Note: Names have been changed for privacy.

After a long night of drunken partying, Claire stumbled into the back of her friend’s car—he had promised her a ride home. She was used to being drunk and promiscuous—it made life all the more exciting for her. As she lay down to endure her drunken state, her friend came to the back to join her. They started to kiss, clothes came off and then one thing led to another.

Losing her virginity at 17 to a “friend with benefits” isn’t exactly the love story one expects to hear from an Orthodox Jewish girl. Shockingly, however, these kinds of occurrences are on the rise. “At the end of the day, sex can be something really passionate and meaningful, but at the same time, sex can just be sex,” Claire says. “It’s better when it’s with someone long-term, but a one-night thing is fun. We’re young; we’re meant to have fun. I think the first time you have sex it’s different because you want it to be with someone you trust, but afterward it doesn’t really affect me. I don’t regret losing my virginity to a friend, but the situation could have been better, like if I [had] lost it to [a] boyfriend.”

Today, we live in a society in which sex often plays a central role, even in teenage relationships. Recent figures show that in Britain, one in four teenagers has lost his or her virginity by the age of 16, but many by the age of 13. One in five Orthodox Jews admits that he or she is breaking the law of no sex before marriage. Because of the taboo, the figure is likely even higher.

Rabbi Gavin Broder, the London chaplain of Hillel, says: “According to Judaism, love and affection are normal feelings and emotions. Sex is not taboo; it’s considered natural. It’s not frowned upon and is a religious expectation between couples. However, Judaism understands that a sexual relationship is reserved for marriage. In this way, the sexual act is elevated and helps to form a strong bond between husband and wife. By distancing ourselves from those things which take place in a marriage, we hope to create a more meaningful marriage.”

Hilary, a university student who regrets losing her virginity at a young age, says: “I had done everything but sex from the age of 14, and I lost my virginity at 16. It wasn’t so much Torah prohibitions that bothered me, [but] rather social and moral prohibitions, and feeling personally used and gaining a reputation. No sex before marriage is what’s expected of us in our Orthodox circle.

“I wasn’t completely ready to have sex,” Hilary continues. “Once you’re in a physical relationship, it just feels like the next step. I felt like sex was totally overrated. In my experience, I was in a physical relationship for about a year, and I thought I loved the boy, so I didn’t see why I shouldn’t give him my virginity. It was very brief, and it wasn’t intimate. I still classify myself as a virgin. I know it will feel completely different when it happens for real.”

Now in a shomer negiah relationship (literally “observer of negiah,” the Jewish laws that forbid any physical contact—romantic or otherwise—between a man and woman who are not married or closely related), Hilary reflects on her past. “All these Jewish traditions I used to laugh at now make a lot of sense, especially after coming out of a very physical relationship,” she says. “It’s hard, but it’s worth it.”

Recent findings show that it’s more common for Orthodox Jewish boys to have lost their virginity before marriage than it is for Orthodox Jewish girls. David, 19, who lost his virginity to his long-term girlfriend two years ago, says: “I think sex is sacred and should only be done with someone you love. No sex before marriage makes sense and seems to follow a trend of a lot of other laws in the Torah, where it’s seemingly ruining all our fun but God tells us to do it for an improved quality of life, [which] can lead to far greater things.”

Nevertheless, there are a number of Orthodox Jews who do abstain entirely from sex before marriage and are extremely happy with their decision. Married at the mere age of 22, a norm in the Orthodox Jewish community, Shira Joseph explains her decision: “Jewish values promote a family life above all else, so I think Orthodox Jewish girls [identify with] that and [thus] want to get married young.”

Being an Orthodox Jewish couple, Shira and her husband, Rafi, observed the laws of negiah while they were dating, and didn’t even hold hands. Shira, who has been shomer negiah since the age of 16, says: “I think we had to find ways of communicating and expressing how we felt about each other without touching, so it made us a lot more emotionally close. For example, if he did something nice for me, I couldn’t just give him a hug—I had to express it through words. I felt that we really gained an emotional closeness, which would have normally been filled by touching, and I feel that it also made me realize that he was the right guy for me. It was a lot easier for me to make my decision based on the fact that I wasn’t tied up in this physical relationship with him.”

Mandy Cohen is 18 and a member of the JVibe Teen Advisory Board. She is at university in London studying journalism and psychology. She loves fashion, traveling, learning new languages and going to the movies.