Mal Fletcher comments on the results of a new study of British Millennials sexual behaviour.

Theirs was the first digitised generation. They grew up with the internet in the way Boomers grew up with television, although engagement with the web was, from the beginning, a much more 24/7 proposition.

The arrival of social media has made things even more difficult for those who hunger after face-to-face, physical intimacy. A generation in need of intimacy has had to settle for relationships largely mediated or managed using screens.

Even when Millennials gather in physical space, ubiquitous digital gadgets ensure that the well-named problem of "absent presence" reduces their face-time.

While physically in one place, they are often mentally or emotionally in another, engaging with an online environment which provides an ecosystem of distraction. (This is not, of course, a problem restricted to Millennials.)

In some parts of the world, digitisation has apparently contributed to problems with teen sexual health.

A few years ago, a study of teenage behaviour in the Asia-Pacific region led the U.N. to conclude that smartphone apps can be linked to a rise in sexually transmitted diseases.

Phone apps, said the researchers, often promote easy access to very casual physical encounters. This, in turn, raises the possibility that teens will contract STDs, which are a growing concern in this densely populated region of the world.

All of this is a valid cause for concern. Yet using a hypersexualised culture as the primary rationale for higher levels of virginity among Millennials underrates their levels of maturity.

Could it be, in fact, that Millennials are just more sensible than either Gen-Xers or Boomers when it comes to their sexual experience?

After all, the results of the latest research cause concern only if we first accept that holding onto one's virginity is in some way a negative thing. Or that remaining a virgin serves as a pointer to some form of maladjustment.

Actually, other research in decades past has suggested that delaying sexual intimacy can be a positive thing - especially if it means that physicality is expressed within the context of secure, committed relationships.

This is where marriage, and the monogamy it promotes, has served our culture well. Real intimacy is harder to achieve without the sense that one can safely become naked emotionally as well as physically, without the likelihood of rejection.

For a great many older adults, I suspect, sowing one's wild oats seemed attractive only until they became aware of the beauty and fulfilment of a secure commitment.

Promiscuity looks less attractive when one has experienced a lasting relationship, in which each partner accepts the other as they really are - and tries, at least, to seek their best interests.

Millennials who have delayed sexual intimacy should not be treated as though they are deficient in some way.

They should be congratulated, for being sensible enough not to allow themselves to become messed up and messed about by liaisons that don't satisfy and, in some cases, lead only to recrimination and regret.