An Investigation of Virginity in Adulthood
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Canadian population data estimate that 21 to 42% of young adults aged 18 to 24 could be considered virgins, having never engaged in vaginal or anal sex. Virginity, however, is a difficult concept to define, in part due to ambiguity about what constitutes sex. This complexity is heightened for LGBTQ+ individuals, who often view virginity as a primarily heterosexual concept. Broadly, this dissertation aimed to investigate the concept of virginity in adulthood. Through a series of three separate online studies and using both quantitative and qualitative methods, this research program focused on adults’ definitions of sex, abstinence, and virginity; the characteristics and experiences of self-identified virgins and how they compare to non-virgins; and the dating and relationship experiences of virgin adults and their partners. Overall, participants’ broadest definition was for virginity. LGBTQ+ participants had broader definitions of sex and narrower definitions of virginity than their heterosexual counterparts. Adult virgins face pervasive stigma, leading to negative emotions and dating discrimination. The results support characterizing adult virginity as a concealable stigmatized identity. Despite this stigma, virgins show considerable resilience, with many finding value in their virginity and those in relationships reporting a high degree of relationship satisfaction. The studies collectively show that adult virgins are not a homogenous group; their experiences, attitudes, and behaviours vary widely. Implications for educational, healthcare, and legal settings and future research directions are discussed.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.003 | 0.004 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.005 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".