The age at which people lose their virginity might be as much down to genetics as how many horny house parties they bag an invite to in high school.
A new study, published in the journal Nature Genetics, sampled the DNA of more than 125,000 men and women aged 40 to 69, who were enrolled onto the UK Biobank project.
They drew up a list of 38 DNA regions that could influence when someone loses their v plates, and among these were genes that drive the release of sex hormones, personality, appearance and when someone starts puberty.
As well as concluding that the most common age for men and women to lose their virginity was 18, the scientists found that those with the genetic variation known as CADM2 were more likely to have sex earlier in life and take risks.
By contrast, people with the MRSA variation generally had sex the first time when they were older and had generally grumpier attitudes.
The CADM2 crowd were also linked to having large numbers of children.
Weirdly, they found that women (but not men) with freckles and red hair were more likely to lose their virginity at an older age.
Essentially, the message here isn’t that your genes determine when you first have sex, but rather have a clear effect on the impulsive behaviour that may lead to getting laid sooner rather than later.
And science is only one of the contributing factors. John Perry, an expert in reproductive ageing and related health conditions at Cambridge University, said that religious beliefs, family background and peer pressure are just as important to sexual behaviour.
He said: “We were able to calculate for the first time that there is a heritable component to age at first sex, and the heritability is about 25%, so one quarter nature, three quarters nurture.”
