Comedienne Elayne Boosler once quipped, “[Men] want you to scream, ‘You’re the best’ while swearing you’ve never done this with anyone before.” It is this sexual hypocrisy that has been going on since the dawn of time, especially our obsession with virginity.
Ah, virginity. We laud it, laugh at it, fetishize it, want to take it back, want to give it away and just can’t take our minds off of it. But why should we even give a shit? For thousands of years, virginity — particularly female chastity — has been synonymous with morality and character. Although the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s and ’70s may have diminished our archaic views of sexuality, this country still maintains a quasi-feudal mentality of sex and virginity.
In Mississippi, a sex education class compared women who have sex to dirty peppermint patties. Throughout the country, fathers and daughters attend “purity balls” where daughters pledge to their fathers that they will remain sexually pure until their wedding night. But it certainly doesn’t stop them from engaging in other vices like drugs, alcohol or befriending homosexuals.
There is nothing wrong with abstinence. It’s a beautiful thing, as long as it’s an intrinsic decision. But we must stop measuring and weighing sex and virginity in proprietary terms. For too long we have allowed parents, teachers, religious leaders and pop stars to invest in adolescents’ sexuality. They are not shareholders, and they have no say in one’s bedroom (or lecture hall, if you’re feeling it). Young adults, particularly women, struggle to maintain autonomy over their sexuality. It’s difficult when they are bombarded with mixed messages of “purity balls” and Arby’s commercials where two women clad in an American flag deep-throat hamburgers. We live in a hypersexualized society that chastises women who breastfeed at Victoria’s Secret.
The juvenile (and frankly painful) rhetoric associated with one’s first time continues to plague our culture and fuel our obsession with virginity. “Popping your cherry,” “losing your v-card” or “ripping through” (thanks, E.L. James) all mean the same thing. But some women don’t feel a thing their first time. Some men may feel sensitive or uncomfortable. Society has constructed virginity as a female issue. A woman’s hymen, which typically tears during her first intercourse, is seen as a variable that can be invasively gauged.
The term “losing your virginity” connotes that virginity is something to disinherit. It implies that there is nothing to be gained by your first time, but rather you should mourn the loss of purity associated with virginity. Everyone has their own definitions of virginity. Some people consider oral sex the pinnacle of adulthood, while others anal.
It’s important to remember that virginity is a construct. Sex is important, but it doesn’t define you. No one cares at what age you’ve lost your virginity or whether you have at all. Having sex does not induct you into adulthood. In fact, some fornicators revert into a childlike state, where they brag about their sexual conquests to make themselves feel superior. We become adults when we accept our decisions and embrace what makes us happy.