I am a 27-year-old woman and I’m a virgin.
I have just recently become interested in the dating scene. I am wondering how I can tell a guy that I’m a virgin in a way that won’t run him off in the other direction.
How do I approach this kind of situation in the modern dating scene?
Uncertain
Dear Uncertain,
First of all, I want to reassure you that you’re not alone. Last year, I remember reading about the actor Rebel Wilson: beautiful, successful, funny – and a virgin until she was 35.
“Not everybody has to lose their virginity as a teenager,” she writes in her memoir, Rebel Rising. The Pitch Perfect actor goes on to describe herself as a “late bloomer”.
“People can wait till they’re ready or wait till they’re a bit more mature,” she writes. “And I think that could be a positive message. You obviously don’t have to wait until you’re in your thirties like me, but you shouldn’t feel pressure as a young person.”
When we look at the statistics, it shows that rather than people overwhelmingly losing their virginity at a younger age, plenty of us wait until later in life – just like you.
A YouGov survey last year revealed that 5 per cent of Britons – 4 per cent of women and 6 per cent of men who were willing to give an answer – aged 25 or older were yet to have sex for the first time.
A quarter of Japanese people remain virgins into their twenties and thirties, according to a 2019 study. Among those aged 30 to 34, the number of women who reported never having had heterosexual intercourse was 11.9 per cent, while this figure was 12.7 per cent for men.
Last year, my lovely colleague Helen Coffey wrote on exactly this topic and spoke to Alyson Cadena, creator of the 30-Year-Old Virgin podcast. Now 33, Alyson didn’t have sex until the age of 31.
“There are loads of us out there, but people are ashamed to talk about it, so they think they’re the only ones,” Alyson said. “We’re almost encouraging that stigma because we won’t speak our truth.” And Alyson told Helen that one of the biggest dilemmas for her, too, was whether she should be telling people she was dating that she was a virgin.
“As I started getting into dating, I had to think about that,” Alyson said. “Some people will judge you, some are going to fetishise it as a weird kink – ‘oh, I’m going to take her innocence’ – and some people make this assumption that you’re going to become too attached.
“Whether you tell someone or not is your business. Sexually active people don’t hand out a resumé before they have sex – and late bloomers think too much about other people. They need to re-centre and think, ‘What do I need?’ If that means telling the other person, cool. If that means don’t tell them, cool. If it means waiting for love or sleeping with the person you just started seeing, that’s fine.”
I agree with Alyson. My instinct is to ask you if you actually want to tell the people you’re dating – because you don’t have to. Nobody has the right to your story, unless you want to tell it.
If you don’t feel like you want to get intimate without telling them, then that’s a different thing – you have every right to lay your cards on the table (especially if it would ease your nerves or feel it might help your partner be gentler or more understanding).
In that case, I would be upfront and straight with them, perhaps simply saying: “Just so you know, I haven’t done this before – but I really want to.”
If you don’t want to say anything, however, don’t. What is most important is that you feel in control of your narrative.
I also wouldn’t rush to have sex. Don’t feel you have to do anything on the first, second – or even third date – unless you want to. The only person entitled to an opinion or choice on your sex life is you.
Do you have a problem you would like to raise anonymously with Dear Vix? Issues with love, relationships, family and work? Email dearvix@independent.co.uk
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