I’ve never seen it either, but my impression was that the character did not want to be a virgin.
You’d never see a movie called “40 year old virgin” about a priest or nun, would you?
No buddies, when drinking with a priest, say “hah, hah, you’re a virgin.”
Voyager, you seem to be under the naive impression that the only way to get virgin shamed is by wearing a sandwich-board announcing your status. I have been trying to get you to see that there are other mechanisms for this shaming to happen that do not involve any “blabbing” on the victims’ part:
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Someone you trust asks about your level of experience and they shame you when you tell the truth. Or they transmit the information that you have shared with them in confidence to another person who then shames you.
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You happen to “ping” as virginal by fitting the stereotype in some shape or form, and someone picks up on this and says something shaming.
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You experience second-hand shaming by being exposed to commentary that is “virgin-shaming”.
For number 2, it might be as simple as you being a person who never talks about sex or being in a relationship like your friends/associates do. Most mature people might not give a fuck, but jerks are ever-present.
Depending on their bent, they may suggest you are closeted or incel or a weirdo or all the above. Can you not imagine something like this happening? Because I have experienced this first-hand. So please don’t tell me it doesn’t happen.
One thing we can do is tell male virgins to avoid jerks and only associate with bullies. Another thing we can do is to tell people that their “good-natured” joking around is actually bullying. And yet another thing we can do is remind ourselves to be more compassionate and not add to the bad feels. Saying stuff like “You don’t don’t know what you are missing!” and “I feel sorry for you!” are totally unnecessary. Doesn’t matter that they don’t exactly qualify as “shaming” expressions. They are still rude and hurtful.
As I said upthread, I think a person is more likely to be ridiculed for being a relationship virgin than a sex virgin. But I still think virgin-shaming happens enough for it to be a thing worth talking about.
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I debated whether to post in this thread, but here goes.
I’m a virgin, and I’m 35 years old. I’ve never pursued a romantic relationship. I do have a sex drive. I’m a heterosexual male and as far as I know my tastes, such as they are, are fairly conventional.
Obviously I don’t talk about my virginity to others, but people who have known me a while always seem to figure it out eventually. It’s probably how I can never add anything to conversations regarding relationships, or how I never talk about a girlfriend. My friends are polite, I guess, in that they only ask me about it once, then never bring it up again. Some of them have wondered if I’m gay, or if I hate women, or have mom issues.
I think I’m fairly well-adjusted, but I always wonder because my impression has always been that there must be something weird about me. Should I see a therapist? Is some deeper issue preventing me from forming close relationships that might lead to sex? Am I aromantic? I’ve never met a person who I was so attracted to that I wanted to get to know them better and get them in bed. My dad, noting my lack of relationship experience, eventually concluded that unless a woman got stuck on me and wouldn’t leave me alone, I’d probably be single my whole life. Sometimes I’m OK with that, other times I wonder.
I feel like there’s a stigma against virginity. That said, I also know it takes two to tango and nobody on this planet owes me the time of day, let alone their affection.
“Lack of” status can become apparent if you spend a lot of time with a group of people and never mention “my wife/husband/girlfriend/boyfriend” or “my kids” or whatever. Because most people canNOT just shut up about their relationship status (esp. heterosexual as that has been historically more accepted) and their kids. If you never have anything to contribute to these conversations, which are in fact revolving around sex at the core even if they don’t seem to, then you will be found out eventually or at least suspected.
I guess the only way not to “advertise” is to never spend any time with coworkers or anyone else, really, so that you can avoid their sex-ridden conversations and therefore not out yourself.
This.
Do you really think that someone who’d had sex without relationships (some number of one-night stands) would be ridiculed more than someone who’d had relationships that hadn’t, for whatever reason, included sex?
And how many dates does it take to count as a relationship?
“I never made it without biting. Ask Mr. Owl.”
I don’t know why you’re asking me this question. Nothing I’ve said should make you think that I think this would “really” happen.
I think relationship-shaming happens more than virgin-shaming. Your question seems to be accusing me of believing the reverse happens.
You said that someone would be more likely to be ridiculed for being a relationship virgin than a sex virgin. I guess my question is how you define a relationship virgin when making that prediction. Is it someone who has had neither relationships nor sex, or someone with no relationships but plenty of one-night stands?
Or are you thinking of one person who has had neither, and that they’d be more ridiculed over the lack of relationships than the lack of sex?
Most nosy people are going to ask someone if they’ve ever been in a relationship, not if they’ve had sex. So there are more opportunities for someone to be made fun of (and being talked about badly) for not being in a relationship.
I also think most people will draw the conclusion (however incorrectly) that a person who hasn’t been in a relationship is a virgin.
I think for most people, you’ve been in a relationship if someone has granted you girlfriend or boyfriend status.
I’m not denying it happens. Jerks are all over. Mothers who work get shamed for not paying enough attention to their kids, mothers who don’t work get shamed for “wasting their lives.” But a mother who is comfortable with her choice might feel mad about this, but not shamed. I suppose fathers who stay home get shamed also.
Yeah, I said that “friends” who shame aren’t really friends.
Now, shaming for relationship virginity I agree is a problem, since it is publicly visible. (For people who have known each other forever, not for new acquaintances.) But those who offer advice about getting into a relationship, or those who offer to introduce someone to a member of the appropriate sex aren’t shaming at all - no more than the suggestion of a test prep course for someone who blew the SAT is test shaming.
I can see three varieties of virgins:
Ones who do it for some sort of religious reason. You’d think that they would stand proud about it, like they should for other religious habits.
Ones who are just not interested. What’s to be ashamed of about that? I’m tone deaf, and it seems everyone else in the world can pick up a guitar or sit down at a piano and play. Frustrating, but not something I’m ashamed of, because that is me.
