The « First Time » ? Timing and Definitions of the First Intercourse of Sexual and Gender Minorities in France (18 to 29 years old).

French literature on the first intercourse focuses primarily on its timing and shows that it is almost always heterosexual (Bozon, 1993; Fantoni-Decayeux and Régnier-Loilier, forthcoming), making the experiences of gender and sexuality minorities almost invisible, despite their growing numerical importance (Rault and Trachman, 2023). Homo-bisexuals are thus described as "more precocious", which would indicate a "more open" and "interested attitude towards sexuality" (Bozon, 2008). Taking a greater interest in their experiences, however, opens new perspectives on understanding better how these minorities enter adult sexual life, and more generally what entering sexuality means.

This communication is based on an ongoing qualitative (interviews with 18 to 29 years old) and quantitative study in France (with data from the ENVIE study, on affective lives of 18 to 29 years old, with around 10.000 respondents).

This communication first shows that the distribution of ages at first intercourse is more spread out for sexual and gender minorities than for cisgender and heterosexual people. Despite their specificities, these minorities are indeed both "precocious" and "late", whether in terms of unforced first intercourse or forced, to which these groups are more often subjected. Secondly, the analysis is shifted to return to the very notion of ‘first intercourse’ in sociology. It shows the interest of interrogating the definitions of "first intercourse" and "entering sexuality" to understand the differences previously evoked. Belonging to a gender and/or sexual minority leads some young people to think of experiences prior to their first peno-genital intercourse as their "first time". This destabilization of the category of sexuality itself by a reflexive movement, both forced and chosen because linked to its politicization, provokes in turn changes in individual practices and experiences of sexuality.