Is Virginity valued?

In My Humble Opinion
41

Thank you!

C’mon people! It’s not like we couples who marry as virgins NEVER get the hang of it or get to the point where we can have mind-blowing sex too! And who’s to say that bed-hoppers necessarily have the best sex anyway? It isn’t like someone is standing in back of our bedroom with a score card (no pun intended) grading us on how well we do it or how many or how powerful our orgasms are. (Plenty here.) Hell, we can READ can’t we? As another poster said, we can research! And so what if we don’t know everything? That just leaves another first for us down the road! :smiley:

You can’t measure sexual fulfillment by how many lovers you’ve had or how often you have sex. If that *** were*** the yardstick, then the only people to reach the “pinnacle” would be prostitutes because they do it several times a day and with countless people. If both partners are satisfied with the sexual relationship, no one else need worry about it. Just MHO. :slight_smile:

42

Well said, babydrln, each and every post. This idea that only experienced people can please or be pleased is simply a crock. I and my hubby (now married 16 yrs.)were both virgins when we married–no regrets. In fact, I am glad to this day about it.

And if virgins marrying is “the blind leading the blind,” well, then just do like we did–feeeeeeel your way around! :wink: :smiley:

We learned together–and I don’t see how that’s a bad thing at all. What we “missed out on” was worth waiting for! The best things always are.

As for attitudes that may carry over into marriage (“nice girls don’t do it”), I think a lot of that depends on what you were taught in your home. I was taught that you wait until marriage–then you do it as much as you possibly can!! My parents gave me a VERY favorable outlook on the sexual relationship between a husband and wife–that not only was it permissible to have sex once you were married, but highly desirable. They taught me that the marriage bed was not just “OK” but honorable and wonderful. They were 100% right!! :slight_smile:

43

Modern culture is de-valuing virginity, but modern culture also doesn’t mind de-valuing it. A shrinking minority still regards virginity highly, but are targeted sometimes by the rest of culture. Below are my thoughts, and yes, I’m a minority on this. I’m just sharing my thoughts, but no doubt that I’ll get comments like “not gettin’ any?” and other inane remarks like that.

Losing virginity is the whole point of marriage. Marriage was established to give us circumstances under which to have sex. Non-virgins shouldn’t even bother getting married, what’s the point? Just keep living together, it’s nothing but a damn ceremony anyway. You didn’t make it official then, so why bother now? Seriously, why do you get married at all?

I can respect people’s choices and decisions. Everyone’s set of morals is unique, so it’s fine if you stick to whatever your personal morals are, but I hate when people attack a person for being a virgin because they’ve made that choice. Virginity requires patience, and patience is difficult to find. Discipline is something I admire in a spouse, so this is how I personally see it (just answering the OP, don’t attack me!). I believe that it’s a gift to my future spouse and I hope to get the same in return, so does that make me a loser? If you think so, you are the most ignorant person alive. To say “ha ha, you’re a virgin?!” is the same as saying “ha ha, you have a diploma?!” or “ha ha, the officer didn’t give you a ticket.” IMHO, love is like a fine wine, it keeps getting better as the years go by.

Finally, it’s really, really pathetic that I have to try so hard to keep others’ insults at bay, and yet I know that people will want to stone the virgin for stating his opinion. WTF? In answer to the OP, no, virginity is not valued, it’s spit upon and taunted for the most part.

44

Thank God there are still some of you around!

You’re right, your virginity is a precious gift for your future spouse and sex is like anything else we look forward to:if it’s worth having it’s worth waiting for, right? My love for my husband gets stronger every day–even on the days where he makes me so mad I want to choke him! LOL You keep the faith, maintain your standards and turn a deaf ear to the ignorance you’ll hear flying around. It’s not easy, but from experience I can tell you IT’S WORTH IT!

45

I can only share my opinion. I’m a virgin(though I admit, not by choice). I think abstinence is important so you keep free of babies and STD’s. This girl I like recently told me that she’s abstinent and plans to remain that way. My respect for her increased immensely after she said that and I think I became even more attracted to her, because she’s willing to make that decision. So, I guess I place a value on it.

46

This is more of a GD answer but since you used seriously, I figured you might want one - Maybe for the legal benefits of marriage? - employment benefits, taxes, social security, inheritance, just to name a few (the gay marriage folks have a fairly extensive list). Or maybe because you want to share your committment to each other.

On to the OP,

I can respect and admire folks who decide to hang onto their virginity.

But…, I dated a guy for a while who was a virgin - the whole thing made me uncomfortable. For one thing, his virginity was a technicality - he’d do everything but, including some pretty heavy kink, which seemed to me to be kind of dishonest about the whole thing. For another, since his stated goal was marriage, it made it pretty difficult to justify dating the guy when I wasn’t interested in marriage. He seemed to gain some sort of moral superiority from it, which rubbed me wrong, since it was then me who was moral inferior. Finally, it put the relationship on his terms, not mine, something I was never comfortable with.

