I agree with these. Whether or not someone is a virgin is a pointless distinction that gives no useful information.
I’m not sure where you get that from the quote. He’s saying penis-in-vagina sex with a condom or any other form of birth control would count as losing your virginity, unless I’m missing something.
You’re awfully concerned about preserving the “traditional narrow definition” of virginity for someone who claims not to care whether other people consider themselves virgins or not.
If you quote me and then write something that seems to attribute other people’s opinions to me, I have to either respond or allow others reading this thread to assume that I do in fact share those opinions. I don’t want to be misunderstood but I also don’t want to repeat myself unnecessarily, so if you wish to respond to things other posters have said then I would appreciate it if you would quote them in your replies and not me. I assume these other posters would also appreciate knowing that you’re trying to address points they’ve made. I still don’t know who you’re talking about, so they quite possibly don’t know you’re talking about them either.
I guess it’s always been sort of like that. The english word “maiden” has the meaning “virgin”, but it also has the meanings “not married” and “too young to be married”. The word “virgin” does tend to be narrower, but is sometimes used in wider senses like that.
I think an important difference has been between “has children” and “does not have children”, and virginity has always been a proxy for that.
And another important difference is between “infected” and “clean”.
None of these meaning directly reference “insertion”, but if you haven’t done “insertion”, then you are probably young, fertile, clean and unencumbered.
Not really. It’s the thread topic so, you know, that’s what I’m talking about. It’s not as though it keeps me up at night.
I am, in fact, arguing for precisely that definition.
Look, there’s nothing particularly special about penis-in-vagina sex. There’s no particular need for a term specifically for having one very narrow (if widely practiced) sexual act. There is, however, a need for an easy term describing when someone first becomes sexually active, in whatever form that activity takes.
I mean, by your reckoning, a fifty year old bull dyke who’s worn out a dozen strap-ons and eaten more pussies than you’ve had hot meals, would be a virgin, while a sixteen year old who’s had fifteen seconds of disappointing, furtive thrusting with his girlfriend would not be. How is that a remotely useful or informative distinction?
Sure, who cares? And if you think it’s not useful information then you don’t need to worry about it. There’s nothing magical about the word that you have to try to make sure everyone gets included in it.
I think you should reexamine your reading comprehension skills.
I was saying that exact opposite.
Right. Since nobody cares about that distinction, but they do care about a more general “start of sexual activity” distinction, why don’t we use the existing word that describes a distinction no one cares about, to describe a distinction people do care about?
I doubt “no one” cares so much as the people advocating for getting kissed means losing your virginity using “no one cares” as their rationale.
Again, what difference does it make if a 50 year old lesbian is a virgin or not? Why are people so flustered about this? Flustered enough to demand changing the definition of a word solely so they can be included? Why isn’t it just enough to say “She’s sexually active”? People are acting as though unless they can say “she’s not a virgin” there’s no way of expressing that she’s sexually active.
The best anyone can come up with is “virgin is imprecise” but that’s only because people insist on turning it into an imprecise word. The traditional definition for it is very precise. It just doesn’t include everyone under the sun who gets mad because they’re not included.
Personally, I think this whole idea of virginity gets way to wound up because we’re still in the process of transitioning from old mores to modern ones as a society. Obviously, the “traditional” view would be vaginal penetration, which presents obvious problems for non-heterosexuals, but it also creates these weird issues I’ve heard about of “everything but” including lots of manual and oral stuff and still getting to claim to be “pure”.
I tend to think direct physical contact of one partner’s genitals to the others genitals, mouth, or anus. There might be some other stuff that one could think of that isn’t covered by that, but chances are you don’t get into really bizarre stuff on your first go around. Obviously, that would cover penetration, oral, anal sex, and a few other circumstances.
I don’t think the “likely to cause orgasm” is a reasonable mark because, especially for younger ones, some things might all under that that I don’t reasonably think of as sex, like dry rubbing. In general, I don’t think mutual masturbation counts either; I just feel that, like with a hand-job for instance, that it requires something more physically intimate than the hand and/or the simple presence of another. I’m not particularly tied to that view, though.
Ultimately, though, I think sex is ultimately best defined by those engaging in it. Obviously, I think it’s silly for someone to say penetration doesn’t count if they don’t mean it (and I’ve heard that) or for someone to say it is sex when it’s maybe just some heavy petting. Really, I think there’s enough of a grey area and it’s just not important enough to society that we really need to draw a really strong line. Why would anyone else really care about that anymore other than shaming/bragging?
In my opinion, you lose your virginity once you have a sexual encounter with another person. I know a lot of people think differently, but I truly believe if someone performs oral sex on you, that cherry is broken. Same with straight up intercourse.
Once someone has been privy to your private parts, you are no longer a virgin. I have known many females who honestly believe giving a man oral pleasure was not really having sex. I think the total opposite, I think the act of oral sex is much more intimate in nature than intercourse.
For me it’s always been intercourse. Nothing short of that. And no, I’m not going to tell you at what age I lost mine.
I’d be curious to see a cite indicating that the English word “virgin” was traditionally applied to people who were known to have engaged in oral or anal sex but not vaginal sex. I personally find it difficult to believe that in ye olden times people were saying “Well, technically I’m still a virgin because anal doesn’t count.” Sodomy remained a hanging offense in England into the 19th century.
I’ve checked the OED, and the first definition listed for “virginity” is:
(Bolding mine.) This usage is cited back to the 1300s.
The first entry listed for “virgin” is a religious one, and refers to women who are distinguished both by their chastity and piety. The second definition is more relevant to this discussion, as it focuses entirely on the woman’s (lack of) sexual experience:
Again, bolding mine, with the usage cited back to the 1300s. Further down there are shorter definitions of “virgin” that apply to a man or person of either sex “who has remained in a state of chastity”. FWIW, the relevant definitions of “chastity” are “Purity from unlawful sexual intercourse” and “Abstinence from all sexual intercourse; virginity, celibacy”. The relevant definition of “intercourse” is simply “Sexual connection” and dates back to the early 1800s. The definition of “sodomy” mentions “anal intercourse”, so the OED apparently does not consider vaginal sex to be the only form of sexual intercourse.
I’m not seeing any listed definitions for “virginity” or “virgin” that refer specifically to vaginal intercourse. I suspect the idea of “everything but” virginity is a relatively recent attempt to reconcile more permissive modern attitudes about sex with traditional religious ideas about the importance of abstaining from pre-marital sex.
Nothing wrong with being a late bloomer. 
I’m 46 now and, unfortunately, would’ve been described as one of these girls. And every guy who was hot after to “deflower” me, still considered me a virgin. Go figure.
Maybe it should just be a matter of filling out a form?