Does female virginity really have any true sacredness or social importance anymore?

In My Humble Opinion
21

Anybody over about the age of 18 who is reading this who is worried about still being a virgin, reread this sentence until you believe it. I suspect there are a lot more of us older virgins (or former ones) out there than who will admit to it. I had no problem admitting it – I felt it was required so that my now-ex would realize I had some learning to do! – but it wasn’t something I was embarassed about.

It was worth waiting for; I was seriously in love with him and I didn’t want a one-night stand situation. So I waited.

Not having sex is driving me crazier now than it did before, actually, since I know what I’m missing!

22

Eh, maybe I’ve led a sheltered life, or maybe I’m just more sensitive to the anti-virgin sentiments because I was made to feel like an evolutionary failure for not actually having sex until I was eighteen. This was surprising news to my last girlfriend, who first had sex at age fourteen, and considered me a “late bloomer”. :rolleyes:

I admit it may be true that the double-standards Maureen and typhoon described are still alive, but I don’t think it’s as concrete as it used to be. There are segments of society that emphatically don’t subscribe to these double-standards. If you’re stuck in a place where people condemn you for your sexual habits (or lack thereof), there are more safe places you can escape to today than ever before.

23

Judging by some recent porn spam, the term “virgin” still has some marketing weight when you’re selling females, especially hot barely legal teens and eager Asian brides. One only hopes that the fellas who answer these ads don’t also offer up their credit cards for “amazing length and girth!”

I can say that, on more than one occasion, a job candidate or a vendor was judged by her reputation. Is this legal? No. Does it happen? Yes.

On the other hand, I know a couple of women who literally slept their way to their current jobs. A double-standard double standard is a work! If you sleep with everybody and not me, you’re a slut. If you sleep with everybody and with me, you’re “confident.”

24

I prefer not to have sex with virgins. A small part of that is because I enjoy sex more when the woman has some experience / competence, but the larger reason is guilt. Speaking as a person who has a casual attitude toward sex, and has had a (relatively) large number of sexual partners, I wouldn’t want to involve myself sexually with a woman who has yet to form her own opinion on how she approaches sexual relationships. It’s all well and good to (IMO) get as much nookie as possible, but to do so at the expense of perhaps creating a regrettable situation for the other party (who may decide to take higher moral ground) is just not on.

Safe sex with consenting adults who choose to indulge in such activities after weighing their moral and ethical responsibilities, I can justify. With virgins, you don’t know where they are coming from, and as such stand to create a negative experience for that person. I don’t want to be that guy.

25

The competing pressures here are coming from different places: parents, religious communities, authority-figure types (and the federal fucking government) encourage chastity, one’s peer group usually has a more lax attitude.

Yes, virginity has meaning, and female virginity in particular. I think it’s a proprietary thing - if a guy is with a virgin, the idea seems to be that she’s his. I think guys in general like to think that women don’t have sex lives outside of us.

Male virginity is still encouraged, yes, but it’s always been different. Young guys - even if they’re not ‘supposed to’ - are expected to try and get laid constantly and in any way they can. It’s part of being a man. Being a woman, on the other hand, involves saving oneself. [Historically, a woman’s virginity has been the most valuable thing she had, without it she was damaged goods.]
Thus, the burden is on the women to say no. From this, we conclude that if a woman loses her virginity prior to marriage, it’s because she wants to. (‘Duh,’ says everyone, but let’s not forget that it’s ancient male tribal leaders who came up with this junk.) Therefore, she’s a harlot or something. To me, our culture in general is still uncomfortable with female sexuality and the idea that women are supposed to like sex, too.

26

And of course, Marley23 is quite correct. These stereotypes and attitudes toward sex in western cultures are still very much alive, even if we don’t want to admit they are.

Sexual dysfunction comes mainly from a lack of education. Why do people not educate themselves? Because, it’s SEX !! We can’t talk about that . As such, stereotypes are taken as fact, and the dysfunction continues. Has the problem lessened? Certainly. Still there? You bet. So long as we continue to refuse
to acknowledge or discuss the problems sexual stigma presents, the dysfunction will continue. So long as we try to address a physical and emotional process as a “moral & ethical” process, people will continue to view female virginity as good, and sexually active unmarried females as socially unacceptable.

