I wonder if an alternative thought is “How dare that celibate person try to find happiness the easy way? I’ve worked my whole life on making myself attractive and appealing, so I can have a life partner and a family and thus purpose in life. And here’s this weirdo who hasn’t worked nearly as hard as I have, but who is acting like he has! What does he know about anything? He must be fooling himself!”
Sex and the games involved in getting it can be exhausting (I can only imagine :)). I can see why someone would create a narrative in their minds that justifies why that exhaustion is not only worthwhile, but a requirement for self-actualization.
I’m not going to start one thread to cover ten different topics. If you want to start a thread about people who shame others for not drinking alcohol, you are certainly free to do so.
I don’t want to pretend to read your mind, but is your hurt a function of not getting married and thus not having sex or not getting married and not having that kind of relationship? Do you think you’d feel the same hurt if you were in a close relationship without sex?
Virginity shaming I don’t get. Lack of SO shaming I do get.
Again, these obnoxious comments seem to be around the lack of emotional relationships, not sex. Would they sting any less if you had sex one night, and were not a virgin but still in the same emotional situation?
David Bromberg has a song called “Sammy” about a boy losing his virginity in a Spanish brothel. And it comes across as a nightmare, not a fun fun experience. I’ve read about how a boy losing his virginity to an older woman could be dreadful (like the teacher and student situations) though most guys wouldn’t admit it. I’m sure girls in a similar situation have it worse. Going through life with this as your only experience would seem to be as bad or worse than going through life without it.
When I was in school some people had relationships, some didn’t. But no one denied the desire to have one. I don’t think the people who didn’t were in the relationship closet because they all got around to it after school. I don’t know how someone would have been treated if he aggressively did not want any relationships. It didn’t come up.
Actually there was one woman who didn’t seem to want any relationships, but she was seen as aggressively feminist (yeah, I know. We were young.) and I never heard of any negative comments.
However, this does not mean I doubt that people not in relationships are made to feel bad about it, intentionally or unintentionally.
While not at all unanimous (note the vote counts), there’s a heckuvalotta 40-year-old-virgin-male shaming going down there. Widespread attitude that a 40 year old virgin male must have something seriously wrong with him, or must have a heavy pile of serious baggage that nobody wants to deal with.
How’s that shaming? If you’re a virgin at 40, that’d raise a number of red flags all around. At the very minimum it’s a pretty good indicator that you have very little in the way of relationship experience, let alone sexual experience. Most women are just not that into starting to teach the complete basics to a 40yo guy. Many or most girls also prefer the man to take a leading role, that’s just their preference which is prefectly ok, but how could they possible expect a guy with zero prior actual knowledge on the matter to lead them anywhere?
I don’t know why you insist on divorcing the two. The two things are highly interwoven. A person who hasn’t had a SO is typically assumed to be a virgin. If a person has a SO, the default assumption is that he is not a virgin. Someone with a SO has to go out of his way to announce his virginity. Someone who does not have a SO (and has never had one) does not.
No, my hurt was not over either of those things. It was having someone who I know values relationships, marriage, and family-making would make predictions about my life and my future based on her limited assumptions about me. It was as if she was telling my sister that she’d be the last in the family to be a successful professional, just because I hadn’t declared a major yet. It’s an example of a throwaway remark that hurt. (It hurts too because this sister has joked about my virginity in the past, even though it’s not something I’ve ever brought up with her before. So this wasn’t just a one-time thing).
I don’t think I’d get those comments if I had disclosed a sexual past. I don’t think people would have accused me of being fat and ugly if I had “revealed” to having had sex and I just didn’t like it.
Did you read the Straight Dope thread I linked to? Because maybe that would convince you that I’m not making stuff up.
Losing ones virginity to a prostitute is what losers do, Voyager. If you reveal that your only sexual experience has been with a prostitute, you’re going to get the same “shaming” that a virgin-with-no-SO gets. Because sexuality isn’t about simply having sex. It’s about having a girl (or guy) voluntarily holla at you, in a non-exploitative context.
