"Would a girl feel quite as disappointed by her early sexual experience if it was seen as a triumph instead of a moral failure?"

I'm sure there are girls who do consider it a triumph and have no qualms. Does the study say anything about these girls? The article says "a significant proportion". What the hell does that mean? I can interpret that as a number between 15-95%. Surely we can get hard numbers to match the innuendo.

I have also read an article (that uses a larger sample) where among first year university students 73% of girls and "only" 53% of boys had done it by that age. The girls sexual maturity meant they generally had sex first with a boyfriend.

Does this mean they regret the sex or regretted the boyfriend?

... abstinence education, and if that fails, maybe infibulation.

What a tricky thing it is to grow up female--gee whiz! Glad I'm done with all that garbage. As much as I'd love to have a daughter, I also find myself relieved that I am a mother with two sons. Adolescence is tough on boys too, but it seems as though the girls can't catch a break when it comes to growing up.

Perhaps too much of this regret is parentally encouraged and culturally enforced. I'm not the one to tell any young person when is a good time to become sexually active, but maybe too many parents are encouraging their daughters to view their emerging sexuality with shame. Along with a discussion of contraception, STD prevention, etc. , is there not a way to accept that our young adults are growing into their sexuality and that this is normal and positive?

I don't have the answers here, and my kids are under 5, so this may be hopelessly naive. But these articles are depressingly stark.

It's something you LOSE. It's somehing you GIVE. You are, at your very essence fundimentally CHANGED once a PENIS has been INSIDE OF YOU!!!!!!

It's never just something you've done. You know?

I see teenage girls beat themselves up after the boyfriend they gave this precious precious "gift" to runs around or dumps them or tells everyone. Why? HE'S the one being the jerk, HE should feel shitty, honey, not YOU.

You DID give him something precious, you gave him YOU -- your time, your energy, your affection. And if he's too stupid to want to keep that? Well he's an idiot.

You wish it had been perfect? Of course you do. It was not and now your heart is broken. If you are very lucky, this will be the one and only time that happens. If you aren't, it could happen several more. You may or may not have sex with any number of people who'll break your heart.

But you're still you. You're not a different person, you've just done a different thing. And that's what growing up is -- doing different things.

I had the storybook ending: married the first woman I dated (we met in college). Since I haven't cheated on her, and I'm forty-one now, I regret not sleeping around. (Wasn't exactly my preference in high school, either.)

Guess what? Nobody is studying me so they can deliver the important news to boys: screw around with some chicks who you are certain you won't want as life partners, so you'll get lots of good experience to look back fondly upon in your dotage.

The lesson here seems obvious: one can't live one's life solely to avoid regret. I can only count myself lucky that, as a man, I get to suffer my personal dose of regret without a bunch of labcoats and clipboards hovering around me.

You're obviously on a quest to turn every woman into a mindless cum-bucket. I can only guess that this is your response to having lost your innocence so early in life.

"Ah, but beware the headline that trumpets, "Study says [insert sexy or scary something]."

Well said, Ms. Clark-Flory.

I felt a tremendous amount of pressure to lose my virginity - mostly from other girls who had lost it in high school under less than ideal circumstances (cousin, blowjob, back of a car, some doofus who later pretended he didn't know them, etc.) I am happy to say I resisted losing my virginity until my erotic imagination and physical desires told me it was time. Until then, I happily explored the full range of everything else. Funny, when it came time to lose it, I actually picked some guy who I was not in a relationship with, because I wanted to experience sex separate from the complications of a commitment, so I would know what I dealing with apart from all the emotion. I was interested in sex - not romance.

Most of the same girls who pressured me regretted losing their virginity early - not because they were ashamed, but because they wanted some kind of romance attached to it, and that was one thing they didn't get. I don't think it's morality that gets women down - it's the expectation of romance which is so rarely present at all, much less in men under the age of 30.

I really think we should be addressing more often how the very concept of romance enslaves women to unrealistic expectations.

Honestly, I regret the person I lost my virginity to, and not the age- I was more than ready, crazy with a flux of hormones and energy. He was there and it felt so good, new and interesting. I'm glad I got the chance to experiment with him and use that knowledge in the next relationship I had, which lasted four years and wherein I took his virginity. I did feel a sort of power in that at the time, like, ah ha! I know what an orgasm feels like and you don't. I have very few regrets about my sex life- in my early 30's, I know what I want and I know how to get it. If I'm not interested in you, I know how to make sure my needs are met. If practice makes perfect, then give me a 98% and a gold star...

And I never got pregnant, no STDs, or anything. This is what happens when nerds get busy. If you are smart and careful, sex (even teen sex, oh my god!) can be amazing.