Adults apply different criteria for virginity loss depending on the context of the judged behavior

Abstract

ABSTRACT Introduction Health care practitioners may rely on abstract concepts such as “virginity loss” when assessing emerging adults’ sexual history. Additionally, virginity loss can be an important life event or “a turning point” in a person's sexual life. Sometimes, virginity loss has social implications and can be associated with potential social status changes. Therefore, it is important to understand emerging adults’ definitions of “virginity loss”. Objective The current study analyzed whether emerging adults apply different criteria for virginity loss depending on the context of the judged behavior. Methods The online study included 987 persons (75% women/25% men; M age = 23.7, SD = 3.8) from German-speaking countries. Each participant was assigned one of 16 vignette conditions. Each vignette described a situation in which two persons engage in intimate partnered behavior. The main character's gender, sexual orientation, the partner's gender and the commitment of the two persons to each other were manipulated. Participants had to indicate whether 13 intimate partnered behaviors qualified as virginity loss in the given context. Multinomial logistic regression models were calculated for the analysis. Results Almost all participants agreed that penile-vaginal intercourse constituted loss of virginity. However, other intimate partnered behaviors were more likely judged to constitute loss of virginity only when the two partners had the same gender. For instance, penile-anal intercourse was often perceived as virginity loss only when two men engaged in this intimate partnered behavior. Conclusion Emerging adults do not agree on whether intimate partnered behaviors other than penile-vaginal and penile-anal intercourse between two men constitute virginity loss. Even though participants seem to apply different standards for virginity loss definitions depending on the gender of the involved partners, they mostly judge close physical partnered behaviors as virginity loss when the behavior is or resembles penile-vaginal intercourse. Thus, participants seem to base their virginity loss definitions on heteronormative beliefs. The devaluation and non-acceptance of close physical partnered behaviors that do not resemble penile-vaginal intercourse as constituting virginity loss may lead some emerging adults to feel pressured to engage in non-preferred close physical partnered behaviors in order to not be denied social implications or social status changes that may result from virginity loss. For health care practitioners it is recommended to use descriptions of concrete behavior and not rely on abstract concepts such as “virginity” when taking a patient's sexual history. Disclosure Work supported by industry: no.