Sex Lives of Straight Young Men

Nearly all survey reports, including those from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, give the average age of sexual debut among males as between 16 and 18 years old, with no significant change during the past 30 years among Millennial and Generation Z young men. That three-year span is quite significant, especially when you consider it includes high school juniors and seniors and 1-year after graduation (college or work world).

From a research perspective, two factors are critical in assessing first sex:

1. It depends on how sex is defined.
2. It depends on how information is gathered.

With these two issues under consideration, I interviewed 130 straight young men from age 18 to 23 (mean age = 20.0) regarding, among other things, their sexual debut. It occurred at age 17, right at the national average.

Defining Sex

Quite surprisingly, it is relatively rare for researchers to define sex—that is, what counts as sex. Most of the young men defined real sex as intercourse, putting his penis into her vagina. There were, however, exceptions. One noted that putting a penis into an anus also counted as real sex, though none of the straight young men volunteered they had ever done that. Another suggested real sex must have procreative possibilities—a view not articulated by anyone else. Ten men spontaneously added that some element of passionate love also needed to be included; just having “an orgasmic release” was insufficient for these 10 to count as real sex.

Acquiring Sex Information

Given this diversity in how to define sex and knowing that not all young men accurately report their sexual histories—in my interviews young men tended to overreport and not underreport sexual activities, and in my past research some played the role of “jokester” to “screw the researcher"—it was clear another nontraditional method was needed to assess sexual debut. My strategy was in-depth interviews in which the young men described what happened during their first sex. I only counted those instances in which his penis entered her vagina, whether for a second or (more usually) longer. Excluded were times when the activity was oral sex, fingering, mutual masturbation, etc.

Early Adolescent Sex

Focusing on those who had first sex before high school graduation, several early adolescents reported having their first real sex while in middle school. In all cases, the young adolescent had a high degree of sexual energy beginning at pubertal onset and, more so than other age groups, the young couples were not strangers or just friends to each other but had been dating or in a romantic relationship before and after the first sexual experience. The encounter was usually difficult to arrange, but they found a way, such as these two 13-year-olds:

Her mom worked late and so we’d hang out and kiss and feel each other up, have oral sex. … This one day we’re on the floor at her house lying down and both of us were aroused. I asked her and there was penetration into her vagina. I had an orgasm and she said she didn’t think so for her. It felt good, a weight was lifted, I had entered adulthood. Now I understood why guys are controlled by their penises. She is still a friend now, and I have done it with her over the last 2 years.

Adolescent Sex

Despite these early adolescent sexual couplings, the prime time to break the sex barrier was during high school and the first year after enrolling in college or beginning a first job. First sex among adolescent couples could be fantastic or problematic. Here are two examples:

Me and Elena were making out in her car in the back seat and one thing led to another. No talking about it but we knew it was going in that direction. Clothes off in back seat. I felt like a champ. There was more in the future. It was the first relationship where I had strong feelings.

I was 17 and planned it all with condoms and etc. I knew dangers as well with STDs and pregnancy because condoms don’t always work. Both of us were inexperienced and both virgins, so we weren’t sure what we were doing. I ended up disappointed that it was not better. Afterwards I was wanting to do it again, to do it better, to get a second chance. It was a milestone and we’re past it.

Assessment of First Sex

For most young men—but definitely not all—real sex held a special place for them beyond mere genital contact. Nearly three-quarters of the young men as adolescents reported some degree of positive aspects to their first-time experience, ranging from liking to breathtaking. It was an accomplishment, it bestowed confidence, and it conferred on them the experience necessary to claim they were now “a man.”

These are not all full-throttle endorsements, as nearly half of the adolescent boys also expressed occasional negative comments about the first time, usually blending in with the positives, but not always. The most common reservations were feeling nervous and inexperienced and wanting to do it right but not sure how to do it right. By their own standards, not infrequently, the experience failed to live up to expectations.