“For a long time, I was too focused on the other person during sex. Sex started when the other person was turned on and ended when they came,” says 27-year-old VU alumnus Sanne. “After a period of self-discovery, I found out that sex could also be about me.”
She is one of the nearly 200 respondents who took the sex survey conducted by Ad Valvas in March and April, in which VU students told us how often they have sex, for how long, where, and with whom – but also where they enjoyed it most, what makes them insecure, and what they regret.
What stands out: over the years, they have adopted a critical approach to their sex life and are learning to design it deliberately. They increasingly have the courage to ask for what they want, are also increasingly aware of what that is as they have sex with more people and with different individuals and genders, and are gradually trying to pry themselves free from the expectations that others impose on them.
Even though sex is something you do with yourself or with others, many students turn out to feel pressure from people who are not part of their sex life: society, their friends, family.
Medical student Layla (25, see box 4) occasionally visited student housing where housemates tracked each other’s panda points on whiteboards: 1 point for each month that they had not had sex. “In our flat, we weren’t quite that stereotypical as students, but I still often felt the need to let people know if I had had sex. At this point, it doesn’t matter to me at all.”
The vast majority of the respondents proved to be sex-positive: as long as sex happened with mutual consent, respectfully and safely, they were open and non-judgemental about it. Their sex partner’s body count didn’t interest them much, regardless of whether there had been ‘many’ or few’ sex partners.
‘Even if I’m doing it with myself, I still have a sex life’
When she was 17, law student Sanne (27, graduated by now) had an unpleasant experience with sex. After she had a ‘bad trip’ from weed at a house party, she ended up in bed with the person who threw the party – an older man. “He thought that I wanted to have sex, but I just wanted to have some time to recover. It ended up being a horrific night, in which I wasn’t able to communicate my boundaries due to my sedated state and fear.”
Years later, when she was 22, she decided to join a course offered by The Safe Space Club. “It gave me a new round of biology lessons and sex education. Instead of the theoretical information at school, this course was much more about how an orgasm builds, what consent is, and what you enjoy, rather than what you should avoid. I can recommend it to everyone.”
Her experiences in the sex course opened a path to experimentation and self-discovery. “I had a wild period, trying lots of things out and having many different sexual partners, one after another. In the end, I grew numb to meeting new people. I pivoted and headed in the opposite direction; my sex life currently consists of me, myself and I. I sometimes listen to erotic fictions or experiment with toys. I’ve also discovered that I have differing needs depending on my cycle. And even if I’m doing it with myself, I still have a sex life. I feel the same things as during sex with another person.”
Her self-discovery has been very fulfilling, says Sanne. “I’m much more aware of my boundaries now, and I know what to enjoy.” Just recently, during a one-night stand, she was able to orgasm during sex for the first time. “Before that, I was far too focused on the other person.”
Sex as a board game
But gaining agency in your sex life is a process. One person says they have sex because they enjoy it, while another feels like it’s part of a relationship, and yet another mainly sees sex as a form of reproduction, or treats it like a hobby. ‘You could play a board game, and you could have sex, that’s how I see it,’ writes 25-year-old communication student Wendy (see box 3).
Orgasm gap
All male respondents achieve orgasm during sex, while 32 per cent of female respondents do not. Rutgers researcher De Graaf: “This partly involves the important role of penis-in-vagina sex in the heterosexual script. Women simply don’t easily come just from that. Sadly, the importance of clitoral stimulation has not yet sunk in for everyone. In any case, biologically speaking, women are just as capable of easily achieving orgasm as men are.”
Our data shows that sexual orientation also plays a role: non-heterosexual women achieve orgasm more often and more consistently than heterosexual women. De Graaf: “During sex with a woman, women are more likely to use their tongue or fingers, which is more efficient in achieving an orgasm than penis-in-vagina sex. If you extend sexual pleasure to a broader spectrum than just an orgasm, however, the differences are less clear-cut.”
Interestingly, both men and women who responded to the survey considered their partner’s orgasm more important than their own. Sanne, who had mentioned previously being too focused on the other during sex, recognises that. “Just recently, during a one-night stand, I came during sex for the first time.”
