Spain’s 17-year-olds: Many remain virgins amid dating struggles

His 17-year-old nephew has never dated: he is not alone in his class

Have 17-year-olds really stopped having sens? A man asked himself this seriously after a conversation with his nephew that left him shaken. The boy is waiting for the September retake exams to try to get into a good university degree, has never been with a girl, and claims that in two years of high school (bachillerato), only one couple formed in his class. For the end-of-year alucinación, he says, half the girls went and no boys except one repeater.

The uncle resorted to the usual argument: that social life multiplies in nursing or medicine schools, that there you meet people easily, and there is an American movie vibe every weekend. The nephew looked at him without believing a word. His answer was that without a car there is nothing to do and that he prefers to be realistic rather than build illusions that will later disappoint him. The scene has something of anticipated defeat.

How many 18-year-old guys have had sens?

The figures handled in these conversations are much lower than what the ambient noise suggests. A recurring estimate places around 5% of 18-year-old boys who would have had relations, and those who correct it lower it to 1%. Of that 5%, moreover, a large part remained anecdotal. Most, this version argues, ate once and told twenty.

Some bring their own case without frills: a 17-year-old boy who says he has never touched a woman in his life and to whom no girl has ever spoken. It is not a statistical rarity; it is the profile described by those who work with adolescents daily. And voices appear claiming that the situation has only worsened, although with those starting bases any comparison is a game of shadows.

Thirty years ago it wasn’t a party either

This is where the nostalgic uncle’s story cracks. A high school teacher recalls that in his class in the nineties, they were all boys except two or three women, and that only a couple of 19- or 20-year-old repeaters had partners. The rest, nothing. A few had some flirtation on a park bench half-hidden; the majority, not even that.

Another voice with thirty years of perspective calculates that in his institute, four people would have had relations at most, and that surrounded by the most sought-after girls in the city. Someone summarizes it even faster: in 33 years, nothing has changed. The repeated idea is that sens has historically been something exceptional, with a huge proportion of men who died without having ever had anything. The difference is that now this is said out loud and with a mobile phone in hand.

Hypersenshyper without sens

The most cited diagnosis is not lack of desire, but excess of stimulus. A 47-year-old teacher describes a generation that starts watching porn by age 12 at the latest, flirts via Instagram from very early on, plays with bisensbi naturally, and receives sensual talks since primary school. When they turn 14, sens has no mystery, or so they think. And without prohibition, there is no thrill.

The distribution, moreover, is unequal. Some argue that the high school girls maintain relationships with boys from outside, often twenty-somethings, while their classmates watch. The crudest version is summarized by someone in a phrase: the boys have nothing, they have everything, and probably with almost all the same guy. At the nephew’s age, another adds, only the tough guys with motorcycles had something.

The car, the degree, and the economic filter

The boy himself is clear: without a car, there is no social life. And there the economic argument crosses. It is argued that university no longer functions as a social elevator or as an affective market, because they know that a boy without contacts or sponsors stays home until 35 and that jobs are scarce except in very specific niches. The degree, by itself, fixes nothing. Neither the grade nor the cut-off score.

There are even those who doubt the complete scenario. A high school teacher asks what September retake exam the story refers to, if that call disappeared from the educational system, and rules out entering medicine today through that path. From there, the suspicion that the picture is exaggerated runs through much of the conversation, with the detail that the nephew declares himself invisible to the girls in his center as main proof.

Attitude, gym, and self-esteem: the advice that doesn’t convince

The classic manual does not fare well either. It is repeated that the key was never beauty, but confidence, not being shy and having your head straight; that many lost opportunities due to shyness and only fixed it when they worked on that. As practical recipes appear the gym, an image change, and traveling. It sounds like uncle advice, and the nephew has already made clear what he thinks of uncle advice.

The counterpoint is reasonable: if the requirement is car, salary, apartment, and emotional security at 17, the filter is not sensual, it is economic. And against that, there is no weight routine that competes.

In the end, the most comfortable conclusion is that the problem belongs to the kids, not to those who have spent thirty years repeating that everything was better when they were that age. The nephew, meanwhile, continues to be the only one in the class who has noticed something.