I Lost My Virginity At 21 Yrs Of Age. I Recently Discovered The Average Age Is Around 17. Now I Feel A Constant Fear Of Having Missed Out On Things. How Can I Stop Feeling Behind?

I absolutely understand your frustration and your fear that somehow you missed out. And while I'd love to say just stop focusing on that, I know that's not going to work.

It's really difficult for us to compare ourselves to others when it comes to anything. Not just sexual experiences, but life experiences in general. We’re really happy with what we’ve done and then we find out that someone did it earlier. And that somehow changes how we see things.

I want you remember that until you heard about the average age being 17 you were okay with how you felt about first having sex at 21. Which means nothing about your experience changed. What changed was the story you’re telling yourself about it.

I’m going to ask you to stop trying to add to the comparison doom spiral in your head by throwing out a few thoughts.

One, just because they had sex before you doesn’t mean it was good sex. First sex, especially at a young age, can be incredibly awkward. And sometimes not so great. As we get older, we learn more about our bodies and that can make sex better.

People who have sex sometimes regret their choice. And this can be true for those who had sex when they were younger. In the years I’ve been doing this, for as many questions that I get like yours where people feel like they were “late”, I get just as many people who express regret about their choice to first have sex when they did.

Here’s the other thing I want you to think about. Let’s say that the average age of first sexual intercourse is 17. If we’re looking at just 2 people, and one first had sex at 15 and the other at 19, the average would be 17. But neither of them actually had it at 17.

So, in a study with thousands of people, the range of age for first sex could be really wide and still have an average of 17.

And there are some studies that show many people don’t have sex until they’re in their 20s.

The other thing I would keep in mind about this data is that it’s all based on self-report. And sometimes people lie.

What I would really encourage you to do is to reframe this. You haven’t missed your chance to have a happy and fulfilling sex life. You’ve only missed the chance to have it on the same timeline as some other people.

Until next time, be safe, and have fun!

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