Philosophy student A.S. has a complicated relationship with orgasms. “My girlfriend has an IUD, so we have unprotected sex. If I feel like I’m about to come, I ask if I should do it inside her, to which she says: do what you want. But then I don’t know if she minds or not – even if she says she doesn’t. And then it happens anyway and I feel guilty that I left her to clean up the mess. Having an orgasm feels a little dirty to me. I also come faster than I’d like. My girlfriend is very sweet and gives me lots of space to relax and talk about it. I think I just have difficulty receiving pleasure. It makes me nervous if the focus is on me.”
Birth control
Rutgers research shows that pill use among women dropped from 30 to 24 per cent between 2017 and 2023. “Among young women who do not use birth control, the reason given by one-third of them is that they do not want to use hormones,” says Rutgers researcher De Graaf. Communication student Wendy also switched from a hormone-based IUD to a copper IUD. “It really fucked up my hormones and affected my mental health. I feel much safer with my copper IUD – fewer variables that affect my mood.”
In 2013, news headlines were plastered across the internet after Dr Annie Dude published research findings in the Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology showing that women aged 15 to 24 increasingly opted for pulling out (withdrawing the penis before ejaculation) over hormonal birth control methods like the pill. News reports claimed that this was to become the ‘pull-out generation’. The same applies to our respondents: this method is the third-most popular option, after condoms and hormonal contraception. De Graaf: “Puling out before orgasm is a difficult method to use, because you really have to be in control of your orgasm.”
One-quarter of those surveyed do not use any form of birth control – although a significant percentage of those are women who have sex with women. Nearly half of the respondents who are sexually active do not use any protection against sexually transmitted infections, although gay men are most likely to use STI protection.
Medical student Layla never has any difficulty bringing up condom use. “I have seen it before that a man thought: well, we’ve had the foreplay, and in it goes. Then I say: grab a condom, would you? I have a hard and fast rule on that; it’s a normal part of it.” Even so, she doesn’t always use protection. “Love is blind, so I’ve also had my moments that I really liked someone and thought: we don’t really need it, since this is going to last a long time anyway.”
Some choose not to have sex any more because they do not experience any pleasure, or because they are mainly doing it to fulfil the expectations of others. One male student writes: ‘I started having sex due to social pressure and because I didn’t want to be a virgin any more. Now I’ve stopped and I’m waiting for a partner who I can have loving sex with.’ A female student says that she has been voluntary celibate for several years. ‘Sex is not my thing.’
But what is sex anyway? In the survey that Ad Valvas distributed via social media and on campus, sex is defined as intimate sexual acts with yourself or a partner, or partners, and kissing is not included in that category. You may have learned at school that sex means ‘penis in vagina’. Non-heterosexual perspectives were rarely covered in class. To a person who is non-binary or trans, sex may be a different story, while a person who has a physical disability may also experience sex in their own specific way.
Half of the respondents who provided their own definition of sex did mention penetration, but a significant percentage of those immediately added caveats: it isn’t necessary, it’s not the only thing that ‘counts’, and it depends on who you have sex with. Others describe sex as a ‘vulnerable act in which you evoke sexual pleasure in one or more partners (including yourself) with the aim of creating intimacy’ and ‘penetration with a man, or oral and other sexually nuanced acts with a woman’, or ‘what most people would consider foreplay, I often already view as sex’.
Some people’s definition of sex already mentioned the importance of consent: mutual agreement to have fun together. Others say that they had always thought that sex was penetration, but are now trying to have it be less centred around that act.
‘Sex feels like a confessional to me’
A.S. (22) grew up in Peru. His sexual education went from one extreme to another. His mother avoided talking about sex at all. When he had his first girlfriend at the age of 16, she only told him that he should use a condom because otherwise she ‘would murder him’. His father was the exact opposite; when A.S. was nine, his father discovered he was attracted to men and went through a kind of sexual revolution. “He encouraged me to explore my sexual side. At some point, I felt it was becoming a bit childish. He was my father, but he became more like one of my friends.”
At the age of fifteen, A.S. creates a Tinder profile. He mainly uses it to talk to people. “I think I was looking for affirmation. I wanted to feel attractive and desired.” When he discovered that one of his contacts was a man posing as a woman, he panicked. These days, he is working with a psychoanalyst to uncover the source of his need to be desired. In his opinion, talking about sex online was a pleasant way for him to explore his sexuality. Even now, he enjoys talking during sex: sharing his feelings and his fantasies. He likes to compliment his sexual partner. “Sex feels kind of like a confessional to me.”
