excited, and are interested/interesting and are able to stay in the moment with someone, then you might have a wonderful time. You might write your own scene of how to have a great first time with someone. You are a tabula rasa baby, a blank slate.
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References
- In Earp, B.D., Chambers, C., & Watson, L. (Eds.). (2022). The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Sex and Sexuality (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003286523 https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=WWZsEAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=RA1-PT15&dq=how+do+women+view+virginity+in+men&ots=Sc64kYPnQO&sig=EysA7PaPez5uOIqBFfycaHTXlqo&redir_es c=y#v=onepage&q=how%20do%20women%20view%20virginity%20in%20men&f=false ↩︎
- Gesselman, A. N., Webster, G. D., & Garcia, J. R. (2017). Has Virginity Lost Its Virtue? Relationship Stigma Associated With Being a Sexually Inexperienced Adult. The Journal of Sex Research, 54(2), 202–213. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2016.1144042 ↩︎
© Justin Hancock, 2026 Find out more about me and BISH here. If you’re an educator, head to my website BISH training, to find out about my resources for SRE and training for practitioners. This website is funded by me (and I am not rich) and my supporters, please see how you can Support BISH here. Please leave me your feedback here.
BISH is run by me, Justin Hancock. I’ve been a trained sex and relationships educator since 1999. I am a PhD researcher in Online Sex and Relationships Education. You can see my research profile at Orcid here https://orcid.org/my-orcid?orcid=0009-0000-6940-6226. I am proud to be a partner of the Sex Education Forum and I am proud to be a member of the World Association for Sexual Health. As well as BISH I also have resources, a podcast, and a coaching service for over 18s, as well as some of the best RSE / CSE teaching resources around. Find out out about my other work at justinhancock.co.uk. My work has featured (positively) in the media, like the BBC, Financial Times, The Economist, The Guardian, Sky One, and Novara Media.
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