Once upon a time, chastity got people off. Women were attractive for being pure: unsullied by sexual experience. Dirty men wanted clean women. And if women did engage in sexual deviancy? It was behind closed doors and that’s where it stayed. “Naughty” girls pretended not to be naughty and kept their pleasure a secret. If not, they’d be looked down upon, scorned, or even disowned.
Fucking through a couple of sexual revolutions, the decline of religious belief and the explosion of sex-related media, people have turned the tables. Well, they’ve more than turned the tables: they’ve flipped them, held onto the posts, broken them from banging, then chopped them into little pieces. Trust me. I know. Having reached the age of 25 and sat at this table with my hymen still intact, I know.
Yes, there are the purity movements that have had their 15 minutes of fame, but in reality, the idea that someone would choose to not be engaging in the nasty baffles most. Men especially. So baffling in fact that upon revealing my status on more than one occasion the responses have gone something like this: blank expression; shock; confusion followed by “But why? You’re so pretty/beautiful/hot/sexy, et cetera.” The words may be different but the meaning is the same: If I haven’t had sex it must be because no man has ever made an effort to feast off the succulent delights that must exist beneath my clothes.
Other people thought I was weird, frigid, brainwashed by religion or they just plain pitied me. Romantic partners were the most interesting; from trying to convince me to change my mind to leaving me because they couldn’t handle my unwillingness.
Once I had changed my mind in that department and was willing, one man changed his mind! His words a few days after I told him I was a virgin, but would sleep with him eventually: “It’s just too much pressure. I really want to have sex with you but I’d rather be one of the 10 losers you’ve slept with than the one you’ll remember your whole life.”
So, the point? Well, after I decided to let go of my apparently outdated values and started doing the deed I realized I’m exactly the same person. Nothing much has changed. Hymen’s gone. I have less time, a bit more fun and a bit more drama!
Just keep in mind that virgin beside you, she’s not an alien. Her hymen’s there, but she still feels fucked.
This article appears in Feb 11-17, 2010.
Flip the script. A guy doesn’t have it any better. If it makes you feel any less ‘fucked’.
The way I see it, is virginity is easily cured…I just don’t want to be the one who helps you cure it.
So I can definately see that ‘one man’s’ point, although not so much as pressure, as it would be about as much fun, as having to sit down & totally reprogram my computer !
Hear hear.
24 and still a virgin, (and male).
I nearly did it once, but my heart wasn’t in it, and I didn’t really enjoy it. I figure I’ll do it when I’m damn well ready.
I don’t really understand the reactions people sometimes have to it, or the kind of pressure people apparently put on themselves for sexual performance. Chances are, if that’s what sex is to someone, I don’t think I’d want to sleep with them anyway.
I’m a 25 year old female, who is still a virgin. (Although, there’s been a few close calls :P) Call me old fashioned, but I want to wait until I’m in love and committed to someone. That hasn’t happened for me yet. Lots of dating, but no one I want to be with for the long term. I get mostly shocked reactions if I tell people, but most of the time, it doesn’t come up. My friends usually think I’m kidding around when I say I’m still a virgin (mostly because I do date a lot). On the plus side, I don’t have to worry about unwanted pregnancy or STDs. Bonus.
or genital warts jeal, those sound about the worst
Chastity still gets folks off and guaranteed it wil get your husband off if you chose to take a husband. He’ll have regrets, specifically he may doubt you chose him because he’s superior in every way to the others, but that’s because men are born jerks.
Otherwise get used to dealing with a whining cuckhold if you have sexual partners before you decide to declare yourself monogamous with him, as he will perceive himself to be, which IMO is a far worse kettle of fish.
50-something male, married for decades, virgin by choice when I met my wife-to-be in our early 20’s despite the usual close calls and despite Voltaire’s admonition to make love in our youth and save salvation for old age. It was the times, we’re told. IMO times change, but people not so fast.
I didn’t screw around when young because I was afraid of eternal damnation, which for a born existentialist means meaninglessness, not sure what it means for organized-religionists, but I can imagine. Wife didn’t think so hard, was not so discriminating, but at long last I forgive her all of that, the hard way.
To this day I have not figured out how we can change our sexual spots overnight–go from poly (amorous) to mono (gamous), say–by declaring “You’re The One”, since it means “For Now” if without serious commitment to working out differences, or even smudging our signature in front of witnesses on a soon-to-be misplaced document when it’s a simple matter of fact our poor brains can’t distinguish between past and present, then & now, no matter how wishfully we might think otherwise. Past lovers remain with us forever, like regretable tattoos, or lover-shaped scars if we try to exorcise them, or compartmentalized, stored in boxes in memory like we might imagine Pandora’s attic, gathering dust, waiting to be opened, opened when a letter/email/text/twitter arrives. We eat, sleep, do laundry, clean the bathroom, have sex with everyone our partners ate/slept/did laundry with, whether it happened 40 years ago or 2 hours ago.
We’re told it’s better to regret something we did than something we didn’t do, but some joy & some regrets are more poignant, last longer than others, a lifetime sometimes. If you’re not true to yourself and any eventual life partner you might conceive, later life is a series of episodes, epiphanies as James Joyce put it, some worth it, some not. Choose wisely.