Lifelong virgins are not uncommon in nature. In some social insect communities — bees, ants and wasps, for example — a small percentage of individuals are "breeders," and almost everybody else works their butts off taking care of their kids (#nojudgment). In other animals, like elephant seals a few males monopolize the mating scene, which leads to an awful lot of dudes who live in complete celibacy. Around 80 percent of male elephant seals never even get the chance to mate, but those 20 percent who do might inseminate up to 250 females in their lifetime.

So how many humans live their whole lives as virgins?

That's a tough question to answer. Biologically, losing one's virginity means having potential for baby making sex for the first time. And though that concept makes sense when you're trying to identify patterns in who reproduces and who doesn't, sextual experience for human is varied enough to make the social concept of virginity kind of useless past that point. Accordingly, the data's not crystal clear. After all, if all you want to know is who passes on their genes, who cares if a person touches one body part to another person's body part? What's the difference between a woman who's never had a sexual encounter, a woman whose sexual partners have all been women, and a woman who never has children due to polycystic ovary syndrome or some other condition preventing her from conceiving? And then, there are those who don't engage in the act because they've taken vows of celibacy, because they identify as a sextual , or because they just never, ever meet someone willing to share an intimate moment. In this way, the human construct of virginity and the human process of reproduction have very little to do with one another. But in general, the human reproductive strategy is very different from those of both ants and elephant seals. We are equal-opportunity reproducers, and the vast majority of us, at some point in our lives end up trying out this whole sex thing whether for reproductive or social reasons, which can sometimes take place at the same time.