A large genetic study has found areas of the genome linked with the age at which people have sex for the first time.
Wait, what? We’ve found the virginity gene?
Not exactly. The study, which involved analysing the genomes of people in the UK, US and Iceland, found 38 regions of DNA that correlate with the age at which people first have sex.
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So if parents had their child’s genome sequenced it could predict when they might first have sex?
No, we’re not slaves to our genes in this matter – together these regions account for only a quarter of the variation in virginity loss: not much compared with height, say, where genes account for about 80 per cent of the variation. When it comes to losing your virginity, other factors have much more influence.
What would those other factors be?
This study didn’t investigate that but other work suggests teens are more likely to if they come from poorer families, if they are not religious, and if their parents have little involvement in their lives.
“One gene is involved in brain signalling. The early-sex variant has been linked with riskier behaviour”
But isn’t it surprising that genes have any influence at all?
Perhaps – losing our virginity certainly feels like a highly conscious, personal decision for most of us. But assuming the act is fully consenting, it makes sense that genes play a role: after all they influence many aspects of our personalities and thus how we behave. One of the genes, called CADM2, is for a molecule involved in nerve signalling. The early-sex variant has been linked with riskier behaviour and poorer mental abilities such as attention.
When do most people first have sex?
In many Western countries the average age is about 16. This has fallen since 1990 . Here, about a third of teenagers have sex before they are 16. Tempting though it is to think so, none of the DNA regions identified should be thought of as a “gene for losing your virginity early”: each is linked with having sex only a few weeks earlier than you might if you carried an alternative variant.
Hasn’t the average age of puberty been falling too?
In the mid-19th-century, the average age girls in the US first had periods was 18. By 1980, it had fallen to 12 – probably because of improved nutrition – where it seems to have levelled off. The other genes the researchers found appear to be acting on age of first sex by affecting the age at which people go through puberty. Again this makes sense – it’s unsurprising that children who go through puberty earlier would be interested in sex earlier too.
Is it the end of the world if children are having sex earlier, as long as it’s consenting?
Some people claim that earlier first sex causes problems in later life such as relationship difficulties and even . Studies do show a correlation with riskier sex (such as unsafe sex and drunk sex) later on but are these directly caused by earlier first sex? A of identical twins suggests not, and that a third factor – possibly impulsiveness – causes both.
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