More Americans have sex by 18 than don’t.
The big caveat here is that this only covers heterosexual subjects. One would hope that it would be more inclusive of such a large and distinct segment of the population, but it’s likely that in future years more sexual orientations and relationships will be included in the study.
Here’s the graph, with the later years showing a little statistical noise. (People didn’t actually regain their virginity from 39–40; it was a function of parsing the data):
Chart on the age of a person’s first time having sex.
SOURCE: National Survey of Family Growth/flowing data.com
As you can see, between ages 16–20, half the population lost their virginity, and by 22 years of age, 90 of the population had. And if you haven’t lost your virginity by age 30, the likelihood that you ever will falls dramatically. That’s not a pessimistic statement, but, instead, could have more to do general disinterest, a physical disability, or an inability to perform sexually.
As you can see from the chart, the number tends to stabilize at a 4 percent virginity rate at age 43. The data only covered subjects age 15–45, so it’s unclear how much further that 4 percent would fall over the later years of life.
This article originally appeared on 03.20.17