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Virgin until marriage
So I'm 15 and i don't plan on having sex until marriage. This is a serious question though... Are guys turned off by girls who have not had sex? Like do they think it's weird when a girl hasn't done it or are they okay with it?
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Maybe give some free advice about: Virginity?
Ugh. Ignore adviceman. His secret was right in the 50s. Times have changed.
I'm going to be bluntly honest with you, choosing to be a virgin until marriage is a difficult choice.
See, in the last decade or two, there's been a dynamic change in dating. Adult women have gone slowly from being horrible if they have sex to being equal with men in that they have every right to do so if they want. Guys have, for the most part, always been given a pass on sex. Even in the 50s, a man who had sex did not have his value to others "ruined" the way a woman did. It was a sexist double standard which is slowly being torn down.
Now, women can choose to have sex for their own reasons and the judgements made are more and more often simply about who they're with, just like guys.
Not always. There is still value placed on purity. So let's talk about that for a minute.
Purity has it's root in paternity. Historically, women are always 100% sure that a child is theirs and men can have doubts. The whole "controlling women's sexuality" thing came about in part because men wanted to be in control of whether or not a child was biologically theirs.
Move forward a few thousand years and you have the modern values of "saving yourself for your husband" which is basically another way of saying that he and he alone owns your sexuality, and that you're a horrible person if anyone else ever gets a whiff of your "purity"
This idea, frankly, is harmful. Your sexuality is yours to do what you please with it, and should be. You want to save yourself until marriage because you have been taught that's what "good" women do. It's a crock of shit.
Why is it a crock?
Because there's a 99% chance that the guy you are with will have had sex before. Outside of a very small subset of Christians who come down just as hard on guys for premarital sex as girls, guys simply are not taught to give a damn about how many partners they've had.
Now, let's talk about why guys value purity or virginity on an individual basis.
It's all about ownership. Possession of you. If you take a girl's virginity, no one else can do that. Some guys literally keep score. It's meaningless, but it's something stupid that some guys take pride in or otherwise enjoy.
In a marriage, there is also the reality that a woman who has never had sex with anyone other than her husband is far less likely to initiate a divorce. That, too, is ownership. The thought of being alone, of possibly initiating a sexual relationship with someone else, is terrifying to someone who is in their 20s or 30s and who has only ever been with one person. Now, I can imagine you might think "But isn't that a good thing? People should work things out and try not to divorce!"
Relationships which have a guy basically owning his woman, where a woman is expected to directly obey her husband, are almost invariably abusive in some way. This matters because there are times when a woman needs to leave a man for her own safety, for her children's safety. And a man owning her purity in marriage is a huge barrier for a woman in that situation to overcome to do what is necessary to keep herself and/or her children safe.
That's all concerning serious relationships up to marriage, what about guys who just enjoy having sex with virgins?
Two basic reasons for that.
1) The guy likes the safety of a virgin. No STDs, no experience, no expectations. A virgin isn't going to tell a guy he's terrible in bed. A virgin on her wedding night isn't going to be able to tell her husband he's selfish in bed and needs to give as well as take. A virgin doesn't really have a clue what sex should be like between two equal partners, and that ownership thing I talked about is a relationship imbalance that will bleed over into the bedroom.
2) The guy likes the seduction and corruption of the innocent. This is usually pretty twisted, but some guys get off on the idea of purity corrupted. These are the guys who literally treat a virgin girl like a point on a scoreboard or a notch on their belt.
Now, the guys you're going to want are virgins too. They like the no expectations thing because they're as clueless as you are about sex. They believe that purity in a woman has value because, like you, they were taught that it does. Not all guys are predators looking to find a virgin and take something from her. But all guys who place value in virginity subscribe to the basic belief that a woman's sexuality is his to control. Even the nice ones, who really do love you.
It's not necessarily their fault. A guy who was raised with parents who told him he needs to find a nice girl who isn't some slut to settle down with didn't teach himself these things. But that doesn't change the fact that they believe these things.
And then, there is a growing subset of guys who either don't care or who actively dislike virginity. I am one of these. We may be the majority now, I don't know. There aren't many comprehensive studies on it.
Guys who don't care still want to have sex. They'll date you if you're willing to have sex with them at some point. If you tell them you want marriage first they'll probably just let you know it's not going to work. Guys who don't like virgins will walk as soon as they find that out, because they actively want to have sex and are looking for women who are on the same level.
So far as you're concerned, being a virgin isn't a big deal, especially not at 15. It's the wanting to wait until marriage part that is going to disqualify a ton of guys from your dating circle. There will be guys who will date you hoping you change your mind. There will be others who just say no, they aren't interested.
But it's key that you understand that what really sets you apart is not your lack of virginity. It's your determination to stay a virgin until you are legally tied to them. You might not be aware of this, but the people born after about 1980 through the 90s and early 2000s are increasingly wary of marriage. Not that they refuse to ever marry, but they go through a bunch of societally acceptable steps before they get there.