Maybe the point is that people who make a concious choice to stay virgins aren’t terribly compatible (for many reasons) with those of us known to engage in casual sex.

I guess, if you want to hang onto yours, its admirable, no skin off my back. But I don’t think I’d go through dating another virgin again - I’m past that point in life (for one thing, I’m happily married, but should I find myself single, I’d think I’d look for someone who hadn’t gotten into his thirties with virginity intact - would kind of indicate a value set I don’t share - not that it isn’t a worthwhile value set, but not mine).

47

Thank you for answering, but I do find it a little disturbing that people marry for monetary benefit. I appreciate the “share your commitment” answer much better, but I still don’t understand the point of the actual marriage then. How about opening a joint account or buying a house to live in together. It seems a lot more committed than just signing papers and going through a ceremony. If you really want to play it up, buy rings. That way, you can divorce if you have to without actually being “divorced,” heh heh. I could write a book.

One more thing about virginity… I want to marry a virgin and here’s why: Remember the episode of Seinfeld where Kramer asks to borrow Jerry’s swimsuit? Jerry is taken aback by the very notion of getting his borrowed swimsuit back and says, “I don’t want my boys where your boys have been.” Same principle.

48

Well, Dale…the benefits aren’t just monetary

I give this same answer every time we have this discussion.

I was young, in love, got married, thought it would be forever, he didn’t, he left, I was disillusioned about marriage.

I got involved with Hubby, we shacked up, he proposed, I said “why,” seemed important to him so we did it.

Then we decided to have kids (and having a legal marriage makes it easier on kids should anything happen, if we hadn’t been married when we decided to have kids, I’d have gone down to the courthouse before going off the pill). Infertility, dispair, adoption.

Well, you have to be married to adopt from South Korea. Without that meaningless piece of paper, no son. We possibly could have adopted from somewhere else as a single person, but most countries (and most domestic adoptions) really want heterosexual couples to bother with the paper as a sign of their commitment.

That piece of paper is one of the most important pieces of paper I’ve ever bothered with. It didn’t change my commitment to my husband one whit. Didn’t change our relationship at all. Hey, I even kept my last name. Married life was just like being shacked up life. Until we went to adopt.

As has been pointed out, people are widowed and get remarried. Rape victims marry. People who once lived wild lives and have repented their past marry. You don’t want to have sex with someone who isn’t a virgin, don’t. Not my business. I hope you don’t fall madly in love with a widow.

49

That isn’t a very rational stance though, is it?

50

Seems to me that there are a range of different stances that one could adopt on this:
[li]Pre-marital chastity by mutual consent[/li][li]“I don’t wanna marry a non-virgin, regardless, I can’t bear the thought of it”[/li][li]“Since I am a virgin and it means a lot to me, I would prefer to marry a Virgin”[/li]and in the case of remarriage after being widowed maybe something like:
“I’m not a virgin anymore, so it’s a non-issue, particularly since the person I happen to have fallen in love with is also a widow”

51

(I’m in a peevish mood and this struck me wrong, so if I get too awful, smack me on the nose with a newspaper.)

Well, Dale, I’m not a virgin. Partner wise I’m pretty close, acts wise its been a while. (A very serious, very wild relationship will do that for you.) So I am pretty biased when you look at me and say that getting married is pointless and all about virginity.

I want to get married. I count mere sex (and it is mere. Fun, but in the grand scheme less important than a host of other things.) as fun. It can be quick fun. It can be great fun. It can be heart rending intimate fun with the right person.

Read over that last part again. The right person. Who they are as a person and connecting myself to them is the important part. Not where their dangly bits have been. I can trust most of the people on God’s green earth with my presence. I can trust some of the better ones with my body. A happy few I’ve had sex with. The number approches zero when you get to “trusting with my soul”. That connection, that trust, that intimacy, is the important part. Not virginity, because sex can be intimate, but is not the intimacy. It is a symptom, a symbol, not the actual connection. Marriage is an agreement that the connection bewteen two people is so strong that they will die before they will release it, give blood and sweat and tears and years of living to protect and cherish it. (IMHO)

That connection, that trust with another human being makes the act of sex, even the first one, pale to triviality. That is love.

You have a goal of creating and protecting this connection. You are mistaking the symbol (virginity of the body) with the reality (IMHO, trust and understanding of the soul or self or whatever you fancy calling it.)

Everyone has the ability to value whatever they want in a partner. I’ll take a partner that I can love, with open eyes, mind and heart, over a physical experiance one way or the other. However, I would like for people like you to allow me to value marriage, even if I see it as being a deeper experiance than a reason to have sex.

Answer your question?

52

italics mine.

Thanks. I tried to say this and couldn’t find a way to phrase it. You did it much better than I would have. And it isn’t too peevish at all.

