# Being a 'gay/lesbian' virgin meanssss, what exactly?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/being-a-gay-lesbian-virgin-meanssss-what-exactly/631246
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [August 12, 2012, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/being-a-gay-lesbian-virgin-meanssss-what-exactly/631246 "2012-08-12T04:45:34Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2012, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/being-a-gay-lesbian-virgin-meanssss-what-exactly/631246/1 "2012-08-12T04:45:34Z")
I normally don’t post in IMHO, but after careful consideration I felt this subject is too person specific & emotional to try GQ. But this isn’t GD so no judging good/bad etc.
My question is pretty simple: In terms of people who consider themselves 100% gay/lesbian (not bi or bi-curious etc.) how does one lose their virginity? I’ll just be blunt:
[ul]
[li]For guys I assume just oral (give/receive) doesn’t qualify. Sooooo, once you’re a full-fledged top or bottom, is that ‘officially’ losin’ it?[/li][li]For girls, I don’t even know were to begin. Assuming the same rule about oral not being enough, ahhhhhhh, then what is?[/li][/ul]
I know, we shouldn’t overly concern ourselves with labels or mechanics, once you feel you’ve had your definition of ‘sex’ with someone then you’d consider yourself not a virgin. But are there any generally accepted rules/customs amongst the gay/lesbian community?
If it matters I’m a boring hetero male…
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### Author:  [@Mr\_Downtown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Downtown)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2012, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/being-a-gay-lesbian-virgin-meanssss-what-exactly/631246/2 "2012-08-12T04:50:49Z")
Let’s say you had three years of reciprocal oral sex in high school, but never went all the way? Would both you and your girlfriend still be virgins by your definition? This puzzles me.
Anyway, I considered that I’d lost my virginity the first time I was brought to orgasm by a partner. I never thought of penetration as a necessary element.
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### Author:  [@boytyperanma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/boytyperanma)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2012, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/being-a-gay-lesbian-virgin-meanssss-what-exactly/631246/3 "2012-08-12T05:01:48Z")
As a gay male I think oral qualifies and it’s the marker I use.
If it doesn’t I know a few guys who have had sex with quite a few men that would be surprised to hear they are virgins.
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### Author:  [@D-bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D-bear)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2012, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/being-a-gay-lesbian-virgin-meanssss-what-exactly/631246/4 "2012-08-12T05:48:11Z")
> [@boytyperanma](#):
>
> As a gay male I think oral qualifies and it’s the marker I use.
>
> If it doesn’t I know a few guys who have had sex with quite a few men that would be surprised to hear they are virgins.
That’s what I used as the marker. Once a person who was NOT me, brought me to orgasm, I considered myself no longer a virgin.
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### Author:  [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2012, 9:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/being-a-gay-lesbian-virgin-meanssss-what-exactly/631246/5 "2012-08-12T09:12:01Z")
> [@D-bear](#):
>
> That’s what I used as the marker. Once a person who was NOT me, brought me to orgasm, I considered myself no longer a virgin.
This definition probably suits males (in general) better than females (in general). Women are harder to um… work.
Not that you can’t use that as your own definition, of course! But there are more women than men who go their whole lives unable to orgasm at the hands of another person.
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### Author:  [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2012, 10:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/being-a-gay-lesbian-virgin-meanssss-what-exactly/631246/6 "2012-08-12T10:48:08Z")
> [@Mr\_Downtown](#):
>
> Let’s say you had three years of reciprocal oral sex in high school, but never went all the way? Would both you and your girlfriend still be virgins by your definition? This puzzles me.
That’s a definition a fair number of people use; if the penis doesn’t go into the vagina, you’re still a virgin no matter what else you do. This definition has some obvious flaws when applied to same sex relationships.
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### Author:  [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2012, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/being-a-gay-lesbian-virgin-meanssss-what-exactly/631246/7 "2012-08-12T11:15:41Z")
> [@Mr\_Downtown](#):
>
> Let’s say you had three years of reciprocal oral sex in high school, but never went all the way? Would both you and your girlfriend still be virgins by your definition?
For hetero relationships, consensual penile penetration (vaginal for sure, anal being something of a grey area) is the definition I’ve always internalized. I admit, it never occurred to me to even consider the question in terms of homosexual relationships until _Chasing Amy_ came out.
