"Like a virgin". Correlates of virginity among Italian university students

Virginity, as a status, carries with it enormous personal and social meaning and represents a sexual milestone with high cultural significance. In this paper, we describe the correlates of virginity in Italy by consulting a large-scale survey of university students conducted in 2000 and 2017 (N = 12,400). First, we note a reduction between 2000 and 2017 of both male and female students reporting themselves as virgins at the time of the interview. Second, we highlight the salience of several demographic-, family-, interpersonal-, bodily-, and health-related factors associated with their virginity status. Third, the findings of the present study draw special attention to two crucial characteristics of Italian society: regional divisions and the role of religiosity. We show that, although religiosity is still important to the sexual lives of Italian youths, its relevance is weakening over time. In all, our study extends research on sexuality among Italian youths and sheds light on factors related to their virginity, seeking to feed future research on the topic.