Through therapy, he is slowly realising that he was afraid of sexuality in ‘real’ life. “It’s still easier for me to focus on the other person’s pleasure – I position myself a bit outside the sex.” After sex, he sometimes feels empty or sad. With his current partner, he can discuss these matters easily.As a philosophy student, he often analyses his views on sex. “I tend to explain everything based on my parents. But that isn’t the whole story.”
Asking for consent
A big part of their journey of discovery: talking to their sexual partner before, during and after sex. They ask what the other person enjoys, ask their sexual partner to do things that they themselves enjoy, check in during sex to see if it’s all good, and offer after-care following rough sex. Pillow talk has since become part of the list of intimate acts.
But it generally all starts with consent. Since 1 July 2024, a new Vice Act has taken effect in the Netherlands, focusing on consent rather than coercion. As a result, involuntary sex is punishable by law, even without physical resistance. The international slogan ‘Consent is sexy’ tried to reframe the concept not as a legal stipulation, but as an attractive aspect of a person’s sex life.
Growing up in Lima, philosophy student A.S. (see box 2) saw that men non-consensually groped women in clubs. It made him more cautious. “I always ask if I’m allowed to kiss a person the first time. I never take it for granted that people give me consent, but at a certain point in time you trust each other and don’t ask for consent before every single act. At that point, you also trust that the other person will tell you if they don’t enjoy something.” Layla also asks for consent. Before, and sometimes also during sex. “It’s happened before that I asked: can I give you a blowjob? And he said: no, I’d rather not. Consent also means asking if what you’re doing feels good to the person and checking in afterward.”
Respondents who talk about sex with a large group of people (their friends, sexual partner, family, classmates, people on online forums, or a therapist) are more likely to ask for consent than those students who only talk about sex with their friends or sexual partner. Men are also more likely to ask for consent than women. A quarter of the women who responded never ask for consent, compared to only 8 per cent of men who never do.
According to Hanneke de Graaf, researcher at the Rutgers centre of knowledge and expertise on sexual health, safety and wellbeing, this is because the ‘initiative’ is often stereotypically assigned to men. “If the man already takes the initiative, and even asks for consent, it would obviously be a bit odd for a woman to then check whether the man also wants to.”
‘I linked my identity to sex for a long time’
Wendy (24) grew up in Montreal and has been studying in Amsterdam for the past two years. Her first sexual experience was traumatic, at a young age. When she was fourteen, she had voluntary sex for the first time. “A boy I liked came to fix the air conditioner, my mother went out, and I seduced him. Just like a porn scene – porn was also where I learned what sex is.”
Sex is not discussed back home. “They never sat me down to have ‘the talk’. I can only remember that my mother said once during dinner that if you don’t have a condom, you just have to pull out in time. A bit controversial.” She gets pregnant at fifteen; the abortion is arranged through the school doctor.
With her boyfriend at the time, she starts experimenting with bondage, role-play and consensual non-consent – working out the details of a rape fantasy. “Because I played the victim in that scenario, I was able to process my own traumatic sexual experience. For many people, kink is a way to take back control over trauma. In an animalistic state, but adding in trust and pleasure – the fear feels safe there.”
She goes to her first kink event when she is eighteen. The kink scene in Amsterdam turns out to be even bigger. She learns to communicate boundaries by saying ‘green’, ‘orange’ or ‘red’ and to be able to stop sex without explaining why. And she learns about the importance of after-care: cuddling and talking after sex.
It makes her more present. In the past, she did that differently. “I’m a bit of a people pleaser. I wanted to be that porn star and I faked orgasms to make it exciting for the other. For a long time, I linked my identity to someone who has lots of sex. But I’m not always the girl who wants to be fucked by strangers all night long.” She since has a better sense of what she wants. Things just ended with her boyfriend. “He wasn’t a fan of anal sex. I thought: love is bigger than my need for that. But eleven months later, I thought: what do I actually love more?”
