Lauren Harkins is 35. She has never been on a date, never had a partner, and never been intimate with anyone.
She posts about it on social media. The comments are roughly what you would expect.
Trolls have called her expired, a narcissist, and a liar. Harkins does not care about any of it.
And this week, after Lizzo revealed on the podcast Friends Keep Secrets that she was a virgin until her early 30s, Harkins felt something she does not often get from the internet: recognition.
“It’s refreshing when someone is honest about something that’s usually kept hidden,” the Maine-based content creator and founder of upcoming streetwear brand UNBXBL told CreatorZine.
“What stood out most to me wasn’t the timeline, but the fact that she made a personal decision and stood by it.”
Lizzo promised herself she’d wait for a Grammy
The singer, now 37, told the podcast she lost her virginity in 2020 after setting herself a personal rule: no sex until she won a Grammy.
She admitted she had previously lied about it, implying she had been sexually active when she had not.
For Harkins, the honesty mattered more than the detail.
“It doesn’t need to be framed as late,” she said.
“People should move when they’re ready. Everyone’s on their own timeline.”
“There are far more people in that position than most would expect”
Harkins says adult virginity is significantly more common than the public conversation suggests.
The volume of messages she receives after posting about her own experience tells her that plenty of people are in the same situation and staying quiet about it.
“There’s still a stigma around it, so many people keep it to themselves,” she said.
“But based on the volume of comments and messages I receive, it’s clear there are far more people in that position than most would expect. They’re just not speaking about it publicly.”
She is not religious. She is not saving herself for marriage. Both are assumptions people make constantly.
“The criticism usually falls into predictable categories,” she said.
“Claims that I’m lying, expired, attention-seeking, narcissistic, you name it. At this stage, it doesn’t touch me.”
“I don’t look or act like a virgin”
Harkins is direct about enjoying the fact that she contradicts what people expect a virgin in her mid-thirties to be like.
“There is nothing I love more than being able to shatter these stereotypes, as someone who is continually told I don’t look or act like a virgin.”
She says she hopes for a long-term relationship eventually but has decided against having children, so feels no pressure to rush.
“I don’t feel the need to force anything,” she said.
“I’d rather wait for the relationship, and the man, that feels genuinely meant for me.”
Why it matters
Virginity and dating content generates fierce engagement because it touches on identity, social norms and personal choices that people feel entitled to judge.
Harkins has turned a private detail into a content identity, and Lizzo’s revelation this week gave her a timely cultural hook.
For creators building audiences around personal lifestyle choices that sit outside the mainstream, the pattern is familiar: the backlash is the engagement, and the engagement is the audience.
The people calling Harkins expired are the same people driving her reach.
Conversations around adult virginity are slowly becoming more visible online, driven by creators willing to speak publicly about something most people in the same position keep to themselves.
Harkins is still single, still unbothered, and still posting.
The trolls are still in her comments. Both sides seem content with the arrangement.
