How common is the 40 year-old virgin?

I'm talking to a friend (yeah, via M:TG, predictably enough) the other day and he comments in resignation that he's going to be a 40 year-old virgin.

"Becoming one in a million, baby. If you didn't have that damn Y chromosome, being able to say as much would give you a little extra luster." (To try and help him avoid that oh so 'terrible' fate, I should've quipped something along the lines of "if you envision it, so indeed it shall be." Oh well).

Later, I wondered how exaggerated the one in a million presumption was.

Thank triviality for the GSS! Turns out the 40 year-old virgin isn't a mythic rare, but at one in fifty, he's at least an uncommon. Of the 2,288 respondents surveyed*, 49 identified themselves as cherries. Because of the stigma attached to sexless men, this probably understates the true prevelance of middle-aged male virgins existing in our midsts. It could plausibly be as high as 5%, or one in twenty.

GSS variables used: YEAR(2000-2008), SEX(1), NUMMEN(0), NUMWOMEN, AGE(40-89)

* Limited to straight men at least 40 years of age who participated in the survey between 2000 and 2008.