Hulu’s Are You My First? Puts Virginity at the Center—and Sparks a Debate

Hulu’s new dating series Are You My First? centers 21 adult contestants who identify as virgins, a premise the hosts say is engineered to be disarming rather than salacious. The concept arrives with a calculated wink at the marketplace—“sex sells, or the lack of it,” as the hosts put it in a trade interview—while promising a supportive environment for first-time conversations about intimacy. The 10-episode season debuted August 18 on Hulu.

All episodes are available to stream in the U.S., with the first hour also programmed as a broadcast sampler on ABC at 10/9c; an international rollout is set on Disney+. The setup follows singles in a tropical location as they date, decide what intimacy means to them, and confront the pressures that often come with the label “virgin.”

Kaitlyn Bristowe and Colton Underwood serve as guides through the awkward and sometimes earnest conversations. Underwood, who previously spoke publicly about being a virgin during his Bachelor tenure before coming out as gay, described hosting as a full-circle moment; both he and Bristowe have said their goal is to remove stigma and keep contestants from feeling put on display.

Early reaction has been sharply split. Some coverage frames the show as a knowingly chaotic entry in the genre that still risks reinforcing purity-culture assumptions and a narrow definition of virginity. Others argue the series lands as a curiosity that can’t always justify its stakes beyond will-they-won’t-they pairings, even as participants share candid backstories about faith, fear and timing.

The program also taps a wider television trend that treats delayed first sexual experiences as both narrative hook and cultural mirror. Commentators link the fascination to shifting young-adult behavior, with data points that suggest declining rates of partnered sex and more ambivalence about dating among Gen Z and millennials. In that context, the show’s promise—to normalize conversations that many viewers were taught to avoid—doubles as a test of how far reality TV can go in reframing the topic without turning it into spectacle.