# Writers who were virgins **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 18, 2006, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-who-were-virgins/380989 "2006-11-18T23:42:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2006, 9:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-who-were-virgins/380989/41 "2006-11-19T09:01:10Z")
Flannery O’Connor? ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2006, 9:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-who-were-virgins/380989/42 "2006-11-19T09:32:19Z")
[QUOTE=Guinastasia] As for St. Paul, he was a Roman soldier, and a pagan before his conversion… [/QUOTE] huh? ---
**Author:** ![Lissla\_Lissar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8491ac/32.png) [@Lissla\_Lissar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissla_Lissar)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2006, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-who-were-virgins/380989/43 "2006-11-19T14:35:31Z")
I was going to say Flannery O’Connor. Drat you, **Hilarity**. Paul was an observant, unmarried Jew, **Guin**. Not pagan. ---
**Author:** ![Sonia\_Montdore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90ced4/32.png) [@Sonia\_Montdore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sonia_Montdore)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2006, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-who-were-virgins/380989/44 "2006-11-19T14:53:36Z")
[QUOTE=Guinastasia] :dubious: That is actually an urban legend. Victorians never put skirts on their piano legs. They may have on piano benches, but not because they didn’t want to scandalize the ladies-it was to protect from scratches and such. [/QUOTE] Guin, actually, a few exceptionally prudish people _did_ put ruffles on furniture legs for reasons of modesty. I’ll try to find a cite and will get back to you. ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2006, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-who-were-virgins/380989/45 "2006-11-19T16:19:10Z")
As somebody who might plausibly have been a virgin but DID write [[Robert Herrick: The Vine](http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/herrick/vine.htm)]explicitly erotic poetry, I’d like to nominate Robert Herrick. We don’t, obviously, have any way of verifying that he never had any sexual relationships, but he was a lifelong bachelor and an Anglican priest who took his faith very seriously – and lack of sexual experience does not, after all, imply lack of desire or imagination. Emily Bronte was almost certainly a virgin, and although her sister Charlotte was married (and most likely pregnant) when she died, almost all of her extant writings date from before her marriage, so she probably qualifies for the list. ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2006, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-who-were-virgins/380989/46 "2006-11-19T16:20:37Z")
And the link in my previous post should look like [this](http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/herrick/vine.htm), not like that. ---
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2006, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-who-were-virgins/380989/47 "2006-11-19T17:20:11Z")
[QUOTE=Sonia Montdore] Guin, actually, a few exceptionally prudish people _did_ put ruffles on furniture legs for reasons of modesty. I’ll try to find a cite and will get back to you. [/QUOTE] [See this article:](http://www.bonkers.hall.btinternet.co.uk/strange1.htm) > [@](#): > > The idea that anyone would worry about the eroticism of furniture first surfaced in Captain Marryat’s A Diary in America, published in 1839. He reported that the word ‘leg’ was not used in polite society across the Atlantic, and that when he visited a ladies’ seminary his guide informed him that the mistress of the establishment, in order to demonstrate her ‘care to preserve in their utmost purity the ideas of the young ladies under her charge had dressed all these four limbs in modest little trousers, with frills at the bottom of them!’ > > No doubt the guide was making fun of Marryat’s credulity, but the story soon caught on in nineteenth century Britain. How those Victorians enjoyed poking fun at the strait-laced Americans! Nothing so absurd would ever be seen over here. If anyone actually did cover the legs of their furniture, it likely wasn’t for reasons of modesty. The Victorians put ruffles and lace on any place they could find room. I work in a museum which has an extensive collection of photographs from the Victorian era. I have seen hundreds of photographs of Victorian parlors and I’ve never seen one which has coverings on the legs of the furniture unless it’s a “skirt” or large cloth which covers the piece to protect it. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2006, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-who-were-virgins/380989/48 "2006-11-19T17:24:22Z")
[QUOTE=Beware of Doug] Only the women writers could ever have _properly_ been virgins, and then only until their age of majority. Everyone on the list should really be called celibate. [/QUOTE] Umm.. no. I’m male, 40 in 3 weeks, and I’ve never had sex. I’m a virgin. I’m not really sure that I can be called celibate: with a suitably willing lady, I’d most certainly indulge. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2006, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-who-were-virgins/380989/49 "2006-11-19T17:32:02Z")
[QUOTE=Lissla Lissar] I was going to say Flannery O’Connor. Drat you, **Hilarity**. Paul was an observant, unmarried Jew, **Guin**. Not pagan. [/QUOTE] :smack: D’oh! Dammit! Somewhere up in Heaven, Sr. Frances Ramona is weeping. :o **Sonia Montdore** , you can look for a cite all you want-though I doubt you’ll find many, if at all. Hon, you need to do yourself a favor and get your hands on a copy of Matthew Sweet’s _Inventing the Victorians_. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2006, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-who-were-virgins/380989/50 "2006-11-19T18:13:48Z")
[QUOTE=Quartz] Umm.. no. I’m male, 40 in 3 weeks, and I’ve never had sex. I’m a virgin. I’m not really sure that I can be called celibate: with a suitably willing lady, I’d most certainly indulge. [/QUOTE] OK, I’ve caved on the word issue. But you could definitely be called infantile and unmasculine by society’s standards, including those of most “ladies.” ---
