Why We All Lose When We Talk About Virginity
[Music]
[Applause]
at a college party
someone suggested we all share how old
we were when we lost our virginities
my stomach sank i was 20 years old and
still
a virgin i considered lying but
what number would i choose too young
you’re a [ __ ]
too old you’re prude but how could i
admit to this group of people that i
hadn’t had sex yet
would they laugh would they think i was
a total loser
at 20 i thought being a virgin was the
most embarrassing
shameful secret and it was a secret i
kept until i was 25 when i made my
sexual debut
i say sexual debut a term that
psychologists are using
because we all lose the way we talk
about virginity
it’s about time we start using a more
sex positive
framework to describe our early sexual
experiences
sex positivity is an attitude that
regards all consensual sexual activities
as fundamentally healthy it makes no
moral
or ethical distinctions between
heterosexual sex
homosexual sex masturbation or
asexuality
so why isn’t virginity sex positive
our most commonly accepted definition of
virginity
is related to sexual intercourse male
female
penis vagina penetrative sex but
what about other kinds of touching hand
stuff
oral sex toys kinks if it’s not a penis
in a vagina it doesn’t count
most women can’t even achieve orgasm
from penetrative sex
this definition of virginity is narrow
male centric
and heteronormative it excludes sex
between lgbtqia partners
people with disabilities and those with
sexual dysfunction
basically it implies that only straight
cis
able-bodied people have sex which is
just not true
virginity also comes with a few
medically inaccurate indicators for
people with vaginas
pain bleeding and the breaking of the
hymen
these are all myths young girls are told
that sex is going to hurt
at least the first time but sex
shouldn’t hurt
not the first time not ever
unless you’re into that sort of thing
despite what rapper t.i thinks an intact
hymen
cannot prove whether or not someone’s
had sex
all hymens are stretchy and vary in
elasticity
a hymen can break from riding a bicycle
playing sports
or using tampons but it may never tear
and it may or may never bleed
no wonder so many young women are afraid
of having sex
we teach them to expect and accept
bad sexual experiences instead of
empowering them
to be advocates for their own pleasure
sex should be good for them too
there are generally a lot of
inequalities and power dynamics
in our vernacular around virginity
rather than discussing sex even the
first time
as a shared experience with an even
exchange of pleasure and intimacy
we talk about virginity as if it’s
something tangible that we give or take
we’re told to hold on tight to it and to
save it until we can give it to someone
worthy
the person we give it to takes it from
us
and keeps it forever giving them a lot
of power
and lifelong significance
we say that we lose our virginity
implying there’s a winner
and a loser two people competing against
each other
rather than playing with each other so
who’s losing what and who’s winning what
exactly i haven’t had sex into my 20s
because i had a pelvic floor condition
called vaginismus
where the muscles in and around my
vagina would involuntarily contract
making penetration not only extremely
painful
but also impossible i realized something
was wrong when i was 14 and started my
period
no matter what i tried i could not
insert a tampon
over the course the next seven years i
visited a dozen doctors
who couldn’t tell me what i had or how
to fix it
finally when i was 21 i was referred to
a pelvic floor physical therapist
and found out i wasn’t the only person
with this problem or others like it
it’s estimated that 24 percent of women
will have
some sort of pelvic floor dysfunction at
some point in their lifetime
in our first appointment my physical
therapist promised me that i’d one day
be able to use tampons and have sex
i was skeptical but after a few months
in pt i used a tampon for the first time
having sex finally felt like a
possibility
and i wanted to do it so badly
but not so much because i was really
interested in having sex
as much as i didn’t want to be a virgin
anymore
losing your virginity is a rite of
passage one that society tells us
makes us an adult i was the last of my
friends to cross that frontier
people my age were not only dating and
having sex but they were getting married
and getting pregnant
i was just getting used to tampons
my virginity made me feel embarrassed
ashamed and infantilized
it made me believe that i was
unattractive undesirable
and undateable historically
being a virgin was a good thing
virginity is synonymous with morality
purity and value at least for women
the virgin mary’s virginity is what made
her virtuous and moral
as opposed to mary magdalene the former
sex worker who was possessed by not one
but seven seven demons
a woman’s virginity was a valuable
commodity in marriage arrangements
property transferred from her father to
her husband
and of course those who already had sex
were considered damaged goods and less
desired
but sociosexual norms have changed
today having premarital sex is the rule
rather than the exception
the average age someone has sex for the
first time is 17 years old
according to the u.s public health
service 75 percent of people
20 years old or younger have already had
premarital sex
being a virgin past routines now has
negative connotations
many of the virgins and movies and tv
shows are portrayed
as uptight self-righteous or emasculated
andy the protagonist of the 40 year old
virgin
is a wide-eyed man-child who dresses
like a young boy
rides a bicycle to work and keeps his
apartment full of action figures
april kepner the 28 year old virgin on
grey’s anatomy
is on all the internet listicles for
most annoying and worst characters on tv
it’s only after she has sex that the
show’s characters
and the audience warm up to her because
apparently having sex makes you a more
likable person
when professional football player colton
underwood was
a contestant on becca’s season of the
bachelorette in 2018
he admitted to becca on a one-on-one
date that he was still a virgin
the show cut between their conversation
to the guys back at the house
