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US rate of virgin brides/grooms


Ariel

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My boyfriend and his mother were listening to the radio the other day and it was stated that 1 in 5 Americans are virgins on their wedding night.

My boyfriend's mother was horrified that only 20% of Americans waited for marriage. She's very Catholic though. My boyfriend found it sad but accurate (even though he isn't a virgin and doesn't expect a virgin bride).

Personally, I thought the number was a bit higher than I expected.

I tried to look up the statistic to see if it was real, but wasn't able to find much. What do you think about this number? Accurate? Too low? A sign of social apocalypse? :lol:

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Doesn't it vary by region though? But I think it's accurate. There's only so much you can do before the hormones kick in.

The 'so much' being comprehensive sex ed, contraceptives ect.

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I don't see how that could be provable. I remember seeing some percentages ages ago regarding how many teenagers were sexually active, the number of boys who said they were sexually active was a LOT higher than the girls. :lol:

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ONLY 20%?

From my local experience, this seems insanely high.

Having studied theology at a Catholic university and still being there working on my thesis, I saw many people fall in love and ultimately get married, and all of them were very clear about being intimate before or even cohabiting (and not all of the couples got married in the end. And that's the Catholic part of the population...

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Even assuming the anonymity of a survey, people still might answer dishonestly and in addition, people define virginity differently. Unless it was specifically defined in the study, the results would be fairly useless.

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I don't live here, but 20% of American virgin at wedding is really really huge ! Okay, I have only three friends who are married, but I have never heard someone tell me "I want to be virgin up to my weddings." In my school, in Terminal ((last year of High School, 18 yo), the vast majority of people (30 students out of 40 I think) were not virgins. And when our correspondent from Floride speak with us, it was the same things.

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That seems WAY high to me. I sort of hate that I know this, because it's totally TMI and none of my business, but I have 7 former brother/sister in laws that were raised (and mostly still are) fundamentalist Christians (homeschooled too) and only one of them was a virgin on his wedding day (he claims anyway), and besides him and a few random fundie acquaintances I don't think I've ever known anyone that was, and I grew up in a really conservative part of the US too. I get that it's important t some people, but the idea of marrying someone you've never slept with seems absolutely terrifying to me.

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I feel like 20% is really high also. I come from a fundie-lite background, and while everyone swore up and down they were virgins, the huge majority were not.

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Seems high to me. I grew up in an insular IFB church, and even at that, I don't even think a fourth of us were virgins when we got married. And that's in a world where you have to be chaperoned every time you're with the opposite sex AND where even hand-holding is considered immoral.

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My boyfriend and his mother were listening to the radio the other day and it was stated that 1 in 5 Americans are virgins on their wedding night.

My boyfriend's mother was horrified that only 20% of Americans waited for marriage. She's very Catholic though. My boyfriend found it sad but accurate (even though he isn't a virgin and doesn't expect a virgin bride).

Personally, I thought the number was a bit higher than I expected.

I tried to look up the statistic to see if it was real, but wasn't able to find much. What do you think about this number? Accurate? Too low? A sign of social apocalypse? :lol:

Why does your boyfriend think that this is sad? If his ideals are that one be a virgin on their wedding night, he should be more upset that he didn't meet those goals than about what the rest of the nation is doing.

There was a study several years back that found that over 90% of people had sex before marriage so I think that the statistics are too high also. I also doubt statistics that don't have a source

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My anecdata: Of the dozens of couples I know who have gotten married over the past decade or so, I only know for certain of one couple where either member was a virgin at the wedding. (In that case, both were.) Even so, that was only for PIV sex - they had been having oodles of oral for years before that, which in my opinion makes you not a virgin anyhow. However, I do know many married couples whose only sexual partners have been each other, or who only had sex for the first time after they were engaged. At least in my group of friends and acquaintances, saving sex for only serious, committed relationships seems to have been pretty common, but waiting for marriage was definitely not.

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Seems awfully high even for my slightly older peer group (40's). Of course, most of us went to ebil college and had careers before marriage and waiting till you are in your 30s to have sex, can be an awfully long wait!

