DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’ve finally done it I’ve lost my virginity at the ripe old age of 26 and well turns out the feelings of inadequacy haven’t really gone away if anything new one started reappearing and creeping in. To give you some context about my sexual encounter, I was just very unapologetically open and very direct except for one tiny little thing: I’ve completely omitted the fact that I was older virgin because I wanted her to feel safe and comfortable and well what’s more so safe and comfortable than a man who’s had sexual experience than a virgin incel loser. I’m not gonna risk that if I tell her that especially because she’s older than me, quite conveniently attractive and I don’t know her history 100% but I can tell she’s definitely been around the block with people of all genders, mostly women.
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Overall, it was a very pleasant experience, I did not use porn as a tutorial, we communicated, and listened and we even snuggled and cuddled and gave each other kisses. But now that well ‘That happened’ a new insecurity just creeping in. That, well I still don’t feel like I’m enough, whether as a person or even as man.
Like, sure, no longer a loser virgin incel, but rather just a loser. I’ve wished probably had done too me earlier in my life just like every other normal well-adjusted person, to truly experience that young love and sexual connection when it was meant to like maybe 16 or 18 (note I was bullied and called a loser virgin incel since I was 14, gee who knew that definitely didn’t help out) like maybe losing it after prom (even though I didn’t go because once again I was a mess at that age) and I feel like I wanted to truly be a man I’d have be extremely hypersexual and sleep around with no strings attached, but I’m not that guy, I get attached I’m sappy and romantic and the two a conflating with myself. Especially these days where things seemed like they completely flipped where asking about woman about her history or body count is wrong and misogynistic but it’s a-okay too shame mock, ridicule and humiliate a man with little too no body count even from the most open minded and sex positive. Which is another fear of mine that I’m open about my little of experience or late blooming with other women they’re not really gonna get it or understand it. Like there isn’t an insult for women who are virgins like incel or loser, hell the word virgin as an insult stings 10X more if you’re a guy.
So how do I “Own” this lack of experience or “low body count” without any shame or fear or stigma? How do I know I’m not gonna be judged for it?
Sincerely,
Just Got Started
DEAR JUST GOT STARTED: I’d say “congratulations on losing your virginity,” JGS, but it sounds like this has ultimately just caused more issues for you than anything else. This is precisely why I tell people that losing their virginity isn’t going to magically fix all their problems: because being a virgin was never and is never the issue. How they feel about themselves is the issue. Someone’s virginity, or lack thereof, is neither the cause, nor is it even the symptom; it’s just the excuse they have for beating themselves up. Take away the virginity issue – literally, in this case – and all that happens is that the same self-recrimination and self-abuse (er… as it were) just shifts gears and finds a new reason for why they’re a loser.
Case in point: you can’t even really enjoy having had sex! Now you’re busy beating yourself up because you should’ve done this before and how other people may no longer smell the unicorn bait on you but instead will smell the lack of experience instead. All that’s happened is you’ve transferred the supposed basis for your self-loathing from one cause to another.
Now with all that preamble, I’m going to dip into the bag of Ask Dr. NerdLove Tropes and pull out the classic “you’re asking the wrong question,” because you’re coming to this with a fundamental misunderstanding of what you’re asking.
“Owning” something isn’t about how other people feel. Quite the opposite, in fact. Owning something about yourself, especially in this case, is about letting go of excuses and judgement. It means that you stop taking other people’s bulls--t beliefs onboard, to stop accepting bulls--t stigma as being valid and to take ownership of it – without excuses, without rancor and without judgement.
And if you want to be able to own having lost your virginity at a “later” age (which, frankly, isn’t that much later than the median age) or having only one sexual partner at this point in your life, then the first thing you need to start doing is to start letting go of the stupid bulls--t beliefs that you’re dripping all over your letter.
I mean, this starts literally right here: “I’ve completely omitted the fact that I was older virgin because I wanted her to feel safe and comfortable and well what’s more so safe and comfortable than a man who’s had sexual experience than a virgin incel loser?” This is an example (and there will be more) of how much time you’ve been spending on 4chan and Reddit and other hives of shame and self-hate and how many of your ideas are coming from other late bloomers. It especially drives home how few women you’ve either talked to or listened to on this issue (more on that in a second), because hoooo boy, whether a dude has had sex or not is not a marker of being safe. It ain’t incels who’re responsible for the majority of violence, including sexual violence, that women face.
