How you lose your virginity can affect your sex life

While it’s highly unlikely that your “first time” was your best time, now a new study claims that the manner in which you lost your virginity may have lasting effects on your sex life years later.

Researchers at the Universities of Tennessee and Mississippi asked 319 undergrads about their first time having sex, and had them characterize it in rather vague terms like "anxiety" "negativity," "connection" and "afterglow."

The students were then asked to rate their current sex lives and sexual interactions over the span of two weeks.

Also see: Are more Canadian university students becoming ‘sugar babies'?

Not surprisingly, students who had happy first times achieved far more physical and emotional satisfaction in their current sexual experiences then those who checked off the “anxiety” and "negativity” boxes.

Sexual functioning was also reduced for those with negative first time experiences, and having a loving first time partner was associated with both emotional and physical satisfaction in later sexual experiences.

So what does this mean? Were our instincts right all along? Sex is not to be taken lightly, so don't treat it as such.

“These results suggest that one's first-time sexual experience is more than just a milestone in development,” write the study’s authors. “Rather, it appears to have implications for their sexual well-being years later.”

Also see: Are women responsible for the death of chivalry?

But should those of us who remember anxious, fumbling deflowerings lament a future of unsatisfying sexual encounters? If the study's ominous title is any indication, Gone But Not Forgotten: Virginity Loss and Current Sexual Satisfaction, your future is not so bright.

The Atlantic points out that none of the study participants had been sexually active for very long. The biggest gap between the first time and the study was seven years, which leaves open the possibility that things will eventually get better for the negative, anxious first-timers.

And if your first time was anything better than negative and anxious, thank your lucky stars you were one of the ones that could tick the box "afterglow."