For those who didn't have sex as teenagers - why did you wait?

[NeverSayFreelance]

This is totally random, but I'm on a train and musing to myself.

I see a lot of MNers talking about their children having sex as teens, and then lots of responses from other MNers talking about how they had sex as teens themselves.

I'm somewhat surprised by it! I'm in my twenties and raised non-religious, so it's not a generational thing - I just was not remotely interested in sex as a teenager! Honestly until I met my DP at 21, I still wasn't interested.

If you missed the horny teenager phase, what were your reasons? Let me know I'm not alone here

I wasn't physically developed enough. My periods started when I was 17.5. As a teenager I didn't have any sexual feelings.

I had vaginismus, and by the time it was sorted out so that I was physically able to have sex I was 20

I hate sex.hate the idea of it. I also have vaginimus. Also got severely bullied by boys/men, developed a severe anxiety about males in general, sex was too painful. Have been with just dh ever once as could never bring myself to let males see me etc, never wanted to have sex.

Also, no sexualfeelings, ever.

I was 16 so national average

I actually wondered about these averages (as everyone in my friend group was older) and I came across this article which is interesting:

bnstechreport.wordpress.com/2017/07/08/misleading-statistics-average-people-dont-lose-their-virginity-at-their-teens/.

So say they ask ten 18 year olds and three did it at 16, three at 17 and four never have, the average would come back as 16.5. The four who are still virgins can't be accounted for so that average is misleading. Ask the same people a few years later and the average would go up significantly once everyone has had sex.

I didn't have a boyfriend in my teens and didn't want to have sex with a random.

I think being on the pill from 14 to regulate my periods meddled with my hormones to the extent that I didn't experience the real physical urge/attraction to have sex until I stopped taking it in my late 20s.

I was fat, spotty and desperately unpopular as a teenager at school. Even if there had been a boy who was secretly interested in me, it would have been social suicide for him to have admitted it. So I didn't even have a boyfriend until I was 19 and at university, and there was more opportunity for people to get to know each other properly.

I'm sure that if some dodgy older man had thrown me some crumbs of attention when I was so unhappy at school, I would have been too grateful to have thought about whether it was a good idea or not.

It wasn't for want of trying!

I was in an all girls boarding school and rarely got home (bar summer and Christmas when I was under my strict Catholic parents roof!) As soon as I moved out though I went on the pill with the intention of ticking that box!

I had boyfriend's all throughout my teenage years but had sex at 22. I was working class and saw too many from my background stuck with pregnancy and I knew education was my way out. Lots of oral sex mind you. Also in Ireland so no easy available contraception. I waited until I had a flat and access to the pill. Also never felt pressured to and it didn't appeal.

Nobody fancied me enough to offer

I had a very religious upbringing and wasn't allowed boyfriends till I was 18 and even then not alone in bedrooms, staying over etc. "Our house (our child), our rules". You didn't think to go against it having been brought up not to and told that sex is sinful, immoral, not something that "nice young ladies" do, other than as a marital duty of course. Sex education at school was limited to a short where babies come from talk and the visit from the tampax lady. No mention of relationships, contraception, STI's etc other than the first two are wrong and the third is what you get if you do them. Seems shocking now but that was the reality of catholic school 30 years ago. I was 18 and at uni when I met my first ex. Looking back he totally exploited me and my naivety.

Literally no one fancied me til I was 21.

I'm a Christian and even back then just knew that for me I wanted it to be a one time deal. Met my husband at 18, married at 20. That's that.

Didn’t have a boyfriend until I was 17 and in those days, you didn’t have sex unless you were ‘serious’. Waiting was the norm. Knowing what I know now, I sometimes wonder what he thought. A lot of heavy petting (do people still use that term?) but nothing more.

Most people I know lost their virginity at university. Then it wasn’t on the first date, but several dates in.

The boys I liked were usually already in relationships (nothings changed there hmm!!)
& I wanted to lose my virginity when I had a boyfriend I was in love with.

I was also really shy & insecure about my looks & my body. Looking back I think I had some body dysmorphia.
I was actually quite pretty in the handful of photos I've got.

Once I was out of my teens I lost it on the first date with a lad who was actually a total idiot. What a waste of time.

Because I was a teen in the 80s

“Aids, there is no cure”

That did it for me! Aids was everywhere, it was terrifying.

I wasn't not horny! I had an extremely large appetite for sexual gratification which I indulged on probably a daily basis throughout my teens.

But I didnt have sex because I didn't know any boys, or was not attracted to them, or they to me.

When a girl in the year above had a baby at 14 that was quite a deterrent. Also was very very picky - good self-preservation strategy (home life had a few problems so it made sense to not let other bits of life get messy). Made up for it later, mind.

I was a bookish, socially awkward teen who was hugely unpopular. Had lots of unrequited crushes (often lasting years) but the physical side of things still seemed repulsive and scary to me even at 17/18. I also had a very repressed mother who told me sex was something disgusting you had to do to get babies. She still maintains that women only pretend to like it to get men.

Took me until 23 to meet someone I actually wanted to sleep with. At the time I felt like a freak (at my school there were people having babies at 14) and as I got into my twenties, I was really scared it would put men off, that they‘d see me for what I was (a Freak), so I ended up lying to almost everyone I knew about my sexual past.

Makes me sad now I wasted so much time worrying about something so inconsequential. Happily married now with only positive experiences so it’s all good!

Never really interested in dating, or fancied any of the boys I knew. (Also the bullied kid that no boys would want to be seen dead with!) But I had far more interesting things to do with my time anyway.

By the time of my first boyfriend aged 17, I was already a committed Christian (as was he) and determined to wait for marriage.

At uni plenty of chances if I'd have wanted. But that was not in my plan for myself as a Christian.

Christians can have sex

Wasn't interested and I looking back I don't think I was emotionally ready until I met someone when I was 20.

I didn't meet anyone significant enough. I eventually had sex at 21 and I just wanted to get it over and done with!

I was really shy and had rock bottom self esteem so the thought of talking to a boy terrified me.