Virginity and the Zodiac

Using the General Social Survey, I discovered that 5.8% of male respondents born in the U.S. are virgins. But 7.2% of men born under the sign of Sagittarius are vigins, and 7.0% of Scorpios are virgins.

Have I discovered that there really is something to this astrology thing? I don't think so.

Sagittarii are born between November 23rd and December 22nd. Many school systems have a grade cutoff of December 31st. Children born January 1st or after will be in a lower grade in those school systems. This means that Sagitarrii are likely to be the youngest children in their grade, and thus the least mature physically, emotionally, and intellectually. This puts them at a disadvantage relative to their older classmates and more likely to grow up lacking the social skills necessary to lose their virginity. This is the same effect as the findings about adolescent height and labor market outcomes.

Scorpios are born between October 24th and Novermber 22nd, which explains why they are also more likely to be virgins.

On the other side of the cutoff date, only 5.4% of Aquarii (born January 20th to February 19th) and 4.7% of Pisces (born February 20th to March 20th) are virgins.

The conclusion is that there may be some social benefit to having your male children be among the older children in their grade at school. (This creates a negative sum game when parents try to game the system and get their kids held back a grade. 20% of children will always be the youngest 20% in their grade, and it's not in society's interests for people's entrance into the workforce to be delayed by a year.)

UPDATE

There has been some confusion in the comments about the cutoff date. The most common cutoff date today is actually September 1, but in the past the most common cutoff dates were 12/1, 12/31 and 1/1, and the later cutoff dates probably apply to most of the GSS respondents.

Here is a research paper on this very issue, and there is a chart at the end of the paper showing the years that states changed their cutoff dates.

Comments

[JewishAtheist]

Makes sense. Also you didn't say explicitly that the older kids are more likely to be successful jocks, which must be relevant.

[Peter]

Date of birth may be important for elite-level soccer players in Europe. Almost all youth leagues in Europe have the same cutoff date for their various age groups, and research has shown that a disproportionate percentage of top players would have been among the oldest in their youth leagues.

Wow, props for an original query. I would never have thought such a thing would have major life-long consequences.

By the way, there's nothing about the "personalities" of either Scorpios or Sagittarii that would be expected to delay losing virginity. I'll admit I was pissed when my son's early birth got him stuck with Virgo instead of Libra.

You knew we'd ask about women, too. Also. did you control for age? More people are born (or used to be born) during spring months than winter; I wonder if that could be relevant somehow.

[Spungen]

(That last one was me.) How old are boys before being a few months stops making a difference in their height and physical development? I would think that by high school things would have evened out. So, your theory means that being less developed in grade school could ruin the rest of a guy's life. That's pretty scary.

It goes against the common wisdom, which is that high school (and college) provide fresh starts, and one's position in elementary school and junior high matter only in those years.

I think this finding means it makes sense to hold back any boy who is substantially below the rest of his class in development. It's not zero-sum; it would prevent some classmates from being substantially below the curve.

I wonder if "social skills" just means they don't have confidence and don't talk to girls, or if it means they get their asses kicked and are traumatized.

[Spungen]

I wonder if you'd get a lot stronger correlation if you crunched the data on virginity for guys over, say, 30.

[APH]

Interesting analysis - on a marginally related note: I've long thought one of the surest signs of low intelligence is actually believing in the astrological sign nonsense. It always blows my mind just how many people think there are somehow innate personality characteristics associated with one's "sign" and other implications for love compatibility, etc. There are tens of millions of Americans who put stock in this crap, read their horoscopes, etc...I'm always shocked when I meet an otherwise smart person who takes astrology seriously.

[turkey]

Maybe there are seasonal fetal pathogens.

[SFG]

Depends on the field. Scientists are horrified by the thought. But I dated a fashion designer--quite successful, and not a dumb lady at all--who believed in it; not that a Libra was talkative the way a proton is positively charged, but that it was another tool to understand a person. I've also read that fashion designers are notorious for going to psychics. I think people who have to spend most of their time gauging other people's unconscious are more prone to believe in the paranormal and the generally inexplicable.

[tommy]

Asking "what's your sign?" is a good way to keep your virginity.

[Drew]

Asking "what's your sign?" is a good way to keep your virginity.

