My high school clique were the smart, bookish girls - nerds if you will. We decided to eliminate our virginities after graduation because we were already feeling like laggards and freaks. We were 18 and 19. It was 1978. What is new? The west is beginning to actually talk about sex.

I'm closer to 40 than not. And I've only slept with one guy in my life. I'm celibate right now, in fact, and have been for 5 years. And I'm not about to change that simply to get off. I can get off whenever necessary, thank you.

What are people taught about sex and relationships? I was raised in an über-religious household until I left at 18, and on pain of severe beating, I wasn't allowed to date. When I was 14, I actually had a parental unit pick up the extension on a phone call from a guy in my history class who was asking for the chapters he missed due to his absence that day, and the poor dude got a verbal beatdown from my mom. Of course, it got around school the next day that my 'rents were nutters and wasn't going to let any guy talk to me, thus sealing my teenage dating fate. In college, if a guy even looked at me, I was terrified that I wouldn't be able to talk to him; ALL he'd want from me was sex and would kick me out of the house ASAP after he got what he wanted. Yup. That's what I was taught; that men are dogs. Hence, I was hesitant.

In these matters, I had to raise myself and learn that while men weren't as bad as they were painted in my parents' and church congregation's minds, not all of them were going to care about me as a person, or even like me aside from my looks. I managed to get my share of fooling around in regardless. Had two long-term bf's at uni, even. But nothing past 3rd base with either. Neither young man seemed like the right guy.

I didn't do the deed until my late 20s. Personally, I'm glad I waited. Though he was younger than I and we only lasted a few years, he was caring and kind and he liked me. And he was really great in the sack. I feel lucky. Even after we parted, he made an effort to maintain a friendship with me, which neither of my colleges exes attempted. A lot of friends of mine are glad they did it early. Some wish they hadn't gotten rid of it in the manner they did or at the age they did. Everyone has had a different experience. And people will have different motivations, different expectations and different reactions to sex. To have such blanket assumptions about why or why not people are virgins based on a few anecdotes is silly.

Now stop worrying about virgins and put your noggins to some good use; how are we going to save New Orleans, for example? Or stop this awful fighting in Iraq?

Afternoon, all.

Why else would an article about today's adult virgins not include male ones??

Besides, if it's not how inexperienced a woman you are, it's how OVERexperienced you are. On last week's Carolyn Hax chat in the Washington Post, some chick wrote in upset that boyfriend bugged her for her Number (sex partners, not phone) then freaked when she said 10 (which was a lie). Worse yet- his Number is over 50. She said it wasn't the first time a man questioned her morals because of her sexual history.

And sure enough, some other guy chimed in that he knew lots of "law school, pro-choice, Democrat-voting, 'well bred' guys who harbor such unbending double standards." His point was, it's fine for that girl to drop her 50+ jerk, but what about the 'nice guys' he knows?

What about him, for example? "Trust me, as enlightened as I think I am about women, if my wife slept with me on the first date, or had as many sexual partners as me I would not be married to her!"

EW! How can we win?! You can't be a 20-something virgin without being rejected by one type of man, but another type of man won't tolerate a 30 year-old with a robust sexual resume. That's an awfully small window of opportunity to be accepted and appreciated.

Meanwhile all most women expect is a reasonably- experienced man; numbers don't much seem to factor in. And high numbers, while they make us feel a little insecure, are accepted. Because guys will be guys.

And gals will be gals-- trying to please everyone; better off pleasuring themselves.

LeCastor said:

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But here's what i'm trying to understand, you didn't even have a kiss in high school, you were 17 or 18, ostensibly brimming with hormones, and you didn't want to meet men? This is why i suggested, with absolutely no meanness intended, that maybe you simply aren't very intersted in relationships or sex. There's nothing wrong with that.

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She wasn't talking to me, but this describes me.

I did have a kiss, when I was 12. I hated it. It was gross. Between the ages of 12 and 21, I had an interest in exactly three guys, total. One, I actually dated, when I was 12. I didn't really like it -- too much stress. I stalked a boy who had no interest in me when I was 14, and had a crush on a guy I met exactly once when I was 17. By 21, I thought I would probably never have a boyfriend.

I am 37 now, and if my husband and I miss having sex for one night, we really *miss* it, if you know what I mean. My libido is so high, depression couldn't kill it, pregnancy couldn't kill it (we had sex the night before I went into labor), childbirth only managed to kill it for two weeks and antidepressants only managed to lower the frequency of how often I wanted it to the level *most* American married couples actually manage to have sex it.

But I have no interest in any men other than my husband, because I am really really picky. Most men simply do not turn me on. Even the boyfriend I had for nine years before I met my husband didn't turn me on until *after* I'd fallen in love with him. I can count on the fingers of one hand the men I looked at and said to myself "I want that" before even knowing the guy, and that's if I count celebrities who were dead before I was born.

I didn't lose my virginity until I was 23, to the aforementioned former boyfriend, after we'd been dating for 2 years. There's nothing wrong with my sex drive, or my desire for a relationship, but 99.9% of the men in the world are totally uninteresting to me, and most of the rest, I need to become emotionally attracted to before I start to find them physically attractive. Men like my husband, who I find hot the moment I see them, are incredibly rare. And I'd rather masturbate than go to bed with a man I don't trust, like and find sexy. I could very easily have ended up one of these 30-year-old virgins if I hadn't been lucky enough to find a guy who'd wait for me to decide I trusted him enough.