Her 2017 report indicated that if Millennials don’t have sex by a certain age, then they’re more likely to stay a virgin for longer. More than twice as many Millennials (15%) had had no sexual partners since age 18 by their mid-twenties compared with Generation X at an equivalent point (6%). This of course doesn’t mean that Millennials have stopped having sex completely – just those who haven’t are remaining virgins longer.
It also doesn’t mean that the cultural shift in America towards acceptance of pre-marital sex is not impacting when Millennials lose their virginity at all.
THE AVERAGE AGE US MILLENNIALS LOST THEIR VIRGINITY IS 17 – TWO YEARS YOUNGER THAN GENERATION X (19 YEARS).
BUT MILLENNIALS ARE ALSO MORE LIKELY TO BE ABSTINENT - US % haven’t had sex in the past four weeks shows that the average Millennial is actually having sex at a younger age than the previous generation. The average age Millennials say they lost their virginity in the US is 17 – two years younger than the average age Generation X said they lost their virginity (19 years).
Moving onto sexual partners, Twenge found that on average, Millennials have had fewer sexual partners since the age of 18 than Generation X at an equivalent age, although the difference is small. Breaking down the figures to try and highlight the impact of generational effects, the Twenge report argued that the average number of sexual partners had increased steadily up to the point of Generation X, but had sunk with Millennials, returning to Baby Boomer levels.
However, if we were to just compare the most prolific groups among Generation X and Millennials rather than the average, then actually the proportion of Millennials who are partnering up with the three or more people a year is similar and even slightly more than Generation X at an equivalent point. Looking at the NHANES data, 16% of US Millennials have had three or more sexual partners over the past year, compared with 13% of Generation X at an equivalent point in 2000. These figures are very similar to those in Britain. British Millennials are slightly more likely than Generation X at an equivalent age to have had three or more sexual partners in the last year (14% compared to 12%).
Although the average number of sexual partners for Millennials is slightly lower than Generation X, there are more Millennials that have higher numbers of sexual partners. These findings simply don’t warrant some of the splashy headlines.