Not true. That's a bad pickup line, but if you can work astrology somehow into a conversation, it gives you an excuse to seem sensitive and perceptive without committing to any real opinions about yourself or your "conversation partner." You can get the authority of mysticism without looking like an idiot by simply leading with "not that I believe any of this stuff, but..."

[Drew]

Oh, working astrology into a conversation also helps the other person discuss her own opinions about you indirectly and without feeling like a bitch. The good news is that every sign is mostly flattering in some way, so actually saying an opinion is one step closer to actually making it true.

Your job is to let (help) others believe whatever they would like to believe. ;)

[Jason Malloy]

being less developed in grade school could ruin the rest of a guy's life

I checked the GSS for subjective well-being and number of sex partners among heterosexual adult men. Differences were slight and there was a U shaped trend:

-----------------

Very Happy - 1
Pretty Happy - 2
Not Too happy - 3

------------------

0 Partners = 1.88
1 Partner = 1.66
2-4 Partners = 1.75
5-20 Partners = 1.84
21-99 Partners = 1.88
100-1000 Partners = 1.93

Male average: 1.80

Men with only one lifetime sex partner are the happiest. Men with two to four partners are slightly less happy. Men with zero and over four partners are similarly even less happy. Men with over 100 sex partners are the least happy.

I checked for strictly hetero females as well:

0 Partners = 1.84
1 Partner = 1.71
2-3 Partners = 1.79
4-1000 Partners = 1.88

Female average: 1.80

Similar except, unlike men, above 3 partners there were no discernable trends.

[Peter]

It goes against the common wisdom, which is that high school (and college) provide fresh starts, and one's position in elementary school and junior high matter only in those years.

What might happen is that children who don't fit in very well in elementary or junior high school, whether due to immaturity or otherwise, don't develop adequate social skills and are affected by that even after they start high school. It's probably easier to develop those skills the younger one is.

[Peter]

I've long thought one of the surest signs of low intelligence is actually believing in the astrological sign nonsense. It always blows my mind just how many people think there are somehow innate personality characteristics associated with one's "sign" and other implications for love compatibility, etc. There are tens of millions of Americans who put stock in this crap, read their horoscopes, etc...

Could it be that some people follow astrology because it's fun, without actually believing in it?

[Agnostic]

Seasonal pathogens would strike the January & February births pretty hard as well; if there isn't that, then either the window of risk is pretty narrow, or it's what HS said.

Some guys in the 1980s looked at either IQ or academic performance in British schoolboys and found a season-of-birth effect, which they explained using the same logic HS did.

Season-of-birth has lifelong consequences, even for personality. Or else such effects would never be detected. Now, the effect is stochastic rather than deterministic, and personality traits are continuous rather than categorical.

The silly part of astrology is its explanations -- the positions of the planets, stars, or whatever -- not the rough idea that season-of-birth may influence how you turn out. Same with Galen's personality types -- good description, wrong explanation (i.e., the 4 humours).

[beowulf]

OK your whole theory is based on a faulty premise-- that the birthday cut off is Jan. 1.

That may be the custom in New York (like saying "on line" instead of the more common "in line") but I don't know of anywhere else that uses the calendar year and not the school year to set the cutoff birthday.

[Spungen]

Men with only one lifetime sex partner are the happiest. Men with two to four partners are slightly less happy. Men with zero and over four partners are similarly even less happy. Men with over 100 sex partners are the least happy.

So Jason Malloy's findings suggest that guys who score a lot are no happier than guys who never score.

So it sucks to be an alpha male?

I wonder if it's because strong drives are a source of stress and therefore unhappiness. People who have lots of sex would probably have a stronger sex drive. Perhaps the people with lots of partners would be unhappy not because of the sex per se, but because of the stress of the stronger drive.

Four isn't very many. Most educated nonreligious men in metropolitan areas will have had at least that many, probably many more, even if they're the kind of guys who complain alpha males take up all the women. The happiness must be related to a traditional lifestyle or something.

What might happen is that children who don't fit in very well in elementary or junior high school, whether due to immaturity or otherwise, don't develop adequate social skills and are affected by that even after they start high school. It's probably easier to develop those skills the younger one is.

I could see that. But I could also see a person's position following them. I remember the first day of high school, almost all the freshmen were hanging in a little group of whoever their junior high friends were.

