Why Do Men Like Virgins?

Some men like virgins because virginity can symbolize exclusivity. To them, it may represent the belief that no other man came before them, no former sexual relationship has shaped her expectations, and no previous sexual partner exists for comparison.

As discussed in my book, And That’s Why Men Like Virgins: How Biology and Silence Keep Good Girls in the Dark, this does not mean that a virgin is more valuable than any other woman. Rather, virginity can carry biological, psychological, cultural, and relational meanings. A man’s preference may involve concerns about exclusivity, certainty, comparison, status, sexual values, control, or paternity. These explanations should not be treated as interchangeable. Two men can express the same preference for a virgin while having very different reasons for it.

Biology and Reproductive Certainty

Sex can carry real biological consequences, including pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections. From an evolutionary perspective, reproduction also creates a biological asymmetry: maternity is ordinarily certain at birth, while throughout most of human history paternity could not be established with comparable certainty.

Researchers have examined whether sexual inexperience itself can influence male mating preferences in other species. Richardson and Zuk’s 2024 meta-analysis found evidence that males across the species represented in the available literature tended to prefer virgin females. Proposed explanations include reduced sperm competition and reproductive advantages associated with mating with a previously unmated female.

However, an important limitation must be emphasized. Much of this research involves invertebrates rather than humans. Findings about mating behavior in nonhuman species cannot establish why an individual human man prefers a virgin, nor can they demonstrate that a human preference for virginity is biologically determined.

Bio-Relational Science therefore treats biology as one part of the explanation, not the entire explanation. Human sexual and relationship behavior also occurs within psychological, cultural, religious, moral, and interpersonal contexts.

The Same Preference Can Reflect Different Motivations

For human relationships, the more useful question may not be simply whether a man prefers a virgin, but what virginity means to him.

One man may associate sexual restraint with religious conviction or personal values and seek a woman whose behavior reflects principles he also follows. Another may associate virginity with exclusivity and want to experience a sexual relationship in which he is his partner’s first. Another may fear comparison with previous partners or place importance on sexual history.

Still another may prefer a woman with less sexual or relationship experience because he believes the difference gives him greater influence within the relationship.

These motivations are not equivalent.

A preference based on genuinely shared values is fundamentally different from a preference based on wanting one partner to possess freedoms, knowledge, or experience that the other is expected to lack. Understanding the motivation behind the preference is therefore more informative than the preference alone.

The Sexual Double Standard

Culture matters alongside biology. Women have historically been judged more harshly for sexual experience, while men have often been granted considerably greater freedom to acquire sexual experience without the same loss of perceived morality, purity, or relationship value.

Eşsizoğlu and colleagues examined attitudes among university students in Turkey and found a marked gender double standard surrounding virginity and premarital sexuality. Male students placed substantially greater importance on female virginity than female students placed on male virginity.

The population studied matters. These findings should not be generalized to all men, women, or cultures. They do, however, demonstrate that attitudes toward virginity can operate within social systems that apply different sexual expectations to women and men.

This makes reciprocity an important consideration.

Does a man who values sexual restraint in a woman practice comparable restraint himself? Does he demonstrate the loyalty, honesty, discipline, and commitment he says he wants from her? Or does he expect sexual freedom for himself while requiring sexual inexperience from her?

If he holds a woman to a standard he does not hold himself to, he may not be protecting a shared value. He may be protecting an advantage.

Why Inexperience and Power Differences Can Matter

An inexperienced woman is not weak, unintelligent, naive, or less capable of making decisions. But experience can provide something intelligence alone cannot: a basis for comparison.

A woman with little relationship experience may have fewer personal reference points for distinguishing attention from commitment, sexual access from love, intensity from emotional safety, confidence from control, or experience from wisdom. This does not mean that an inexperienced woman will make poor relationship decisions, nor does it mean that an experienced woman will make good ones. Education, observation, social support, personal boundaries, and relationship knowledge can also shape decision-making.

The concern becomes more significant when limited relationship experience exists alongside other differences in power.

Research involving adolescents and young women has found associations among relationship power, age-disparate partnerships, intimate partner violence, sexual risk, reproductive coercion, and reduced reproductive autonomy. Volpe et al. (2013), for example, examined partner-age differences alongside relationship power, intimate partner violence, and sexual risk among urban adolescents. Teitelman et al. (2008) similarly examined sexual relationship power in relation to intimate partner violence and condom use among minority urban girls.

More recent research extends these concerns. Hill et al. (2019) documented reproductive coercion and relationship abuse among adolescents and young women seeking care at school health centers. Kunesh et al. (2024), studying adolescent girls and young women in Rwanda, examined age-disparate relationships at first sex in relation to reproductive autonomy, empowerment, and sexual violence.

These studies do not demonstrate that sexual inexperience itself causes vulnerability, nor do they establish that men who prefer virgins are abusive or controlling. Their relevance is narrower: they show why differences in age, experience, relationship power, and autonomy deserve attention when evaluating the dynamics surrounding a preference for a less experienced partner.

That is why a strong fixation on youth, innocence, purity, or inexperience deserves careful consideration when it accompanies a substantial difference in age, knowledge, power, or relationship experience.

The question is not simply whether he prefers a virgin.

The question is what he does with the difference in experience.

A healthy man does not need a woman’s lack of experience to maintain his position in the relationship. He respects her boundaries, supports her independence, tells the truth about his intentions, welcomes informed decision-making, and accepts her equal voice.

A selfish or predatory man may instead exploit an imbalance. He may attempt to establish himself as the authority, rush sexual or emotional intimacy, discourage outside perspectives, shame her for questioning him, or use his greater experience to define what she should consider normal.

The preference alone does not prove harmful intent.

The pattern of behavior is what tells the truth.

Virginity, Value, and Bio-Relational Health

Virginity cannot establish whether a woman is loyal, loving, emotionally mature, healthy, compatible, intelligent, trustworthy, or capable of building a strong relationship. Sexual experience cannot establish the opposite.

From a Bio-Relational Science perspective, the more meaningful questions concern the biological, psychological, and relational conditions surrounding intimacy: What does each person believe sex means? Are expectations reciprocal? Is there honesty about intentions? Are both people making informed choices? Is one person’s vulnerability being protected or exploited? Does the relationship support safety, dignity, commitment, and mutual respect?

A woman’s value is not found in whether a man was first. Her value is found in who she is, what she values, how she protects herself, and whether the person seeking access to her life is prepared to offer honesty, safety, respect, commitment, and reciprocity in return.