The worst part of all this, from a female perspective, is that women are ostricized not just by men, but by other women.

Virginity still plays a large role in our society, although most people are probably not even aware of it, even as they apply those standards.

27

Mottpot, I was a virgin til three weeks past my 20th birthday. I never felt weird about it; I knew plenty of guys who’d have loved to have “first dibs” on me, and that’s most of the reason I waited so long. (There are two kinds of guys–the ones who feel uncomfortable initially at the idea of taking a woman’s virginity unless they’re serious about her, and the ones that want you because you’re a virgin. The latter always appalled me.) I wasn’t ashamed of it at all; I was proud that I’d waited til I found a wonderful guy I thought was worthy of me. I knew I’d like sex; it was just a matter of finding the right guy to try it out with. :smiley:

The only thing that bothered me about my virginity was that girlfriends of mine–and I think women in general–use sex and dating and what-not as “bonding material” and since I couldn’t share any of my own stories, they felt bound not to mention them in front of me. Like the kid who wanders into an adult discussion and sees the adults switch topics. I think they felt like I was judging them for having already lost theirs; this was a frequent response of women who found out I was a virgin, and I found it frustrating, because I think it’s ridiculous that a personal choice equals judgment of others for not making the same choice. Honestly, I would’ve lost it sooner if the guy had come along sooner; I wasn’t saving it for marriage, I was just saving it for the right guy. This, too, seemed to bother a lot of women.

So I know what you mean when you say people assume there’s something wrong with you b/c you haven’t had sex yet; chalk it up to envy b/c a lot of women I know wish they’d waited, too. Not for marriage, necessarily, but for a meaningful relationship. A lot of girls lose theirs to their first highschool boyfriend, in an attempt to “keep him happy,” and a girl who gives it away for any reason other than her own happiness and fulfillment is probably going to wish she hadn’t. I think no less of them for it, but I think it’s ridiculous to think a virgin is “weird” for having held onto hers just because a lot of women don’t.

[sub]I do occasionally miss the days when missing my period couldn’t mean anything. :D[/sub]

As per the OP, I don’t think female virginity really matters to most people, at least in the US; I can’t think of any man for whom a lack of it would be a “dealbreaker,” although I do think there is still something of a double-standard about a woman’s promiscuity vs. a man’s. Cuauhtemoc is only partially correct; attitudes are changing, but a girl who pursues sex as aggressively as a guy is still going to be more open to judgment than her male counterpart. From women and men. I know several girls who sleep around at work, and lots of guys, but when the guys are mentioned, the attitude is, “Oh, he’s such a player!” The girls, OTOH, are called sluts and are considered “easy.” No one is envious of a girl who gets laid frequently by different men, but plenty of people are envious of a guy with the same M.O.

:shrug: I think it’ll be a long time for the playing field to be equal.

28

PLEASE keep in mind that some STDs, namely herpes and HPV, can be transmitted in spite of all known safe sex practices, even if said practices work perfectly…they are transmitted through skin contact rather than bodily fluid exchange. Some strains of HPV can cause cervical cancer. In fact, as far as medical science knows, 95% of cervical cancer is caused by HPV; it isn’t just for genital warts anymore. And there is no known way to completely rid your body of a virus. It may go dormant, but can pop up later and wreak all sorts of havoc.

That’s one plus for virginity, anyway. Please don’t have hangups about being a virgin. If in doubt, go without.

29

Remaining a virgin until marriage is the last vestige of my fringe religious fundamentalism, and I think I am rather fond of it now. If I return to fundamentalism, after all, I’ll certainly be most glad that I have refrained from sexual activity. (Although anymore, I’ve heard of a movement among some religious conservatives not to kiss any man until engagement/marriage. I never bought into that – sorry, my lips are impure.)

So hey, you’re not alone, Mottpot; I’m now 23.

30

Orthodox Jews do this as well. The young women are not supposed to touch a man until marriage, and after marriage I think they’re not supposed to touch anyone other than the husband.

