My goodness...

There is nothing wrong with you at all. Honestly, what's normal is exactly what you're feeling. You want to have a boyfriend to hang out with and to have fun with... You don't want to have sex... OK. That's normal. You're 16 (ALMOST 17 ) years old. You don't have sexual desire. OK. There's nothing wrong with that.
Look, in todays society we're ALL constantly being bombarded with SEX. You open up a magazine and what do you find? An advertiser is using a sexually suggestive picture of a model wearing a pair of low-cut designer jeans, or there might be a picture of a scantily clad man using sex to hawk the latest brand of antipersperant. You turn on the television and guess what? Yeah... it's there too. SEX is used to attract viewers or sell products... Movies? Oh yeah... Sex sells!
But there is a very real down-side to using sex to market products and ideas. The down-side is that since we are constantly bombarded with all of these sexual situations, products and ideas that society as a whole begins to believe that those marketing illusions are real. That's to say, people begin to associate their own sexual identities and sexual health with that of the illusions presented by the marketing world. Young women are prime targets for the marketing of desire... If they dress in certain clothes or wear a particular brand of scent or use a popular brand of make-up they will be making themselves MUCH more desirable to males. Celebrities and popular people influence those people that try to emulate them. Friends influence friends. All of the sudden, thoughts and ideas that were once considered mainstream are no longer that way. Society has learned to reflect the artificial ideals and standards that they're surrounded with and immersed in... Who says you should experience sexual desire at the age of 16? Where did you get the idea that if you didn't want to have sex with a boyfriend at age 16 that there was something wrong with you? Would you have thought those things if you were living all by yourself on a deserted island? If you weren't surrounded with friends and family and media that told you what you should or should not feel or think, would you consider yourself to be deficient in some way because you didn't have the desire to go out and bop your boyfriend?

The answer to that is obvious.

You would feel exactly the way you feel right now. You're 16 (almost 17) and you don't feel sexual desire and you don't want to have sex.

Cool...

I wonder how many women your age are having sex even if they don't feel sexual desire or want to have sex. You KNOW that thats the case in many situations. How many young women are having sex because everyone else around them is having sex? How many young women are having sex because they believe it's what they're SUPPOSED to do?

You feel what you feel. That's what's normal. Please believe that. Don't judge yourself harshly or think you're defective in some way because you feel or don't feel what you THINK might be normal.

Um... I'm and old guy. In MY day, you know, back when dinosaurs still walked the earth, if a 16 year old girl was having sex she was considered "easy" and without morals. Boys really liked her... well, that's not exactly true. Boys really liked what she had between her legs and the fact that she didn't have any problem sharing it. The "normal" thing was that 16 year old females didn't have the pressure to experience sexual desire nearly to the extent that there is today... Do you think women are any different today than then? Nope. The only thing that's different is the perception of what's expected of them and what's "normal".

It's funny how things have changed... well, that TOO isn't exactly what I mean. There is no humor in the change in societial values that's taken place. Young people are being given a lot of mixed signals and are expected to sort them out on their own... and are running into all kinds of problems trying to make sense of it all.

Honestly, what you're feeling is NORMAL. The idea that you should be feeling sexual desire and wanting to have sex is an artificially planted belief.

You WILL feel sexual desire if and when you are ready to experience it.

Sexual desire is a very complex emotion. There is no such thing as "normal" desire, either in WHEN it's first experienced and to what EXTENT and how strong you experience it. There are many mental and physiological factors that contribute to the creation of sexual desire. It's generally agreed that "desire" is what each person wants it to be, but only when they're ready to experience it.

So, don't beat yourself up over this. You are a fine, normal, healthy 16 (almost 17) year old woman... Don't believe anything OTHER than that.

Dan