Ones who have not connected yet. If they open up to being frustrated, most people are eager to help - those not total jerks. But the people in the first two classes don’t need or want help.
But I suspect many people think those who are identified as virgins as being in the third class, and act in ways that look like shaming to people in the second class.
Oh, and people who stereotype based on appearance are idiots, and often wrong. But if you think you can cure stupid, good luck.
That’s relationship virginity. Someone not in a relationship at the moment might have been in one before. But that is a more publicly visible thing. Actual virginity is not. Someone with no relationships now might have had a fling in college or even visited a prostitute. Not a virgin, and no one knows unless you say.
I admit that I am judgmental of people who get married as virgins, but that’s for practical reasons. I think it’s misguided. You’re purportedly committing to a sexual relationship with a person for life (among other things) without knowing whether you’re sexually compatible with each other. I always compare it to signing a QB to your football team for 20 million a year without doing any scouting. It’s crazy.
But if someone’s a virgin because they fear intimacy, are bad at relationships or for any other reason not entirely within their control, criticizing them for it is silly.
I imagine a lot of it is the same phenomenon as one feels when criticizing anyone: the thing you complain about isn’t the thing that actually pissed you off. Like a visibly overweight man cuts you off in traffic, you don’t immediately say he’s a bad driver; you call him a fat fuck, even though his weight doesn’t cause him to suck at driving (well… maybe it could, if it’s too much effort to shoulder check… but I digress).
Are people really upset when they find out a person’s a virgin, or just using that as a smokescreen for their real criticism?
For people who abstain from sex til marriage for religious reasons, they’re doing it because they’re required to. It’s not because they think they will be better off in marriage not knowing their compatibility (or lack thereof.) The rules don’t allow them to do “scouting,” as you put it.
I’ve heard some religious people say that sex for the first time on the wedding night makes it more special some how.
We had a relatively low stress wedding, but even so we were both really glad that we didn’t have to deal with first time stress also.
I realize that various religions provide this advice (or have some tenet about it) but that doesn’t mean people have to listen/obey. It’s still self-imposed, if you decide to heed that recommendation. If you try to claim some god told you to do it, all you’re doing is attempting to absolve yourself of the responsibility.
If you listen to religious leaders, you’re asking for trouble. You’ll never get a “religions offer good counsel” from me. They have a track record of screwing people over. This is one of many ways they do it.
FWIW, the first time jitters can be reduced by the agreement that “we have the rest of our lives to work this out”. Also the question “are we sexually compatible” - there is a good deal to be said in favor of “becoming sexually compatible”, because the process is both fun and informative.
Plus, “I am not comparing you to anyone else because I don’t have anyone else to compare you to” can kind of take the pressure off.
All of this in IME, of course, but what other experience do I need? Maybe if I had more experience, I would be happier now, in some ways. But that’s maybe - and I am pretty sure I am happy now.
Regards,
Shodan
So, no imagination? 
Number of partners is orthogonal to virginity at marriage. Alas, what I see on Reddit seems to indicate that some incompatibilities don’t get better. Affairs also.
But I agree that practice makes perfect. After 48 years we’re still practicing.
If you mean in the sense of imagining what it would be like with another person, then no, almost no imagination at all.
The following is completely a WAG on my part, with nothing to back it up. But I think there is such a thing as imprinting. Since almost the entirety of my romantic attention has been paid to one person, I have become more or less fixated on that person. That’s The One, and the idea of romantic interactions with someone else doesn’t seriously occur to me. I mean, sure, the notion crosses my mind, but so does the idea that someday I might win the Powerball. And I don’t play the Powerball.
I have told this anecdote before - a new administrative assistant started at work once. She was conventionally pretty, I guess, but I was surprised by the strength of my reaction. And I couldn’t quite figure it out. She had light brown hair, blue eyes, kind of a big nose, and was amply endowed. But not movie-star level at all.
So then I went home at the end of the day, and went to kiss the Lovely and Talented Mrs. Shodan. And I noticed that she has light brown hair, blue eyes, kind of a big nose, and is amply endowed. Then I figured it out.
Some of my less charitable acquaintances refer to me as PW’ed. I prefer to think of it as being in love. And it is not at all a bad place to be.
That I wouldn’t know about. The idea that we couldn’t work out an arrangement never occurred to me - we were able to do so about everything else, and I knew that going in. But that’s part of commitment. We are going to work this out, because we both assume we are going to work it out.
We have been married 36 years. My wife says she is going to stick to it, until we get it right.
Regards,
Shodan
It’s nice to hear stories about people who have only had one partner and have been with them for several decades. I imagine part of the reason it’s nice to hear it is that it’s so rare.
I’ll just say that I’ve been with my wife for over 28 years, and I attribute it to getting to know her really well, long before making the commitment. I had plenty experience with “what I didn’t want” before settling into the relationship with my eventual partner. I think that’s the prudent way to go.
I suppose it also depends on how important sexual compatibility is to you in the grand scheme of things, and how much you’re willing to leave to chance.
What of the horrific stigma people face when they’re virgins and don’t have driver’s licenses or regular bowel movements? :eek:
Well, I didn’t exactly leave it to chance. The expectation that we could become sexually compatible was part of our commitment, and that is very much of a piece with the values that we held before the marriage as well as after.
As I’ve said, my experience is based almost entirely on a sample size of one. But getting experienced with one person - figuring out what I don’t want/she doesn’t want, what I do want/ what she does want, and becoming in that sense compatible, is an expectation that was just as strong, and in my case just as strongly enjoined by my religion, as the expectation of waiting until marriage.
Lack of experience, in my case, is something that can be worked on just as well with one person as it would have been with several. And getting experienced with one person is something I took for granted, and so did my wife. And that’s something I knew going into the marriage.
Regards,
Shodan