But you’re doubting the whole “virginity shaming” thing, right? I don’t know why you can believe “no-SO shaming”, but “virginity shaming” is so inconceivable. It’s like denying there’s lookism while accepting that fat-shaming is real.
There is a pretty wide space between “I don’t want to date that person,” and “that person should feel shame.” Less than 1% of 40 year old men are virgins- indicating that there probably is something going on besides random chance, and that thing probably involves sex, which isn’t exactly irrelevant.
Seems we’re mixing up two different things here – questioning what is behind clearly a far-outlier case in he 40yo Virgin scenario, is not the same thing as pointedly or obliviously making someone in the young-adult demographic who is not sexually active or not known to have a SO feel uncomfortable or unwelcomed.
And really… yes, those who are sexually/relationally inexperienced *are *often cast in the light of ridicule or mockery. The examples are common in entertainment media but those are caricatures, played up; conversely I believe there is a high level of exaggeration and puffery about how sexually active the sexually active young people actually are. Still, there ARE people being made to feel uncomfortable or dismissed, they ARE real.
That something is not “prevalent” does not mean it does not exist.
From an anthropological POV, “Shame” is simply one of the crude tools that all social groups use to enforce social norms, and to reinforce insider vs. outsider status. “Shame” is different from mere insult, as the victim of the shame is at least partially supposed to have internalized those social norms as just and valid.
Virgins (like fat people, the promiscuous, etc.) will continue to be “shamed” in roughly the degree that they maintain “outsider” status to the people doing the shaming.
The reason this is even an issue, is that the fat and promiscuous are gaining “insider” status and now have a voice to object to being shamed. Mainly, because they are no longer a small minority - it is difficult to treat people as ‘outsiders’ if they become the majority. If you do, you risk becomming the ‘outsider’ and subject to shame in turn.
Through the magic of the Internet, that is evidently becomming true of adult virgins, too. As ‘insiders’ in online social groups, they now have status to object to being treated as ‘outsiders’. In the offline community, they mostly do not, as they are mostly invisible as a group.
A ridiculous male virgin is someone who desperately wants to not be a virgin, but is still unable to get rid of his virginity. It’s not the virginity per se that is funny, or sad, or shameful. It’s the apparent lack of ability to attract a partner, despite wanting one.
This probably describes most male virgins of a sexually mature age, but it doesn’t have to. As I mentioned in another thread, I know a couple of people who I would classify as asexual. One of them is a member of my immediate family. He’s in his thirties at this point, and while I don’t know for certain that he’s a virgin, I wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest if he is. There is certainly no evidence to indicate otherwise. He has never had a girlfriend (or boyfriend) as far as anyone I’ve asked has been able to tell, and seems entirely disinterested in sexual or romantic matters.
This guy has been in the army, and is about as macho as they come. He also seems entirely comfortable in his own skin (probably more so than most people I know), and perfectly happy with who is. He seems in no way bothered by his lack of a romantic history, as it is clearly by choice, or rather, due to a lack of interest in the matter.
You could try ridiculing him for it, but it would just fall completely flat. There’s just nothing silly about it in his case. He would clearly be able to attract a partner if he wanted to. He just doesn’t want to. If you bring up his romantic status in conversation, he’ll just look at you with a particular resigned look that he seems to have perfected, indicating that you’re the one being ridiculous, and could we please change the subject to something interesting. Then everyone just gets on with their day.
So, basically, I contend that what is going on in society isn’t actually virgin-shaming. As the OP indicates, it’s simply loser-shaming.
Maybe it’s a fine point, but I think it’s one worth noting.
This fits the theory outlined above - “shame” only works if the target at least partly believes in the social norms they are being “shamed” for breaching. If the target doesn’t, it falls flat.
As for the “women not having sex with men” part, it makes sense for ensuring the legitimacy of children, in a strictly patriarchal society, filled with unrepentant misogynists, when there is no access to reliable birth control.
The relevance to the modern world that we inhabit today should be clear. No, wait, it isn’t. Because there isn’t one.
