American Virginity Portrayed On-Screen in 2025 Vs. “The 40-Year-Old Virgin”

“The 40-Year-Old Virgin” was widely released on August 19, 2005. It’s a smart and oft hilarious movie. On the 20^th anniversary of the release of that film, American pop culture is paying attention to 20- and 30-something virgins. The Learning Channel has “Virgins” and ABC has “Are You My First?” both focusing on adult virgins in 2025. It’s strange to have two programs in one year which address adult virgins!

If you’re a 20-something or older and you haven’t yet had sex, American culture marks you as a mockable social dud. Few adults will acknowledge having missed or awaited that social mile marker of sexual experience. It’s like a 2020s version of “The Scarlet Letter”.

I saw “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” years ago. I remember that, with the chest waxing, how to talk to women and speed dating scenes, it’s hilarious. Despite social and cultural pressures, although rare, one can be a virgin in middle age or latter adulthood. Mores have changed around virginhood.

While “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” gently mocks adult virginity, 20 years afterward the likes of ABC’s “Are You My First?” chooses a respectful tack.

In the Sept. 2019 “Virginity 101” episode of the YouTube series “Sexplanations” about sexual health sexologist Lindsey Doe showed that there is no concrete biological or cultural way to confirm virginity. Virginity is a state of sexual inexperience, which is seen as a form of cultural currency. People attach value to having sexual experience; especially a lot of it.

As mentioned in “Sexplanations”, according to the book “Virginity: The Untouched History” by Hanne Blank, “by any material reckoning, virginity does not exist. It can’t be weighed on a scale, sniffed out like a truffle or a smuggled bundle of cocaine, retrieved from the lost-and-found or photographed for posterity”.

Decades of cultural slighting and mockery of adult virginhood, especially 1980s teen movies, concentrated on “losing it”. Noting “Are You My First?” spontaneously in TV Guide and watching it, ABC left me scratching my head. It acknowledged that adults can have valid values-based or physical reasons to await the right moment or a special person for sex. This, rather than choosing to just get it over with. None of the participants in “Are You My First?” were particularly socially awkward. It was interesting.

Most teenage boys, and 20- and 30-something men are driven by horniness, curiosity and tremendous social pressure to gain sexual experience well before middle age. It often happens well before they are mature enough to appreciate that emotional intimacy.

Nearly 20 years after “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” according to CelesteandDanielle.com most adults lose their virginity between the ages of 16 or 17 years old. This does not connote that they are emotionally prepared for this intimacy or satisfied with it. As for older adults, it seems that less than 4% of 40-somethings are virgins. As for that meager percentage, motivation to wait for sex can depend on personal values, emotional readiness and a desire for meaningful connection.

It’s welcome that for whatever reason American culture is closer to accepting that adults might choose to await the right moment or special person for the first sexual experience.