Casual Conversation

Virginity isn't real. It's a label used to shame women by its absence and men by its presence, but doesn't say anything useful about a person.

For you, you're still young. Barely done growing, biologically. Your life isn't over, it's just now beginning.

Don't worry about it. I think I first had sex at 30, mostly due to a religious upbringing that I was in the middle of finding my way out of.

If you want to live a sexy life, go do it, but if you like your current life and just haven't found the one, that's something that takes patience and persistence.

One thing you can do is take steps to make sex-positive friends. You can start down that path by talking more openly and frankly about sex, and destigmatize it.

I think most people have certain expectations of where they will be in life at a certain age. Milestones. Some are kind of baked in to society. In the US, you'll graduate high school (secondary school) around 18. You can legally drink and, increasingly, smoke pot at 21. You'll graduate from college/University around 22-24. Some cultures of origin have you married by 20, with kids by 22. You should be a grandparent by 45. If you don't own a house by 30 you've failed at life. And on. And on. And on, ad nauseum.

We put these obligations and pressure on ourselves and we don't need to. Be told, you can let go of these pressures. Society, family, and culture expectations are not mandatory.

You're 24. You've got time and even if you never have sex there just so much to life. I recently buried an elderly friend. She lived to 92, died a virgin, and her only regret was not traveling more. Sure she was probably Ace, but it just shows there's more than the milestones we put on ourselves.

Have peace OP. Don't compare yourself to others, you didn't know their secrets, only their outside self

Happy belated birthday! Don't worry too much about virginity. Sex is cool, but can be overrated too.

Sex, from a physical standpoint, is very overrated, and being a virgin does not actually mean anything. Stop overthinking it.

We occasionally get similar posts here. You might be in a different situation than most of your peers. But certainly not the only one telling this story here on Lemmy. And at 24 you're not even that old compared to other people who are 30 or past that and in a similar situation.

Don't pressure yourself too much. That'd be my advice. Life isn't a competition in who has sex at what age. There is more to it. If you want to focus on career, if if you're too busy or just introverted... That's fine. If you're unhappy and want a partner, go ahead and try to change something about it, go out and socialize, go dating. Just be aware society always tries to pressure us into doing things, like have sex, or a beautiful partner, or buy a big SUV or pickup truck or whatever. The thing is, you're not everyone else but an individual. Go figure what's good for you, and not what everyone else wants you to do. If you let them reduce you to that, that's a sure way to become unhappy.

(Edit: And I can empathize. Any fear of missing out is real. But usually things look more exciting and indispensable than they really are. And you can never change the past. Be a bit careful when growing up not to become some grumpy version of yourself who is just sad about the past and missed opportunities. It's usually more healthy to focus on the opportunities which lie ahead, because these are the ones you can still take.)

Sex is okay I guess...

But have you ever had a mocha on a cool and rainy autumn day while your pet cuddles up next to you on the couch?

No contest in my book.

I'm surprised no one has tried to give any dating advice here. OP, regardless of the virginity thing, do you want to find a romantic partner? It's entirely reasonable to want both romance and sex.

Here's what's worked for me:

• Figure out what kind of person your ideal partner would be, what their interests are, and where they would hang out.
• Put yourself in places where you're likely to meet that kind of person. For example, if you're looking for someone that likes the outdoors and staying physically active, maybe look for a hiking group in your area.
• Be confident, and be chill. If you're neither, fake it until you are.

That's the basic outline. If you're meeting people that are sort of like what you're looking for, but not quite, that's an indication that you're on the right track and should keep at it. Dating is a grind and requires patience.

In terms of confidence/chill, that means:

• Assuming that someone you're interested in could also be attracted to you, instead of just assuming they aren't.
• Handling rejection gracefully.
• Not keeping your desires a secret, but also having the patience not to dump everything on them all at once. If you want to be sexual, be lightly flirty with them, and see if they respond in kind. If they do, then you can gradually escalate along those lines.
• Not requiring constant attention from them. Give them a chance to miss you. Don't feel the need to respond to that text right away, for example. Wait 10 minutes or so, then respond. This lets them know that you don't expect immediate responses, and they can get back to you later if they're busy. It also slows the pace of conversation down, so that you don't run out of things to talk about.

I'm 30, a virgin, and don't anticipate that it will change any time soon. It's not as if there is a big sign over my head saying that. People aren't going to know unless you tell them. And I don't see anyone permanently changing in a noticeable way over sex unless it was a case of something like abuse. So I don't think it's that big of a deal, even though it's a bit more on the unusual side of things.

Is sex with someone else something you want? Or do you not really care? Both are indifferent.

