Why do some people, even well into adulthood, have never had sex? An international team of researchers, involving scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics (MPIEA) in Frankfurt am Main, looked into this question.
In what is the largest study to date on people with no sexual experience, the researchers found that “virginity in older age results from a complex mix of psychological, social and genetic factors,” as the Frankfurt institute summarizes the findings. The work was published in the journal PNAS.
“Impaired Well-Being”
“Romantic and sexual relationships are often an important social support. Their absence is associated with loneliness, anxiety, depressive feelings and reduced well-being,” explains co-author Laura Wesseldijk of the Frankfurt MPIEA.
The research team, which also included scientists from the Netherlands and Australia, analyzed data from more than 400,000 UK adults aged 39 to 73. About one percent of them reported that they had never had sex.
What do sexually inexperienced people have in common?
“This group, on average, was better educated, but also lonelier, more anxious and less happy than those with sexual experience,” the institute summarizes. The researchers also found that sexlessness occurred more often in areas with greater income inequality.
In particular, physical characteristics played a role for men: men who had never had sex were more often physically weaker. They also tended to live in regions where there were fewer women.
Sexually inexperienced people drink less alcohol
About 15 percent of the differences in lifelong sexual inexperience could be explained by genetic factors. “The most striking overlap is with genetic factors associated with intelligence, education and neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism,” says co-author Abdel Abdellaoui of the University of Amsterdam.
The study also shows that people who never had sex drank less alcohol and used fewer drugs and were more likely to wear glasses at a young age. “We are looking at a group of people who tend to live more socially withdrawn and therefore have more difficulty finding a partner,” comments co-author Brendan Zietsch of the University of Queensland in Australia.