I think I like Amanda’s question in that movie a lot: “Physical penetration or emotional?” I’m content to allow people to define their own loss of virginity. I don’t consider myself to have lost my virginity at 10 with my first vaginal rape; when people ask me when I lost my virginity, I think of and answer about my first consensual vaginal penetration at 17. There was an emotional penetration that accompanied that which didn’t happen with my childhood abuser or with my previous boyfriend of 2 years whom, yes, I did “everything but” penile penetration with, repeatedly.
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### Author:  [@tapu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tapu)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2012, 11:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/being-a-gay-lesbian-virgin-meanssss-what-exactly/631246/8 "2012-08-12T11:27:22Z")
Who came up this rule where oral doesn’t count? Oh, a boring hetero male… 😉
Really, though, oral is not the line either. Lesbians can have full-on sex in ways you’d never imagine. Heh heh.
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### Author:  [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2012, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/being-a-gay-lesbian-virgin-meanssss-what-exactly/631246/9 "2012-08-12T11:41:56Z")
> [@tapu](#):
>
> Who came up this rule where oral doesn’t count?
Probably some young couple (of any orientation) who wanted to get their rocks off together but didn’t want her father to kill them when the matchmaker checked her for an intact hymen. Could have been a quivering bosomed maiden and her farmboy lover, could have been two young girls sharing a bed for warmth in the winter. But the virginity definition related to vaginal intercourse was undoubtedly linked to the whole need for the hymen to be intact on the wedding night thing.
ETA: And if you can break a hymen with oral, I’d like to meet you at the next Chi-town Dopefest. 😉
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### Author:  [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2012, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/being-a-gay-lesbian-virgin-meanssss-what-exactly/631246/10 "2012-08-12T11:50:37Z")
As evident here there are lots of personal definitions depending on how one was taught/influenced and their first (few) sexual experience(s).
If I had to decide: I would put it as penetration or being penetrated with both (or multiple) persons willing to have a sexual experience to it’s natural (non-interrupted) completion.
As such if a couple start coitus but one backs off and they complete ‘outside her’ because one does not want to go that far, I would say that they still could claim virginity. But if they back off to prevent pregnancy and complete outside her, I would say they are no longer virgins.
Carried over to male homosexual, it would be the same, but with just with anal sex as primary penetration method.
Carried over the female homosexuality, I would still say the same, one person needs to penetrate the other (even with a object), and the sex act has to conclude naturally/uninterrupted.
If oral counts or not is a individual choice, so again if I had to decide, that would be done by asking the person, as I see it as my personal choice, no oral does not normally count but could in some circumstances.
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### Author:  [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2012, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/being-a-gay-lesbian-virgin-meanssss-what-exactly/631246/11 "2012-08-12T11:56:02Z")
Amongst us lesbians, IME, anything that involves messing about ‘downstairs’ qualifies. But to be honest, what with being free from standard definitions of what constitutes sex, virginity or consummation, it isn’t something that we get too hung up about.
As an aside, when the UK government introduced civil partnerships, the options you can cite for dissolving the partnership were made the same as for divorce, except there is no provision for citing adultery. At the time many gays were pissed off about this as it ignored the sexual side of our relationships, but I suspect the law makers just didn’t know how define what might constitute adultery without a penis into vagina scenario.
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### Author:  [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2012, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/being-a-gay-lesbian-virgin-meanssss-what-exactly/631246/12 "2012-08-12T11:57:54Z")
> [@kanicbird](#):
>
> Carried over to male homosexual, it would be the same, but with just with anal sex as primary penetration method.
So, and I realize that this is something many straight people don’t know (because I didn’t always know it myself, of course): there are a lot of men who are homosexual who never, ever have anal sex. They just don’t want to, either as a penetrator or the penetrated. So would you consider a couple who love each other, live together, sleep together, perform (other) sex acts on each other and raise a family together over 30 years to be comprised of virgins? I have trouble with that definition.
ETA: Or, for that matter, the other extreme - a guy who goes out to gay bars every single night to hook up for wild group sex with dozens of other men, only he doesn’t do anal. Is he a virgin?
