I don’t personally manage the Dear
Dolly inbox, so I often ask my editor for
general weather reports from its varied
climes. “A lot of people in their twenties
are worried about losing their virginity,”
she informed me. I asked her to send me a
selection of these emails — the agonisers
ranged in age from their teens to early
thirties; all of them were desperate to “get
the job done” and confused about why
they hadn’t already. Trust me when I tell
you: there’s nothing wrong with you and you’re very
much not alone.
There is no way I can respond to this problem
without acknowledging the state of the world over the
past two years. Recently a secondary school teacher
friend told me her sixth formers had shared their
concerns with her about going to university as virgins.
I hadn’t even thought of this as a ramification of Covid,
but of course more teenagers are virgins. They missed
all opportunities for virginity-losing between GCSEs
and leaving school — house parties, 18th birthdays,
school proms. Similar could be said of single people of
any age — for parts of this year and last it was basically
illegal to touch. I am 33 years old, and hope I can reas-
sure you when I say that nearly everyone I know
became a born-again virgin over the past two years.
Even the people who live with a girlfriend or boyfriend.
I think it’s also worth noting that you’re moving out of
adolescence and into adulthood in a time when sex is
spoken about a lot. I think this is a good thing — the
more we discuss and destigmatise sexuality the better.
But I think one of the few downsides of the sex-positivity
movement is that it can overstate the importance and
omnipresence of sex. I know it feels like everyone else is
getting railed all the time, but they probably aren’t. And
even if they are, their lives will not be wildly more pleas-
urable than yours. Most railing done at university is not
the railing to be remembered on the deathbed.
But that’s all too easy a thing for me to say now.
When I read your email, among all the others, I was
taken right back to the years when I thought I’d be Alexandra Cameronwearing my virginity like a sandwich-
board advertisement until the end of my
days. Retrospectively I find it so strange
that the simple act of penetration was
The Great Quest for me and all my
friends — the impossible task I dreamt of
night after night. The way we talked about
our virginities set up sexual experience as
so phallocentric. We were never, say,
excited about our first orgasms or the first
time someone would kiss our naked
bodies. I wish we had been as fixated on the discovery of
our own pleasure as we were at the prospect of saying:
“I’m not a virgin any more.”
Spoiler alert: I did lose it in the end. As did all my
friends. We ranged in age from mid-teens to early twen-
ties. I would love to say I lost my virginity later than I’d
wanted to because I was waiting for the right person.
It wasn’t that; I was horny as hell and I couldn’t get a
boy anywhere near me. When I did, it wasn’t perfect
but it was fun and so was he. I don’t look back and wish
I’d done it sooner. None of my friends now wish they’d
done it sooner.
I would gradually learn this is how it feels when you
finally get something you’ve always wanted: a job, a rela-
tionship, a flat. Once you have it, it becomes a part of
your life and you adapt. A burden of yearning lifts and
you don’t really think about it any more. There are so
many self-imposed milestones I set myself that have
expired. By now I should have a driving licence and a
baby and a life partner. I’m sure all those things are ahead
of me if I want them. And I’m sure I won’t wish for an
alternative life in which they would have come sooner.
Like all these things, it will probably happen when
you stop obsessing over it. When you’re feeling relaxed
and confident, and you meet someone nice who you get
on with and makes you feel safe. Your virginity is
nothing to be ashamed of, and it’s also nobody’s busi-
ness but yours. Your future sex life will not be dictated
by whether you lose your virginity at 19 or 20. You have
a lifetime of shags ahead of you. And, I promise, they
will only get better as you get older anyway. ■Your love, life and friendship dilemmas answered
by Dolly Alderton
Dear Dolly
To get your life dilemma answered by Dolly, email or send a voice note
to [email protected] or DM @theststyleI am 19 years old and in my first year at university. I am a virgin but desperately
no longer want to be. Everyone else I know seems to have no issue getting railed,
but for some reason it just hasn’t happened for me. It’s making me think there’s
something wrong with me. I don’t think I’m particularly ugly or unsociable.
However, I could really use some advice on how to get the job done, so to speak,
because honestly the thought of being 20 and celibate terrifies me.
42 • The Sunday Times Style*