Saving Myself

Sex is a big deal. It's emotional, you're trusting another person with your body, it's messy, you feel really vulnerable, and humans tend to equate sex with love. Sure, casual sex is a thing, but even that can get complicated if you start really feeling something for that person.

This is why many characters in media refuse to go further than kissing before marriage or at least until they find true love. This can be seen as either beautiful and romantic or hopelessly old-fashioned depending on the setting. Plus, sometimes arranged marriage is a factor; even if the spouses don't love each other they need to have sex to produce an heir.

If the character wanted to play this trope straight but never got to, due to a previous marriage or a bad choice, the narrative may have them decide those previous sexual encounters didn't count or were just footnotes, because this is the character's first time with their true love. Other times the character may have been raped and understandably will not want to count that as a real sexual encounter, which it also is not.

Anime

• Miaka in Fushigi Yuugi is an odd case. She really, really wants to give herself to her boyfriend Tamahome, but as the Celestial Maiden she has to remain a virgin. In the second series/OAV, she finally does give herself to Taka. Oddly enough, she's still able to summon Suzaku to defeat the Big Bad, and in Eikoden their baby ends up being a MacGuffin needed to summon the god to save the Universe of the Four Gods.
• While Chocolat Misu in Sorcerer Hunters is a sexual person and not shy about showing off her body, she has Single-Target Sexuality for Carrot and desperately wants him to be her first. Played straight in the manga with Tira, whose non-battle persona is shy and chaste until her and Carrot's wedding night.
• Daizaburo "Eddie" Ban in Mad Bull 34, much to the disgust of the prostitutes his partner John "Sleepy" Estes hired to take his virginity.
• Played for Drama in the 2017 Josei manga adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo by Ena Moriyama. One of the initial scenes has Edmond and Mercedes half-naked and heavily making out, then Mercedes stops the two from going all the way with this reasoning - and then she adds that they're getting married tomorrow, so it's not like they have to wait for too long anyway. But this being The Count..., one already knows that Edmond will be arrested for crimes he never committed right in the middle of said wedding...

Fan Works

• Many Voltron: Legendary Defender fics have Keith staunchly remaining a virgin so he can save his first time for Shiro and Shiro alone. If he sleeps with someone else first, he regrets it. Oddly enough, fics that do have him give himself to Shiro for "just one night" and end up with someone else don't play this card.
• A lot of shippers think their OTP should be each other's first time and some don't take it well when they learn one or both characters have canonically slept with other people. They tend to retcon this out of their stories or treat those encounters like they didn't count (or worse, weren't consensual, thus needlessly turning the past partners into villains).
• One hilariously bad Pokémon lemon has Misty tell Ash she's "saved herself for him through all these years." The narrative never bothers to mention whether they're still ten or the author aged them up.
• One Sailor Moon author's fics were almost pathological about the girls doing this:
  • Serena and Lita were with no other boys before Darien and Ken, respectively.
  • Mina remembers sleeping with Tuxedo Mask during her time as Sailor V, but when she reunites with an old boyfriend who turns out to be her true love the goddess Venus restores her virginity so she can give it to him. The same thing happens with Amy; she gives herself to the god Mercury, but when she meets her eternal love, the god restores her virginity so she can give it to him.
  • Oddly enough, this is averted with Raye. She becomes lovers with the god Mars and is destined to be with him in the future, but when she is given the freedom to form a romance with Chad in the present she barely bats an eyelash at the fact that he won't be her first.

Film

• Played with in Little Darlings, with both heroines:
  • Ferris fancies herself in love with the camp counselor Gary and offers her virginity to him, but backs out when she realizes Sex Equals Love means actually having sex with a much older man.
  • Angel thinks sex is just about mashing body parts together, but when she tries to go at it with Randy she starts having feelings and panics, causing him to back off. When she finally is ready to make love with him, she pays more attention to her emotions and feelings for him.

Literature

• Many a romance novel heroine either does this or wishes she had if she's already slept with someone:
  • Catherine Anderson's heroines run the gamut from virgins saving themselves, virgins who hate it and feel undesireable, or women who were married and had to endure terrible sex with their abusive husbands before their first time making love with the hero.

Live-Action TV

• Beverly Hills, 90210: Donna Martin.
• Boy Meets World: Topanga insists she and Cory wait for their wedding night. Cory's impatient and frustrated, but ultimately respects her wishes and is thrilled when they finally get to consummate their marriage.
• Friends: Averted with Chandler and Monica. Neither of them are virgins, their first time happens on impulse, but they end up being each other's One True Love in the end and have the most stable relationship among the group for the rest of the series.
• 7th Heaven: The Camden family pretty much insists upon this trope, for themselves and in passive-aggressively encouraging others to do likewise. Simon actually almost becomes the Black Sheep of the family for daring to have casual sex with his girlfriend in college. This being 7th Heaven, he repents for his horrible deeds and wins his way back into the family's good graces.
• Step by Step: Cody is a proud virgin, wanting to save himself for the "dudette of his dreams." Karen Foster is also one, due to her high standards when it comes to romance and boyfriends.

Video Games

• Played with in Rune Factory 4. You can bring your lover home and have them sleep in your bed with you before you're married, but the baby can't be conceived before then.

Western Animation

• It's debatable whether Quinn on Daria is employing this trope when she refuses to get too cozy with her dates, or if she's Ambiguously Gay.
• In The Simpsons flash-forward episode "Lisa's Wedding," Lisa says she feels funny wearing white at her wedding to her ill-fated true love Hugh, due to having slept with Milhouse once in the past. Marge reassures her that "Milhouse doesn't count."