Determining virginity is tough, because you have to first define the term, and then get people to be honest about their sexual histories. Mary Delaney Cooke / Corbis / Getty Images
Lifelong virgins are not uncommon in nature. In some social insect communities – bees, ants and wasps, for example – a small percentage of individuals are “breeders,” and almost everybody else works their butts off taking care of their kids (#nojudgment). In other animals, like elephant seals, a few males monopolize the mating scene, which leads to an awful lot of dudes who live in complete celibacy. Around 80 percent of male elephant seals never even get the chance to mate, but those 20 percent who do might inseminate up to 250 females in their lifetime.
But between 12-14 percent of adults aged 20-24 have never had sex
That’s a tough question to answer. Accordingly, the data is not crystal clear. After all, if all you want to know is who passes on their genes, who cares if a person touches one body part to another person’s body part? What’s the difference between a woman who’s never had a sexual encounter, a woman whose sexual partners have all been women, and a woman who never has children due to polycystic ovary syndrome or some other condition preventing her from conceiving? And then, there are those who don’t engage in the act because they’ve taken vows of celibacy, because they identify as asexual, or because they just never, ever meet someone willing to share an intimate moment. In this way, the human construct of virginity and the human process of reproduction have very little to do with one another.
But in general, the human reproductive strategy is very different from those of both ants and elephant seals. Continue reading “Biologically, losing one’s virginity means having potential-baby-making sex for the first time”