Nor, for that matter, does having had sex mean that you’re going to be a comfortable or pleasurable partner. Having had lots of sex is in no way, shape or form a guarantee that someone is actually good at sex. It just means that they have had a lot of it. A guy with a hundred one-night stands under his belt isn’t automatically going to be better in bed than a guy with one partner who he’s been with for years. Hell, a lot of the time, that dude with one partner is going to be better in bed precisely because he’s been with one person for years; they’ve had time to work on communication and intimacy, connection and coordination. Guys who are mostly in it to hit it and quit it tend to not bring their a-game, if they bring any game at all; they’re out to get theirs and seeing as they’re probably not going to see this person again, why worry if they have a good time?
And then there’s this bit: “I’ve wished probably had done too me earlier in my life just like every other normal well-adjusted person, to truly experience that young love and sexual connection when it was meant to like maybe 16 or 18”. ��This is a tell. I have never seen anyone more obsessed with the idea that you’re “supposed” to lose your virginity by a specific age than dudes who have spent way too much time on 4chan. I hate to tell you this, but the idea that you’re “supposed” to lose your virginity by any point in your life is entirely made up and arbitrary. Sex isn’t more magical because you’re in high-school, nor is it more special because you’re a teenager. This is post-hoc romanticization of youth by people who miss being young, packaged and marketed to you in pop culture by people who want to leverage that nostalgia for money because they realized just how much of a driving economic force teenagers are. This isn’t a truism, it’s late-stage capitalism driven by the same folks who saw how much money The Breakfast Club made and decided to start making movies for teens.
And it’s not even true. While the median age for first sexual experience in the US is around 17-18, that age is growing, especially as more and more teenagers are waiting longer to have sex.
The reason why you feel like a loser is because you’re accepting that other self-proclaimed losers are correct. You’re beating yourself up in the name of other people’s bulls--t. This is entirely based around online f--kheads telling other online f--kheads that this is how the world works, despite actively avoiding ever actually participating in it. And it’s kind of obvious how much they’re making s--t up out of ignorance and speculation, because things like “Like there isn’t an insult for women who are virgins like incel or loser” is laughably false. there’s a whole host of terms, from “femcel” to “spinster”, “prude”, “old maid”, “crazy cat lady”, “frigid b---h” and more. And those are just the ones that I, a straight, cis hetero man, can come up with off the top of my head. Women can tell you even more.
The people who care the most about how many partners you have, or haven’t had, and the ones who are most likely to shame you for them, are other men, not women, and certainly not women you’re likely to date. While there’re always going to be women who buy into toxic ideas about masculinity and traditionally restrictive and hegemonic gender roles, I can promise you that the vast majority of women – and, again, especially any you would ever want to date in the first place – could not give less of a f--k about your number.
No, seriously. A recent survey from eHarmony – a dating app that caters to people who are much more likely to have Serious Thoughts about someone’s number of partners – finds that 3/4s of people do not give a f--k about how many people you’ve slept with.
In fact, I can tell you from personal experience that this isn’t how things work, nor does anyone care about your ‘body count’ (a term I dislike for many reasons). I have been on more dates and slept with more people than you’ve had hot dinners, and I can count on the fingers of one hand, with digits to spare, how many times the number of partners I’ve had has come up. And of those times, the number never mattered, whether it was low or high. The closest it had ever come to mattering was how many, not how few I had had, and even that was in context of how frequently I got tested for STIs. Otherwise, it was a data point, nothing more.
Nothing has “flipped”, nor have things changed so that men are now the oppressed sexual minority or whatever. All you’re doing is telling me where you hang out online and how little attention you’re paying to voices outside that particular bubble, because hooo damn son, let me tell you: the idea that people have stopped shaming women for the number of sexual partners they’ve had is not the case.
In fact, the same slapdick s--tbird “influencers” who are telling guys that they’re losers for not getting laid are telling women they’re worthless sluts for having sex in the same breath. It is the work of seconds to find collective wastes of the 15 seconds it took to engender them calling women “damaged goods” or “depreciating assets” for “riding the cock carousel” and now they’re “worthless”.
And that’s before we get to the real brain trusts who think that sperm changes women’s DNA (I shouldn’t have to say this, but it doesn’t) or that having sex embeds the man’s DNA in her bones or some s--t.
No, while society has definitely made strides in recognizing women as sexual beings and not acting like sex somehow “degrades” them for having it, the idea that women are lessened by the amount of sex they have is still very much present in the culture and, in some circles, becoming stronger. It ain’t the sex-positivity movement that’s trying to end no-fault divorce pushing for “covenant” marriage, my guy. Nor are they the ones trying to restrict sex education, easy access to birth control and who have been fighting tooth and nail to criminalize most forms of reproductive health.
