You can set boundaries with your friends, Dewitte points out. “Consent is just as relevant in this context. It’s reasonable to expect your friends, just like your sexual partners, to respect your pace and comfort level.”
You could just simply change the subject, but Dewitte believes there are advantages to communicating your discomfort directly. “If you pay attention, you’ll notice that people tend to stick to generalities in these kinds of conversations. It’s pub talk – there’s a lot of bragging involved. Talking about sex is vulnerable. By sharing your feelings and insecurities about this topic, you encourage others to drop their masks.” She recommends first bringing it up with one friend, “so you feel supported when you tell the rest of the group.”
Virgin
And what if your discomfort stems from the fact that you’re a virgin, while everyone else seems so experienced? “Waiting until you’re ready to have sex is a very powerful choice, actually”, says Dewitte. “And you’re certainly not the only one. The average age of first sexual intercourse has been steadily increasing for years. Statistically speaking, when you start university, half of your peers haven’t had sex yet, so this taboo has to go.”
Dewitte is referring to the results of the “Sex Under 25” survey, carried out in the Netherlands every five years by the Rutgers Foundation. In 2012, half of all 17-year-old respondents answered yes when asked if they’d ever had sex; in 2017, most had just turned 18 when they had sex for the first time, and in 2023 most were well into 18 years old (18.7 to be specific). “There are a lot of theories about why this is. It might be that young people are less curious about sex today. It used to be more of a forbidden fruit. Before the internet, it was quite difficult to get porn, for example. Now it’s everywhere, so perhaps young people feel less urgency to find out what sex is like – they think they already know.”
Too big of a deal
Another theory is that relationships have changed. “Take ‘situationships’, informal relationships, or people who only meet online and don’t seem to feel the need for physical contact.”
Finally, it could be that people make too big a deal out of the first time. “It’s good to wait for the moment that feels right for you, but make sure you don’t get in your own way”, says Dewitte. “It’s natural to experiment with sex during puberty, precisely because your prefrontal cortex is not yet fully developed. You’re more likely to just try something instead of overthinking it. The perfect moment doesn’t exist.”