The average age gay people lose their virginity has been revealed
LGBT activists kiss while marching in a parade demanding equal rights, on September 30, 2017 in Asuncion. / AFP PHOTO / NORBERTO DUARTE (Photo credit should read NORBERTO DUARTE/AFP/Getty Images)
A new survey has shed light on when gay people lose their virginity.
Online health service DrEd.com asked 1000 people of different ages, genders and sexualities about their first time.
The results have drawn attention to a changing sexual history – with significant differences between Baby Boomers and Millennials, as well as a changing map of sexualities.
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The new research revealed that gay people, on average, have sex for the first time at 17.9 years of age.
For heterosexuals that falls, but only slightly, to 17.6 years.
While the age at which gay teens act on their sexual desires is slightly older, the research found that their “sexual awakening” was actually much younger.
Defined in the survey as the “sudden realisation of sexual feelings and urges”, DrEd discovered the average age for gay people to undergo their sexual awakening was 13.8 years old.
(Photo Manjunath Kiran/AFP/Getty Images)
Among heterosexuals that age increased to 15-years-old.
There were also clear differences between ages on how many people defined as not being straight.
While 46 percent of millennials (born after 1980) believed sexuality existed on a spectrum, only 11 percent of Generation Xers (born around 1960s-70s) and five percent of Baby Boomers (born post-WWII) agreed.
The results on sexuality back up previous research which has suggested the number of young people identifying as LGB has increased.
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Statistics published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show the number of Brits self-identifying as LGB has topped 2%.
The figure is up from the previous year’s figures when 1.7 percent self-identified, which the ONS says is a “statistically significant” change.
Meanwhile, the number of heterosexual Brits is at its lowest ever rate – coming in at a mere 93.4 percent.
The biggest percentage increase was in those who said they are bisexual, which rose from 0.6 percent to 0.8 percent, while those identifying as gay or lesbian rose from 1.1 percent of the population to 1.2 percent.
The figures are highest among 16 to 24-year-olds, with more than 4% identifying as gay or bisexual, suggesting that more tolerant attitudes among younger generations is leading to greater openness.
