What does he look like? That's the question my teenage daughters ask when I return from meeting Phin Lyman, the 18-year-old who caused a media furore by declaring himself to be a virgin and proud of it. The answer is that he is tall, handsome, intelligent and confident. Because, let's face it – he'd have to be, wouldn't he?

Phin is too self-effacing to acknowledge his attributes, but it's clear he gets it. There is no sense about him of a young man who couldn't be having sex, just a young man who has decided he doesn't want to. "I've had my chances," he says (in a matter-of-fact, not a show-offy way). "There have been moments when girls have said 'let's go upstairs'." But Phin has always said no, and he intends to go on doing so.

Until recently, his feelings about when he wanted to start having sex were an entirely private matter: but then, one afternoon when he was bored, he decided to write an article for his school magazine at Wellington College (reproduced below). His close friends, he says, were well aware that he wasn't jumping into bed with girls: but he wanted to make his case, to explain why he felt the way he did. "Once you have sex with someone, you're connected to them emotionally and physically," he wrote. "If you tear that bond the rip leaves open scars where the glue once was. That's why 'casual sex' never works in the long term – it just doesn't."

Since his article was published, it has made newspaper headlines and been read around the world. "I've had letters and emails from all over the place," he says. Most of them have been supportive. "People say, thanks for being honest – because I'm certainly not the only one. When I researched my article I found a survey that showed that 27% of young men aged 15 to 24 have never had any form of sexual contact; and that's up from 2002 when the figure was 22%." As he says in his article: "I guess I'm not the only crazy guy around after all."

Unsurprisingly – and as the mother of four daughters, two of whom are teenagers, I am very clear about this too – Phin believes there's a huge amount of hot air where teenage sex is concerned. Year 11, according to Phin and my teenagers, is when it all takes off. For parents, that year is all about their GCSEs; for kids, thoughts about sex compete with every page of revision. But while sex seems to be on everyone's mind and stories about it are on everyone's lips, the reality doesn't always match the hype. "A lot of people come into school on a Monday and lie about what they did at the weekend purely to fit in," says Phin.

And then there are those who have sex purely to fit in too. But fit into what, exactly? "There's so much pressure on teenagers today, and it's happening younger and younger. The main reason I wanted to write this article was to reach out to guys and girls younger than me, who are feeling pressurised, and to say: actually, it's OK not to do it. Really it is."

We all know about the media fixation with sex, but Phin's view is that parents could do more. His parents, Hannah (a specialist paediatric nurse) and Rob (ex-army, currently a business consultant in New Zealand) have, he says, given him a strong lead, and he and his brother were raised as Christians. "My parents always talked to me about the value of waiting," he says. Many parents, in his view, are too keen to ignore what's happening once their kids start having sex. "They just don't want to know. Say a guy brings a girl over to the house … they just look the other way. It's easier."

Sex education has also hindered rather than helped, in Phin's view. "I don't know whether it's being done properly at all. I learned how to put a condom on a dildo when I was 13, but really it should be much more about what you're taking on emotionally, what sex is going to mean. The problem with the way it's taught in school is it's all about the physical stuff, and I think that's why young people think sex is just sex, whereas it really isn't … the mechanical stuff has been overplayed, and that's made people think it's just about a physical thing."

It has all led, according to Phin, to a "massive gap" for young people like him; a vacuum where no one is taking the lead, and where the adolescent jungle is being left to its own devices. "Everything else has been exposed and virginity is the only sexual taboo left. But I think if we could open it up and talk about it, more people would say they agree with me. You don't need to rush to have sex and we need to be more open in talking about what it all means to us."

By "us" he means both sexes because, says Phin, girls aren't the only ones who get hurt over relationships. Boys may have more difficulty opening up about how hurt or confused they are, whereas young women (if my house is anything to go by) do at least debrief endlessly with their girlfriends. Perhaps – and this seems to be Phin's argument – boys are more apt to buy into sexual cliches without stopping to reflect. "Boys say things like, 'You should experiment, you should see where your sexuality leads' … but how does that work out for the girls involved? A lot of boys see the whole thing as all about them. It's not about giving, it's about taking. I can't help thinking if you're in a relationship where two people are giving to each other, that's a much better experience for both of them."

So what makes Phin so different? First of all, he says, he's actually not – many of his friends feel just the same as he does, and indeed since the article came out they've told him that. All that makes him stand out is that he's been a lot more open than most; and that openness, as well as the views themselves, stem from his family life. "We're a very open family and I was brought up knowing it's fine to own what you believe in and to be clear about it." Both his parents, he says, are very supportive of his decision to go public with his sexual status; they're proud of him for sticking up for his views.

They are probably delighted that their son is prioritising his A-level revision. He's doing exams in politics, English and ancient history before spending a year teaching in Africa, and then taking up a place at Queen Mary College in London to study English. But his celibacy rule doesn't just extend to the next few months: Phin doesn't want to have sex until the deal includes love as well as lust.

Ideally, he wants a one-and-only love affair that lasts a lifetime; but he can see that might be a bit ambitious, so he's not saying he will have failed if he has more than one lover. The principle, though, holds absolutely. "You might as well aim high, because if you have that ambition you might actually achieve it, whereas if you don't you almost certainly won't. People say it's far-fetched, and that I won't make it through uni – but all I can say is, I got through five years in a mixed school without having sex and if I can do it here I think I can do it there, too."

• The Value of Virginity by Phin Lyman