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If I had to guess I would have guessed 1%. I guess we know the type of people I hang out with!

Anyway, I think the real title of that survey is: The Percentage of Americans Who SAY They Were/Will Be Virgins On Their Wedding Night.

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1/5? Do they mean 1/5 conservative Christians? Because otherwise that seems way too high to me. I do know people who waited till their wedding night. Obviously I don't poll my friends and acquaintances about their sexual choices, but there are at least a few. I'm 25 and I'm still (STILL!!!!) a virgin so I can sit here and say, hey, waiting really isn't THAT hard - but I've never been in a serious relationship so I've never been sufficiently 'tempted'. :P I doubt I'll wait till my wedding night unless it's really important to my future spouse. I know people who regret that they didn't wait... I know people who've had sex with only their spouse, but they started before they were married... but yeah, I'd expect the figure to be more like 1/25.

It was rarer in the past to wait till the wedding night than a lot of people realize, too. Yes, sex before marriage is most definitely more common now, but society is more open and accepting (encouraging, really) of it also, so people don't feel the need to pretend they haven't done it. In fact, it's kind of flipped around, and in most (secular) segments of society now you're considered weird if you're waiting for marriage or still a virgin past a certain arbitrary age.

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20% sounds too high. Even fundies get it on despite what they preach and post on their blogs. In fact, I have a theory that the more they preach purity, the less pure they really are. When I read those blogs, it just screams denial and guilt (I'm taking about consensual sex not rape). This is what makes them sound so sex obsessed. Again this is just my opinion and pure speculation.

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Why does your boyfriend think that this is sad? If his ideals are that one be a virgin on their wedding night, he should be more upset that he didn't meet those goals than about what the rest of the nation is doing.

There was a study several years back that found that over 90% of people had sex before marriage so I think that the statistics are too high also. I also doubt statistics that don't have a source

He and I had a discussion about that. He's starting to examine his religious beliefs for the first time so he has some conflicting feelings. What I got out of him was that the Bible does say to stay a virgin until marriage, so he thinks more people should try, but ultimately he realized that staying a virgin was not right for him so he understands that a lot of people have pre-marital sex, but he's still sad about it? The logic was a little confusing to me, but I think I get where he's coming from.

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1 in 5 seems HUGE. I think I knew of one person who claimed to be waiting until marriage for sex, and I grew up in a Catholic area of the United States (Boston area of MA).

Personally, I think that waiting until marriage is a huge mistake. The old adage of "I wouldn't buy a car without taking it for a test drive, I certainly wouldn't marry someone without taking them for a test drive."

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even way back when the researches figure 30% of marriages had 8 month heavy preemies.

As my grandmother once said, "the first baby can come at any time, the rest of them usually take about 9 months." :lol:

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I'd say that figure would probably be about right (or maybe even a little low) for the fundie world where I grew up. But for society as a whole? I'm surprised it's that high. I've known lots of people who were only intimate with their eventual spouse, but they still weren't virgins when they married.

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I am one of 11 kids, raised in a very traditional Catholic family. One thing our parents constantly harped about was waiting until marriage for sex, any kind of sex. Of the 11 of us, 8 are married and only half waited until marriage. And again, that's in my very Catholic family. I feel like 20% in the general population is pretty high.

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OK, I'm in my 40s and do not know one single woman who was a virgin on her wedding night. These women range from Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Jewish (non haredi), Muslims, Hindus, and could-not-be-bothered-with-the-God-thing. A lot of us grew up with "good girls wait", except we didn't. :shifty-kitty:

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OK, I'm in my 40s and do not know one single woman who was a virgin on her wedding night. These women range from Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Jewish (non haredi), Muslims, Hindus, and could-not-be-bothered-with-the-God-thing. A lot of us grew up with "good girls wait", except we didn't. :shifty-kitty:

Same experience here except the "good girls wait" message must have been a little different at my school because my mother quite clearly remembers talking to me after sex-ed at school and me reassuring her that I fully intended to wait till I was 18 to start having sex :D

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