I am interested in the time period your remarks are focused on. I graduated high school in 1967, not a virgin and college was shall we say interesting. My guess is things changed a lot in the 80’s but area of country may have something to do with it.
That was in the mid-late Seventies or even very early Eighties in the Northeast.
I never understood it at all. But I found the person right for me, and am still with her to this day...lucky me!