Let's Talk About: Virginity

The entire concept of virginity is one that is deeply ingrained into our culture, and has been for as long as we can tell. People feel very strongly about this concept, so much so that they will base a person’s entire self worth around whether or not they are a virgin. Virginity is deeply tied to concepts of purity, goodness, innocence, even holiness.

During my research for this piece I solicited stories and opinions from people. My inbox was absolutely flooded, almost exclusively by women anxious to share their stories. So much of what was shared with me was deeply traumatic. I can’t fully express the gratitude and responsibility that I felt, that all of these people wanted to entrust me with their history. I wish I could hold each of you and tell you how sorry I am that you went through something so terrible. I want to tell you that you are so much more than the bad things that have happened to you. I want to tell every one of you, and anyone who has had trauma behind them that you are beautiful, you are still perfect, and you are absolutely and unequivocally worthy of every good thing and no one can ever take that from you.

I’ll be examining two main ideas about virginity: First, what is it. And Second, is the concept of virginity a useful and positive force in society.

So, what is Virginity? For starters it isn't a thing. Virginity isn't some physical thing or object you can have and then lose or have taken from you. It's an abstract concept. To some people it is a very simple concept. A virgin is someone who has never had sex. Simple right? Wrong. If a virgin is someone who’s never had sex then you’re going to need to clearly define what sex is in the first place so that a person can know whether or not they’ve done it. I discussed the difficulty of defining sex in my previous article on sexual diversity, which I have a link to at the end of this article. In that article I settled on the inclusive definition of “sex is the act of engaging in sexual pleasure with a partner (or partners) which involves some level of bodily and genital contact”. I would like to indicate that pleasure is a critical portion of this definition and that if a person is raped, they have not had sex. Rape is not sex. Rape is a violent crime.

People seem to think that there are degrees of sexual contact. Like, you can give your boyfriend a hand job and you’re still technically a virgin. And a hand job, sometimes called heavy petting or manual sex is definitely sex by my inclusive definition. Often virginity is defined in terms of heterosexual, vaginal intercourse. Which is, of course, a very limited view of sex. And therefore, problematic. You can’t really say that a gay man who has only ever had sex with men his whole life is a virgin because he’s never had sex with a woman, right? Or that a lesbian who has never had sex with a man but has had sex with women is still a virgin.

Some people insist that virginity has a very real physical indicator, at least on females. For individuals with a penis, it seems to be less of an issue, but for those of us born with a vagina the hymen and virginal blood are fetishized to the point of mythology. There are places in this world where women are still subjected to purity tests to make sure that their hymens are in place before they’re allowed to get married, go to college, or as a test for character. There are parts of the world where women have to be checked by government officials before they can make rape allegations. This is sexual assault, and pointless because hymens don’t work that way!

Let’s talk about what the hymen is, and what it isn't. The hymen is not a covering over the vagina which must be broken during an act of vaginal intercourse. This is a gross misconception that is really confusing to me and to many vagina-having individuals. For example, if the vagina is sealed up then how do people who haven’t had vagial intercourse get their periods? Or put tampons in? No, the hymen is a small bit of tissue that sometimes sits outside of or just inside of the opening of the vagina and does not cover it fully. More importantly, it does not need to break during vaginal intercourse. In fact if you’re having sex with a person with a vagina and they’re hurting and bleeding, you’ve done something wrong. See, like most pieces of flesh on the human body the hymen can stretch. And if a vagina having person has had a proper amount of foreplay, lots of lube, and you go slowly, there should be no blood or tearing of the hymen at all. In fact, lots of women who are sexually active have perfectly intact hymens.

Unfortunately, most people having sex for their first time don’t know this. So for some people there is vaginal tearing, and sometimes more than a little blood. Most people, even the sexually active ones have a gross misunderstanding about how this part of the female body works, and this misunderstanding is pervasive in our culture. Sex should never be painful, not the first time, and not ever.

If you want to find out more about the hymen I recommend the youtube videos linked at the end of this article. One is by the delightful Laci Green, and the other is from Adam Ruins Everything. They’re both entertaining and enlightening.

So, if there’s no physical indicator of virginity in females, and if the idea of having “sex” for the first time is a little bit broad and not constrained to heterosexual vaginal intercourse, then is “Virginity” a useful concept at all? Does it do anything for us as a society?

Now is a good point for me to mention the fact that there are people out there whose virginity is something important to them. People who feel good about their personal choice to not engage in sexual activity until they’re older, in a committed relationship, married, or never if they choose not to. If you have never had sex, and you feel good about your choice then I applaud you. Taking control of your sexuality is not an easy thing to do, and taking ownership of your own body and what you choose to do or not do with it is important. Sexual activity is always a personal choice and one that should never be made under duress, neither should the choice not to engage in sexual activity.

The stories that were shared with me had a few common threads. The people who responded to me were primarily women, of a variety of ages, racial identities, who had a variety of different up bringings, religious affiliations, sexual orientations, and first sexual experiences. Almost all of them stressed that they felt virginity was given too much importance in our culture.

They also expressed the fact that virginity was widely imposed upon them, either by family, religious institutions, educational institutions, or just society as a whole. Often with grave consequences for infractions. A 28 year old woman expressed a fear that having had sex with someone sne she was not going to marry would disallow her from spending eternity with her family, so that she would be lose them forever when she died. One 20 year old female told me about how she was suspended from her Christian high school when it came out that she had had sex two years previously. One woman told me she was kicked out of her home in her teens when her mother discovered that she had been sexually active with her boyfriend, but no one had ever specified what she was not allowed to do, leaving her deeply confused, hurt and homeless.

What surprised me was the deep difference I found betwen men and women. Most men I spoke with cared very little about their own virginity one way or another. Many talked about virginity as though it were a yoke around their necks, something that was used to tease and torture them until they managed to shed it in one way or another. There were a few very religious men for whom virginity had been positive. But for the women, virginity was aspirational, prefered and important.

So “Virginity” is an abstract concept, with no real physical indicators, no clear definition. Virginity can mean many different things to many different people. Largely virginity seems to be a tool to control people rather than empower them. To shame men who haven’t had sex and to shame women who have.

What would happen if we abandoned the idea of “virginity” as a whole? What if instead we saw sex as a normal part of adult life and encouraged people to feel empowered to say yes or no to sex as they saw fit? What if virginity were not synonymous with “purity” and “goodness” and “honesty”, and we sought those traits in people regardless of whether or not their genitals had touched another person’s genitals. What if virginity were not some moral imperative we imposed upon our children and adolescents, instead what if we taught young people to understand and respect their bodies and empowered them to make their own choices about whether or not to engage in sexual activity?

I know that this is fantasy on my part, but a girl can dream.

Until next week, stay safe out there.

-Erin

Resources:

My article on Sexual Diversity: https://www.femislay.com/blog/2017/1/25/lets-talk-about-sex-diversity

Laci Green on why you can’t “Pop Your Cherry” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qFojO8WkpA

Adam Ruins Everything: Sex and the Hymen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ikXim4wevc

Originally Posted on Femislay.com