Virginity Is A Myth

Your flower; your v-card; your innocence; your virtue; your cherry.

As a teenager, virginity was a hot-topic. There were questions of who'd 'lost it', who still 'had it', your 'first time', whether it hurt, if you would bleed, when you should 'lose it', and so on. It was something that was really important to people, probably because we didn't have much else going on, to be honest. 

As the years went by, more and more people 'lost it', and the number of people in the 'virginity-less club' began to grow. Stories were told and shared, gossip was spread - "did you hear about the girl who bled everywhere on her mum's bed?", but people were still pretty uninformed on the whole topic.

Fast forwards several years and I am sat in a seminar all about virginity. Philosophy is super weird like that. Here we are, ten of us, mostly strangers, sat cramped in our lecturer's office, talking about what constitutes losing one's virginity. And honestly, I really had not put that much thought into it before that, so that's probably why the whole thing blew my mind.

So, what constitutes losing your virginity?

Give it a google (which I did in the library, and got many dirty looks), and you'll find that it's "the state of never having had sexual intercourse". But I'd say that's pretty vague. If we count virginity as only having had penetrative sex then is that not going to exclude the many people who don't have penetrative sex? Does that mean that if you're gay, and not having penetrative sex, you can't lose your virginity? Sex is a pretty broad term for a range of things. Plus, as my lecturer pointed out, once you have had sex there's still a heck of a long way to go before you've actually gone 'all the way'.

Me & my 'flour' courtesy of the banter of 2010. As I said, we didn't have much else going on.

It's completely down to society. Only fifty years ago the things that people saw as hella' perverted are freely accepted by people as normal now. And just as our views on perversions, and sex in general, change with the times, so do the views on virginity.

That's because virginity is a made up concept. It's a societal ideal which is imposed upon people. Virginity is not a thing. It's a myth. It does not exist other than in people's mind.

But, Taisha, I hear you cry, what about hymens? Aren't they a foolproof way of telling that virginity is not just all in our heads?

Excuse me while I scream internally.

Please, people. Look at the facts about hymens and stop spewing crap.

Fact #1: The hymen is not a physical barrier to the vagina. 

Fact #2: Hymens cannot break.

Fact #3: Your hymen will not break the first time you have sex, causing you to bleed.

Consider the hymen as a door frame, rather than the door. Hymens get worn away over time, from things as small as walking. The real cause of bleeding during sex, whether your first time or your 100th, is most likely poor lubrication, or other factors (and you should probably see a doctor if it keeps happening).

Both these mythical ideas about hymens and virginity perpetuate the idea that women should be chaste and that their sexuality is under the control of men. Where's the supposed surefire why of knowing whether a man is a virgin or not - oh wait, there isn't one? Wow, mindblowing.

So the next time you catch yourself thinking or speaking about virginity myths. CORRECT YO'SELF. Girls should not grow up believing that they should be in pain the first time they have sex, or that because they have had sex they are less worthy than people who have not. 

The decision on who you want to have sex with is totally up to you, and is no one's business (so long as you are both of age and consenting).

[Read more myths about sex in this buzzfeed article]