Reluctant
But as it turns out, just asking for consent is not enough to reduce the amount of involuntary sex. French philosopher Manon Garcia writes in her book Consent that one of the biggest obstacles to actual consent is the person involved. Giving consent suggests voluntary action, but we are often not fully aware of what we actually want and what consequences it will have. Just over half of the surveyed students often or always ask for consent. In our survey, two students said that they do occasionally cross other people’s boundaries. One-quarter of the respondents were not sure. “The unfortunate thing is that you sometimes don’t recognise your own boundaries until after they’ve been crossed,” says Layla. “Then you sort of let yourself be talked into it, but feel bad about it afterward.”
Alumnus Sanne (see box 1) recognises the problem. For a long time, she was unaware of her own boundaries. “I only learned to identify and express them at a later age, although I still struggle with it. Because I was not familiar with my own boundaries, I may have also crossed the boundaries of others.” Wendy, too, has had sex when she didn’t really feel like it, like 35 per cent of our respondents. “Not because I didn’t dare to say that I wasn’t in the mood, but because I thought: this is who I am, right? A kind of ravenous beast that always wants to have sex?” The times that Layla felt regret after sex wasn’t because she did not give consent. “It’s often people I meet in the club, and you’ve often both been drinking. The next day, you wake up next to someone and think: did this really add anything to my life?”
For our respondents, regrets after sex often have more than one cause. Drugs and alcohol play a role in how some people make choices, while others feel social pressure to have sex, are pressured by the sexual partner or by friends, or they call it the patriarchy. A shocking one in five respondents stated that they had been forced to have sex, and another ten respondents were unsure. The COVID-19 pandemic made it more difficult to date, and specifically to set boundaries, Layla recalls. “You couldn’t really go anywhere, so it was much easier to meet up at someone’s house straight away. I actually wanted to go home, but he kept pushing me to stay a little bit longer. The sex that happened after that was far from pleasant. Fortunately, I haven’t experienced that very often.”
One respondent writes: “Casual sex has been normalised in our generation. My experience, and that of my friends, has been that mutual respect is sometimes lacking. It is important to remember that it still remains a very intimate act.” Philosophy student A.S.: “I am exploring what my boundaries are, what my fantasies are, and what I really want. I am learning how my sex life can become my own.”
‘Sex was something you saved for marriage’
Medical student Layla (25) calls herself a late bloomer. She had sex for the first time when she was nearly 20. “Sex education at school made me view sex as something you do to have children.” At home, she was raised in an Islamic tradition. “Not very extreme, but still with those values. Sex was something you saved for marriage. But towards the end of my teens, I realised that I felt a fairly strong need for it.”
She has had 47 sexual partners at this point. “I keep a list in my phone.” That sex mainly happens with one-night stands and dates. Sexual partners regularly ask her what she likes. “When they go down on me, I ask them to finger me at the same time, and I know which positions I enjoy.” Her favourite positions are doggy style (with her back arched, she adds), missionary with her legs on her sexual partner’s shoulders, and spooning.
She is cautiously probing her interest in women, although she doesn’t know exactly how to describe that attraction. She had a sexual experience with a woman once at a party. “Kissing was daunting on its own; I didn’t dare to pleasure her orally. I wouldn’t have that anxiety with a man. I notice that I don’t deliberately seek out that side of my sexuality. Maybe because there’s a fear of falling in love with a woman. If that happens, I am afraid that I’d have to choose between her and my parents.”
She notices that societal standards sometimes restrict her sexual freedom. “The standard is slim, but still with big butts and breasts. I find myself thinking in certain positions: my belly fat doesn’t look great like this, and then I change the position. It really takes me out of the moment. I’ve sometimes wanted to keep my shirt on during sex. Then they say: take it off! By this point, I’m more likely to think: no, I’m not feeling it today. I’m keeping it on. If I’m with someone I really trust, I have better sex. I don’t have to wonder what I look like.”
Author’s note
This article is based on a survey of 190 students and interviews with four students. The results of the survey are not statistically representative of the overall community of VU students and cannot therefore be considered significant. The findings, combined with the personal experiences from the interviews, do offer an indicative depiction of how students at the VU perceive sexuality. For privacy reasons, Wendy, Sanne and Layla have not been referred to by their real names, but their identity is known to the editors.