It’s just a case of vestigial morality. Maybe at some point we’ll all get a case of moral appendicitis, and have the opportunity to surgically remove the stupid thing once and for all.
Siblings can be especially cruel, and know about you than most people. But not everything. Most people would not know you never had an SO unless you announced - let alone the state of your virginity.
I don’t know - I can think of awful things people might say in this situation if they were in the mood to say awful things. But ever think about being mysterious? If even your sister made fun of you for your virginity, you could say something like “how do you know that?” Of course if you announced it that train has already left the station.
Sex, after all, is not limited to the traditionally handsome and beautiful. Luckily for many of us.
I did, and what I read seemed mostly around relationships.
I agree - which demonstrates that the shaming is lack of a relationship, not virginity. If you are now moving to asexuality shaming, I buy that too. I can imagine a person locking into asexuality after a sexual experience that they tried just to see if there was something that they weren’t getting. I think the level of shaming would be identical to someone not having that experience. Maybe worse, because they may get “you didn’t do it right” comments.
Losing virginity is what we call a sticky bit - once you switch, you don’t go back. And it is not obvious to anyone. Having an SO changes over time. That is obvious. I’d guess asexuality is inborn, just because my interest in sex began long before I had any idea of what sex was, and so was not a choice.
Lookism is based on apparent characteristics. So it would be more like shaming based on one’s birth weight. Or the state of your toenails if you never take off your shoes.
Some of us might think virginity at marriage is a bad idea, but I doubt many would shame the couple.
And I admit I’m nitpicking. I agree with everything you say except the virginity part.
People don’t actually care about how “most people” view them. “Most people” are complete strangers to any given individual. A person cares more about what their friends and family and aquaintances think about them. And if you are close enough to people and you never talk about certain subjects with them, it won’t take long for them to form conclusions about what your “state” is.
I don’t really understand your point. A person can be sufficiently shamed for who they are by friends and family and still be accepted by strangers. Shaming from friends and family is WORSE than shaming from strangers. I don’t particularly care if faceless people on the internet think I’m a loser. Being called a loser by Incubus didn’t hurt me none. But my sister’s words did.
If you go back upthread, you’ll see that I said “mysteriousness” is the approach I generally take. When I don’t feel like being coy, I’ll even flat-out lie. But if I’m on a message board and the conversation is about this subject, why wouldn’t I participate with complete honesty? Why shoud I be mysterious on a anonymous message board?
And why should I have to be “mysterious” at all? No one else seems to be silencing themselves out of shame. My history isn’t any more sordid or embarrassing or TMI than anyone else’s.
I think being mysterious perpetuates the stigma, actually. If the only asexual or virginal people who feel comfortable talking about it are the weird “loser-ish” ones, then people can only assume that only weird loser-ish people are adult virginis. If a cool macho guy like Martian Bigfoot’s relative became the face of adult male virginality, rather than the stereotypical Aspie dork, then maybe it would lose its negative associations.
But of course I stay quiet about myself in real life. I think I talk so much about myself on the internet because all the mysteriousness in real life gets old after awhile.
I suspect we will never see eye-to-eye on this, then.
Others have quibbled with whether this counts as “shaming”. But I think such quibbles oughtn’t be used to dismiss consideration of this example entirely. I can’t read minds, but I suspect the phenomenon whereby late virginity leads to such stigma (thus making it increasingly difficult to turn around, though of course not impossibly so) is likely part of what the OP is interested in, regardless of whether “shaming” is the best word to describe it.
As to “heroic” characters who are virgins, I’m pretty sure Sherlock Holmes wasn’t getting any. And they made a big deal out of it in the Sherlock series, though they never really answered the question. I’m pretty sure he is, though, considering what he thinks of relationships and emotions.
Sherlock in the American series, ELEMENTARY, is definitely not a virgin.
I’m primarily a book-Holmes fan (well, technically a short-story Holmes fan) and I can see him having sex just to expand his knowledge of human nature. Not many times, though–maybe just once.