who all predicted that she wouldn’t give
him a rose upon hearing this news
one of them added sex is huge i don’t
know how you could put a ring on
someone’s finger without knowing if
there’s any sexual chemistry
colton never said that he was waiting
for marriage
or that he wouldn’t have sex with becca
if given the opportunity
so they were conflating sexual chemistry
with sexual experience
first of all sexual chemistry is not
just the sex
act itself it also includes all the fun
sexy flirty build up to the physical
event
second there’s an assumption that
sexually inexperienced people
will be bad at sex and they need to be
taught how to do it
but isn’t there a learning curve with
every new partner
and just because you’ve had sex before
doesn’t automatically good at it
raise your hand if you’ve had bad sex
with someone who’s already done it
yeah that’s what i thought
becca thanked colton for his honesty and
gave him the rose
while he was ultimately cut the next
week he went on to be the 2019 bachelor
and abc made a big deal about his
virginity
the word virgin was mentioned four times
in the first 40 seconds of the season’s
trailer
i guess bachelor nation just couldn’t
imagine how this good-looking athlete
could make it to 26 years old without
having
penetrative sex after all
there’s a stigma to being an older
virgin
in a study published by the journal of
sex research in 2017
sexually inexperienced adults were
perceived as less attractive
and people were less likely to consider
them as committed relationship partners
according to the singles in america
study by match.com
42 percent of people wouldn’t even
consider
dating a virgin so despite how smart
funny or kind someone is 42 percent of
people would deem them completely
undateable
because they haven’t had a penis in
their vagina or they haven’t put their
penis in a vagina
because of the stigma we’re encouraged
to get it over with
the getting it over with mentality is
probably the worst
way we lose i tried getting it over with
before i was ready
in my early 20s i never told the guys i
was dating up front that i couldn’t have
sex
how could i i liked them and i wanted
them to like me back
i hoped that if i was turned on enough
my vagina would magically change
and i’d be able to do it and that was
never the case
whenever we would try to hook up and
they would find out that penetrative sex
wasn’t in my wheelhouse quite yet
they dumped me with every rejection
the older i became i worried the worst
my dating experiences would be and sex
would never happen for me
but it eventually did
when i was 25 i went to south korea for
my friend’s wedding
i instantly hit it off with the couple’s
friend jack
on our first day in seoul jack and i
took a self-guided tour through the city
we visited parks and temples flirting
holding hands and making out and tucked
away corners
i was eat prey loving my way through
south korea
that night leaning against a bar jack
asked me when the last time i had sex
was
it could have been the alcohol in my
system or because
i was on vacation or maybe because he
lived on
literally the opposite side of the world
but i felt like being very
very honest sex
i’ve never had any he choked on his beer
i told him i had vaginismus and as usual
had
to explain what it was he asked if there
was treatment for it
i answered yeah i see a pelvic floor
physical therapist
i was downplaying this i had been in
physical therapy for
four years i did pelvic floor exercises
on my own
every day i changed the way i sit
stand breathe and exercise
i had worked really hard and i knew i
was close to reaching my goals
with i told him i’m in a really good
place
i think i could do it without skipping a
beat
he offered to give it a try
we both burst into laughter but then i
worried
what if i couldn’t do it even if i
really wanted to
he assured me that even if that were the
case there were other things we could do
we could still have fun
it’s hard to remember when everyone’s
telling you that
it’s going to hurt and you’re going to
bleed and you should just get it over
with
that sex even the first time is supposed
to be fun
sex is supposed to feel good
the next day jack and i took a train
across the country to busan just the two
of us
when we made it to our hotel we started
making out
and he led me to the bed after fooling
around for a bit
we decided to give old penetrative sex a
try
i told him to insert himself on my
inhale as i was taught to do in physical
therapy
i took a deep breath in
and he slipped inside
it was beautiful and amazing
and perfect i did have some pain
but he took his time checked in with me
and was
a great listener afterwards he kissed me
gently ran his fingers through my hair
and whispered
you’re worth a little patience
i couldn’t help but cry it was so
overwhelming
and i was so happy
having sex for the first time was a huge
accomplishment
all the work i had done with my physical
therapist and the exercises i mastered
on my own
paid off but sex didn’t make me a more
complete person
jack didn’t take anything from me
it didn’t feel like i was losing
anything
it actually felt like a major win i had
been brave
listen to my body and connected with
someone in a really special way
i’m so grateful i didn’t just get it
over with with one of the jerks i dated
it was 100 worth the weight
we need to stop talking about having sex
for the first time as something to get
over with by a certain age or life stage
but rather as something to look forward
to when you’re physically
mentally and emotionally ready
can you imagine if people approached
having sex for the first time from a
place of curiosity and exploration
rather than fear and shame
everyone loses in the way we currently
talk about virginity
its deep patriarchal roots serve to
control women’s bodies
and sexual freedom it validates only one
type of sex and ignores
all others worst of all it makes people
feel
shame about their bodies experiences
and sexualities let’s ditch
any language around virginity and adopt
sexual debut
sexual debut is inclusive to all bodies
genders identities sexualities and types
of sex
no one’s taking anything from anyone and
no one is
losing anything
what if having sex for the first time
wasn’t something we lost
but something we gained thank you
you