Now Is The Best Time To Lose Your Virginity

A massive study conducted by Illinois State University has determined that both men and women feel less guilt and anxiety over losing their virginity than they used to. Funded with money presumably earmarked for awesome things, the study spanned a 23 year period from 1990-2012, and found that a lot of stereotypes associated with gender roles are starting to vanish.

Esquire (link below) cut through all the mumbo jumbo for us and boiled this thing down to its essence, which was pretty crucial to helping me understand it all.

Not surprisingly, perhaps, "men experienced significantly more pleasure and anxiety than women, whereas women experienced more guilt than men. The largest gender difference found was for pleasure, although the effect size was very large for all three emotions."

The size of the emotional distinction led the researchers to believe that the experience of first sexual intercourse could be a candidate for inclusion in the category of the fundamental sexual distinctions between men and women.

That difference is shrinking, however. First-time sexual experiences are getting better and better, at least at this one Midwestern university: "Anxiety decreased over the three decades for men; pleasure increased and guilt decreased for women."

Well, now that anxiety is going away for guys, and guilt is going away for women, maybe I can finally convince someone to sleep with me. That would certainly alleviate my anxiety.

Via Esquire