31

I was 20, and if I had it to do over again, at 25 I’d still be a virgin. I don’t regret the what, just the who.

32

Not that I’m fond of the idea, but to be fair, it applies to both genders (and only to people you aren’t related to; it’s not like a teenage girl can’t give her dad a hug or something).

33

Similar story here. I was 17, if i had to do it all over again it would have been at 18 (with current boyfriend). I also regret the who, not the what.

34

I think the value of anyone’s virginity is highly personal. Some people can’t wait to get rid of it and others prize it and are waiting for someone they feel will be with them forever. Problems only arise when a couple is comprised of one person from each camp.

Sex for me is linked inextricably to my relationship with my husband. I can’t separate sex from a loving, committed relationship. (We lost our virginity to eachother, albeit before marriage)

I have friends who can have ‘no stings attached’ casual sex. I don’t think they are evil people … I just can’t imagine hopping into bed with someone just because.

Like others have posted though, many people are still afraid to discuss sex honestly and openly and many misconceptions exist. People are also hung up on what makes them different from eachother instead of what they have in common. So instead of sharing what each has learned through their experiences they label eachother ‘prudish’ or ‘slutty’ and leave it at that.

One other misconception about virginity is that once you’ve lost it you are never allowed to say no to sex again. I remember a few of my girlfriends complaining about this. If the guy they started dating knew they had had sex with a previous boyfriend (and STD risks require this type of disclosure) then the pressure to have sex took on a whole new form.

35

I too have a quite casual attitude about sex, knowing all about sex in high school, then walking into health class and hearing a teacher tell everyone that abstinence is basically mandatory to survive, always made me feel VERY guilty and sluttymost of the time. even though I did love my boyfriend at the time ( We dated for almost 5 years). I never understood why people had such a negative attitude towards that stuff.

Were I able to to it again I dont think I would have changed a thing though.

36

I was 25, as well. I’d had opportunities, but never felt comfortable taking them. At 20, you have nothing to be ashamed of.

37

I was just reading an article this morning about the abuses being heaped, by their own families, on women in Iraq who have been raped or abucted.

Have sex or don’t have it, but good nfbsking riddance to the notion that virginity has any intrinsic value.

38

There are a few couples at my church who did that. Most of us had the same reaction as you, though. :stuck_out_tongue:

I am a virgin (only 18 though), and I sometimes feel pressure to give it up, but little pressure to keep it. However, I’ve never been on the other side of the line, so I can’t speak for that experience. From what’s been said here though, females on both sides seem to be short-changed.

39

A couple of things puzzle me about this…

Since most men throughout history have wanted to have children (to prove their virility, if nothing else), you’d think that young women who’d already proved their fertility would be in the greatest demand.

Since most men want the maximum possible sexual pleasure, you’d think that an experienced woman who’s gotten good reviews would be in more demand than an untried, unpracticed virgin.

40

I’m generally of the opinion that the whole virginity thing is just another symptom of little girls who are waiting for their prince and his white horse to come and take them away from it all so they can live happily ever after. About the only positive thing about virginity, in my view, is that it’s curable.

Still, as long as some significant group of people somewhere thing that a woman’s virginity means something, then it will. And there are still plenty of people who do, however misguided they are.

I don’t like the stupid double standard that society foists off on men and women - you know, it’s good for men to be sexually active but it’s shameful for women. What a load of horseshit. I <i>like</i> women who enjoy sex and aren’t ashamed, nervous or inhibited about it. I have a friend who’s very relaxed and secure about sex, and she is by far one of my favorite people to hang out with. It’s a far worse insult in my book to be called “frigid”, “tease” or “virgin” than “slut.” In fact I can’t think of a time since about 9th grade that I’ve used “slut” in a negative context.

Strangely though, it seems that most women I’ve met not only dislike this attitude of mine, they tend to take it VERY personally and hate me as a result. Strange.

Certanly, one should not have sex with someone that they don’t like and are not into, etc. But if there is someone women like and want to have sex with, they should in no way feel socially inhibited about doing so just because they’ve never had sex before.
-Ben