Millennials are waiting longer to have sex, with one in eight still virgins at 26 years old, new research has found.
The sharp rise in the number of young people waiting longer to have sex may be because of a "fear of intimacy" and the pressure of social media, according to analysts.
The Next Steps project, the brainchild of the Department for Education which is now managed by University College London, has tracked 16,000 people born in 1989-90 since they were 14.
The interviews, conducted in 2016, discovered a rise in the number of Millenials
waiting longer to have sex compared to previous generations, where one in 20 reported still being virgins at around the same age.
Susanna Abse, a psychoanalytic psychotherapist at the Balint Consultancy, told the
Sunday Times: "Millenials have been brought up in a culture of hypersexuality which has bred a fear of intimacy.
"The women are always up for it with beautiful hard bodies and the men have permanent erections. That is daunting to young people.
"
The fear for young men is of being humiliated that they can't live up to that, plus the fear of exposure in your Facebook group."
If those who refused to answer the question were also virgins, the figure rises to one in six , according to Steve McKay, professor in social research at Lincoln University.
The research also found that as young people get older they are
less likely to have sexual partners, with more than 90% of those who had lost their virginity having done so before 19-years-old.
The Next Steps project began in 2004 and monitored pupils attending state and independent schools across England. The UCL Institute of Education, part of
University College London, took over the study in 2013.
"The women are always up for it with beautiful hard bodies and the men have permanent erections. That is daunting to young people.
"
The fear for young men is of being humiliated that they can't live up to that, plus the fear of exposure in your Facebook group."
If those who refused to answer the question were also virgins, the figure rises to one in six , according to Steve McKay, professor in social research at Lincoln University.
The research also found that as young people get older they are
less likely to have sexual partners, with more than 90% of those who had lost their virginity having done so before 19-years-old.
The Next Steps project began in 2004 and monitored pupils attending state and independent schools across England. The UCL Institute of Education, part of
University College London, took over the study in 2013.
