Terrible Ladymag Articles Finally Explained

Joanna Goddard over at Glamour‘s sex and dating blog Smitten asked last week how many of her readers were waiting until marriage — and 42 percent are, and 6 percent did. Huh.

She’s also published some long responses from readers about why they waited or are waiting for marriage to have sex — and not all of them are high schoolers. Mostly (you guessed it) they’re religious, think that it’s wrong, want it to be special and are scared of pregnancy and disease (who isn’t?).

The real interesting thing about that is that 76 percent of women of my generation lost our virginities by the age of twenty. Some 97 percent of adults have premarital sex. So the 50 percent of women taking Goddard’s survey who report waiting currently or having waited represent about 1.5 percent of adults in this country (assuming it’s a relatively even distribution of male and female virgins).

What this indicates to me (of course) is that Goddard has a pretty conservative audience for a blog about sex and relationships — but that readership is probably closely tied in to Glamour‘s readership and demographic as well. So is this why the ladymags’ sex advice sounds so crazy sometimes (see: hair scrunchie on his balls for a beej)? Because it’s being written for a demographic of virgins and women who waited until marriage? Or because it’s even possibly written by such women?

Poll: Are You Waiting to Have Sex Until Marriage? [Smitten]
True Dating Confession: “I Won’t Have Sex Until My Wedding Night” [Smitten]