**Author:** ![merrily](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@merrily](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/merrily)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2006, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-who-were-virgins/380989/51 "2006-11-19T21:29:46Z")
Jane Austin may have had some relationships, as shown in letters. It is most likely she died a virgin, but not impossible she knew more than what was in her books. In any event, she certainly knew the facts of life, and illegitimacy, adultery and fornication are prominently shown or mentioned in her books, as shameful but, then again, more as a moral matter than in an obscene way–her books were primarily meant to be read by women, and while novel reading wasn’t always considered very gentile, it was not considered something that runined one’s innocence, either. As for the books, –in Sense and Sensibility, there is clear concern that Marianne had considered herself married to Willoughby, in all senses of the meaning (e.g. they did the dirty). Also, the story of Willoughby seducing and then abandoning a girl (who was herself illegitimate) when she got pregnant is told. –in Pride and Prejudice, Lydia runs off at 16 with Wickham, living with him until Wickham is finally bribed into marrying her–he never meant to in the first place. –In Mansfield Park, Mary Crawford makes some statements that seem to refer to sodomy in the navy; her brother runs off with a married woman, and then leaves her, and the woman is sent to live away from her family after that because of the shame, although her fate really sounds pretty comfortable. –In Emma, a major character is Harriet, who is illegitimate. –last two books, nothing so scandalous. I don’t mean to say that because Jane wrote about illegitimate pregnancy, she must not have been a virgin, only that she was by no means ignorant or a prude. Altogether, the bad flourish rather a lot in her books, and she doesn’t attach a moral to their fates, either good or bad, in general. It’s odd how often she is used to denote ‘prissy’ when her books are nothing of the sort. ---
**Author:** ![cranston](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f07891/32.png) [@cranston](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cranston)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2006, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-who-were-virgins/380989/52 "2006-11-19T22:10:13Z")
Andre Gide, French writer and undeserved Nobel laureate was a virgin. Of course, mutual masturbation with underage Arab boys was more his thing. He did that a lot. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2006, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-who-were-virgins/380989/53 "2006-11-19T22:28:54Z")
[QUOTE=cranston] Andre Gide, French writer and undeserved Nobel laureate was a virgin. Of course, mutual masturbation with underage Arab boys was more his thing. He did that a lot. [/QUOTE] So I guess the word for Gide would be “pervirgin.” ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2006, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-who-were-virgins/380989/54 "2006-11-19T22:57:33Z")
[QUOTE=Beware of Doug] OK, I’ve caved on the word issue. But you could definitely be called infantile and unmasculine by society’s standards, including those of most “ladies.” [/QUOTE] I really rather doubt that. A while ago there was a brothel across the street; I did not indulge. If I were so inclined, I could snatch a woman and rape her; I am not so inclined. Now, do you call that behaviour infantile and unmasculine or adult and masculine? Grow up. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2006, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-who-were-virgins/380989/55 "2006-11-19T23:19:01Z")
You’ve just proved my _real_ point –that society’s standards sometimes don’t make much sense. ---
**Author:** ![Menocchio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de053/32.png) [@Menocchio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Menocchio)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2006, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-who-were-virgins/380989/56 "2006-11-19T23:26:27Z")
[QUOTE=Beware of Doug] You’ve just proved my _real_ point –that society’s standards sometimes don’t make much sense. [/QUOTE] What point? No one was saying anything about how virgins should be considered by society. We were just rejecting your position that the word “virgin” doesn’t or shouldn’t mean “one who has never had sex”. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2006, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-who-were-virgins/380989/57 "2006-11-20T00:11:42Z")
I kinda don’t give a damn at this stage what my point was, or if I had one. I had a bitch and it was dealt with. Ta ta, all. ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2006, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-who-were-virgins/380989/58 "2006-11-20T03:21:47Z")
[QUOTE=Beware of Doug] But you could definitely be called infantile and unmasculine by society’s standards, including those of most “ladies.” [/QUOTE] Moderator mode: **Beware of Doug** , this is pretty close to a personal insult directed at another poster, which is not permitted in this forum. I don’t think that’s what you meant, but it’s sure the way it reads. Please be more careful in future? ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2006, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-who-were-virgins/380989/59 "2006-11-20T04:05:20Z")
Agreed. I don’t know **Quartz** from sic 'em; I just felt like illustrating a point. Sorry, **Quartz.** ---
**Author:** ![jackelope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a6a055/32.png) [@jackelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackelope)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2006, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-who-were-virgins/380989/60 "2006-11-20T05:10:08Z")
[QUOTE=Sonia Montdore] Doug, your inability to get laid is not the topic of this thread. I’m interested in how Henry James and Jane Austen managed to craft exquisite depictions of human relations despite never having indulged in sexual dalliance. [/QUOTE] James wrote an essay about how, with the aid of imagination and a little knowledge of basic human nature, one can write convincingly about any topic under the sun. I don’t remember the name of the essay; it’s been ten years or so since I read it, but if anyone wants it I think I remember where to look it up. For more information on Henry James’s virginity, I recommend [The Mystery of Henry James’s Testicles](http://jonathanames.com/james/james.html). (Actually I haven’t read it, but I recommend it anyway, because it recounts the horrifying and possibly apocryphal story of the James family jewels getting “punctured on a fence.”) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-who-were-virgins/380989.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-who-were-virgins/380989.md?page=4)