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### Author:  [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2012, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/being-a-gay-lesbian-virgin-meanssss-what-exactly/631246/13 "2012-08-12T12:30:03Z")
Setting aside for a moment what virginity means to you gay and lesbian Dopers, do you even consider the term? Or is speaking of virginity, itself, more of a straight thing?
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### Author:  [@tapu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tapu)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2012, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/being-a-gay-lesbian-virgin-meanssss-what-exactly/631246/14 "2012-08-12T12:35:32Z")
> [@WhyNot](#):
>
> ETA: And if you can break a hymen with oral, I’d like to meet you at the next Chi-town Dopefest. 😉
I just look at a woman and it breaks her hymen. I’m the Jack Bauer of lesbian tops.
😛
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### Author:  [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2012, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/being-a-gay-lesbian-virgin-meanssss-what-exactly/631246/15 "2012-08-12T13:12:40Z")
Is this virginity week at the SDMB or something?
It’s my impression that a lot of straight people think that whatever same-sex sexual act most closely approximates vaginal penetration by a penis must be the “ultimate” for gay men and lesbians both in terms of emotional significance and popularity. This generally is not true. No cite, but I remember reading that surveys indicated that oral sex was the most common sex act among both gay men and lesbians.
There’s an obvious practical reason why vaginal penetration with a penis would be the traditional heterosexual definition of losing one’s virginity; it’s how babies are made, and historically concern about virginity before marriage seems to have been largely about making sure that the bride wasn’t already carrying another man’s child. Unwanted pregnancy is of course not a concern when it’s two people of the same sex sleeping together.
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### Author:  [@ZenBeam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZenBeam)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2012, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/being-a-gay-lesbian-virgin-meanssss-what-exactly/631246/16 "2012-08-12T13:45:17Z")
> [@tapu](#):
>
> I just look at a woman and it breaks her hymen. I’m the Jack Bauer of lesbian tops.
>
> 😛
Just reading this post broke my hymen. And I’m a man. Not sure how that was even possible… 🙂
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### Author:  [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2012, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/being-a-gay-lesbian-virgin-meanssss-what-exactly/631246/17 "2012-08-12T16:39:47Z")
> [@Hail\_Ants](#):
>
> how does one lose their virginity?
For both homosexuals and heterosexuals, the answer to this depends on why (or whether) virginity matters.
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### Author:  [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2012, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/being-a-gay-lesbian-virgin-meanssss-what-exactly/631246/18 "2012-08-12T17:43:16Z")
> [@Hail\_Ants](#):
>
> For guys I assume just oral (give/receive) doesn’t qualify.
Until the age of 42 I had sex with literally thousands of men; only once was it anal. In the 25 years since then I’ve had sex with only one man, thousands of times . . . and never anal.
By your definition, I’ve had sex only once in my life.
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### Author:  [@tapu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tapu)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2012, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/being-a-gay-lesbian-virgin-meanssss-what-exactly/631246/19 "2012-08-12T20:20:43Z")
> [@ZenBeam](#):
>
> Just reading this post broke my hymen. And I’m a man. Not sure how that was even possible… 🙂
Yeah… I get that a lot. Did you want to get together again some time?
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### Author:  [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2012, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/being-a-gay-lesbian-virgin-meanssss-what-exactly/631246/20 "2012-08-12T20:35:30Z")
> [@WhyNot](#):
>
> So, and I realize that this is something many straight people don’t know (because I didn’t always know it myself, of course): there are a lot of men who are homosexual who never, ever have anal sex. They just don’t want to, either as a penetrator or the penetrated. So would you consider a couple who love each other, live together, sleep together, perform (other) sex acts on each other and raise a family together over 30 years to be comprised of virgins? I have trouble with that definition.
>
> ETA: Or, for that matter, the other extreme - a guy who goes out to gay bars every single night to hook up for wild group sex with dozens of other men, only he doesn’t do anal. Is he a virgin?
Interesting, and also it doesn’t denote receiving anal as a requirement, just either being penetrated (which would be receiving anal for a male homosexual couple) OR being the one doing the penetration.
If the couple did not engage in penetrative acts, no If I had to decide I would not personally consider them to have left the state of virginity, and the relationship is still on the plutonic side.
The refrain from penetration would be the hang up that the couple didn’t cross and therfor still holding on to virginity IMHO.
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