Cohabitation is a big one. People more and more prefer to live together before marrying. To make damn sure that this person is someone they want to have to spend thousands upon thousands of dollars to break up with before they make it legal. And sex is, as you'd expect from adults living together, a big part of it.
See, one of the things that came about when women took charge of their own sex lives was that suddenly men had to actually know what they were doing in bed. Lots of guys don't. Men in general are playing catch up in relationships, because people like Adviceman grew up in a simpler time when women wanted a provider who didn't hit her, and women now want a supportive partner who treats them like a respected equal.
Lots of men don't know how to do that, and dating and sex are part of how modern adult women determine whether a guy is on the level, good enough to be worth having a marriage and family with.
Sexual compatibility has become heavily emphasized. Having sex before marriage so that you can find out if you like having sex with each other, if you have the same sex drives and can deal with sexual issues that arise like a mature adult couple.
And, honestly, that is what you're up against more than anything. Adviceman is dead wrong about guys having sex with whoever and then settling down with virgins.
That part is flat out, 100% wrong. Guys these days are as liberal as the women they date. They want the same things. To evaluate sexual compatibility. To find out if a girl is into the same things sexually, has a matching sex drive to theirs. The younger the guy, the more in that direction they go. I'm in my late 20s, there are lots of guys my age who are like my parent's generation, lazy shitty partners who expect to treat a woman like property. Guys in their early 20s and late teens right now are far more likely to expect a woman to be a partner, and to act like an equal.
Being an equal includes having similar sexual desires and priorities, and one thing that is almost never a sexual priority for guys anymore is for us to be a virgin when we get married.
To give you an idea of how this works...
When I was a teenager, my parents freaked out that I looked at porn once in a while. I got all kinds of lectures about how no decent woman would ever want me, how real sex between a loving couple was nothing like porn.
As an adult, I have had sex crazier and more kinky than any of the porn they found when I was a teenager. Not only were they wrong that real sex between a real loving married couple is nothing like porn, they were also wrong as hell that no decent woman would ever want to do the same things I want to do.
And I looked for that. For me, number of sexual partners is mostly irrelevant. So long as there are no STDs and there aren't a minivan load of kids in tow, a woman with 1 partner and a woman with 20 make no difference.
What matters to me is experience. I dated a woman who had been with 5 guys before me, but those 5 guys happened in a 6 month period after she lost her virginity and then she met me. I was less happy sexually in that relationship than with a girl who had been with 10 guys over 8 years of sexual activity, and my current girlfriend who has only been with 2 people but they were over 7 total years of serious relationships between those people.
The girls with more experience know their sexuality well. They can express it to me, they are confident in it, and they can share that sexuality with me as adults.
Now, that's my personal perspective, but it's not remotely uncommon among other guys. And I am a good man, and a good boyfriend. You'll have to take me at my word on that, but I'm the kind of guy women value because I'm a good guy.
Most genuinely good guys who have no intention of waiting until marriage are much the same. They want someone of comparable sexual experience who can experience sexuality with them on their level.
It's natural, when you think about it. If you treat a woman as an equal, as a partner, you are most likely to find someone you have things in common with easy to relate to. A guy who's been having sex for 5 years is going to be more comfortable with a girl who's had at least a few years of sexual experience over a girl who's clueless and has less than 6 months of experience having sex, no matter how many people were in those 6 months.
Though, in those cases a girl who's been with fewer people is better for the simple reason that the more people you've been with, the more your experience is spread out and the less likely it is that you've had serious relationships with regular sex.
When one person has never had a relationship more than a month or two long or has never had sex more than like 10-15 times with one person, and another person is used to long term relationships where you don't count because you just have sex a whole bunch over a long period of time, that too can cause issues with difference in experience and with how each person views sex.
I've wound all over the place with examples, but the core message I'm trying to drive home is that the world you live in for the most part does not hold the values that you personally hold. Guys and girls alike, few people are waiting until marriage because they look at their parents and see that in most cases doing so is a mistake for many, many reasons.
And the same way, few people are looking for a partner who wants to wait until marriage. Guys don't settle down with virgins or look for girls who have had as few partners as possible. Guys look for girls who look at sex the same way they do. If a guy wants to have sex with a ton of women, he doesn't have a problem with being serious with a woman who has had sex with a ton of guys. If a guy has only had sex with one or two women, but it was in the context of years long relationships, he's going to look for a girl who's had years long relationships and the number of guys she's had is not going to matter compared to whether or not she's had any long term relationships and knows what it's like to be with one person for years at a time.
The guys who are going to be specifically looking for you are going to be either guys who want a notch on their belt, or guys with little to no experience with sex and long term relationships so they don't feel like you have expectations based on being with someone for a long time when they themselves have not.
So where do you go from here?
At 15, you don't have to make any drastic decisions. But I'm going to go ahead and give you fair warning that the older you get, the more guys in your dating age range will have had sex and pretty much expect that in girls they date.