[Spungen]

That may be the custom in New York (like saying "on line" instead of the more common "in line") but I don't know of anywhere else that uses the calendar year and not the school year to set the cutoff birthday.

Come to think of it, that's been my observation too.

[APH]

Could it be that some people follow astrology because it's fun, without actually believing in it?

Yes, but many people really do believe in it. When I say "many" I mean millions; probably tens of millions.

[APH]

Could it be that some people follow astrology because it's fun, without actually believing in it?

Yes, but many people really do believe in it. When I say "many" I mean millions; probably tens of millions.

[David Alexander]

That may be the custom in New York (like saying "on line" instead of the more common "in line") but I don't know of anywhere else that uses the calendar year and not the school year to set the cutoff birthday.

When my mother was looking for a kindergarten for me, the mostly white Catholic School that she had selected for me wanted me to wait one year to go to kindergarten because of my November birth. Since she wanted me to start kindergarten immediately instead of languishing in some late 80s shitty daycare and since the special school "graduated me", after looking in two other schools, she found a local Catholic school that was mostly black that was willing to take me.

By the time my brother had to enter kindergarten five years later, such restrictions were no longer in place.

[Peter]

So Jason Malloy's findings suggest that guys who score a lot are no happier than guys who never score.
So it sucks to be an alpha male?
I wonder if it's because strong drives are a source of stress and therefore unhappiness. People who have lots of sex would probably have a stronger sex drive. Perhaps the people with lots of partners would be unhappy not because of the sex per se, but because of the stress of the stronger drive.

That makes sense, though I would imagine it goes beyond just sex drive to encompass the Alphas' generally competitive nature. It's not easy being content if you're incessantly trying to outdo everyone else. Non-Alpha men, including but not limited to nerds, are more likely to be content with their present situations, at least in non-sexual contexts.

[Half Sigma]

I'm guessing that most men who report having had only one female sex partner are married to them, and married men are happier than un-married men.

[SFG]

HS: is the relationship monotonic, or are there dips and bumps?

[SFG]

Hey HS, can you do IQ vs views on immigration? My suspicion is that there's an elite versus non-elite axis as well as a right-versus-left axis, and anti-immigration sentiment might be correlated with non-elitism. (Which wouldn't mean the anti-immigration folks are against immigration because they're stupid--lower-income jobs are probably more prone to replacement by immigrants for a variety of reasons.)

[tommy]

I've heard that schizophrenics are more likely to be born in the winter months, particularly January. The increased wintertime susceptibility to pathogens has been proposed as a reason.

[tommy]

Interesting analysis - on a marginally related note: I've long thought one of the surest signs of low intelligence is actually believing in the astrological sign nonsense. It always blows my mind just how many people think there are somehow innate personality characteristics associated with one's "sign" and other implications for love compatibility, etc. There are tens of millions of Americans who put stock in this crap, read their horoscopes, etc...I'm always shocked when I meet an otherwise smart person who takes astrology seriously.

The second part of your statement hits the mark. A surprising number of otherwise bright people really do believe in astrology. In the same way, many smart people get involved in religious cults, Scientology, and a myriad of New Age fads. Intelligence, unfortunately, is no guarantee that a person will look at the world rationally. A fair number of otherwise intelligent people engage in "magical thinking."

[Jack]

My school district's cutoff was January 31, and being born in January, I was one of the youngest in my grade. What Half Sigma says makes sense, in my opinion. For guys, being a little older seems to help a lot, including at sports, which is how boys determine status. Of course if a kid is very bright, holding him back could make him even more out of step with his classmates.

I would think a guy with only one sex partner is a guy who either got married very young, or a guy still in his early 20's or so. Maybe there is a correlation with being conservative and happy that has an effect here.

I could be the poster child for this observation. I was born in September (so already near the cutoff, but just under, at least in Connecticut). So I was one of the youngest kids in my class. And then in 5th grade, when it was clear that I was bored to death with the material, I skipped a grade (went straight to 7th). Thereafter I was the youngest and usually smallest guy in my classes right up until I graduated high school. I didn't date until after college.
I wouldn't choose differently if I had it to do over again though.

As for the number of sex partners versus happiness, I would have a pseudo-Buddhist take on it - if you have over a hundred sex partners, it's clear that something inside you won't let you rest. Hard to be happy, then.