Why Some Smart People Are More Likely to Remain Virgins, According to Science
Monday, September 29., 2025.
Congratulations, you’re so freaking brilliant. But will you also, most likely, die a virgin?
Sex has sorta been the engine of human history since forever.
Empires rose and fell, religions flourished, fortunes were made and lost — all circling around who’s having it, who isn’t, and who’s lying about it.
Psychologists politely call sex “central to wellbeing” (Laumann et al., 1994). Translation: without it, most people are restless, irritable, and no fun at parties.
But what about the people who never have sex?
A massive new study of nearly half a million adults in the UK and Australia suggests that lifelong sexual inactivity isn’t just about being unlucky on Tinder.
It’s tied to genes, geography, inequality, and — here comes the punchline — higher intelligence (Wesseldijk et al., 2025).
Life Without Sex: Not Always By Choice
Some people are genuinely asexual — no interest, no problem (Bogaert, 2015).
But others do want sex and can’t seem to get it.
That’s not enlightenment, it’s isolation. In some cases it can even curdle into bitterness, shame, or, in the darker corners of the internet, the incel underworld (Ging, 2019).
In this study, about 1% of adults had never had sex. Statistically rare, but still enough to fill a football stadium.
The researchers found sexless men tended to live in regions with fewer women.
Both men and women were more likely to report sexlessness in areas with higher income inequality. Translation: if the dating pool is shallow and the rent is crushing, your odds aren’t great.
The Nerd Stereotype, Peer-Reviewed
Here’s the part that stings.
Folks who have never had sex were lonelier, more nervous, and less happy.
They drank less, used fewer drugs, wore glasses earlier, scored higher on intelligence tests, and and were also more likely to have advanced degrees.
For men, weaker grip strength and smaller arm muscles also correlated with virginity.
Grip strength. Yikes. My old nemesis.
As if high school bullies needed scientific validation. Women, mercifully, were spared that particular humiliation in the data.
So the stereotype — bespectacled, academically decorated, socially awkward, physically unimpressive — isn’t just a cruel caricature. It’s also the exact pattern showing up in the data.
The Genetic Kick in the Teeth
No researchers identified a “virgin gene.”
Instead, thousands of tiny genetic influences combine to explain only about 15% of who does or doesn’t have sex.
The cruel twist?
The genes for lifelong sexual inactivity overlap with higher intelligence, higher education, and higher socioeconomic status.
They also overlap with introversion, autism, and anorexia.
On the flip side, sexless folks had fewer genetic links to addiction, depression, and ADHD (Wesseldijk et al., 2025).
So yes, you may be sober, accomplished, and clever — but find yourself still stuck home alone on a Saturday night.
Cause and Effect: Who Knows?
Does sexlessness cause loneliness, or does loneliness cause sexlessness?
The study simply can’t say for sure.
Some people in the sample may simply be asexual, which complicates things. But the geography and strength findings suggest that for many, the lack of sex wasn’t voluntary.
Either way, the message is clear: this is more than individual “choice.” It’s a complex web of biology, culture, and circumstance.
Final thoughts
This research confirms what common sense and bad sitcoms already told us: brains don’t automatically buy you charm, charisma, or a love life.
You can ace your exams, collect degrees, and polish your bifocals, and still never get laid.
The Greeks gave us tragic heroes. Nowadays, we’ve ended up with the tragic twice-exceptional PhD.
And yet, what I like about this research is that this study is oddly compassionate.
It doesn’t wag a finger. It simply maps the terrain, saying: here’s who tends to end up without sex, and why.
Maybe the real tragedy isn’t the sexless themselves, but a society that still hasn’t figured out how to make room for people who think too much, drink too little, and, like me, can’t do a pull-up.
Be Well, Stay Kind, and Godspeed.
REFERENCES:
Bogaert, A. F. (2015). Asexuality: What it is and why it matters. Journal of Sex Research, 52(4), 362–379. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2015.1015713
Ging, D. (2019). Alphas, betas, and incels: Theorizing the masculinities of the manosphere. Men and Masculinities, 22(4), 638–657. https://doi.org/10.1177/1097184X17706401
Laumann, E. O., Gagnon, J. H., Michael, R. T., & Michaels, S. (1994). The social organization of sexuality: Sexual practices in the United States. University of Chicago Press.
Wesseldijk, L. W., Abdellaoui, A., Verweij, K. J. H., & Zietsch, B. P. (2025). Genetic and environmental correlates of lifelong sexual inactivity. Nature Human Behaviour. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-025-02016-3