Right now, maybe half the guys your age have had sex. By 18, statistically it's more like 60% or more. By 21, more than 90% of guys your age will have had sex with at least one partner, and a significant portion of that 90% will have had at least one serious relationship over 6 months where they had regular sex with someone they cared about.
Adviceman is wrong again to say that sex and love are not the same thing.
It is true that immature teenagers looking to coerce a virgin into sex will sometimes utter the phrase "If you love me, you'll do it."
In your 20s, sex is a normal and accepted part of a loving and secure relationship. People recognize that sharing sexuality is absolutely vital to intimacy between two partners who both have sexual needs and desires. More and more, it's normal in your teenaged years too. Teens are not adults, but they pretend to be. They imitate.
Adult trends these days are heading more and more towards sex being a normal and expected part of a serious relationship. Something two people share with each other equally. Teenagers are slow on the uptake, but are catching on. You will encounter guys who sincerely care about you and who want to have sex with you, and expect that to be treated as a normal thing.
So where does that leave you?
The bad news is, if you hold onto your "sex until marriage" ideals, I don't know what to tell you. I don't honestly know if you will find a guy who will be ok with that outside of that small subset of Christianity who damn anyone who has premarital sex to hell, and if you do find a guy from that group I can't make you a single promise about how happy you will be going into marriage with that little life experience. It might work, it might not. You might end up divorced, you might end up in an unhappy marriage, you might be happy. But the chances of unhappiness are much, much higher than happiness with that approach.
That's honest truth. No way around it.
The good news is, if you change your mind and have sex before marriage, it won't be a huge deal that you're a virgin. And bonus, I can even tell you basically how to go about it.
If you decide that you are willing to have sex before marriage, your new line is "I'm a virgin and I'm waiting for the right guy." So, if a guy wants to know if he's the right guy, you can tell him that either you will have sex with him, or you'll break up with him because he's not the right guy.
How do you find the right guy? Well, first, don't absolutely require that you're sure you will spend the rest of your life with him. Require that you love him, and you're sure he loves you.
You figure that out by taking time and seeing how he respects your needs and desires. You learn to communicate about sex. You need a guy who you can talk to about your desires and fears, but who will respect you enough to be able to talk about that stuff and want you without trying to convince you to have sex. Someone who will let you figure it out without pressuring you.
And one thing that is required of you, if you go that way, is that at some point you take a leap of faith. You love him, you know he loves you, but sex is still scary. It's scary because you can't know what it's like until you've had it. That's why you talk to your guy, so he knows what you're afraid of and what you might need from him. Do some reading, some googling about sex as well. There's plenty of "what will my first time be like" pages out there for you to read. You should have a good idea what to expect before you go into it.
And yeah, I'm advising you to not wait until marriage. You can't choose both paths and know how they will work out for you before you make the choice. But I am old enough to have seen both sides of that fence. I was raised Catholic. I was told the same lies about sex, relationships, and virginity/purity you were.
And I know that I am happier than the few people who waited until marriage. Far happier. I know that the vast majority of people I knew who said they were going to wait at your age did not for the reasons I have listed above.
It's your choice to make, just don't make the mistake of thinking that this choice is easy or that it's right. It is what you were taught to choose, nothing more.
If you want to talk, inbox me. I'm happy to share my experiences if you have questions or comments. I know my perspective is different than yours, and probably way, way more detail than you were planning on getting when you asked this question.
I just know that I do not know a single person who thought they were going to wait to have sex until marriage who then changed their mind and had safe, responsible sex with a loving partner who regretted it after.
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Are guys turned off by girls who have not had sex? I think it depends on the guy. Most guys honestly don't care if you are a virgin and most of them feel special if they're the ones you waited for.
A lot think it's mature of them to wait until they found the right guy.
Then of course, there are the guys who are jerks and will make fun of you if you don't have sex with them. Those are the ones who you obviously should stay away from anyways.
At your age, there will be guys who make fun of you, more than usual just because teenage guys can be cruel and horny. So just take care of yourself and once you find the right guy, he won't care if you have had sex or not.
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I will let you in on a little secrete about boys in general. At your age boys confuse love and lust. To boys love and lust are the same thing. You can expect one or more boys you date to say to you; "If you love me you will have sex with me." To them having sex is proof of love.
Hold on to your principals because when boys become men their ideals change. For when a boy becomes a man he will chase all the women he can bed but when it comes to the women he marries he would prefer a virgin or at the very least a women who has not slept with everything that has a front facing zipper.
With your ideals your the type of girls who can expect to be brought home to meet their moms. Their moms will take one look at you and know if you have been sleeping with their son. The fact that you haven't and are still a virgin will elevate you immensely in her eyes.
The short answer to your question though is: Boys your age in high school will probably come up with some not so flattering names for you such as the ice queen. Don't let this bother you and don't give into them. You will actually be more popular as all the boys will want to be the one to take your virginity. Don't let them, just enjoy watching then try.
You say no one time and if they continue to try, remind then they are now committing a crime and to take you home.
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