53

[hijack]
There was a cartoon once that I always wished I saved. It’s a one panel cartoon.

Two 20 something aged guys are walking along. One guy says to another. " I want a woman who knows how to raise hell, I just don’t want her to raise my children."
I think this cartoon goes both ways now.

[/hijack]

54

I’m a litle troubled by the phrase “people like you.” Of course I “allow” people to value marriage, I hope they do. I think more people should. I don’t think marriage is solely about sex, but without sex, we wouldn’t have marriage (well, I guess we wouldn’t even have people). This is why I equate sex with marriage.

Hmm, time for another classic analogy. Sex is like a hit song. You know when you go to a concert and the band plays all of their so-so tunes and then the ligths go down and the intro starts to “the” song, the crowd explodes into ecstatic applause and it gives you chills. This is how I look at a wedding night. You saved “the moment” until the timing was precise and everything was perfectly primed. To me, sex before marriage would be like “the” song being played second at the concert, and then having like, two encores. Kind of loses something, IMHO.

I understand that people have different perspectives, I just want people to understand mine. I don’t mean any disrespect to people for their opinions because I understand perspectives. What I find “wrong” another may not, but when I see that as “wrong” no judgment is being passed because I understand that your perspective does not define it as wrong. That being said, I hope people understand my perspective without being judgmental or thinking I am judgmental. I own a “teal” car. It’s blue, but people tell me it’s green. In reality it’s blue, but not in their reality, they think I’m nuts.

I think sex is a very spiritual thing, so the bond it creates really should be for life (a.k.a. marriage). Having sex is a declaration of committment, the same as marriage. Therefore, sex = marriage. To think otherwise is just like saying my car is green, something’s wrong with your perspective…or mine…? I just ask that people understand and respect the perspective I have. I’m tired of cherishing my personal choices only to be told that, by default, it makes me a judgmental person or that I’m frustrated because I’m not “gitt’n any.”

Ironically, I regard sex very highly. Too highly, to most people. I value it, and my respect for virginity is a byproduct of my respect for sex.

55

Someone mentioned above the gilr who tried to auction her virginity. I received this by e-mail twice, once from a guy in Sydney, and from a guy in London.

Here is the text:

I removed her picture and the link to it. She is cute though.

I really don’t know if this was on the level or not.

I also really don’t know if this is hilariously funny or very sad.

I would like to know if she was charged with prostitution.

56

Without marriage we’d still have sex. However, ignoring that and your semantics that bother me (marriage not solely about sex, but equal to it.) I will try to address my usage of the phrase “people like you allowing” me to value marriage. We both know that I will value whatever I feel like valuing and there is nothing anyone else can do to really stop that. You do, however, seem to say that I, as a non married non virgin, cannot value marriage.

The point is that I value a soul deep connection between people. I hunger for it, I lust for it, I work hard to make myself a person worthy of finding it. When I find it, I plan on protecting it. Recall my definition of marriage:

It is far, far more than “a damn ceremony”. My first post is my answer to why I plan on “bothering to get married” and what I feel “the point” is. I’m not in it for the sex, I’m in it for the long haul.

You say that your respect for virginity comes from your respect for sex. I would postulate that your respect for sex comes from your respect for marriage through your theory that “sex=marriage”. If this is true we are trading semantics like Pokemon cards. We value marriage. I just express it by valuing marriage and you express it by not having sex. This is why I say that virginity is a symbol rather than the real thing. (And I’m being nice here and not touching the pop song analogy. [sub]Can’t help it. C’mon man, a POP SONG? I said sex was mere, I didn’t say it was insulting.[/sub])

I do understand your persepective, yet I ask you to point to a moment where I said that you were frusterated, or any of the other things that you have accused people of doing to you. I don’t think you are a judgemental person because you are keeping your virginity. (You might want to pause a second and let that one sink in.)

I think you are a judgemental person because you called something that I define as holy a “damn ceremony” and something that I shouldn’t bother with.

I think you are a judgemental person because you are telling me that I can’t possibly appreciate the spiritual holiness of something in my life that I find I do value, thank you. [sub]and if you think my ideas on marriage are over the top, wait until you get a load of my thoughts on divorce. Sundering of souls we could start there. Not something to put in quotes and sniker at, m’kay?[/sub]

All of these are why I think of you as a judgemental person and why I adressed my answer to you and “people like you”. (That, I admit, was vague. There are non sanctimonious virgins who don’t insist that I am cheapening marriage. There are sanctimonious non virgins who think I am cheapening marriage, and I was including those with you.)

Cherish your personal choices. Cherish your values. Always in all things act as a good person. (I’m and Ethicist, this is my bread and butter.)I would ask you to consider your self however. You say you think more people should value marriage. I think, perhaps, that you are ignoring some of us who do.