The sadness of living without s*x | BBC

Robert: I am 61 and still waiting and I am probably too late to start now. I have always been too worried about being laughed at and ridiculed. I finally realised I was unlikely to get anywhere when turned down by a prostitute when in my 30s.

Unhappy Soul: I wish I'd lost my virginity at 37. I'm 54 and still waiting for something I know will never come. About 10 years ago I remember sitting with a group of friends over a drink and the subject came up of losing your virginity and I just fled the room when it came to my turn. One of the others came out to find me and they'd assumed I'd had a bad experience of some kind. It didn't occur to them that I had no experience to recount. All I ever wanted from life was to be a husband and a dad.

Chris: I'm 42, and still a virgin. I get told (often it is turned in to a joke) that I can just go and pay for it. Get it over with. But to me, that lacks any affection, there's no emotional intimacy in it, not even just simple caring. And I would like at least that. I feel like I am different from other people. Excluded. Often made fun of by people who know. To be blunt, sometimes it makes me feel like I must be a monster. I work and do volunteer work as well, go to classes and interest groups, but meeting someone who accepts me, even meeting someone to talk with, just never happens. I just feel extremely alone, and, I guess, forgotten, in this world.

Ikram: I can relate to this story. I am 35 years old and still struggle to talk to girls. I am still a virgin but the difference is lately I have tried to break this barrier and approached a few girls but I always get brutal rejection. I don't know why. And that sends me into another cycle of "No-one wants me," and then I am like, "I am OK... I don't need to have anyone." I blame my ethnicity, my religion and, when all else fails, my weight and my face. It's not easy to be not wanted by anyone.

David: I'm 58 and have never had a girlfriend bar a couple of tentative platonic friendships which never even progressed to hand-holding never mind anything else. In my teens, 20s and 30s it made me thoroughly miserable and incredibly lonely as it didn't seem like an unreasonable thing to want, yet seemed as improbable as winning the lottery. The skills required appear to be something learned in adolescence and if for some reason you don't acquire them, the whole area of relationships becomes an alien world. I sometimes see it as looking into a fish tank.