I'll be 25 in one more month on the 16th. Unless someone is from a culture where the standards are lower (because the definition of virginity changes based on culture, demonstrating how much of a social construct it is), I'm still a virgin (even as a woman) but I don't really care that I'm one. I didn't care for physical expressions of love before trying them out, then tried just enough out to know if I want it, and still didn't care for them enough to seek them out. Physical fulfillment is very overinflated.

The fact that you're worried so much about it is probably one of the reasons why it hasn't happened yet.

Honestly, depending on where you live, maybe you should just hire a prostitute. Get it over with and then it's no longer an obstacle. Plus chances are your first time will be with someone who knows what they are doing, and I promise you, that makes a pretty big difference.

I think I'd love to offer a bit of a different outlook personally. Most of the comments I see here are going in the direction of "don't stress yourself about it too much, you will be able to do it/ it is cultural pressure". I personally experience that for me it doesn't help at all - like yk, I know I shouldn't stress myself too much about it anyway, but I still do. And my personal opinion is that every emotion is incredibly valuable. If you feel insecure about it and if you feel you should make a fuss, these is something important your emotional system is trying to convey to you.

Most of the time, emotions aren't shallow, but rather a bit deeper. In this case I presume the issue for you probably isn't just that you are a virgin, there is something deeper connected to this feeling. For example, maybe the fact you are a virgin also means that you don't get the sexual validation you need and deserve to feel confident in your body. Or maybe it is connected with the need to belong: you want to be able to experience what other people feel, and you don't do so right now. The feeling of not belonging is a very powerful one.

I will be honest - when I was younger, it really sucked. I only has first sexual contact in university, so pretty late for the metrics of my surroundings. Until this time, I felt very insecure and also to some extent worthless - why is everyone able to have it and I'm not? Am I broken or wrong? I presume some of the same thoughts plague you as well.

Probably you already know common strategies for dealing with this feeling. In case you don't, pretty good ones involve working out, meditation, good sleep and nutrition, therapy, talking with a friend about your struggles, or reading a book about the topic and how other people related to it.

I'd like to offer you different psychotheoretical viewpoints of your feelings. I can't testify which one apply here the most, but maybe it can help you to understand a bit better what the source of your struggle is.

A cognitive therapist would tell you that your feeling is, as most of the other commenters wrote, a result of your learning. Aka, you learned that during college people need to have sex, and you didn't - so you feel that you failed because your learning says so. Thus, the best procedure would be for you to recognize that you don't NEED to have it, e.g. by talking to people who also stayed virgins, and "reconditioning" yourself.

A rational emotive therapist would expand upon the thought of the cognitive therapist by adding that you feel the NEED to conform. Aka, you have the thought in your head that you MUST be perfect and you MUST perform and you MUST excel, or else you're a worthless pile of trash. Thus, an REBT therapist would advise you to work on your deep-seeted belief that you MUST be perfect, and instead accept your imperfection - in this case, accept that even though you're a virgin, you're still a worthy human being, worthy of love and self-worth. This you can achieve by self-disputing, imaging how it would be to be a non-virgin, etc.

A psychoanalyst would tell you that your struggle is a result of early childhood experiences. For example, early on you maybe felt self-concious about your body, or you didn't really belong to a group. Orthodox psychoanalysts would in fact say that this is directly connected to your parents, and that a trauma before the age of ~6 is the reason you feel so bad now.. And this early trauma now gets reactivated, simply I a different context. The key to healing would thus be to work through your trauma, recognize and accept it, and thus prevent this issue from "popping up again" later in future.

A systemical therapist would tell you that your struggle is a result of your surrounding and your interactions with other people. For example, maybe someone from within your family pressures you into taking up a good-paid, respected job. This pressure interacts with your emotions in such a way that you feel pressure in other parts of your life as well, for example here. Thus, it would be necessary to examine your surroundings and understand what the people want from you, how they see you etc., and then change the system in a way that accommodates you better.

As you see, many different people say lots of different smart stuff about what to do and where this feeling comes from. I personally can only tell you that I really emphasize with your struggle. I felt very similar, and it just really really sucks. If you see all the other people around you being able to accomplish something you fight so hard for, and yet it still doesn't work out - that just really, really sucks, especially if there isn't any prospect of change. It is important for me that you know you're not alone with this experience, and that there are others who felt the same. In fact, thank you for sharing this story - it also makes me realize that I'm not alone with my feelings here either.

I wish you the best of strength to deal with your struggles here. If you have any additional questions, feel free to pop by and ask - I always love to talk about psychology :)