International

It’s the most in-depth study ever made into what really goes on in Britain’s bedrooms. Here, in the last part of the Mail’s fascinating serialisation of his findings, Cambridge professor David Spiegelhalter reveals that nearly half of women wished they’d lost their virginity in different circumstances, and just how dramatically the Pill has changed their lives — especially when it comes to settling down and starting a family . . .

The age we lose our virginity is perhaps the question that fascinates us more than any other. Did I start having sex too young, or was I a late starter?

Well, the average person in Britain first has sex when they are 16, according to the 2010 British National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles.

Look at the statistics for older generations and it’s clear that people are becoming sexually active sooner. On average, a man who is now in his 80s first had sex when he was 18, while an average woman of that generation waited until she was 19.

As for sex under 16, for those born in 1950, one-in-seven men and one-in-ten women had lost their virginity before the legal age of consent. That figure is now one in three for those born in 1990.

However, the current figure of one in three doesn’t mean that in every classroom, a third of those about to take their GCSEs have already had sex — the figures are higher in deprived areas and lower where people are more affluent.

One way to illustrate this is by looking at rates of teenage pregnancy. Take the three years between 2010 and 2012. In leafy, well-off areas such as Windsor and Maidenhead, the annual teenage pregnancy rate was less than 1.5 per cent, while in less-affluent Middlesbrough and Burnley it was four times higher.

So what was your first time like? Crisp white sheets and the gentle touch of a caring soulmate, or an awkward drunken fumble on top of a pile of clothes in a back room at a party?

When it comes to wishing things had been different, 42 per cent of women but only 20 per cent of men had regrets, according to the British National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles.

It’s possible to get an idea of the reasons for remorse from people’s responses to questions such as whether their partner had been more willing to have sex than them — i.e. they felt pressured — and if they were drunk when it happened.

Nearly a quarter of women — 22 per cent — said their partner was more willing, while only 7 per cent of men felt this.

A total of 16 per cent of both sexes said it had happened because they were drunk or because of peer pressure.

But only one in 20 said they lost their virginity to someone they had just met.

When assessing whether you were ready, researchers don’t mean whether you know which bits go where, or how to open a packet of condoms.

Rather, it’s a case of whether you were prepared for the momentous event or, in terms of the research, ‘competent’.

If you agree with one or more of the following statements, then you are considered to have been not competent or ready when you lost your virginity:

One of us was more willing than the other.

I wish I had waited longer.

The main reason was peer pressure or because I was drunk or had taken drugs.

I did not use reliable contraception.

Given the increasingly young age that people lose their virginity, you’d expect competency to be going down, but it appears that it is increasing across the generations.

Of women born around 1948 (in their late 60s), only 32 per cent said none of the statements applied to them.