Charlie Kirk Challenges ASU Students on Virginity, Body Counts, and Why Masculinity Means Self-Control
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Charlie Kirk Challenges ASU Students on Virginity, Body Counts, and Why Masculinity Means Self-Control
Charlie Kirk confronts ASU students in a candid conversation about premarital sex, hookup culture, and the double standards surrounding virginity. When students challenge whether male virgins lose respect or masculinity, Kirk flips the script: true masculinity is controlling your animal instincts, not giving in to them. He addresses why high body counts affect men and women differently, the psychological impact of casual sex, and why dating should always be with intent to marry. Kirk makes the case that saving yourself for marriage makes both sexes more attractive in a culture where everyone else has been shared, pointing to data showing couples who wait have less depression, alcoholism, and domestic abuse.
The Double Standard Question on Virginity and Body Counts
A student at ASU opens a conversation with Charlie Kirk about premarital sex and body counts, asking whether high body counts are equally problematic for men and women. Kirk's answer is direct: both are bad, but men and women deal with different sexual temptations. He explains that it's much easier for a woman to say no to sex than for men, but the psychological consequences differ.
Kirk points out that while both are problematic, it's a fact that when a woman has a high body count, she becomes less desirable in the eyes of men. He's careful to note this isn't a value judgment but simply reality. The student then flips the question: if a man is a virgin, especially in this generation, won't he be disrespected? Won't it lower his masculinity?
Why Male Virginity Actually Increases Masculinity
Kirk's response challenges conventional thinking. He reveals he was a virgin until marriage and still had a successful life and career. But he pushes back on the premise of the question itself: why are you sharing your sexual behavior with people? That's weird. Why is it their business whether you're a virgin or not?
When the student presses on social pressure and the dating market, Kirk makes a compelling case: virginity is actually insanely attractive to women. He points to his own wife Erika as evidence—she's beautiful and desirable, and she married a man who saved himself for marriage. In a time when everyone else has been shared, remaining a virgin makes you stand out as exceptionally attractive.
Kirk dismantles the masculinity argument completely. If you remain a virgin, that means you have so much self-control over your animal instincts that you're the most impressive man in the room. Masculinity is doing the hard stuff, not the easy stuff. He has zero respect for a 17-year-old bragging about sexual conquests—you're nothing more than a rabbit. Control yourself. That's what makes a man.
The Innocence and Femininity Question
A student asks whether innocence raises femininity and makes women more attractive, shouldn't it do the opposite for men? Kirk disagrees with the premise. He believes virginity makes both sexes more attractive. He's not arguing for a double standard where men can sleep around but women can't—both should save themselves for marriage.
However, Kirk acknowledges a reality: it is a fact that if women have a high body count, men do not find that attractive. He completely agrees with this observation but rejects the idea that the opposite is true for men. He consistently hears from young women asking why they can't find a man, and his answer is because they've been sleeping around for the last decade. Similarly, men ask why there are no good women, and the answer is the same—the women are pseudo-prostitutes, many with OnlyFans accounts.
When he asks how many students know girls with OnlyFans accounts, all hands go up. His response is blunt: you all know hookers. That's what it is. OnlyFans is online prostitution.
Addressing the Mental Torment of Hookup Culture
Kirk wants to be clear he's not trying to shame anyone who sleeps around—he's trying to challenge students to be better. Anyone can change at any time. But he believes those engaging in hookup culture are probably mentally tormented deep down. If you're a man sleeping around constantly, you're at risk of being accused of assault by someone who wakes up with a different version of events, which could destroy your life. You could contract an STD. You've cheapened something sacred and holy.
Why share the holy with every random person at ASU? Save it for your soul partner, the person you want to spend the rest of your life with. It's not easy, but the fulfilling life is for those who do hard stuff, not easy stuff. Both paths are hard—you have to choose your difficulty. Yes, it's difficult to say no to hookup culture, but it's also insanely fulfilling.
Making Sex Sacred Again in a Sexualized Generation
A student asks how to get friends to see sex as more sacred when they look at it through a highly pornified, sexualized lens. Another student acknowledges the hookup culture challenge and questions whether it's realistic in this generation. Even the concept of dating with intent to marry seems foreign—you don't just date a girl to marry her, right?
Kirk's response: you should. Dating is not recreational. It's not for sex. It should be with the intent to find a soul mate. What else would you date for? The student pushes back—if you're going to spend money on a girl just for companionship and sex before committing, isn't that like studying for an exam that doesn't exist?
The student clarifies: if he's dating a girl, he'd want to be in a relationship for at least three years before marrying her to understand compatibility. Kirk accepts this as long as the intent to marry is there from the beginning. You should have the mindset on the first date that you're looking for red flags or green lights. If you know you'd never marry someone of another religion—perfectly respectable for any religion—and you're dating someone of a different religion just for sex and companionship, that's immoral. You're leading her on, using her as a placeholder.
The Intimacy and Marriage Question
The student asks a challenging question: if you don't want to commit to marriage too quickly in a relationship, and intimacy is a big part of a relationship, why would you save yourself for marriage? Kirk's answer is unequivocal: yes, you should save yourself for marriage, even in a committed relationship, 100% without a doubt. The sacred should only be shared with the person when vows are shared.
Kirk acknowledges this is the ideal and knows it's unrealistic for a generation so sexualized. But he tries to describe how awesome it is to not have to worry that your partner shared that with somebody else, and you didn't have to share it with anyone else either. It can happen because previous generations lived that way and lived happier, better lives. You're both not wondering if you're living up to a previous partner or thinking about a different partner.
Kirk explains that studies show there's a chemical attachment that young women experience as soon as they have sex with somebody, and it's very hard for them to overcome. That's where ex-girlfriend syndrome comes from—it's biologically understandable. Women aren't wired to have 15 partners. Men, on the other hand, have an easier time moving on from one partner to another, but they should restrain their animal impulse.
Changing Public Opinion Is Possible
A student insists it comes down to the time period—the pressure and external factors make it nearly impossible. Kirk pushes back: just because it's hard doesn't mean we shouldn't set the standard. It's possible. There's evidence we can move public opinion.
He asks how many students know people who smoke tobacco regularly. When most answer that it's a minority of their friends, Kirk uses this as proof. If you went to a college campus in the 1970s, you'd see lots of kids with cigarettes. Now you don't, even though vaping and marijuana are separate issues. Public opinion moved on cigarettes. You can get people to change behaviors, sometimes for good, sometimes for bad. We should try to challenge young men to not have sex with everything that moves.
The Better Versus Ideal Standard
The student concedes that being in a committed relationship is a better moral standard than hookup culture, but questions whether the ideal of waiting until marriage is realistic. Kirk agrees it's a better moral standard but maintains the ideal is marriage. We all need to acknowledge there is an ideal, even if it's very difficult.
He returns to the sex ethics course framework: you need to eat to survive, you need to drink to survive, but you do not need to have sex to survive. You're tempted toward it, drawn to it, but you will not die. Kirk believes saying no to sex creates stronger men and women with a better ability to find their place in the world, less depression, and more purpose.
All the studies show that couples who save themselves for marriage have far less rates of alcoholism and far less rates of domestic abuse. While this could be a sampling error—maybe these are just people who have more disciplined lives—Kirk suggests perhaps they developed discipline by saying no to the thing they were most tempted to do.