And by the same token, the people leading the charge for shaming men for not having enough sex are other men – again, many of them the same “influencers” telling women that they’re worthless whores. They’re the ones who are most invested in propping up the belief that a man’s value and status is not just inherent but external and based on things like how much ass he beats and how much ass he gets. The reason why “the word virgin as an insult stings 10X more if you’re a guy” [CITATION NEEDED] is 100% straight toxic masculinity, my guy. It’s other men telling you that your being a virgin is shameful or that only having had one sex partner means you’re worth less than others. That’s cultural in the same sense that a bunch of bacteria in a petri dish is culture, not some societal change to female supremacy.
They are the reason why you feel like a loser and why you’re worried that you’re going to be “judged”. It’s not that they’re correct, it’s that you’ve given them validity by accepting what they say as true. You are actively perpetuating it by continuing to carry water for them in your attitude, even when that very attitude hurts you. You are, in a very literal sense, hurting your own feelings over this, because you are coming to this from a position that they are right, that having slept with fewer than X number of people is shameful, and you are lesser for not having done so by now.
I mean, let’s game this out a bit. What number is it going to take for you to be a “real” man by those lights? How many people are you going to have to sleep with before you are no longer a “loser”? Two? Six? Ten? Twenty? A hundred? Is this even going to be achievable since your age of sexual debut was a little further to the right of the median age? Do you seriously think you’re going to be locked into eternal loserdom because you didn’t have sex before you were ready? Is the only answer to find a time machine and try to go back in time and try to get molested at the age of 12?
The thing is: there’s a part of you that knows that none of this s--t is correct. You even say in your letter that you feel like you’re supposed to be some hypersexual satyr when you’re not. The fact that you’re not isn’t a mark against you or a sign that you’re not “a real man”, it just means that you’re not someone who wants casual sex. You like romance and intimacy and connection and that is great! That’s perfectly normal, even desirable for many people! There’re lots of folks across the gender spectrum who prefer or require intimacy and emotional connection before they have sex or even want to have sex. They’re not weird, nor are they broken or losers, they’re just part of the incredible diversity of the human experience and human sexuality. Just as are people who sincerely want to--k a lot and people who don’t want to--k at all.
So if you want to “own” your current level of sexual experience? You’re going to have to start by recognizing that it is just a number. It is data, neutral in and of itself. It says nothing about you except that you have had one sexual partner, and your sexual debut was at the age of 26. That’s it. Any meaning that’s attached to that is entirely in the eye of the beholder, and the folks you are most concerned about either don’t exist or have no idea who the f--k you are or what your life has been. The people most invested in telling you what those numbers mean and using them as a cudgel are either trying to sell you something or trying to justify their feelings about themselves by dragging you back down into their misery with them.
If you want to own your sexuality, then you have to reject the belief that there is something shameful or bad about your experience or lack thereof. You have to be willing to accept that the age when you lost your virginity means nothing except that you were that age when you did. You have to stop being the willing accomplice to the very people who make you feel awful about yourself, for no other reason than because they told you that you should.
I know I say this all the time, but I’m going to say it again: get the f--k off 4chan, ditch the subreddits unsubscribe from manfluencer TikTok and Instagram accounts and stop wallowing in this toxic slop that you’ve clearly been soaking in for f--k knows how long. All you’re doing is perpetuating your own misery and the misery of others by tacitly agreeing that they’re right, despite them knowing absolutely nothing about you and caring even less.
And it’s especially not going to work if you want to be able to accept your own experience as being fine and normal but still perpetuating the idea that being a virgin is shameful or that not having many, many partners is the mark of a loser. You’re never going to fully escape it if you try to act like this is true of other people but isn’t true about you because REASONS.
Want to not worry about the stigma and judgement for your “low body count”? Then stop passively allowing it and start actively pushing back. Start calling people out for their bulls--t when they shame men for not having “enough” sex. Start telling people who use “virgin” as an insult to shut the f--k up and quit giving their beliefs oxygen in the first place. The change is going to have to start with you, but it can’t end there. If you want to not have to worry about feeling this way, then stop giving credence to the people who are invested in ensuring that you do.
Your number of partners – whether low or high – isn’t shameful. The age at which you lose your virginity isn’t an embarrassment, it is just a point in time. The shame only exists for as long as you allow it to and when you perpetuate it. If the people you surround yourself with are going to shame you for having one partner or having lost your virginity at your age, then it’s time to kick them to the curb with the rest of the trash and start spending time with a much better class of people.
But you’re the only person who can make those decisions. You can decide to believe that others are right and there’s something wrong with your being your authentic self… or you can tell those pant stains to f--k off until they can’t f--k off any further, then take a deep breath, summon up the will and f--k off beyond where anyone has f--ked off before.
Good luck.
Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com